Interview with Jeffrey Lee Puckett

Chip Nold:All right so to start out, we got a birthday, but where were you born?

Jeffrey Puckett:What part of town?

CN:Yeah, you were born in Louisville.

JP:Yes.

CN:Okay, and what part of town?

JP:Shively.

CN:Okay, and I think you moved to Hikes Point. Is that correct?

JP:Hikes Point, it took a while, that's where all the formative years were: middle school, high school, U of L.

CN:How old were you when you moved there?

JP:I guess 12. Is that about when middle school starts, 12, 13?

CN:Yeah, okay. So you lived in Shively and then in Hikes Point. How old were you when you left there?

JP:25.

CN:Okay, and since then you've lived in Germantown.

JP:Germantown since '90.

CN:'90 okay.

JP:Yeah, I was in the Highlands, of course, you have to spend at least a few 1:00years in the Highlands, but yeah Germantown was my first house, now I'm in my second.

CN:Not anymore. That's where the both of our sons are living.

JP:Germantown?

CN:Yeah. Charlie's living -- it sounds pretty close to you because he's at Texas in Alexander. Max is over on Warnock. So at any rate...

JP:It is the new affordable, although not for long.

CN:Yeah.

JP:It's gone nuts, because Searcy is a realtor now. It's his main job, Peter, and he's always telling me about people that are asking $200,000 for shotgun houses and getting it.

CN:Wow.

JP:Well, I said the getting it part is interesting for me.

CN:Yeah, for sure. Okay, what'd your parents do for a living?

JP:My mom for the majority of her life was -- she started off as secretary to 2:00the president at L&N and then when L&N became CSX she was the head of the benefits department. So, she was there for 39, 40 years. My dad started at L&N, got into a lot of trouble over unspecified roustabouting, and he wound up going to Florida after divorce and ran a home painting company for I think 28 something years until he retired.

CN:All right. My grandfather worked for L&N.

JP:Yeah, it's amazing how many people that employed.

CN:Yeah.

JP:For a long time. Did you ever get to go down to the L&N building?

CN:No, he died 10 or more years before I was born, but I actually think I went down there -- I mean it's the one that's the the social services building now, right?

JP:Yeah, they've still maintained the L&N or at least they don't tear it down.

CN:Right. I think I went there. We had some relatives on my dad's side who worked there. I think I remember watching the Pegasus parade from the windows there. So anyway, okay. So, just talk about when you started to get interested in music, what your early memories are.

JP:It was definitely 60s radio, WAKY, KLO. Music was always around the house but then you start to take some ownership of it when you hit you know eight or nine or 10. You can buy your first 45. My first 45 was from I think from Consolidated, Roy Clark. I started off with the most depressing song ever, "Yesterday When I Was Young." That was sort of a look ahead to when I went 4:00through all my mopey music phase.

CN:That's funny.

JP:Well, yeah it was definitely WAKY -- and KLO was huge all the -- they were both huge, all the personalities and the Chickenman comedy [unintelligible - 00:05:07] and all that stuff. And Coyote doing the howling. Actually doing Coyote Calhoun and all that stuff was just so classic. And then of course your classic older brother situation. He was buying Beatles and The Animals. I got into The Monkees which irritated him because they were a fake band, yet somehow they've maintained.

CN:Yeah, really.

JP:So yeah, it was my first.

CN:Could think of some "real bands" that don't hold up nearly as well.

JP:Exactly yeah, but then when you look at the writers of the material it's not that much of a stretch. So yeah, my first albums were all Beatles and Monkees 5:00and then my brother, John Rogers, he's a half-brother, he was really into all the typical 60s stuff. So, we were hearing Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Steppenwolf, and Black Sabbath, and just everything typical of the 60s.

CN:Okay, how much older is he?

JP:He is eight years older.

CN:Okay, so now talk about involvement in local radio and so -- and you're saying mainly it was sort of the 60s bands like The Monkees and The Beatles that grabbed you and then your brother's stuff. Was there anything else that really struck you?

JP:Oh yeah, all the Atlantic soul stuff. Because back then, you remember WAKY 6:00would play Otis Redding alongside The Stones or The Beatles and Aretha Franklin. It was just the greatest mish-mash.

CN:I remember they played a lot of James Brown. I was surprised to learn that James Brown did not have as many pop hits as I assumed he did from what WAKY played.

JP:Yeah, I remember hearing "I Feel Good" and stuff like that all the time. I guess maybe it was his handful of pop hits, but it was just such a great variety. And Jackson 5 were -- for my age group -- I was I think nine or 10 when Jackson 5 really blew up. And that was huge, it was like a second Beatles.

CN:Yeah. they were the next band to have a cartoon, weren't they?

JP:Yeah.

CN:Yeah, okay so you were saying -- I'm sorry.

JP:No, it was all pretty typical but great. It was just such a great period for pop music that you couldn't -- you almost couldn't go wrong. And my mom liked 7:00country music so I was hearing stuff like Merle Haggard and Hank Williams and Johnny Cash because she would -- she'd cede the radio to us after we got of a certain age so most of my country was really young. And then I didn't pick it up again for myself until late high school when I realized it was good music and not parents' music.

CN:Where did you go to high school?

JP:Seneca.

CN:Okay. So then talk about specifically like getting interested in and or involved with the local music scene not just the local radio but seeing Louisville bands and that kind of thing.

JP:I was a late bloomer. I had early exposure to it because my brother was roadie for people like Christopher Robin and I think Elysian Field with Mark 8:00Miceli, was he in that band? I think he was. So their equipment would occasionally end up in our basement.

CN:Oh that's great.

JP:And I couldn't resist playing with it, but I would get in so much trouble. But I wasn't actually seeing them. They were just these longhairs who'd wander through the house to pick up their organs and Marshall heads and stuff. And so, my first bands that I went to go see were basically cover bands playing at the Hearthstone Tavern and stuff like that. And I think the first original band that I really started to follow was not until the 80s and The Holidays with Bobby Strehl on drums, and I can't remember the singer and songwriter but he was really good. I think it was The Holidays, I'm pretty sure it was...

CN:I mean that name sounds familiar, but boy, I'm just blanking on them.

JP:Yeah, they were a throwback sound. It was a little bit Buddy Holly-esque, a little bit early rock. So, they really weren't fitting in. I don't think they ever played any place bigger than Phoenix Hill to be honest with you. And Nick Reifsteck, who works up at Old Town, was the lead guitar player.

CN:Okay.

JP:Yeah, they put out a cassette, they hit the big time.

CN:Yeah.

JP:So, then I got so focused on college though and just getting through college, that it really wasn't until I was at the Courier-Journal and writing anything I could get assigned to me that I started heading out to Tewligans and Uncle Pleasant's. And that was an eye opener for sure.

CN:Okay. Well, let's talk about it. I'm I remembering correctly that were you 10:00THE "Nightlife" columnist? There was one point where there were a bunch of rotating ones.

JP:Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, Joe Peterson, who had that very distinctive way of writing about bars, got tired of it and the Mark Shawcross and I were alternating Nightlifes. And I can't remember if it was Johnson's idea that we stop writing about bars and start writing about shows, or if we just ran out of bars and we just gradually started writing about people coming to town. And then Shawcross of course he was pretty flakey back then, and might still be, and he finally just decided he didn't have time for it, so I became I think the only Nightlife writer in probably '89 or something like that.

CN:Okay, and so you'd started in when like--

JP:I think '88 is when I started.

CN:Okay.

JP:Contributing. And I was contributing a couple of album reviews then, too, to Ronni -- whatever that I bought and liked-

CN:That's Ronni Lundy who was the music editor at the time. Okay, we're just doing this for history so you and I know who Ronni is but...

JP:Yeah, Ronni Lundy was great.

CN:Okay.

JP:She really was.

CN:So, a lot of the story that I've gotten from the people I've talked to so far, people like Brett Ralph, or Sean Garrison, or I talked to Ethan Buckler. It is a story of almost a conversion to punk and I wonder -- it feels like maybe you come in at a point where maybe that's not as hard a line maybe. I just wonder how you related to that when it was a real-life thing like in the late 12:0070s and the early 80s. And if you ever saw any shows here when you were at U of L or whatever.

JP:No, I didn't, I was also a late bloomer to punk. The only band I really connected with would be The Ramones. LRS used to have their midnight album and I recorded I think the second and third Ramones albums, and I just love that, but I didn't really connect much with The Pistols and things like that until much later. So, Louisville's punk scene were basically just names that I'd heard. I'd heard the name Babylon Dance Band, I'd heard -- I think I actually saw Jil Thorp and The Beat Boys at The Red Barn.

CN:Okay.

JP:But that I wouldn't consider punk in retrospect.

CN:Right, but they were kind of--

JP:Yeah, but I never saw any of the Your Food or Malignant Growth or any of that. I remember the vans driving around town and thinking those guys look scary as hell. So, I think that a lot of those of early bands were gone by the time I started meeting people like Sean and started to learn some of that history. They were all on to their second or third band at that point.

CN:Right. Okay, so then what are the things that -- what are the things you remember in local original music, say, you know, from that late 80s period?

JP:The main thing that comes back to me is just this over all sense of 14:00excitement because it seemed like -- when I finally started regularly about stuff, it was right when things really started going crazy. It was, I guess, post-Slint. So, you started getting all the Crains and the Rodans and all that and that was -- I thought well this is -- for me, it was an introduction to a whole new kind of music. And it felt really exciting to me that it was happening around the corner, literally around the corner. And that's the thing. I'd be curious to know if that jibes with history, because in my mind it felt like as soon as I started writing about music regularly is when this huge surge started in Louisville that lasted throughout the 90s.

CN:Okay.

JP:With one band after another.

CN:You mentioned Crain and Rodan and what were the -- what was the thing that really struck you about those bands, what did you--

JP:The big thing was that they didn't seem to be interested in what had happened before them so much. They were assumed to be very specifically interested in what kind of crazy shit can we do right now, today? I think most bands are lying to you if they say they don't want to make a lot of money doing it because they were all living at the Rocket House, it was terrible squalor conditions, but they -- I honestly don't think that that was the goal, it seemed more like creativity was the goal and to do something great.

They all seemed to be really focused on -- and real competitive I think, too -- but they wanted to be the best weird band there was. Best, weirdest band there was in Louisville, at least in Louisville. So, it would just seem like every other band that came along was pushing some envelope and trying something new. And a lot of them you might not like it, but a lot of times I remember thinking, "Well, I'm not really into that, but I'm glad they are doing it, you know."

But then when it would connect, and you would have the good songwriting to go along with the crazy stuff. Like Crain was pretty out there. That's when I guess I didn't even think about it in those terms but looking back I definitely remember it just being exciting for their creative aspects and the fact that no 17:00one ever seemed to slow down. Somebody was always doing something.

CN:Let's get a little more descriptive as to what you heard in those bands.

JP:Well, a lot of it certainly had nothing to do with the music I grew up on. So, I think it was the realization that you didn't actually need song structure, verse-chorus-verse to have music that would either just get you so jacked out of your mid from excitement and just visceral. Crain was a very -- I remember just you felt like you were vibrating. And with Rodan it was more -- I felt thoughtful about Rodan even though it was -- there was a lot of insane stuff 18:00going on with their shows. It felt more meditative in a way. And I guess that's the -- it wasn't just hard and fast punk, it was almost -- because I had my time with free jazz when I was young because that's what you listen to when you think you're going to be a writer. You listen to Love Supreme and stuff and it was like that. You could feel like okay they are just not even playing by the rules, they are just making stuff up and seeing what happens. And the people who were good at it could actually make something happen. Tim Furnish and Jason Noble. The people who weren't good at it of course didn't last more than a couple of weeks.

CN:Just to audibly footnote, Tim Furnish was in Crain, did he play bass or...

JP:That's a good question, I think he was bass.

CN:And Jason Noble was in Rodan first and then what are all the--

JP:Shipping News, Rachel's, King G and The J Krew -- his short-lived, much-beloved hip hop group. And Tim was -- gosh he's been in Parlour forever but he was also -- seems like he was also in a dozen other bands. And I can't remember who else was in Crain other than Jon Cook and Tim. I guess Tara Jane was the bass player in Rodan.

CN:Right.

JP:So she would not have been in -- I always associate her with Crain because they were all at the Rocket House all the time.

CN:Yeah, the first time I met her and Jon, I met them -- Jon Cook, I met them together at the Rocket House, so I always sort of wrap them together. So, they would have been a lot younger than you, did you hang out at the Rocket House much?

JP:Not socially, that was kind of weird, I think I've always -- my age has 20:00always -- I've always been a little older than everything going on starting in the 80s because all those -- those punk bands, all those guys were about 20 or something like that. I was 32 probably 31, 32 which doesn't seem like so much now -- did then, but I think I also got a kick of how -- mostly the scene was real welcoming. So, I would go over -- my time at the Rocket House was mostly except for maybe one party, it was mostly to go over and interview bands. So, there would be a lot of hanging out. I remember a mysterious glimpse into Brian McMahan's room one time at the Rocket House I think -- it seemed like there was a bed and a stereo and that was it. Oh, that's Brian.

CN:Let's take a step back and just explain one thing because it actually hasn't come up because I've been mostly talking to people and -- who were earlier in the scene. Just say a little bit about the Rocket House, how it was and --

JP:I don't think the Rocket House gets as much attention as it deserves. That was a pretty important building. I'd say second only to 1069 in terms of Louisville original music scene. If I understand it correctly, Jon Cook's mom owned the Rocket House and she just basically let him live there.

[OFF MIC CONVERSATION]

CN:So, all right, so you were saying that Jon -- you think Jon Cook's mother owned it and let him.

JP:He lived there rent-free, maintenance-free, apparently, because I believe it 22:00literally fell apart, I think a floor fell out of it eventually. And then it became--

CN:And where was it?

JP:It was on 2nd Street I believe, is that right?

CN:It was on Old Louisville -- it was 2nd, 3rd, or 4th.

JP:It was a three-story, classic brownstone and it wound up being a practice house for God knows how many bands but also a lot of people lived there. And some people actually had a bedroom, but I remember there were -- some people would just curtain off the end of a hallway and they slept on a mattress in the hallway. So, it became a spot that basically nurtured that whole second wave of punk bands and beyond punk, post-punk. I guess it was literally post-punk. I 23:00think it was crucial just because it gave bands exactly what they needed; a place to live and a place to practice, I think even some recording if I remember right. So yeah, it can't be over -- I don't think it could be overestimated how important the Rocket House was for that particular group of musicians. A lot of them are still making music.

CN:Okay, there's something else that you said that probably is worth going into. When you started talking about this group of bands, you said "after Slint." Now did you see Slint at all?

JP:I saw them at a Halloween party on Hepburn. At that point they -- I believe, they had largely lost interest in being Slint. I believe George Wethington, a 24:00long-time musician and scene mainstay, talked them into playing a show. So that was the only time I saw them in person until the reunion many, many years later. So yeah, Slint at that point was done as an ongoing entity. Back then I don't think any of the bands that came up after were actively talking about the Slint factor. They were all people that they knew, and I believe inspired them and to a certain extent, but not -- it takes years before people start looking back and--

CN:Sure.

JP:Contextualizing things.

CN:Right, no exactly. But I'm here trying to remember did the Courier review Spiderland?

JP:Not that I'm aware of.

CN:Okay.

JP:Honestly, I doubt it very seriously.

CN:I mean it is just funny, I mean like you say. In retrospect it seems like people treat it as this really big thing and one of the interesting things about it is how likely it settled in its native town. It's not like people didn't know those guys and...

JP:And that really wasn't a thing that The Courier did. I mean I'm sure you remember local album reviews were very ghettoized, for a long time. What, would it happen once a year? "Here's a page of local album reviews," and then it gradually shifted to where there were so many bands becoming popular that it became -- well, that album comes out this week we need to review it because 26:00there's going to be some zine somewhere or a website that's going to be all over it.

CN:Okay, also yeah talk about how your perspective on this change. You're saying, so you start writing Nightlife column and then there's this burst of bands that you're talking about that Crain, Rodan I guess is Drinking Woman from that period, too?

JP:Yeah, and then also the entire hardcore scene which was huge with Endpoint and, oh my God there are so many of them, Enkindel. All those bands.

CN:Was the Glasspack one of those or is--

JP:Glasspack came -- I think came -- it seemed like they came a little bit later.

CN:Talk about that, because that's something once again we haven't really touched on.

JP:Okay, I think that to me is the point where Louisville's music scene became 27:00consistently recognized nationally and internationally. Because the bands, especially Endpoint, was touring all over the place, all the time. Kinghorse was, they were not punk, they were not hardcore, they weren't metal. They were whatever they were. Their reputation was nationwide. I think even if it wasn't, they weren't known to hundreds of thousands of people, it was still such -- it just felt like there was momentum building for the Louisville scene.

That it was beyond, "You know, there are a couple of good bands here," but for years it was always, "Let's see, NRBQ came from Louisville." And then there was when the Babs got the Village Voice stuff, it was all very -- you knew it was 28:00just such a small number, so many small pockets and that was it. But all of a sudden it started becoming a more widespread recognition.

CN:More widespread in the country.

JP:In the country, yeah. And then the fact that I think once I started writing that column regularly, and we were writing more about bands, and especially once I got to know the people, because you get to know their story, you get to learn about what's driving them. It's people's stories, it's really interesting. So, then I thought I want to write about Crain, I want to write about Rodan, because this is all happening, and it was. There was a lot of excitement on the scene. You know, there'd be 300 people crammed into Tewligans or whatever. It's worth noting.

I guess if I'm remotely proud of anything about my tenure, it's that I did stop the ghettoization of local music and it just became part of the papers' coverage. But also, that's because there was suddenly so much more music. It's not like I decided to start profiling the Wulfe Brothers or something. We had actual national-level bands that were here in town.

CN:The Wulfe Brothers being a long time -- or how would you describe them?

JP:Oh you know, a Jim Porter's party band, cover band just doing the hits of the day.

CN:Right.

JP:Kind of a thing. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It suddenly, it 30:00just seemed like there were more bands that you could -- that one could keep up with. And the same thing was happening Lexington because we used to be constant. Lexington bands coming through town.

CN:Who were some of those bands?

JP:The Blueberries I remember, I really loved them. Red Fly Nation was that crazy, psychedelic funk band. We had, I think, Nine Pound Hammer.

CN:Okay.

JP:Was an early cowpunk band. They were doing hard, fast country, which was not all that common back in the late '80s or early '90s. For me that was the peak of the Uncle Pleasant's / Tewligans years because--

CN:Okay, what years are we talking about?

JP:This would have been, I would say '89, '90 through about '93 or four is when it seemed like things really started exploding.

CN:And then lasted through the decade are you saying?

JP:Yeah, I think it lasted at least up through '98 when My Morning Jacket put out their first album and that was -- not that that ended anything, but I think that was the next signpost.

CN:Okay.

JP:Because it didn't take long for them to start getting to be really big.

CN:Well, I mean what are the images or experiences from that time period that 32:00really stick with you, if you can really describe it.

JP:I found it to be a romantic period. Or maybe I romanticized it but being slightly older, to me it was like watching beat poets at work because it was all this hand to mouth living by all these kids and all they cared about was their band, and putting out a record, and playing shows, that's all they cared about. And it felt like a pure expression of art and creation. It was just -- it was very impactful on me, because I had never been in a band. It was like I got 33:00welcomed into this scene and I fed off of what was going on, and it also -- it was the whole notion of I don't really care about -- because I grew up in a time when you strived to get a car that ran and a house.

But these people all they cared about was, I need 10 bucks for a new set of strings. That's my only goal this week. It was all about the music and that was -- it was very powerful to be around. And at the hardcore shows, those were probably the ones I have a lot of vivid memories. There was nothing about hardcore music that touched me musically, but I loved the scene. And you'd get 34:0012-year-olds, 13-year-olds who would hitchhike from other cities to come to that laser tag place out in St. Matthews to see six hours of hardcore bands. And I remember going out there and interviewing some of them and they -- it was a lot of the same story repeated but it's a powerful story.

"I have no family at home that I care about. These people are my family; the bands, all these other fans," and they would hitchhike in and find a place to sleep and then hitchhike back. I'm sure it was largely miserable because I bet a lot of the home lives were terrible, but it felt like a great thing. It felt like a really powerful thing. And the hardcore shows, there'd be 900 -1,000 people, and even if you didn't connect emotionally to the music, you connected 35:00to what they were feeling, what the fans were feeling or what the bands were doing. It was an emotional time. I think all those bands were pretty emotional too.

CN:What do you mean?

JP:Well, I mean they're so passionate. Endpoint was so passionate about the straight edge lifestyle and about being a good person and doing the right things. Maybe not a real subtle message, but it was a real powerful message and delivered in a really powerful way. Even if you can't remember -- I can't remember a single Endpoint song. I don't even know if they had hooks, but I remember what it was like to be in an Endpoint audience. And I know what it meant to those kids.

CN:So how did it get across to you if it wasn't in the songs, it was in things said from stage or is it--

JP:I mean they all made it -- it wasn't hard to know what the songs were about.

CN:Yeah, okay.

JP:But I mean you know passion when you see it, you know real passion as opposed to just showmanship. And those bands all very deeply felt what they were singing about. And there was just no ignoring it, there was not getting around it. And then especially when you see an actual old school mosh pit going and you just feel that passion and you see the blood.

CN:Tell me, was there a lot of blood?

JP:Just incidental blood.

CN:Yeah.

JP:Yeah. I don't remember any shows being violent. I think the most violent thing about any show I've ever been to in Louisville was just Sean Garrison's anger.

CN:Well, so who are some of the musicians or personalities that you remember from that time period? Let's just get some descriptions of them.

JP:You had your guys who were living that life. Rob Pennington from Endpoint and Duncan Barlow. They lived that life, they were poster children for the hardcore, straight edge lifestyle. You had people like Mark Brickey from Enkindels who really believed in it, but he was a showman, also. He had a lot of fun and he like poking the bear of all hardcore, hardcore people, the ones who were living 38:00more of a lifestyle. Brickey was having a little bit more fun with it.

CN:How would he do that?

JP:He overtly would write -- he'd write songs that were overtly catchy, because he knew that a lot of hardcore people thought that you can't--there was sort of this almost anti-commercial like you don't want to be accepted by all these horrible people, all these fascists. You don't want to appeal to them, and Brickey was "Screw it, I'm going to write a pop song." But he was definitely part of that, and he grew up in that scene. I mean he was a peer for all those people, with all those people.

And then you had the -- I don't know if sardonic is the right word -- but Scott Ritcher was a huge personality then as a participant and observer and 39:00documentarian with his -- what was his imprint that he had. He kept the--

CN:Well, there--

JP:He had that magazine.

CN:K Composite was the magazine.

JP:He had that and then he also had that catalogue.

CN:Slamdek.

JP:Slamdek, yes Slamdek did a lot of documentation of the scene and he recorded a lot bands. He was in several bands. He was very serious about his music, but he also seemed like able to take a step back and look at the ridiculous aspects of it and be a standup comic sort of thing. I think Rob and Brickey and Ritcher are the three personalities from that scene I remember the most. I think maybe 40:00they are still in the entertainment business in one way or another. Ritcher actually just put out a solo album.

CN:Oh yeah.

JP:He's over in Sweden doing graphic design, he's been in Sweden for I think three years.

CN:Wow.

JP:Yeah, he loves it, he says it's just great. It's a whole different way of life, and no election 2016 to worry about.

CN:That's nice. Well, okay then there's the other thing that we mentioned glancingly but does seem like it's a strain in this time period, too. I mean all those bands that you mentioned in connection with Jason Noble: Shipping News, Rachel's, and all of that, I mean it seems like that's another thread maybe.

JP:Yeah, definitely it came--

CN:Describe that, I have a sense of it but yeah.

JP:Yeah. I mean that all came out of the same aspect of the scene but Jason definitely took things in a far more artier, theatrical direction. I always definitely think of Jason as the one who had the aspirations toward making big art, large scale stuff. And with Rachel's, it was the first band I can remember around here that introduced orchestration and a lot of recording techniques that were unusual just to get these big sound-scapes. So it's definitely much more ambitious, and successful, but also it was very different from the roots of where they all started.

So yeah, there were definitely -- there were people who were real strict and they kept to the tenets of that style. There were people who just didn't give a damn about anything except doing what they wanted to do. And then Jason really had larger ambitions. And not that his ambitions were any more important than anyone else's, it's just that those always seem to me there were three different branches.

And as Jason's career went on, he definitely took that further and further. I think maybe the benefit to that was that there was more places to go with it, whereas if you're just going to stick to one brand of hardcore music you're basically screwed. You can't do that forever.

CN:Right. So, you talked a little bit about this is a time period where 43:00Louisville really becomes known nationally as a scene. Talk a little bit about that. About how, I mean you mentioned the kids hitchhiking here, but how -- in what ways was it --what was the profile it had and how did it compare to any other scenes that you'd be aware of?

JP:I think the way it became known to me was, I would end up talking to a lot of publicists at labels. So, it first became a lot of people who were running labels in Chicago were constantly asking, "Have you gone to see blah blah blah yet? What can you tell me about blah blah blah?" And then even Sub Pop, there's this guy Nils Bernstein at Sub Pop, he was their big publicist, and he would say, "Yeah, I'm following all those Louisville bands." It's not like they were 44:00being written up. It took a few years before they were written up, but it did happen.

I mean Spin started covering, we get some glossy coverage. But mostly it felt, it was mostly people in the business and people who really followed independent music are the ones who started talking about Louisville music quite a bit. I mean as much as it's become a cliché, it does go back to Slint just because that style of music they perfected on Spiderland really did have a big impact in other cities. But then I think people became interested in the variety of stuff. 45:00Because there were a couple of labels that tried to make stars out of Bodeco.

They didn't know what they were getting into those poor bastards, but Bodeco -- I mean think about that, how popular Bodeco was at their peak and how literally nothing to do with any other -- musically had nothing to do with Slint, Rodan, Rachel's. It was the most retroactive rock'n'roll, going. And also easily one of the most popular bands in town. You couldn't breathe at one of those shows, it was insane.

So, I think people were attracted to the variety in Louisville. And you know there was that, what was -- I can't remember what year it was, I should have looked this up. But there was that mention in Playboy, "Is Louisville the next 46:00music Mecca," and that started this whole thing about Louisville being a music Mecca, and that fell apart. That seemed like it was mid '90s. And I think it's to Louisville's credit that it fell apart almost, because when you think about the places that became music Meccas, it was this very -- it's because a very generic sound took over.

Seattle is the best, most obvious example. They had these great, creative bands and then you suddenly had a hundred bands imitating those three great, creative bands. Whereas Louisville had never seemed like that really happened. I mean, Paul Curry in Burt the Cat would make a big thing out of who was imitating Slint the most, he had the "Slint factor" rating in his album reviews. But he would apply that to Louisville bands and national bands. That became just a go-to 47:00commentary. But I think in Louisville there really never became a "Louisville sound," and I think that's great.

There was always something different and great things came out of that. Because having known Jim James of My Morning Jacket for a while, I know that his songwriting was a reaction against that scene, because he felt like that scene--

CN:The hardcore scene?

JP:Yeah, he felt like that scene didn't -- it was sort of a clique that didn't accept what he was doing. So he went the opposite direction, and that worked out for him pretty well.

CN:You know, this is the Louisville Underground Music Archive and you're talking about one of the most popular bands in the world. But still I think what you're talking about is interesting because it did sort of -- came from the same place sort of, the same venues and stuff like that. I don't know if there is anything more you want to say about that?JP:Yeah, some that I think Jim would have to chime in on.

CN:Right sure.

JP:And I think he would. I don't know if you all have reached out to him. He wasn't unique in that he went a different direction, because there were a lot of bands throughout that period that definitely -- I mean -- who else is King Kong like? Will Oldham is technically like a lot of people, but not really at all. I 49:00mean you could see -- I'm sure it'd be easy enough for musicologists to sit there and trace what all he's drawn from, but it doesn't sound like anyone else. And King Kong certainly doesn't sound like anyone else. I've never heard a band and thought, "Oh they sound like King Kong." Not once. And I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Well, Love Jones is another good example, they were the '90s, how different were they from anyone? They signed a national contract, they were opening for Tool, oddly enough, I mean they were doing great things nationally.

CN:Okay. There's several bands you mentioned let's talk about each of them. Since you've just mentioned Love Jones, let's talk about them. Who's in it and what they are like, what the band is like.

JP:Love Jones was Ben Daughtrey, Jonathan Palmer were the co-lead vocalists, Ben 50:00also played Congas. Let's see the bass player was Barry Thomas, the rock, Chris Hawpe was guitarist and also background vocalist, and Stuart Johnson, the great Stuart Johnson, who is still touring nationally, the drummer, actor, drummer, general raconteur. They were so early on the lounge music scene that I'm not even sure if there was a scene when they started doing it, because it did become a thing. But they were so early on it that I don't even know where they would enter into the picture nationally. But clearly there was nothing remotely like 51:00them in Louisville, and became popular pretty fast.

CN:Okay. And so let's talk about what the music sounded like. I mean you said lounge music, I mean.

JP:Yeah, vaguely jazzy, vaguely bossa nova, a lot of cheeky lyrics. The live shows were very much based on Jonathan and Ben bantering with each other and the crowd in very coarse ways, very funny ways. And because of all that, people lost track of the fact that the songwriting was really good, and the arrangements were really good, the vocal arrangements were really good, and the musicianship was outstanding. And I think that's why they ended up getting the contract with 52:00a Los Angeles label, because they were a good band beyond the fact that they existed to entertain us and really focused on that. They had a lot more going for them and -- clearly there was no one, I don't think, that tried to do that music here before or after. It was kind of a lightning in a bottle sort of thing.

CN:I had the feeling, you know Ben obviously had been in Squirrel Bait, and so it seemed to me like there was some reaction, it's an extreme reaction to that, although some of these other bands, like Fancy Pants, maybe were already a reaction in a way, but I'm not sure if there's anything to say about that or if you could have--

JP:Well, I think that's a good-- back then I think Ben was angry a lot and I 53:00think he was trying to do something that didn't directly connect to his past. I think a lot of those Squirrel Bait people resent Squirrel Bait, to be honest with you. They are tired of hearing about it. I know Peter will not entertain a Squirrel Bait reunion.

CN:Oh is that right, Peter Searcy?

JP:Yeah. There's a lot of bad blood I think with Grubbs, and I don't know, Clark. I think Clark has just no interest. Is it Clark Johnson? I think he has no interest.

CN:So, Love Jones they got signed to this label in Los Angeles they moved out there, didn't they?

JP:They did, they moved out there with Zoo Entertainment, which was I believe affiliated with RCA, I think it was a subsidiary of RCA, I'm not sure about that. But Zoo was pretty big, they had Matthew Sweet, and Tool was really big, had really taken off. They did a residency--

CN:Tool was like heavy metal right or--

JP:Yeah, that was really strange double bill to have them open for Tool. Sort of metal, electronic, industrial kind of stuff. And they had a residency at a bar out there, an old school bar. I think The Lagoona, or something. I'll never remember it.

CN:Was it Largo?

JP:Largo, yeah they had a residency at Largo. It was a big deal.

CN:That's a famous comedy--it's like the alt-comedy place.

JP:I mean things were happening for them, they were getting songs in movies, it was -- I guess it was just overall, maybe there was a window for lounge music 55:00that closed pretty quickly. But, I mean they were -- and they were one of the first bands from here that I know of that appeared on national TV. They were on the first Conan show.

CN:Oh I didn't realize that.

JP:Yeah, so I mean it was legitimate, they were a legitimate band for sure. They just get overlooked like I said because they spent so much time drunk and disorderly and making fun of the audience. People thought it was just all about the jokes but -- and that was -- I mean that was probably mid '90s and that's when Will had really taken off, was getting mentioned in The New York Times, that's when King Kong was in Spin. So there really was a reason for someone to say, "Is Louisville the next music Mecca?" But I -- but that's someone outside looking in who probably just didn't realize how weird, and I want to say 56:00inclusive, in a way. I just don't know if Louisville ever really cared about being a scene like that. Or maybe it's what do we -- maybe it's the old psychological thing where you're so insecure that you pretend you don't want to be big. Because you don't think you're going to make it. I don't know, that's a whole other subject matter.

CN:Talk about King Kong. You mentioned them several times.

JP:Another guy who was in Slint, Ethan, was on Slint's first album. King Kong, zero to do with Slint. According to Ethan, King Kong is nothing but a blues band, but you would not really know that. They are just one of the great dance 57:00bands I think Louisville has ever had. A strange dance band, but definitely a dance band. Almost a real oddball funk band, in some ways. Really just almost indescribable, unless you're talking to Ethan who will just straight up say, "No, we're just a blues band that's all I do. I write blues songs."

And he's not being disingenuous with that, he really -- it's just a blues band. He learned to play from Smoketown Red or something.

CN:Right, yeah, I had forgotten about that.

JP:And, again, another band full of great musicians. They've had Todd Hildreth, Ray Rizzo and Willie McClean.

CN:Were all of them in The Java Men, or some of them?

JP:Ray and Todd were also in The Java Men with Craig Wagner.

CN:Okay.

JP:And then they had Amy.

CN:And that's like if that's a jazz band or--

JP:Yes, a jazz trio. Organ jazz trio still ongoing, rarely, but ongoing. They had the female singer there for quite a long time.

CN:Amy Ritchie.

JP:Amy, yea. She was a great foil to Ethan. He's got that real deadpan voice and his lyrics are-- I want to say indecipherable. The meaning behind them is definitely shrouded in mystery. But just so much fun. I mean the best song ever written about the 1974 tornado, the best song ever about a scuba diver -- a 59:00"Scooba Dooba Diver." Just the most gloriously dumb, and I don't mean that in a bad way, music. I mean it's just, they were just, and again like I mentioned before, at the peak of all this going on, a band that was singular in its style. And then you could -- maybe if you're one of the 10 people who saw Palace Brothers, there was another band that was singular in its style in Louisville. And all of this was basically happening in the same three year, two- or three-year period.

CN:So you're distinguishing Palace Brothers from Will Oldham later--

JP:I think it was definitely different, maybe not to a great degree. But Palace Brothers had a little bit more of a traditional "band" feel to it; the 60:00arrangements and stuff was a little bit more "band." But, then again, almost every album Will's put out has been slightly different from the one before or the one that would follow it. But I guess you could say that there is a -- I think his intent has been consistent, like his worldview has been consistent, but he does mess around with different ways to go about it for sure.

CN:Well talk about him some more, because he clearly I mean is one of the biggest musicians to come out of the scene.

JP:Yeah, he really did it's always been a bit of a mystery how he captured so many imaginations at once because I don't -- until his last few albums I never 61:00really considered Will to be all that accessible, just for me. That could just be me. But he really -- it didn't take long either. I mean Palace Brothers and then Palace and then Bonnie Prince. All that stuff happened pretty fast and got a national, an international, reputation really fast. People latched onto it not unlike the way people latch onto Radiohead, which they leave me kind of cold, but people who are into Will Oldham are into Will Oldham. I mean, they are never going to let that go. And Will is also a very single-minded, driven musician, both businesswise and music-wise. He can be a handful, I mean he didn't talk to 62:00me for 13 years.

CN:Oh really?

JP:Yeah. I wrote an admittedly bad profile of him because I was trying to come up with an angle. You know how you try to come up with angles when you're doing a big story? And I came up with a bad angle. And--

CN:What was it?

JP:Well, actually to the point where we're just talking about. It was at a time when King Kong, and Will, and Love Jones were all blowing up. So I thought okay here's three wildly different bands, I'm going to write a giant story for The Scene cover, our old magazine or weekly magazine, that shows this is the diversity of Louisville independent music scene. Ethan bowed out because, I'll never forget this, he said, "I can't really do that, I've got some thinking to 63:00do." You just have to accept, you just got to take that at face value, I said okay. So, it ended up being about Love Jones and Will.

So, there was a really good contrast there, but I made a really bad mistake because Will basically lived in the woods and he made this music that was very much seemed isolated and done by an individual. And here was Love Jones out in Los Angeles. I wrote a story that made it seem like Will was just stumbling through this career. Not that he wasn't doing the groundwork, and he was actually doing a lot of the groundwork, but instead of getting mad at me about 64:00that, he claimed that I was harassing his mother on the phone which was completely false. I called her to get a quote and she said, "Oh no, I don't want to differentiate between my children."

And I thought, well okay, that's completely understandable. And that was the extent of the phone call. But I got this really long fax, this is how long ago it was, I got a long fax from Will explaining that I had harassed his mother and he would not put up with that. And he didn't talk to me for 13 years. And now we basically have a very cordial, maybe not friendship, but we have a cordial relationship. So, I don't have a unique explanation but--

CN:Well, that's interesting.

JP:But I think that also speaks to his single-mindedness. He's going to do things his way and it's worked out. He has probably, arguably the greatest 65:00catalogue of music of any Louisville musician.

CN:It's enormous.

JP:It's enormous.

CN:I mean, do you have any sense of the magnitude?

JP:Oh my gosh. You look at the studio albums, the full-length albums, and you think wow that's hell of a -- and then you glance down at the EPs and there's another 25 EPs and then split 7 inches. It's just remarkable, and then he does things with other artists. He does records with Matt Sweeney. He did a record with that electronic band where they -- I can't remember what that was but they covered a Springsteen song that was--

CN:Was that Matmos [it was Tortoise] maybe, or no.

JP:It might have been.

CN:I think so, I know the one you're talking about.

JP:Yeah, they covered a Springsteen song which really surprised me that he would 66:00be into Springsteen. Now that I know him a little bit better it makes sense.

CN:I think it was "Thunder Road," wasn't it?

JP:It was great, yeah it was great. He's probably not -- I mean we've only had a handful, we've not even mentioned the mainstream stuff, which is interesting because also during that time we had a couple of platinum selling albums by Days of the New and Nappy Roots also from the '90s. So we had all this going on, not in the underground music -- so yeah, the "Mecca" thing definitely makes sense when you start thinking about everything that was going on.

CN:Okay. Well, yeah like as I said this is underground music, but I think that's what we're saying, okay so describe those two bands real quickly.

JP:Days of the New, I guess, to me is a modern acoustic Doors. Very self-important songs. Very much like my private bedroom moments are the most important moments in the world. It's a little but insufferable, but it was really catchy and it definitely found the big audience really fast. The first album went platinum within I think a month or two months maybe. And ultimately a sad story because Travis Meeks definitely has some issues that derailed his career. He ended up getting addicted to Methamphetamine. He was famously on the TV show about people who get addicted.

CN:Right what is it called? I was trying--

JP:Yeah, I can't remember.

CN:Yeah, I don't remember, but yeah.

JP:But huge, I mean just a huge national and international touring band for several years. Nappy Roots were a throwback hip hop band. I can't remember when their album came out. I want to say it was '97, '98 it might have even been '96 but it was definitely post-gangster rap and they had a much more positive, bouncy hip hop sound that went back to the early '70s and '80s, a little bit more rootsy hip hop sound. And their first album went crazy and sold a million 69:00copies. Back then that was not easy to do. Well, it's never easy to sell a million copies of anything. I mean between those two artists, they've sold more records I think than probably every Louisville band combined, to be honest.

CN:Right.

JP:Because--

CN:Except for My Morning Jacket.

JP:They've, yeah I guess you'd have to call them.

CN:Although I forget sales are so much smaller now but--

JP:Yeah, you can get a top five album now that's selling 30,000 records the way it works. But I don't think -- yeah you'd almost have to throw the Jacket out, but their total sales are probably still less around 500,000 or something like that. Definitely not a million.

CN:Really? Okay.

JP:Yeah. So yeah, we had a lot of mainstream success going on at the same time 70:00as all this underground success. It was a great time to start writing about music as a career because it just -- something was happening constantly and not just locally, something local was happening nationally all the time. But the most fun stuff was the club stuff. I mean that was the stuff that -- and nationally indie music nationally was going crazy with bands like Pavement. All the Matador roster, all the Sub Pop roster all that was huge.

And then Nastanovich moved here from Pavement. He moved here and bought a house over the Churchill Downs and that seemed -- felt like it tied everything together, all this because all these national bands who like Louisville music were coming into town just to go to the Derby and be at Bob's house. And it felt like--

CN:Like who was that like--

JP:Oh, well, of course Pavement would come and camp out every year. But I also remember, the people from The Spinanes -- who were on Sub Pop, and I really liked them -- they just wandered through the living room one year. Man, it's been so long since I thought about those days. There were a lot of Matador bands. A lot of times I would not even know who they were, you'd just be chatting with some weirdo and then two days later somebody would say, "Oh yeah they were in whatever-x-fill-in-the-blank Matador band."

CN:There's the guy from Sebadoh, right?

JP:Oh that's right, Jason Loewenstein. He moved here while Sebadoh was still a 72:00going concern. Sebadoh was big, I guess we should maybe-- big in the indie scene. There are gradations of -- but for that scene Sebadoh was really big and it was -- and the fact that Loewenstein moved here was yet another validation of what was happening in Louisville that established musicians wanted to live here because they liked they city and they enjoyed the people who lived here and they enjoyed going out and listening to the Louisville bands that was -- it became sort of, "Well I guess we really are happening at the moment."

CN:Well, I mean that is one of the signs like didn't -- it seems like in the whole Seattle thing, didn't Peter Buck move to Seattle?

JP:Yeah, yeah.

CN:That is one of the things that I guess happened.

[tape turns off and back on].

CN:This is file number two in my conversation with Jeffrey Puckett, which is taking place on October, is this the 26th, I think?

JP:This is Thursday, it's the 27th.

CN:27th, all right, and it's taking place in my home in Tyler Park. So, we were talking about some of the other groups -- we were talking about Will Oldham in particular. I don't know if there is anything else you wanted to say about him or that sticks out about him?

JP:Well, there's so many things about him. He's absurdly talented and I've seen 74:00him do a full four-piece rock show that was unlike anything he ever did on I See a Darkness or the first Palace album. I've also seen him do like a country hoedown show wearing coveralls and dancing like Jed Clampett. So he does have fun, occasionally.

CN:OK. All right.

JP:No, I think Will has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I think he probably should best stay that way.

CN:Okay. Another band, big in Louisville that you mentioned in passing maybe you should talk a little bit more about is Bodeco.

JP:Yeah, still the greatest rock band I think I've ever seen live. The most fun. 75:00I guess great people should not mistake greatest for talent, because Ricky, certainly not a great guitar player, Brian, not a very good drummer. Wink, obviously a man of many guitar-related skills, and Jimmy Brown, one of my favorite bass players of all time. But those four personalities, four pretty difficult people -- I'll amend that, four really difficult people coming together to make a sound that I believe got ladies pregnant without intercourse 76:00in the course of a show.

I mean those were some of the greatest shows when they were at their peak, and I guess a lot of it maybe had to do with a lot of the tensions between the band, or among the band. I know they struggled constantly just to get it together long enough to be -- to make it anywhere, but once they got going, it's like that old cliché of just a freight train. Once they got going it was either get out of the way or enjoy getting run over. I definitely enjoyed getting run over by those guys.

I mean it's definitely early rock and roll. I never really got the zydeco aspect 77:00of it that was part of the name. I never heard that at all. A lot of Bo Diddley sort of stuff, just really, really primal and funny. The lyrics were definitely reminding me a lot of early blues lyrics that are largely about ladies and sex, with definitely a sense of humor.

And Ricky Feather was one of the great front men. His monologues were just endlessly entertaining. Just a real thunderstorm of a band, man they were just so much fun. But a lot of, let's say, incapacity to deal with the pressures of 78:00maintaining a band, for sure.

CN:Yeah, there's this great Ruth Gordon line where "you have a talent for having talent."

JP:Yeah.

CN:I think about that a lot.

JP:Yeah, that's a really good line. Yeah, they suffered by not having that talent.

CN:Okay, and so we talked through a period time through the '90s. I don't know if there is anything else significant. I thought it was great the way you brought in Days of the New and Nappy Roots because it's part of the whole thing but -- needless to say, they have not come up in any interview I've done so far, but I think that's great.

JP:And Nappy Roots now, although at time they were a mainstream success, now they've, it's flipped around. They are a legitimate indie outfit. They have 79:00their own label, they put out their own records, and they still do well and they tour all the time, but it's come full circle to where they've become part of the underground music scene. But they still have occasional wild successes. They'll get a song on a movie soundtrack or something, they do great. They were the only hip hop, rap band that I was even aware of that had Louisville ties back then. I mean I know that there was a lot of rap and hip hop music happening then, but it definitely felt like a world that I couldn't even figure out where it was happening. It felt like a whole -- another planet.

Shows weren't advertised, there wasn't a lot of music being released. It's 80:00completely different now. It's wildly different now. It's the only good category at the Louisville Music Awards tonight, is the hip hop category. Yeah.

CN:Oh, that's tonight.

JP:That's tonight, yeah.

CN:That's why you had the day off?

JP:Well, actually no, I'm interviewing the lead singer from Stryper after this.

CN:Oh, okay.

JP:They're on their 30th anniversary tour of To Hell with The Devil and they -- yeah it's a big -- that was the first Christian album that had multimillion dollar success in any genre.

CN:That's interesting.

JP:I guess with any pop genre. Yeah, they sold millions of copies with that record. Anyway, off the subject. I'm trying to think of -- I'm sure I'm overlooking, there were so many bands in the '90s that were good but just never sustained or-- I mean, Cooler was really good. I always enjoyed them.

CN:I'm not familiar with them, what are they like?

JP:They were power pop, kind of in the late '70s vein when a lot of the power pop like Dwight Twilley and stuff like that started coming up. A little bit more glam though, a little bit more on the power than the pop. That was another Ritcher, the other Ritcher. Mark Ritcher was the songwriter and singer in Cooler. The Hammerheads was that white boy funk band that really was big. It had Greg Foresman on guitar, who now has been with Martina McBride for I think 16 years, as her guitar player. Actually, two guys were in The Hammerheads who were 82:00in the first rock band that I ever saw in person at a high school dance.

CN:Okay.

JP:Yeah, that one band ended up having four, life-long professional musicians. That was my first live band I ever saw. Isn't that crazy?

CN:Wow.

JP:It had Mark Beyer on keyboards who now is in Rain, which is the world's biggest Beatles tribute band. They did eight sold out months off Broadway last year.

CN:Oh okay.

JP:Greg has been working for McBride like I said. Matt Thompson went on to play drums in a bunch of bands and still plays drums, but not as a touring musician, and then the bass player was in Shaking Family, I can't remember his name. They were one of the first -- they signed with Elektra I guess in the '80s, so they 83:00were one of the first Louisville bands from the original rock era that--

CN:Yeah, I'm trying to remember that. That name was so familiar, but I can't --

JP:I want to say it was early '80s that they signed. It didn't last, I think they only had one album. But anyway, so yeah, four of the five guys, and the fifth one, the singer, went on to be a surgeon. So, a pretty good band, pretty good with the start.

CN:Another thing I wanted -- I've wanted to see if there is anything more to say about, that I thought was interesting, was that time period we were talking about where you had indie musicians of national reputation who actually moved here because they liked the city and the music and I mean -- did you see that have any influence on the music or the scene?

JP:No, not that I recall. I think it had an impact just that -- like I mentioned before, I think it did validate the scene in a way because Pavement was huge, way bigger than even Sebadoh. So to have Bob become this ringleader of a social circle, and I think it definitely made people feel a little bit like we're in the big time now. I feel like it was more social than anything else. I mean they got assimilated into the backyard beer drinking culture pretty much immediately.

That was about the extent of it. I think Bob only had one local music project 85:00they did with Paul Oldham, Pale Horse [Riders] or something or other. I think that was the only thing he ever did. I don't think Jason ever did any -- had any local bands that I recall, unless it was a cover band.

CN:Okay, we've gone through -- you've done a great job of portraying a really lively decade. I don't know how much you want to move forward in time or if you just -- I mean I've taken a lot of your time also.

JP:I don't have, Stryper's not until -- I don't have to leave here until four. So I'm fine.

CN:All right. I mean I just wonder how has it changed then when the millennium comes.

JP:Things slowed down. I guess that's inevitable, I mean just from talking about 86:00this, I had actually forgotten how big the '90s were in general for local music. I don't think we've had -- that kind of explosion has not been replicated. There's little pockets here and there. I mean My Morning Jacket obviously is the biggest example.

A band Elliott which came out of the hardcore scene but went in a much more quiet, emo, emotional rock thing. They got to be really popular. I mean they were playing shows in Japan. They were very highly thought of. We've had great 87:00bands, Wax Fang was a great band but has never taken that national step. They just seem always stuck.

CN:Describe them.

JP:Wax Fang is a real cinemascope kind of band. They like everything big, a lot of concepts. Scott Carney is the songwriter and singer. Actually, he's the only original member now that the -- the version of the band that really captured everyone's imagination was Scott, Jake Heustis and Kevin Ratterman on drums.

Definitely a power trio without a doubt. They had one album with that lineup 88:00that was really a great album, that stood with anything that was released that year nationally.

CN:What was it called?

JP:I think it was just called Wax Fang. I don't know if it had a title. I'd have to Google that one. I'm pretty sure it was just called Wax Fang, but I'm probably wrong. I know there is a couple of bands that I'm forgetting that definitely had their moment in the sun in the early 2000s. The weirdo bands never stopped.

CN:What do you mean "the weirdo?"

JP:It's just the crazy characters getting together and doing exactly only what 89:00they wanted, but with no real intent of having a lasting career. Without Further Ado was one that -- I just thought was amazing. They were a bunch of, I think, half U of L music school kids and half insane people. It had Joel with the real high falsetto. He's actually Heather Fox's husband or consistent man friend or whatever.

CN:Yeah, was his last name McDonald?

JP:I think so yeah. Joel was the singer. That band was just dangerous. I mean literally dangerous. They pushed me into Bardstown Road one night. But I'm 90:00really having trouble thinking of any other bands in the 2000s that were -- a lot of the bands sustained through the 2000s. Rachel's had their greatest success in the 2000s and Shipping News still played through then, but I don't think we've had another concentrated burst like that in the mid '90s.

CN:Okay, let's see. So, do you think that there's a way, I mean you said we don't have a "Louisville sound," but is there any way to distinguish Louisville bands, Louisville scene from other places?

JP:I honestly don't think so. I don't see any consistent thread. I mean we have 91:00certain scenes that are consistent, like a singer-songwriter type scenes, but there's not a lot of variation within that genre anyway. But as far as bands that I would consider to be accomplished and meaningful, I don't see them, I see almost no threads. Even when you can see the -- like with Elliott, even though you could trace them back to the hardcore scene, they had nothing to do -- I mean they all grew up in that scene -- but they had nothing to do with the music at all. And Wax Fang, Scott was friends with some of the My Morning Jacket people when he was a kid, and Wax Fang has nothing to do with My Morning Jacket. 92:00It seems like the only theme is more -- I guess it's more to do with ambition, just wanting -- and I don't think that's particular to Louisville. I guess all musicians are ambitious and want to do something meaningful, but I don't see any genre specific themes.

CN:All right. I don't know how you describe this in any way, but I always wonder about -- I mean just the incredible originality of all the bands. I think that goes back to the earliest punk scene where nobody really wanted to sound like anybody else. They -- it didn't mean The Dickbrains didn't love The Endtables, 93:00but they weren't going to--

JP:Yeah, I don't know if this, you were there you would know, and from my perspective it seems like a point of pride: "That is great, but what we are going to do is going to be even better or at least as good, and it's going to be different." I think if that had an impact on there not being a Louisville sound, it also had a much greater impact on as far as setting the table for subsequent musicians just that anything goes.

And I think in the long run it's much more important because when that Endtables album was reissued, it was really surprising how modern it sounded. It still 94:00sounded fresh, it wouldn't have surprised me if someone said, "Check out this new band, The Endtables," I wouldn't have blinked. I would have thought oh, okay they got some -- definitely had some roots in old punk but that's pretty crazy.

And I think, if I feel like that comes from everyone trying to just do the next creative thing. Yeah, maybe that's the only thread, is that no Louisville band wants to sound like the last Louisville band. Even the mainstream, I mean Days of the New didn't sound like anything else, for better or worse, they didn't 95:00sound like anything else. You know what's weird is we've never had a country scene at all. Almost not even an alt-country scene.

We had a little bit of that in the '90s post-Uncle Tupelo, we had a little bit of that run with alt-country No Depression type stuff, but not much. But it's really -- after the what, the '40s or '50s, we had Randy Atcher.

CN:Right.

JP:Yeah, I don't think we ever -- that's just the real big blank spot. There's Johnny Berry--

CN:There's bluegrass.

JP:Yeah, bluegrass. And Johnny Berry, I thought, he's still going, but when he was really cranking out the albums I thought he was as good as any 96:00traditionalist going, and his shows were a blast. He was an early 2000s guy who I really enjoyed a lot. Or probably mid-2000s, yeah. He was really hitting it hard in 2005, 2006.

CN:Are you still following the local scene, I mean is that--?

JP:I am without a lot of success, unfortunately.

CN:What do you mean without a lot of success?

JP:Well, I can't find anything I like. I don't know if it's me. I don't know, because you know how things tend to repeat themselves and it could be that I've just seen one too many variations on noise bands or whatever. But every time I hear, every time someone says you got to checkout this band, it's so easy now, I just go to Bandcamp or SoundCloud and I just sit there and go, "Yeah, that's okay."

There's almost never that moment of "Whoa!" And, honestly I have asked other people, because I thought that it was just me, but it almost never happens. Twin Limb has got some really great songs and really interesting songs.

CN:Who are they?

JP:Ratterman is the third wheel in that one. It was a band started -- it was really precious when they started, I didn't like them too much at all. It was two lady friends, who one played accordion and some electronics and the other did drums and it was real spooky, weird almost chamber music type stuff. And then Ratterman joined the band and added guitar and even more loopy, tape loop 98:00type stuff. And it's definitely -- they got something going on for sure. I just wrote a little story with him but it's not the kind of -- I don't react to them like I reacted to My Morning Jacket or something who I basically liked a lot right from the beginning.

I love some of the hip hop stuff going on now, and I've never been a huge hip hop person, but there's a lot of movement in that scene right now and a lot of interesting just approaches, like production approaches, and just the rap in itself. Also, the main thing about the current hip hop scene is that it's very 99:00open to working with the rock and roll crowd.

All the biggest hip hop shows in Louisville have featured basically rock bands, established rock bands in some cases, or at least members from established rock bands who are part of that guy's band like James Lindsey. Used to be Jalin Roze always uses The Pass.

CN:Okay so--

JP:It just seems like a little bit of a down period for rock stuff. Not for lack of trying. I mean there are a lot of bands floating around but I just haven't wandered into one that really seems special.

CN:The way you've described it all it's been very multifarious, it's not easy to put on, but are there any changes that you see over the time period that you've been following local music?

JP:Any changes. You mean just in the music being made or just any change?

CN:Yeah, in the scene and the people who are listening to it or making music whatever.

JP:I think there's definitely less emphasis on -- it took a long time for that 101:00attitude to where we need to score a label deal to go away, and I almost never hear that these days. People seem very content to be in complete control of everything they do and I guess to -- I don't know if they figured out how to make that work into making a living, which is where it gets hard. And I could be wrong about this, but there do seem to be more people who are also happy to have an ongoing band that's just part of their lives and not the main focus.

There are a lot of dads, young dads with bands now and they're not just twice a 102:00year bands, I mean they're bands that play all the time. But they don't seem to be -- like I know a guy at work, Brian Grey, he's had several bands and they play whenever they -- they play steadily but he is a father, I think there is another guy in the band who is a father. They are not going to go out on the road, they are going to make records and play shows and enjoy that aspect of their lives without making it the end all be all.

That seems to be going on a lot more now and it seems that way even with the younger bands, people seem to be -- I guess it's easier to be part of a small scene and just be consistent now because it's so easy to get your music spread around.

There is a band called Murals I really think they are pretty good. They are a psychedelic pop band, and if you Google their name, they are known throughout 103:00that world but they don't play to very many people and I don't know if they play to very many people elsewhere. But when they put out a record, the whole world -- that whole scene takes notice and -- so I think maybe the globalization via the internet has worked out for this current generation.

CN:Well, that's interesting. You've been great but I don't know if there is anything else that you want to add to any of the stuff we've been talking about.

JP:There is a band called The Bulls, very underrated.

CN:Okay, all right anything you want to say about them will be listened to with open ears.

JP:You really were a great front man.

CN:Thank you, that's very nice of you to say. It was fun. Talk about dads and bands. It ended when Max was about one year old. I just could not make it work anymore. John Bailey his daughter was older. His daughter must have been four or five when we stopped, but at any rate. All right.

JP:I guess the only thing that maybe, just as a side note, is that it used to be kind of odd, it was something of note, when there was a band that was either half male-female or all female; now it's just common. There are a lot. A lot of those old school barriers are just non-existent at this point. Louisville's got 105:00a ton of female-fronted or entire bands at the moment. I wish they were better. I mean I wish there were better bands in general, I don't know. I'm still not convinced that it's not me, that I've finally run out of steam.

CN:Or maybe you just finally gotten old, I don't know. I know what you're saying because I sometimes hear this stuff, and I just think, "Really, this is what you people like?" Like the songs that they'll use on TV shows or something like that.

JP:Oh yeah, a lot of it is just so generic sounding and those are the -- I mean that's partially always been true that generic bands become wildly popular. But this band, Dawes, that is crazy popular, I've yet to hear a Dawes' song that makes any impact.

CN:Is that D-A W-E-S?

JP:Yeah.

CN:That's not local, that's--

JP:Right, that's Los Angeles-based. Although it has a local connection because Stuart Johnson taught the drummer how to drum.

CN:Oh okay.

JP:Yeah. Stuart was involved in some pre-Dawes band and then when they broke off, they recruited a 17-year-old brother of someone to be the drummer, and he'd barely started drumming. So, Stuart gave him a crash course on how to drum.

CN:That's interesting.

JP:The Louisville threads are everywhere.

CN:Okay, well this has been great, thanks a lot./AT//