Down On The Corner

By Paul Moffett

It's summer and the CDs are dropping, as they say in 'da bidness.' Lots of 'product' being released by Louisville area performers. Here's some – but not all - of them:

Soul, Inc has a new ten-song CD, A Rock 'N' Roll Reunion, featuring several new recordings of familiar Soul, Inc. songs. They're getting cranked up to support the release and will play a "Live Lunch" show at WFPK on August 5, which will be streamed. Check out the new, updated website at http://soulinc.net/ for all the latest info and pictures from the band and order the CD while you're there.

The Ladybirds are set to release a new CD, Shimmy Shimmy Dang, on Departure Records, September 6. In the meantime, they're offering a free stream of the title tune, which, other than that it's sung by female vocalist Sarah Teeple, should cause Bodeco's Ricky Feather to have alternate fits of jealousy and admiration – it's purely late Fifties rock 'n' roll. Definitely one this old man has to hear. Check out the title tune here:

http://www.crash-avenue.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/01-SHIMMY-SHIMMY-DANG.mp3

Louisville singer-songwriter Butch Rice has been kind of quiet lately (a torn rotator cuff was it?), but he's getting ready to head back out for some shows, including the CD release show, set for August 5 at Skybar Louisville, with Leigh Ann Yost and Dave Ernst also on the bill. Mark it on your calendar.

Singer-songwriter Nick Peay has a couple of new EPs set to be released on August 9. Life & Love & Us is a set of original tunes, recorded with ukulele, strings and vocals. The other is Love: A Ukulele Tribute To The Beatles. You can hear the material at a full CD Release show at the Monkey Wrench on August 13. Nick's website is at http://www.nickpeaymusic.com/

Truth be told, I would never have expected to find electro-funk and fog at Shelby and Burnett, ever. I would be wrong: Monday nights at Club 21 are now MiniMAL Mondays, a night of electro and funk/house fusion. The DJs are Goast, Eliix, Red Hat, Count Grozny and Phlyp Syde. 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Go dance and party.

The publicity firm Crash Avenue has split off from the Bisig Group, barely eighteen months after merging with Bisig in January 2010. Now called Crash Avenue Media & Management, the company has moved to an office at 808 E. Market St. Crash Avenue represents various musical acts, including Ben Sollee, Cheyenne Marie Mize, the Ladybirds, J. Irvin Dally and others.

Ben Jones is opening a new Better Days store at 1765 Bardstown Road, with an opening day of August 21. Jones believes that the Highlands market for used CDs is under-served.

I guess one way to string out interest in an upcoming project is "release" the album cover art well in advance, at least if it's interesting. That seems to be the strategy at Karate Body Records for Louisville band Silver Tongues new project, set for release in October. I suppose another wee measure of interest in the project would be to find out how many people clicked this - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150330954918319&set=a.166427373318.149109.166426863318&type=1&theater" - to look at the art.

ear X-tacy has added a line of USB-enabled turntables, which means you can now dump your old LPs directly to the digital format of your choice. Some turntables will play 33/45 and some 78 as well, so you can even grab those old Duke Ellington waxes. Yea!

Codas

BURNS, HELEN L. "HELZY,"a well known local entertainer and loved by everyone, passed away peacefully while in the arms of her daughter and son-in-law at Episcopal Church Home where she has resided the past few months as the result of an accident.

Helen was Queen of the Garvin Gate Blues Festival for years and played piano at the old Cunningham's Restaurant downtown for over 25 years, where she cultivated what came to be called "the Friday Night Gang." Everyone was welcome to sit around the piano and sing. If she didn't know a song you requested, she would smile and say "Honey, if you can just hum a little bit of it, I'll play it for you and she Always did!" No one could come close to being the total entertainer Helen was. Doing the splits on stage at age 74 before she had knee replacements, she never failed to not only wow the crowds, but to blow them away! Until recently, she still entertained those living in nursing homes with her old sweet songs and her big heart. Among so many other notable things, Helen was a welder at Vultee Aircraft during World War II, was the first female truck dispatcher in Kentucky, where she retired from Louisville Chair Co., and a woman who never considered defeat. She was always there if you needed her. She never knew a stranger and you couldn't go anywhere with her without being introduced at least a few times to old friends from here or there. Everyone knew and loved Helen and she knew and loved them without judgment. Helen will be missed, but her soulful spirit and song lives on in each of us who knew her.