Ta-da! Uncle Slayton's was nominated for "Best Music Venue" by Louisville Metromix 2012 awards - this on the heels of making 2011's national Metromix list of only 3 venues in the entire state of KY and, once again, we are in fine company. We didn't get there by ourselves ~ many thanks for your support!

KOPECKY FAMILY BAND w/Fort Frances
Friday, May 18
9:00 PM / 8:30 doors
$8 ADV / $10 @ the door
Purchase tickets
Indie, Classical, Rock

Like
 all
 families,
 KOPECKY FAMILY BAND
 beats
 with
 the
 same
 heart
 and
 rites
 in
 the
 same
 blood.
 ‘The
 Family’
 began
 creating
 music 
together
 in
 Nashville,
TN in 
the 
Fall
 of
 2007.
 What
 began
 as 
late
 night 
talks 
about
 life 
and 
dreams
 gradually
 flowed
 into eccentric
 and
 beautiful
 music
 that 
has
 led
 to
 numerous
 tours,
 including
 adventures
 to
 CMJ,
 SXSW 
and 
Bonnaroo, 
three 
EP 
releases
 and 
friendships 
across 
the 
country.

 KFB's music is emotive, evocative and commands attention through its unmistakable power and presence….sounds created by the booming and orchestral-like 6-piece multi-instrumentalists manage to challenge the listener's ear and offer up sweet melodies to sing along with all at the same time.

The family has a timeline with oodles of notable events, from their talk-of-the-town first EP release party in 2008 to taking the Next Big Nashville Music Festival by surprise the following year…from their first SxSW showcase as one of ASCAP's 'notable bands to watch 'to a mammoth CMJ run and 2 more EP's all in 2010. Since then the band released a limited edition split 7" vinyl with Seattle friends Ivan & Alyosha, and returned to Austin for SxSW where they played the infamous Paste Magazine showcase, Schubas Day Party, Next Big Nashville yet again, and performed for Austin's KUT during the festival. 2011 ushered in their first performance at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, notching up 3 amazing sets while  amassing several new friends and fans along the way. Locally they received gobs of airplay with 91.9 WFPK, played a Live Lunch broadcast at the station and had their first official booking in Louisville right here at the Uncle. KFB's debut full-length record is right around the corner so be on the lookout!

91.9 WFPK's "The Weekly Feed" presents
DARK DARK DARK w/Bro. Stephen
Sunday, May 20
8:30 pm / 8:00 doors
$8 ADV / $10 @ the door
Purchase tickets
Chamber-Folk, Indie, Experimental

Listeners everywhere have a very emotional response to DARK DARK DARK's music, which reminds us to seek out the wonder and magic that surround us all the time. Their sound sets Nona Marie Invie's soaring, haunted voice against an array of traditional instruments, balancing folk and high-art, creating music that is making people crazy. Released in late 2010, their 10-song sophomore collection, Wild Go, marked an evolution for the group, which brings together disparate influences including minimalism, New Orleans jazz, Americana, Eastern European folk, and pop. Using stark contrast in texture, tone and imagery, the band expanded and redefined their sound for this album. 

Perhaps the greatest influence, though, is their dedication to live performance and touring, where many of Dark Dark Dark's songs first come to life. Playing together, the band lifts Invie and LaCount's songs to another level. "We try to create a magical space with our performances," Invie says. "I'm always blown away by the number of people that come up to me afterward and say how much the music touched them. I love it when people can dance and have fun at our shows, but it's when people are quiet and I can tell that they are feeling it on a personal level that I feel like I'm really connecting."  Dark Dark Dark's third Louisville appearance also happens to fall on the Solar Eclipse. Magical, indeed...

TRUTH & SALVAGE CO. w/Joel Timothy
Tuesday, May 22, first of 2-show residency
8:30 pm / 8:00 doors
$8 ADV / $10 @ the door
Purchase tickets
Country, Rock 'n Roll

“How is it having four singers in the band?” is the question most asked of TRUTH & SALVAGE CO., often followed by “Where’s the group from again?” Though answers often vary depending on who you ask, the fact is that there would not be a Truth & Salvage Company without four singers; the band would have never come to be. It is through the collaboration of their songwriting and the unique combination of their voices to which they owe their inception. Since the forging of this completely functional family-by-choice in 2007 their music quickly caught the attention of Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes) who signed the act to his label Silver Arrow Records, and produced the band’s self-titled debut, released in May of 2010. Before the record was even released T&S was invited to support The Black Crowes on tour for the better part of 2009, which greatly helped to spread their gospel. Rolling Stone magazine awarded their debut effort with a 3 and 1/2 star review, and USA Today touted the group as being one of the top up and coming acts to see. Countless other shining critical reviews have been bestowed upon them as well as numerous TV appearances including PBS Sun Studios Sessions and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. 

The music of Truth & Salvage Co. sits comfortably between two musical genres, Country and Rock & Roll, and is appreciated by staunch lovers of both. Their performance at the 2010 Bonnaroo Festival was anticipated and widely received, and they are among a short list of groups that has been asked to perform Country music’s Stagecoach Festival two years in a row. Their live show is highly energetic and stacked with four part harmonies, hot and tight, with the singers effortlessly trading the role of “lead” throughout, keeping the show fresh and the listener attentive. Though predominately Southern in origin and destined to return, they presently reside in their Ford van, dubbed “The Champion”. Truth & Salvage Co. tour incessantly, and are gearing up to record their second album, slated for release Spring 2012. 

91.9 WFPK presents
DRY THE RIVER 
Wednesday, May 23
8:30 PM / 8:00 doors
$5 @ the door - special promotional show
British Folk, Stealth Rock, Americana

Norwegian born singer songwriter Peter Liddle formed DRY THE RIVER as a solo pseudonym before bringing in the rest of the band, now based in London. Having been denied an obvious place in the BBC Sound Of 2012 top 5 (but gaining from being mentioned at all) and touring the UK festivals in 2011, Dry The River quickly began to excite the music community - and rightly so.  Built on a number of early EPs stretching back to 2009, their debut album Shallow Bed is an astonishing introduction to the band, their songwriting and Liddle’s wonderful unique voice. The band’s talent for blending rock and folk, stirring guitars with gospel tones, and the heartfelt with the uplifting, has already earned worthy, yet obvious, comparisons to Mumford & Sons and Noah and The Whale. “We’re wise beyond our years but we’re good at bad ideas”, muses Liddle.

Produced by Peter Katis, who has cast his guiding hand over albums by The National, Frightened Rabbit and Interpol, Shallow Bed is the sound of British folk-rock, with a huge slice of Norway, washed in Americana. The songwriting is perfectly balanced, drawing you in with familiar emotion one minute then pushing you away with obscure references the next. And the band consistently delivers music of breathtaking poise and craft, throwing away the rulebook and breaking every formula to create songs that make their own structure.  If Radiohead formed yesterday, this is what they would sound like. Shallow Bed is the start of something great and Dry The River is about to realize this greatness. 

FUNKHARP w/Dog House Kitchen
Thursday, May 31
8:30 PM / 8:00 doors
$8 / 21+ with ID
Funky Blues, Jam Rock, Worldbeat

"FUNKHARP's first concert was me on a boardwalk bench, all the instruments I could carry and an open guitar case with a sign saying 'Change'," says Joseph Randle. Founding member and songwriter for funkharp, Randle is a classic band nerd with a surprising tongue. Drifting between childlike vulgarity and ultra-literate eloquence, that "Change" sign on his guitar case was probably meant as a general statement, not a request for spare coin. 
A while back, Randle began plucking talent from the Philadelphia scene. He found the Thundercat, a grinning and excitable bass phenom whose slap n' pop style interlocks with funkharp's off-rhythm guitar licks the way a zebra's stripes fit together. Next came Mofa, a relentless drummer whose tasteful interpretations of funkharp's nuanced songs reflect his past career as a singer/songwriter. The final addition is Gene Orlando, the MacGyver. This tonehead mixes and masters all of the band's recordings in the studio, and onstage, he tackles whatever part is thrown his way, even when it means learning to play (and sometimes having to invent) yet another instrument. 

Though nearly strangers at the time, the members of Funkharp moved into a house together after a handful of rehearsals and only one gig together. They built their own recording studio matching the band's exact specifications (and budget) in the house, and the squeaky old conversion van they tour around in usually pulls back into the driveway in the wee small hours of the morning carrying the boys of funkharp, dazed by the rising sun and another stint on the road.

ELIZABETH COOK w/Tim Carroll
Saturday, June 2
8:30 PM  / 8:00 doors
$10 adv / $13 day of show
Purchase tickets
Country, Americana, Outlaw

There are two ELIZABETH COOKs: There’s the one who performs on the Grand Ole Opry, as she has for more than a decade, singing the straight-up country songs that make up the canon of that venerable establishment. Then there’s the singer-songwriter whose best known lyric is “sometimes it takes balls to be a woman” and whose recent album, Welder (2010), includes lyrics about a “heroin addict sister” and a mullet-wearing, El Camino-driving boyfriend. The music on Welder careens well outside the bounds of Opryland, shifting from waltzes and bluegrassy numbers to alt-country, pop ballads, and flat-out rockers. “I like all kinds of music. If it’s interesting me and it pulls me in, it can be in any number of kinds of packaging—that’s really secondary to me. I’ll listen to my Merle Haggard box set and then I’ll listen to the Hives.” 

The youngest of 11, Cook was born in Wildwood, Florida to a musical mother and an outlaw dad:  He honed his skills playing upright bass in the prison band while serving time for running moonshine. Also while serving time, he learned the welding trade to which Cook paid tribute in the title of her 2010 album. She was on stage with them at age four and by age of nine had her own band. Armed with dual degrees in Accounting and Computer Information Systems from Georgia Southern University, Cook  relocated to Nashville in the late '90's, just in case. The music bug bit hard and in 2000, she independently released The Blue Album and made her Grand Old Opry debut that March - in fact, she has since performed at the Opry more than 300 times and is still a ‘non-member.’ Her major label debut followed in 2002, with the album Balls (2007) her most successful to date, thanks to glowing press reviews and significant video play for the song "Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be A Woman." Her 2010 album Welder features appearances by an all-star roster of guests including Dwight Yoakam, Crowell and Buddy Miller. Produced by Don Was, Cook either wrote or co-wrote nine of the album's 11 tracks. In addition to a relentless touring schedule, she also hosts the morning radio show "Elizabeth Cook's Apron Strings" on the Sirius XM radio station Outlaw Country on Channel 60. Airing weekdays from 10:00 AM until 2:00 PM (Eastern Time), the show is a mix of Americana, Outlaw, and Alt Country.

ELENOWEN w/special guest
Friday, June 8
9:00 PM / 8:30 PM doors
$8 / 21+ with ID
Purchase tickets
Singer-songwriter, Harmony-driven Folk-Rock

It’s called ‘chemistry’, an elusive quality that can be part history, part mystery and all intangible until the moment that you feel it. It’s a meant-to-be melding of the emotional and creative that can happen between songwriters, performers, best friends or life partners. For Josh and Nicole Johnson – the duo ELENOWEN – that connection is all of the above and much more. On their self-titled EP, the chemistry they share is as rare and real as it gets.

Though emerging from the same Nashville-based Americana-folk scene as The Civil Wars, Elenowen deliver a sonic glow all their own. Amid haunting harmonies and elegiac lyrics, their songs flow with an undercurrent of yearning, surrender and unexpectedly sharp edges. The sound itself is roots-driven, with accents of cello and pedal steel cutting a deeply evocative facet. Elenowen's starkly candid debut album Pulling Back The Veil chronicled their first year of marriage with songs that were subsequently showcased on TV shows like ‘One Tree Hill’ and MTV’s ‘World Of Jenks’. Impromptu performances filmed in their small basement apartment - called ‘The Basement Sessions’ - quickly garnering a following on YouTube and the No Depression website. In 2011, Elenowen made their national television debut on the top-rated premiere season of NBC’s ‘The Voice’, but it’s the five tracks on their new EP that now mean the most to the couple and convey what’s most real to audiences. More and more, the truth of what they do is attracting new fans nationwide. 

And what about that thing called chemistry? For Elenowen, it’s a one-of-a-kind formula that is about to become bigger than the both of them. “I think our chemistry is what keeps us going,” says Nicole. “We fight for it in our marriage, in our friendship and our music...What Josh and I ultimately want is for people to get inspired and connected by what we do.”
 

2 nights!
CABIN w/special guests
Wednesday, June 13 w/Justin Lewis
Purchase tickets
Thursday, June 14 w/Interstates
Purchase tickets
8:30 pm / 8:00 doors
$10 adv / $12 day of show / 21+ with ID
Indie, Melodic Rock

Louisville knows: There is something alive in the music of CABIN. Each song wells up to give the listener an immediate burst of emotion, sometimes vast yet always unique. It’s this sense of adventure and escapism that drives the landscape of their music. Drawing upon influences like Radiohead and The Shins, CABIN’s songs evolve and surprise while often unearthing strange sounds. Applying their deep-rooted impressions from classical music, the band uses imagination and composition to tell a story, making every song an attempt at invention and discovery.

After earning a degree as a visual artist, founding member Noah Hewett-Ball began writing music as a soundtrack to accompany a series of paintings. Attempting to visually convey the colors, textures, and rhythm of music, Noah eventually found music taking reign of his creative endeavors. In 2005, he teamed up with three high school friends to record CABIN’s first full-length album, Govern The Good Life. Over the next three years, the band went through a series of changes in their original line up and emerged as a more dynamic unit. The addition of experimental violinist and pianist, Sarah Beth Welder, lead to the creation of CABIN’s latest album, Among The Rectangles And Changeable Parts, released in late 2010. The record takes its listener on a sonic journey weaving back and forth between the lines of progressive rock and pop. Second only to writing and creating new music, CABIN cites the opportunity to travel and share their music with others as their reason for existing. Through bloggers and word of mouth, CABIN has earned fans world wide, performing in seven European countries to date and sharing the stage with acclaimed musicians such as OKGO, Spoon, and members of My Morning Jacket. Paired with their impressive touring resume, CABIN garners more attention with the release of each new album. Both releases earned Album of the Year from WFPK Radio Louisville and also landed both the #1 and #38 spots on the Top 100 countdown for the year. SPIN Magazine noted the song “I Was Here” as ‘must hear’ song in 2009 and singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens labeled CABIN as “a band you need to check out”.

THE VESPERS w/special guest
Wednesday, June 20
8:30 PM / 8:00 doors
$8 / 21+ with ID
Folk, Pop, Bluegrass, Americana

It’s two sisters, two brothers, four friends, eleven instruments, one fun little folk band. However you do the math, THE VESPERS are a force to be reckoned with, having toured from Boston to Austin and hitting everything from festivals to college campuses in between. Critics have hailed them as “magnificently unforgettable” and “fresh and infectious," distinguished by an arsenal of instruments and the kind of harmony only siblings can create. Callie and Phoebe were brought up in a musical family in Nashville, honing their gifts as young kids singing background vocals on Music Row. While their pure harmonies are described as “ghostly and haunting” and “honey sweet,” they both have expansive characteristics to their vocal and instrumental abilities. The Jones boys’ “tight and creative rhythm section” is grounded in the earthy volume of the gritty southern rock and lowdown blues that they were gratefully exposed to at a young age. That raw approach combined with an expansive range of lyrical themes is the backbone to The Vespers’ overall sound, said to be “reminiscent of hearing the words ‘I love you’ for the first time.” 

On The Fourth Wall, out April 3rd, they create infectious folk-pop with both the buoyancy of youth and deeper spiritual themes, and have already been tapped for the PBS Show Bluegrass Underground along with The Civil Wars, Sarah Jarosz, The Black Lillies, Scott Miller and more. Everyone in the band contributes to the songwriting with most songs possessing the energy of a live show - that's because the band polished them on the road, where they also came up with the album title. The fourth wall, in theatre terms, is the invisible wall between the audience and performers. “Our music reflects that. We decided to go on tour shortly after we joined forces and we really learned what our band was all about while playing to the people at our early shows...It’s all about connecting with people and breaking down that invisible wall.” Welcome back to the Uncle, y'all!