What’s In the Weeklies? Week of Apr.9
It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means!
LEO Weekly, April 9, 2008 issue:
- Cover Story: Smells Like Holy Spirit 10 points (Stephen George knocks the Sojourn profile out of the park)
- Cover Art: 2 points (not great, not terrible)
- Additional News: N/A 0 points (unless you mean basketball coverage — which we don’t mind, but it’s not really compelling or even very news-y)
- Additional Features: Barry Thomas (of Love Jones) builds a house, “Cruising the Divide” 5 points
- Opinion: Statement on the 2009-2010 Budget of the Commonwealth by Rep. Jim Wayne, The final Plain Brown Wrapper column 4 points (the former is listed as news, though it’s really opinion)
- Music Coverage: David Pajo on Dead Child, B-Sides on The Velvet Saints, Upcoming Shows 10 points (Pajo’s piece is HILARIOUS! take that, haters!)
- Food/Drink Coverage: BJ’s and BBC review, The Bar Belle 3 points (former is about kinda boring places, the latter is about… West Virginia?!?)
Overall Score: 34 points
Velocity Weekly, April 9, 2008 issue:
- Cover Story: On Deck 8 points (we love a good baseball story, and this profile of Reds minor-leaguer Jay Bruce is pretty good)
- Cover Art: 1 point (we suppose Velocity isn’t to blame for the Bats ugly color scheme, but still)
- Additional News: Thunder Over Louisville tips, Early Thunder 3 points (we suppose this is important to somebody, and sure it should be covered by local news, but we really, really, hate Thunder Over Louisville. sorry)
- Additional Features: N/A 0 points
- Opinion: This Week’s Winners and Losers 2 points (yawn)
- Music Coverage: Kathleen Edwards interview, Thunder playlist, Citizen Critics, What’s On Your iPod?, Just Can’t Get Enough 8 points (not so bad this week, except for the extremely pablum Thunder playlist — plus how do you score something you haven’t even seen?)
- Food/Drink Coverage: The Dugout in Bar Hopper, The Monkeywrench 5 points (Monkeywrench review/interview with a regular is a bit short and dry, but the review of the Dugout makes up for it — we’ll check this place out soon based on the strength of the review)
Overall Score: 27 points
This might be the closest in score the two weeklies have been to each other since we started this column. Frankly, we might have weighted the Jay Bruce cover story in Velocity a little too much, but hey, what can we say? We love baseball. And clearly, LEO’s cover story this week was the alt-weekly equivalent of a grand slam. Interestingly enough, Velocity published a story involving the 930 Listening Room — the music venue inside Sojourn — a few weeks ago, but it didn’t go nearly into as much depth on the fledgling Baptist church’s philosophy as Stephen George does in LEO. George’s article gives us great pause as to whether we’d bother going back to the 930 — unless we’re on the guest list.
As with last week, please feel free to comment! Especially as regards stuff we don’t cover that’s in the weeklies:
And one final note about our weekly tabulation: we know we don’t really take art, dance, theater or film coverage or criticism into consideration by either LEO or Velocity. If you’ve got a preference between the two, please let us know in the Comments section below. If, in a particular week’s What’s In the Weeklies? post, you’d like to call out either weeklies’ coverage (for either positive or negative reasons), please by all means, be our guests!
April 11, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Why would you pause to go The 930? The article stated that no one has preached anything from the stage and Yo La Tengo has even played there. How much more credibility does one need?
April 11, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Because I’d rather not have my dollars support an anti-gay agenda. I was at the Yo La Tengo show, and indeed there was no proselytizing from the altar-cum-stage or elsewhere, but I did not pay for my ticket. It’s not about “credibility,” at all.
April 12, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It’s a Baptist church. The money made at these events goes directly into the programming of the Art Center and the Church, not to form gay-bashing committees. The belief that homo-sexuality is a sin comes from a biblical context. Denouncing that belief would be defaming to the religious beliefs of Christians. To accept the idea that homo-sexuality is not a sin in the context of Christian beliefs would be justifying the idea that it is excusable to change religious doctrine because of the changing times. It’s absolutely ridiculous to call out a Christian Church and call them regressive for standing strong in their beliefs and their faith. Homosexuals are welcome at the church and they are probably greeted with open arms at places like Sojourn because the Church practices what it preaches. Love and forgiveness for all of God’s children.
April 12, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Sojourn isn’t “anti-gay”, dude. Its pro-Christ. Being Christian means understanding that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God….and we are to be transformed by His love. This applies to everyone across the board …hetero-sexual, homo-sexual. This article only focuses on “the gay issue” because its trying to move copies. Sojourn is a loving, God fearing church who just want to love on the city. You will never hear a “gay-bashing” sermon preached from the pulpit. You will only hear the Bible preached and God’s love preached and all that entails. dig?
Besides…if you pay to see a show at the 930…the church doesn’t see a dime of that. The 930 acts as a non-profit organization. All the proceeds go the bands playing.
If you were to adhere not going to a venue just because of the beliefs of the operators….you would probably never step out of your home ever again. Right?
cheers.
April 13, 2008 at 1:34 am
Everything from my understanding says that The 930 doesn’t have an anti-gay agenda. It just has a good venue agenda. I know one of the guys in charge and they said that most of the time they don’t even make money on the shows because most of the money is just given to the bands. So, your money isn’t supporting an anti-gay agenda.
April 15, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Thank you for your comments. Haven’t had much time over the past few days to respond, so I apologize for that. Now that I have a minute or two, I’d like to address a few points from each comment. Unfortunately, I probably won’t change anyones’ minds (just as the comments left here haven’t changed mine), but hey, that’s what freedom of speech is about. So here goes:
The belief that homo-sexuality is a sin comes from a biblical context. Denouncing that belief would be defaming to the religious beliefs of Christians.
For starters, I was raised in a progressive Episcopalian church that supported the election of V. Gene Robinson, a gay man (and former Kentuckian), to Bishop of New Hampshire. So I’m not convinced at all that what the Southern Baptist Convention has to say about homosexuality is at all true. Homosexuals are not “depraved,” they are people, just the same as anyone else.
Additionally, the “biblical context” you refer to comes from Leviticus in the Old Testament, which also prohibits “eating birds of prey, eating shellfish, cross breeding livestock, picking up sticks on a Saturday, planting a mixture of seeds in a field, and wearing clothing that is a blend of two textiles.” Do the members of Sojourn adhere to those same proscriptions? I doubt it.
In the Book of Matthew, Jesus said “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” So what’s more important to Christians? An obscure passage in the Old Testament, or what Jesus taught?
To accept the idea that homo-sexuality is not a sin in the context of Christian beliefs would be justifying the idea that it is excusable to change religious doctrine because of the changing times.
Good sir, if it weren’t for the “changing times,” the Baptist Church and its more “hip” offshoots such as Sojourn would not exist. Martin Luther didn’t come out of a vacuum; he was a product of his times, and enacted a reaction to them. Religious doctrine, much like any other societal function, evolves (believe it or not!). To argue otherwise is to deny the history of Christianity.
Sojourn isn’t “anti-gay”, dude. Its pro-Christ. Being Christian means understanding that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God….and we are to be transformed by His love. This applies to everyone across the board …hetero-sexual, homo-sexual. This article only focuses on “the gay issue” because its trying to move copies.
I’m sure LEO’s circulation, being a free paper and all, is pretty stable, whether or not they want to write about Sojourn. And I’m guessing LEO’s editor-in-chief would argue, as I would, that “the gay issue” is not one to be taken lightly, as “the gay issue” as you term it is very much a human rights issue.
Sojourn is a loving, God fearing church who just want to love on the city. You will never hear a “gay-bashing” sermon preached from the pulpit. You will only hear the Bible preached and God’s love preached and all that entails. dig?
That may be the case, but I do think it’s fair for LEO — or anybody else — to question Sojourn’s ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, which again, very actively denounced homosexuality as “depraved.”
Besides…if you pay to see a show at the 930…the church doesn’t see a dime of that. The 930 acts as a non-profit organization. All the proceeds go the bands playing.
Show me the books. All I have to go on is hearsay from your post and Chris’s. If the 930 is that transparent, then they should open their books, simple as that. And being a former promoter as well as record label employee, I’m skeptical about the “all the money goes to bands” claim — which doesn’t even make sense given the operating costs that a venue like the 930 most likely accrues.
If you were to adhere not going to a venue just because of the beliefs of the operators….you would probably never step out of your home ever again. Right?
Wrong. The minute that LEO or any other publication publishes an expose claiming that Production Simple donates proceeds to the Republican Party, or that Headliners is in cahoots (nice pun) with the John Birch Society, you might have a point. But as far as I know, the majority of show promoters and venues in Louisville do not have any agenda whatsoever, other than entertaining Louisvillians.
Everything from my understanding says that The 930 doesn’t have an anti-gay agenda. It just has a good venue agenda. I know one of the guys in charge and they said that most of the time they don’t even make money on the shows because most of the money is just given to the bands. So, your money isn’t supporting an anti-gay agenda.
Again, total hearsay, which I can’t take on faith (ahem).
Anyway, again, thanks to all of you for your comments, and I’m sorry if mine riled you. But I am entitled to my beliefs, just as you are.
April 18, 2008 at 1:54 am
James and Chris have it almost right, but are wrong about one point. We do have operating costs, so 100% does NOT go to the bands. They are right in saying that Sojourn doesn’t see a dime. In fact, we ALWAYS lose money on the 930, mostly because we have monthly gallery openings with free concerts, yet we still pay the bands out of pocket that comes from church member’s weekly giving (tithe).
On top of this, we take a very minimal room fee to cover our expenses and always charge advertising and hospitality costs to the shows budget that’s recouped from ticket sales, like any promoter would. Often, however, we don’t even break even. May I also point out that for local shows, I often waive the room fee altogether is a show doesn’t attract at least 50 people.
Our first quarter income for January-March, eight shows and one canceled due to snow, was: -$2189.83
Notice the negative sign. I’d be happy to email you my spreadsheets for each show if you had an email address listed here.
You mentioned you might still come to the 930 if on the guest list. What show would you like to attend? Take your pick and please be my guest. http://www.the930.org
Keep up the good work on this blog. I’ve been reading it for a while, even before you commented on the LEO article. Take care.
Kevin
April 18, 2008 at 3:17 am
The 930 would be glad to open the books. The hearsay free publication ( cough ) LEO even reported them as being a non profit organization. Trust me…the 930 doesn’t make money. It bleeds money badly. Call ‘em. Ask ‘em. Don’t just speculate or continue to be negatively skeptical without investigating.
Also: Homosexuality is discussed in the New Testament – Romans 1:26-27 and I Cor 6:9-10. In regard to Leviticus…the Old Law was done away with when Christ came into the world to fulfill it. These laws would technically still in place for those practicing Judaism. Not Christianity.
i will add however, that the Bible says that no man is righteous. ( Romans 3 ) Everyone is depraved. Everyone has fallen short of the standard of God. everyone….thus the purpose of Christ to die for the sins of man. Every man.
April 30, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] article sparked many discussions throughout Louisville (such as this one — note the response from Sojourn Communications Director Kevin Janes, who books music [...]