I have a friend who lives in Utah – a terrible choice of a place to live, for many reasons, particularly if you aren't a Mormon (or even a Christian, for that matter). I keep telling him to move to Louisville. He's a musician, you see – a very talented guitarist – and his band recently broke up because, among many other things, they simply could not find a drummer suitable for their purposes. Come to Louisville, I say; we love our musicians here. We have everything – a person could subsist solely on local and regional music and find a little bit of everything. It's wonderful; two of my favorite live acts – Cabin and Wax Fang – come from right here (and it's criminal they haven't broken out nationally yet).

Of course, we can't talk about local music without mentioning one of the favorites: Ben Sollee, cellist extraordinaire and all-around nice guy (by all accounts). He does amazing things with his cello, utilizing it to create music with notes of all sorts of genres, from bluegrass and folk to jazz to R&B. He began his musical career in the Sparrow Quartet with Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, and Casey Driessen. Since then he has released two EPs, three full-length albums (the most recent, Half Made Man, having just been released), and the brilliant Dear Companion, a collaboration with Daniel Martin Moore to bring awareness to the issue of mountaintop removal.

His is a very interesting story, and it can be witnessed tomorrow (Friday) at the Dreamland Film Center, which is screening the documentary Wooden Box - “a documentary about Ben Sollee.” Wooden Box will be shown on the half hour between 6:00 and 9:00 pm. Admission is $5. The Dreamland Film Center is located at 810 E. Market Street.

Image: Wooden Box website