Month: July 2001

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Usual Suspects

The polls are in and the usual suspects are being rounded up. Who is responsible for George W. Bush’s low numbers? Could it be Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, or Nicholas E. Calio, the liaison to Congress, or maybe Mary Matalin, who gave up a lucrative television career to devote herself to George Bush and Dick Cheney and all they stand for? Her sanity, if not her competence, has to be questioned.

The answer to the question is, “None of the Above.” The person most responsible for the current plight of George W. Bush is — drumroll, please — George W. Bush.

He has not been acting presidential. By that I just don’t mean that he’s been less visible than a president should be or that he has not been adroit in his use of the so-called bully pulpit. Those things can be fixed — and soon will be.

I am thinking instead of something else, a certain quality Bush has of lampooning himself so that, after all these many months in office, his self-deprecating act seems absolutely convincing. Even those of us, like me, who know Bush is no dummy are beginning to wonder.

I refer you now to the interview Bush recently granted Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal. With the possible exception of his wife, Bush could not have found a more sympathetic, adoring, interviewer. Noonan revealed Bush as virtually Olympian, a regular Churchill, who had lost the “tentativeness” of the campaigner and, instead, has an “even-keeled confidence, even a robust faith, in his own perceptions and judgments” — in other words, in himself. This confidence, the interview makes clear, is shockingly misplaced.

Bush had just returned from his first European trip as president — maybe even as a human being. He had met, you will recall, with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader — a so-called summit where no treaties were signed, no accords initialed, no grand plans discussed. This was a get-acquainted meeting — not much more — with the leader of the mess called Russia, not the dictator of the formidable Soviet Union.

And yet, Bush spoke about it as if he had just come back from Yalta or one of the Cold War summits where so much hung in the balance. “It was a big moment,” Bush allowed. Noonan, no fool, picked up on the vast, but unstated, importance of what had transpired: “What you’re telling me is this meeting with Putin was a kind of breakthrough, it was something special.”

“I think it was,” said Bush. “I went to Europe a humble leader of a great country, and stood my ground. I wasn’t going to yield. I listened, but I made my point.” It was for those reasons, Bush said earlier, that Ronald Reagan himself “would have been proud of how I conducted myself.”

Reagan nothing. I myself was overwhelmed. Yet it was only by using the utmost intellectual discipline that I was able to remember that the countries Bush had not yielded to, the nations he had confronted and, yes, bested, were not our enemies but our friends — our allies, for crying out loud. It was as if he was doing a parody of a president returning from an overseas trip. This was the Oval Office as comedy club.

Neither Bush nor his crack staff sensed it, however. When Noonan asked if she could use his remarks for her Journal column, she was given permission. They all thought that Bush had not merely acquitted himself, he had done so splendidly.

I grant you that not all the interview was as inadvertently self-mocking as the parts I chose. But the overall effect was the same as one of Bush’s enough-already self-deprecating television appearances or one in which he seems on the thinnest of intellectual ice. He seemed unable to distinguish the exceptional from the mundane, the historic from the pedestrian.

What we’re seeing — both in print and on television — are essential Bush traits that are probably not amenable to change. In a way that TV emphasizes, he seems smaller than the office he occupies, less the master of his (or our) fate even than he was when he first took office. More and more he reminds me of that old commercial where the actor says, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on television.”

It is the same with Bush. I, for one, don’t think Bush is a dope. But he sure plays one on television.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group and is a frequent contributor to this space.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

A Bear Market

Well, the Grizzlies have certainly been busy campers. Multiple draft choices and trades give the team a new look for next season. But what is the final product? Generally, they have a bunch of young fellows who can play a number of positions. In many ways, this sort of flexibility is the future of the NBA, though dominant single-position players like Shaquille O’Neal would seem to demonstrate otherwise. Still, more and more, the emphasis has been on ‘tweener bodies and players who don’t fit cleanly into any one spot. Here’s a breakdown of the team by position, barring any more trades, of course.

Guard: At first glance, the Grizzlies seem thin at the shooting guard position, having to rely heavily on the efforts of Michael Dickerson. But the acquisition of Jason Williams and Nick Anderson from Sacramento suggests that Dickerson will have help, though Anderson may have more to offer there than Williams.

It’s also possible that Will Solomon will play some at the shooting guard spot as well. Solomon is small (only 6’1″), but he’s fast. If he were a half-foot taller we would be calling him the next Latrell Sprewell. Solomon can also score (20 points a game for Clemson his sophomore year). But Williams and former Hawk Brevin Knight will probably get most of the time at point guard while Dickerson, Anderson, and Solomon will handle the two position.

The trade of Mike Bibby to the Kings for Williams is still an open question. Bibby was a talented scorer and excellent passer. More important, he probably makes better decisions than the occasionally brilliant but often erratic Williams. The best explanation I have heard so far on this comes from espn.com’s Mark Kreidler, who analyzed it this way: Jason Williams has one year on his contract. He’s a name player who has a tendency for flair over substance. The Grizzlies are probably not going to be that good next year, so at least Williams will keep the crowd entertained. The 2002 draft will feature some of the best point guards in years, including one named, oddly enough, Jason Williams, who should be coming off a grand career at Duke. There is talk of re-uniting Shane Battier with his former collegiate running mate.

Of course, the Grizzlies can’t rely on this turn of events. No doubt, they hope Williams (the current Grizzly) will flourish in a new environment and do some serious growing up. If that happens, Williams could be a force this year.

Forward: This is the most intriguing position for the Grizzlies because they are so loaded with young talent in Shane Battier, Pau Gasol, Stromile Swift, Grant Long, and Antonis Fotsis. Look for Battier and Swift to start. Also, Lorenzen Wright can swing between center and forward.

As with the guard position, there will be some flexibility as to who will man which position, with Battier and (maybe) Gasol playing both power and small forward spots. Anderson has also been known to play forward if the situation calls for it.

Swift is a defensive presence and should be able to contribute heavily there. He’s also one of the best athletes on the team. However, he’s not much to watch offensively and given the team’s lack of proven scoring punch, he will need to step things up in a big way to contribute as a potential starter.

The real problem with this position is that the Grizzlies are woefully undersized in terms of weight at the power forward position and too slow at the small forward position. Last year, the Grizzlies were weak in rebounding and defense. Small bodies at the power forward position make for tough rebounding and slow bodies at the small forward position allow opposing teams to penetrate too easily. The new zone defense rules in the NBA could help some.

Center: This is still the Grizzlies’ weakest position. With Bryant “Big Country” Reeves and Ike Austin as the only true centers, conference opponents Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Hakeem Olajuwon will continue to have their way in the middle. Reeves is a big guy but he has been pretty much a no-show for the last couple of years and Austin has not shown himself to be a starting-caliber center. The Grizzlies are talking about running and gunning this year, so watch for Wright and Swift to come in at the center position on occasion — if not often. Wright could actually start there. Such a move would make the Grizzlies very fast but might leave them vulnerable in a half-court set.

Here’s the projected starting line-up I’d like to see if I were in Sidney Lowe’s shoes:

Point-guard: Jason Williams (Brevin Knight, Will Solomon as back-ups)

Two-guard: Michael Dickerson (Nick Anderson, Will Solomon, and possibly Jason Williams as back-ups)

Small forward: Shane Battier (Pau Gasol as back-up if he develops quickly)

Power forward: Stromile Swift (interchangeable with Lorenzen Wright)

Center: Lorenzen Wright (Bryant Reeves, Ike Austin as back-ups).

You can e-mail Chris Przybyszewski at chris@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
News News Feature

Layoffs? What Layoffs?

The slump in the national economy has had an impact on Memphis companies, but it would take a wizard to decipher some of the corporate-speak that is used to avoid the term “layoffs.”

“I think layoff is one of those terms that has come to be associated with a company in trouble,” says John Malmo, president of Koenig Marketing Consulting. “The whole issue of adding and subtracting jobs has become such an important factor in the way customers, employees, and shareholders react to it that companies have gotten very sophisticated about how they handle the news. They’ve developed a whole new lexicon.”

Sometimes it serves a company’s purposes to look big. Politicians and the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce like to use big happy numbers because it makes the city (and them) look good.

The chamber’s 2000 Growth Report says the Memphis area added 12,259 jobs through either expansion or relocation. Spokesman Allen Hester says the chamber reports new jobs “when they are announced” even though the jobs may be phased in over a period of years.

Further incentive: boards that give out tax credits, like the Industrial Development Board, base the amount of their largesse on the number and pay of the jobs that the company will create.

Wang’s International, for instance, is listed in the most recent chamber of commerce data as having 1,000 employees. News stories put the maximum number of employees at 800. At any rate, it’s a moot point. The Memphis-headquartered company recently took bankruptcy and the actual number of workers is closer to zero.

At least in that case there was no doubt that jobs were being eliminated. The same can be said for Bartlett-based Brother Industries, which laid off 227 employees and shut its typewriter plant; Cigna, a health care company which went out of business and cut 176 jobs; and computer manufacturer and distributor Ingram Micro, which sliced 140 jobs.

In those cases, the news was so unequivocally bad that there was no hiding the facts. The harder trick is trying to figure out the numbers at big corporations like FedEx, AutoZone, and International Paper. Those companies walk a fine line between balancing corporate morale and pleasing Wall Street.

“Frequently it is good stock news when you read about a company that has cut its workforce by 10 percent or consolidates operations,” says Malmo. “It is not at all unlikely that Wall Street will react favorably to it.”

Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that FedEx “plans to trim its labor force by at least five percent, or more than 9,000 jobs.” The company took exception to that. Spokesman Jesse Bunn says the reporter apparently extrapolated incorrectly from some numbers the company had provided.

The correct number, Bunn says, is 4,000 full-time equivalent positions, and those reductions will be achieved through “very stringent cost-control measures” including a hiring freeze.

“We have reduced full-time equivalents but it hasn’t been through layoffs,” Bunn says.

FedEx, of course, employs thousands of part-time employees among what the chamber reports as a 40,000-person local workforce, so the actual number of people who used to work at FedEx but don’t work there any more or don’t work there as much as they used to is hard to figure.

“The only number we gave out was over 4,000,” says Bunn.

For what it’s worth, the stock rose a couple points last week despite a 54 percent decline in earnings.

AutoZone has also been in the news for reducing its number of stores nationwide by 30 to 60 and cutting some local employees. The most widely reported number was 50.

“There’s really not any big news,” says Emma Jo Kauffman, head of investor relations. “We restructured the way we do things.”

Some AutoZoners who were offered new jobs elected not to take them, she says, adding that the fact that some of the jobs that were “restructured” were in communications may have helped spread the news. Or non-news.

Elsewhere in corporate Memphis, International Paper first announced a major expansion of 950 jobs and construction of a new office tower in Memphis to great acclaim. But several months later it announced it was cutting 300 jobs at its Memphis headquarters as part of a 10 percent reduction in its U.S. workforce.

Contacted by this reporter, a company spokesman first sought clarification from two other IP employees, neither of whom was available. A third contact was still seeking the information at press time.

It is little wonder that the media sometimes seem confused about layoffs. At The Commercial Appeal, there have been rumors of layoffs in the news department but television reporter Les Smith and others trying to check them out have been rebuffed. The shrinking product and proliferation of wire-service copy speak loudly enough.

For the record, The Memphis Flyer never lays off or fires anyone but does exercise rigorous cost controls, restructures when the mood strikes, and is proud to be a player in the bustling Memphis economy.

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

White Music for Black People

The premise, one easily summed up as the old switcheroo, couldn’t be simpler. Three black performers sing a bunch of pop, rock, and R&B tunes which were originally made famous by white people. That is pretty much the last word on A Brief History of White Music, a revue that has played Off Broadway to rave reviews and toured extensively since the mid-’90s.

When the joint production, a collaboration between Playhouse on the Square and the Memphis Black Repertory Theater, opens at TheatreWorks this weekend audiences will experience anthems to such stridently white institutions as wood-paneled station wagons and rampant juvenile delinquency. The all-singing, all-dancing show, unencumbered by clumsy prose and almost entirely free of confounding narrative, lampoons half a century of radio goo-goo with a program that reads like a late-night K-Tel commercial. Numbers such as “Where the Boys Are,” “Who Put the Bomp?,” “Downtown,” and the all-time number-one white classic “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” bookend one another without any logical connection. Some songs are rendered faithfully, with a sly comic twist, while others have been infused with soul and shot through with the spirit of the Lord. Elvis is well represented as are the Beatles, though the great Robert Goulet, arguably the whitest singer of all time, is, unfortunately, missing from the catalogue.

Though the show seems sugary sweet, it’s hard to miss the unspoken commentary that bubbles beneath the surface. The history of white crooners finding fame and fortune covering songs by uncredited and often unpaid black artists at a time when “race” music wasn’t considered radio-friendly is extensively chronicled. But in the end, at least according to director Tony Horne, A Brief History of White Music is more about fun than it is about politics. And lest there be any doubt, coming to terms with musical absurdities like Sonny and Cher can only do us all a world of good.

“We start out pretending to do opera. And then we act like we are doing Opryland,” says Horne of his production. “So you get a good idea of what the jokes are going to be like in the first song. Then we take songs by these white artists and do them like you might have heard them. ‘Blackening’ them up, if you will. The show is dependent on the cast’s ability to improvise, to do R&B riffs and gospel riffs within the confines of these songs that everybody knows so well. So there are a lot of things that will change nightly based on whatever spirit hits the singers. Not every musical-theater performer can do things like that, the scatting and the gospel. These guys can do all of that.”

Horne, who assisted Harry Bryce in the founding of the Memphis Black Repertory Theater and who has provided Memphis audiences with such theatrical treats as the roof-raising Blues in the Night and the controversial Stonewall Jackson’s House, has spent the last year serving as an interim professor of theater at St. Louis University. The move allowed the director to stretch his performance muscles and try on a few new hats. “I really got the chance to break out of my mold there,” he says, explaining that while the musical revues he is known for are fun he longs for meatier material. “I acted in an original script about the life of Scott Joplin and I got to direct a show by Brecht. It was a piece called Mr. Puntilla and His Man Maddie about a wealthy landowner, who, when he’s drunk, loves all his workers who are poor. When he’s sober, he’s an asshole and mean to everybody who isn’t rich. I kept thinking, this is great, I’m getting to direct one of the masters.”

A Brief History of White Music may not be a work by one of the masters, but Horne is quick to point out one particularly attractive quality.

“It’s short,” he says. “It’s only 95 minutes long. And it’s G-rated. That makes it the perfect summer-night entertainment. It’s the kind of thing that would be absolutely perfect in a cabaret setting or down on Beale Street.” Then realizing one asset to performing on Beale that TheatreWorks does not afford, he adds, “It’s the kind of thing where I really wish I could set up a bar and serve drinks.”

A Brief History of White Music at TheatreWorks through July 29th.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Dancing In a Cage

Vacant (Facing the Tower), a joint effort between Project: Motion and Loop Productions, played to a full house Saturday night. The theater was so full, in fact, that patrons crowded together, curling up on the stairs and squatting near the stage. At the show’s start, the lights came up to reveal the entire cast quietly holding eggs. One dancer violently threw her egg to the ground, strongly suggesting we were in for an evening of angry, feminist propaganda. It was a fantastic sleight of hand by choreographer Louisa Koeppel as nothing could have been further from the truth. The piece ended with the exact same image, only the eggs had been replaced with white rubber balls which, much to the audience’s surprise, bounced into the crowd en masse. This kind of whimsy infused an otherwise predictable meditation on the nature of beauty with liberating lightness.

Using music ranging from recordings of Johnny Rotten to a live a cappella version of the gospel standard “I’ll Fly Away,” Vacant (Facing the Tower) told the story of a nightingale that fell asleep and became entangled in vines. After freeing herself the terrified bird never allowed herself to sleep again. Instead she kept awake by singing through the night. Koeppel, a dancer who, when she errs, tends to err on the side of beauty, made a star turn as the besieged nightingale. With the innocence of a child performing a magic show for doting parents, she flapped her wings and spun gracefully about the set, while the chorus questioned our collective ideas about what it means to be beautiful. The set, designed by Su Harruff, was a dazzling copper cage.

Some of That Jazz

Sadly enough, Warren Leight’s award-winning play Sideman, a show deserving a much longer run, closed this past weekend at Playhouse on the Square. The show chronicles the lives of four jazz players after Elvis Presley arrived on the scene with his rock-and-roll song-bag and robbed them all of their livelihood. But Sideman is not about the decline of jazz. Sideman is a tragedy along the lines of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. It is a tragedy of obscurity and neglect about a musician, who, obsessed with his music to the exclusion of all else, somnambulates through life leaving random bits of useless beauty here and there along the way.

Michael Detroit, in his strongest performance to date, was an ideal choice for Gene Glimmer, a trumpet player of tremendous sensitivity and total obliviousness. He blunders through his character’s rocky life unaware that his family is disintegrating. Guy Olivieri was equally effective as the narrator, Clifford Glimmer, and captured both the humor and frustration of a child forced by circumstance to raise his own parents. Lisa McCormick and Carla McDonald turned in a pair of noteworthy performances as, respectively, Clifford’s alcoholic wife and a sassy-but-wise waitress who can’t say no. Jonathon Lamer, Kyle W. Barnette, and Jason Craig brought to life a trio of brass players caught up in the midnight world of booze, dope, and groove. Craig, a performer who too easily sails over the top, was the portrait of restraint this time around, and his depiction of a gentle, world-wise junky was, without doubt, the evening’s high point.

Robots and Rhyme

The single most maddening thing about Memphis theater is its sick determination to play by the rules at every level. Generally speaking, and with a handful of notable exceptions, local fringe groups make low-budget versions of what could easily be main-stage productions. Where are the angry artists? Where are the eager youngsters determined to inform, enlighten, and entertain us in ways we have not yet imagined? Where is the spirit of reckless innovation that a youthful Tennessee Williams once described as “something wild”? I’ll tell you where it is. It’s buried somewhere in the Flyer‘s After Dark listings. It’s masquerading as a band called AUTOMUSIC.

Taking their musical cues from German groups like Kraftwerk, the band responsible for songs like “Pocket Calculator” and “Autobahn,” AUTOMUSIC wants to make us all aware of our robot nature. They want us to see that all humans are robots but not all robots are human. Their immensely fun and eminently portable show is the most purely theatrical and visually exciting performance you are likely to encounter this side of Berlin, and if you don’t go see them you have only yourself to blame.

Except for some occasional synthesizer pecking, all of AUTOMUSIC’s music is prerecorded on video, and the digital sound is fantastic. Wonderful animations, with imagery that would make any Soviet propagandist worth his salt mine burst with pride, enhance this trio’s brilliantly stiff and mathematically precise choreography. They don old-fashioned hardhats, brandish tools, and chant, “My hammer goes tink, tink, tink when I work, my hammer goes tink tink tink.” That particular song, appropriately titled “The Industrial Worksong,” conjures images of old-school agitprop and concludes, “If you have a hammer and you work very hard you will get very far like me, you’ll help to make a productive state and a strong economy.” And how can anyone resist songs like “Everything Is For the Baby,” where the group declares, “What a stupid stupid baby it cannot do math at all its politics do not impress me inane, banal, obtuse baby”?

AUTOMUSIC may think they are just a band, but allow me to be the first critic to rave they’re the best theater in town.

Categories
Music Music Features

Community Building

If you’ve been wondering about the origin of those white-on-black, animal-shaped flyers that have been plastered on telephone polls and vacant buildings throughout the city since last December, then you’re in luck, because the culprits are coming out of the closest.

Those ubiquitous images — a turtle and a sheep, seemingly — are the guerrilla marketing tactics of Makeshift Records, a local label/collective founded by young musicians Josh Hicks and Brad Postlethwaite. The animal images are the cover art for the label’s new compilation, Makeshift #2, a 19-song collection that delivers a wonderfully diverse and idiosyncratic snapshot of the city’s musical underground.

Makeshift debuted around this time last year with a compilation called, appropriately, The First Broadcast. That record collected 17 cuts from local musicians working solo, starting with Hicks and Postlethwaite and their circle of friends and branching out from there. The idea was to provide exposure to local artists operating outside the scope of the city’s musical establishment. The non-profit label’s second collection focuses on bands rather than on individuals and presents a much broader and more representative view of the Memphis indie scene. All recordings featured on the Makeshift compilations are previously unreleased and are donated by the artists. The label is celebrating the compilation with a series of release parties, the first held last week at Shangri-La Records. The celebration continues this week with three straight nights of music — Thursday, July 5th, and Saturday, July 7th, at the Hi-Tone CafÇ, and Friday, July 6th, at the Young Avenue Deli.

The artists who stood out most on Makeshift’s first compilation — Alicja Trout, J.D. Reager, and Postlethwaite — offer standout tracks the second time around as well. Trout, whose “Waste of Breath” was the strongest track on The First Broadcast, has her hand in two of Makeshift #2‘s highlights. The Lost Sounds, which Trout fronts along with Jay Reatard, deliver the compilation’s most compelling performance with “A Foreign Play,” a slice of typically dark new-wave garage rock that is startlingly ambitious. This epic cut is a three-part, home-recorded tour de force with an ominous electronic prelude dissolving into a hard keyboard and drum middle section which opens into a finale melding almost classical group vocals and raw, pre-punk guitar locomotion in an inspired mix of sacred and profane. Trout returns two tracks later as Mouserocket, teaming with Big Ass Truck drummer Robert Barnett on “Darkest Hour,” a twisty, keyboard-driven blast of new wave that recalls her performance on the first Makeshift compilation.

Leading off Makeshift #2 is Johnny Romania, led by some-time Flyer contributor Reager. The band’s “I Fall” is a subtle, smart, and emotional example of the kind of low-key and tasteful indie-rock style that is most prevalent on the record. Most of the other bands on Makeshift #2 that are of this ilk — Palindrome, Loggia, the Passport Again, and Pleasant Orbitings — are the least well-known artists on the collection but may well represent a burgeoning indie scene divorced from the blues, country, and garage-rock roots that more typically feed the city’s rock subcultures.

Postlethwaite is captured here with his band, Snowglobe, on “It’s a Wonderful World.” Postlethwaite, an extremely talented singer-songwriter probably unknown to most in the larger Memphis music scene, finished 16th in the Flyer‘s local music poll earlier this year on the strength of rapturous support from those within his subculture. Solo and with Snowglobe, Postlethwaite produces gently psychedelic music and some of the prettiest melodies Memphis has to offer these days. Snowglobe and Liftoff, which is essentially the one-man-band project of Tim Regan, present a side of Memphis music more akin to Elephant 6 bands such as Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel than anything else happening locally. Liftoff’s “Dreamworks” is one of the compilation’s most memorable cuts.

Other rock subgenres on Makeshift #2 come in pairs as well. Jetty Webb and the Satyrs, who once shared a 7″ single, present similar brands of atmospheric art rock. Jetty Webb offer the spacey “Caravan Passes,” and the Satyrs make an appearance with the typically droning and beautiful “Where Devils Aren’t Known.” Instrumental rock is represented by Delorean, whose “soundtrack rock” earns the title this time with “Jonny Cargo,” a theme from the recent local independent film Strange Cargo. A more active style of instrumental rock is found in the dub leanings of Reginald’s “Die By Design.” Reginald has since morphed into the Cloots, who will be playing one of this week’s release parties.

Other offerings stand alone. Lucero is probably the most high-profile band on the compilation and their offering, “Poor Heartache,” is one of their purest country efforts, making it a radical departure for Makeshift. An outtake from the recording sessions that produced the band’s recent debut album, “Poor Heartache” features the North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson on lap steel and Jim “East Memphis Slim” Dickinson on piano. Another of the more recognizable bands on the record, American Deathray, come through with the stylish, organ-driven garage rock of “You Make Me Sick.”

But the most welcome element of Makeshift #2‘s diversity is the inclusion of hip hop into the label’s view of the Memphis indie scene. Local DJ collective Memphix work the wheels of steel on “Music or Noise,” cutting instructional-record vocal samples over a hip-hop beat. Hip-hop crew Genesis Experiment offer “Free Your Style,” a song they gave an incendiary performance of at last year’s NARAS-sponsored Urban Music Showcase.

The result of all this is a glimpse at a diverse, art-first, commerce-second underground music community. You could see this community in the flesh at Makeshift’s first release party last week at Shangri-La as Memphix spun hip-hop cuts like Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” in between indie performances from Loggia and Reager. The Cloots and American Deathray capped an afternoon that boasted a welcoming, community-building vibe. Here’s hoping that same vibe carries over to Makeshift’s series of release parties this week, where Friday’s triple bill of Lucero, the Lost Sounds, and Snowglobe (now featuring Liftoff’s Regan), in particular, promises to be one of the most intriguing local lineups of the year.

Makeshift #2 is available at Shangri-La and Last Chance Records for $10 and can be bought at the release shows this week for $8. For more information on Makeshift, see the label’s Web site at www.makeshiftrecords.com.

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

Makeshift #2 Record Release Parties

Mouserocket, Pleasant Orbitings, Mito & the Aryan Race

Thursday, July 5th

The Hi-Tone CafÇ

Lucero, The Lost Sounds, Snowglobe

Friday, July 6th

Young Avenue Deli

The Cloots, Palindrome, Johnny Romania, The Passport Again

Saturday, July 7th

The Hi-Tone CafÇ

local beat

by CHRIS HERRINGTON

Beanpole were the big winners Saturday night at Newby’s in a battle of the bands sponsored by the artist development company Rockstar 2K and organized locally by radio station WMFS 92.9. This Memphis showcase was part of a national contest organized by Rockstar 2K, whose parent company, McGathy Promotions, claims credit for discovering current platinum-selling rockers Creed and 3 Doors Down, and by Refuge/MCA records, which will offer a recording contract to the winner. Bands that win local contests around the country will have their music available on the company’s Web site, rockstar2k.com, where listeners can vote for their favorites. In August, two bands will be chosen by popular vote and three more by MCA’s A&R staff to compete in a final showcase in New York. The finals are scheduled for August 25th.

Seven local bands competed at Newby’s Saturday, whittled down from 46 entries, according to WMFS’s Baker Yates. The station promoted the contest on air and through the station’s Web site as well as through local music stores. The station then convened three panels of judges, none of whom are employees of WMFS. The first panel picked 14 finalists from the 46 initial entries. The second panel picked seven of those 14 to perform at the contest, and the final judging panel chose the contest winner.

Each band performed a 20-minute set at the showcase, with Beanpole emerging as a deserving winner, delivering by far the most polished set of the night. For those unfamiliar with the band, which has been a presence on the local music scene for several years, they play pretty straightforward, mainstream rock with occasional roots flourishes. The band would compare favorably with success stories such as Matchbox Twenty and 3 Doors Down — less faux-sensitive than the former, considerably smarter than the latter. Beanpole’s set was highlighted by “Changed,“ a song currently in rotation on WMFS, and “How Much Longer,“ a rootsier number with guitarist John David Morledge taking over lead vocals. On this night, Beanpole were not only the best band to take the stage but also the band that would seem to have the best chance to win the national contest — and those two qualifications aren’t necessarily the same.

The night’s second-best set came from Crash Into June, who delivered the strong, pretty melodies that they’re known for. The band’s brand of Big Starish pop was an anomaly on a night when metal and hard rock dominated the stage and the crowd, and the band seemed a little nervous about being so out of its element. But their music still came across very well. Also making a fine showing were The Internationals, an interesting new local band who seem to be able to merge the city’s generally divided hard rock and punk camps. Sporting a sound that might remind some of prime Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, this all-male three-piece delivered the night’s most entertaining performance with their crowd-pleasing original, the lascivious “Hey Man, I’m Sorry About Your Girlfriend.“

The other four bands on the bill were metal/hard rock bands and didn’t fare quite as well. The best of the bunch was Bullet Theory, who looked quite a bit older than their metal competitors and, consequently, played a more straightforward style of metal than the other hip-hop- and industrial-influenced bands. Bullet Theory had the night’s largest fan base, most of them wearing brand-new Bullet Theory T-shirts. Logic 34 and Dead Tight Five played similarly trendy brands of pop-metal — with Logic 34 being more cohesive and more fun to watch, while Dead Tight Five had more memorable songs. Opening the show and making the least impression was Mrs. Fletcher, whose over-the-top light show and comically misplaced and overdone smoke machine obscured their music.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

No Nose Job:

The Legend of Digital Underground

Digital Underground

(Tommy Boy)

They were the Next Big Thing of 1990 — an eccentric West Coast hip-hop crew upping the ante on De La Soul’s “D.A.I.S.Y Age” revolution of a year before. Led by the long, lean doppelganger duo (at the time, I thought they were alter egos for the same person) of clown prince Humpty Hump and hunky Shock G, Digital Underground duplicated the good cop/bad cop dynamic that Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav and Chuck D. brought to hip hop and put it to the service of the most undeniable music early Nineties party rap produced. Humpty Hump in particular is one of hip hop’s most iconic figures — an entirely unthreatening sex addict always good for a self-deprecating laugh when he isn’t busy getting busy in a Burger King bathroom or getting fried chicken grease on some young thing’s panty hose.

And they had the goods coming out of the gate: This roughly chronological 14-song compilation opens with the eternal “The Humpty Dance” — one of the decade’s essential singles. A showcase for Humpty Hump — the hip-hop Groucho Marx — “The Humpty Dance” has the funniest instructions in the long, proud history of novelty dance songs: “First I limp to the side like my leg was broken/Shakin’ and twitchin’ kinda like I was smokin’/Crazy wack funky/People say, ‘You look like MC Hammer on crack, Humpty!’/That’s alright cause my body’s in motion/It’s supposed to look like a fit or a convulsion.”

The group’s other stone classic was “Doowutchyalike,” a thrilling, rambling dance-floor epic so free and spontaneous that the song itself demonstrates the title’s call to arms — cramming social commentary, lyrical pranks, sexual exhortations, bizarre background vocals, and even a piano solo into its groove. As far as hip-hop braggadocio goes, “not your average everyday rap band” is far too modest in this context. More to the point is “you’ve got to admit it’s a new kind of song.” But the great flaw of this otherwise outstanding collection is that it mystifyingly includes the short version of the song, cutting off during its false ending at the four-and-a-half-minute mark. The full-length version runs nine minutes and just gets weirder after the false fadeout.

Though Digital Underground never again matched the promise of those two extraordinary singles, No Nose Job reveals plenty of more obscure pleasures (see “The Way We Swing” and “Kiss You Back”) and captures an arguably great band ahead of its time. Digital Underground brought the cosmic slop of Parliament-Funkadelic (not to mention Prince’s vision of a classless, interracial sexual utopia) with more fervor than any other group until Outkast came along. The weird porno rap of “Freaks of the Industry” and “Sex Packets” presages similar exploits by Kool Keith. The invigorating, pass-the-mic anthem “Same Song” introduces Tupac Shakur to the world. And No Nose Job catches you off-guard at the end with the subtle, deep “Doo Woo You,” which equates sexual conquest with artistic acceptance, warning the (white) listener, “Don’t be afraid to let a brother funk with you I’m gonna creep within your skin.” — Chris Herrington

Grade: A-

Collaboration

The Modern Jazz Quartet with Laurindo Almeida

(Label M)

With a recording history spanning 1951-2001, the Modern Jazz Quartet has remained a staple of elegant, refined jazz with two constants: John Lewis, pianist, and Milt Jackson, vibraphonist. But with the recent death of Lewis, it seems the Quartet is no more. Throughout the years, bassists and drummers have come and gone, but Lewis, as long-time musical director and collaborator with Jackson, is irreplaceable.

Originally released in 1964, Collaboration is a work of high craftsmanship featuring tight performers with astute sensibilities channeling the sounds of South America. Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida’s subdued bossa nova approach meshes brilliantly with the mellow, meditative sound of the Quartet.

In the three singularly perceptive Lewis compositions that open this soothing, thoughtful album, the alternating jazzy blues and flamenco tension built by the rumblings of Percy Heath on bass and Connie Kay on drums collapses into playful, swinging tango rhythms before the expected denouement, as if the musicians just couldn’t keep a straight face. The album pivots on a stunning reimagining of J.S. Bach’s “Fugue In A Minor,” turning the listener’s ear on its ear (the counterpoint is woven of equal parts Almeida, Jackson, Lewis, and Heath) in preparation for the Latin rhythms, surprisingly reminiscent of sections of the fugue, that close the album. The final three compositions are, by 1964 standards, daring in their insight into the possibilities of jazz. After Bach, we hear a wise, multicultural ear’s arrangement of the works of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Djalma Ferreira, and Spain’s Joaquin Rodrigo — composers pushing the Latin sound beyond its heritage and providing the Quartet with the perfect opportunity to inversely explore the influence of jazz on the sound of another culture. — Jeremy Spencer

Grade: B+

No Such Place

Jim White

(Luaka Bop)

On Jim White’s second album, No Such Place, sampled loops and ambient synths dance around with gently plucked acoustic guitars and the singer-songwriter’s practiced drawl, delivering stories steeped in religious symbolism and Southern-fried gothic overtones. Ambitious and daring, White is obviously — and admirably — grasping for something new and meaningful, a revival of certain Southern musical traditions through modern production quirks. But he severely overreaches, and No Such Place ultimately proves more embarrassing than groundbreaking.

On songs like “The Wound That Never Heals” White plays dress-up, wearing the clothes of a Southern storyteller like a Halloween costume. He dispenses corny homespun wisdom, and he relies very heavily on white-trash imagery. But instead of sounding insightful and wise, such overcooked proclamations portray him as pretentious and smugly self-satisfied.

Not everything on No Such Place is so dismally disastrous. Despite its cringe-inducing spoken intro — “There’s nothing prettier than a pretty girl digging a heart-shaped hole” — “The Wrong Kind of Love” has a sultry chorus. The album’s highlight is a suped-up cover of Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” His voice distorted and half-buried in the production, White brings out new elements in the iconic anthem by throwing in a curious pennywhistle and an infectious banjo.

Ultimately, White intends No Such Place to be a work of folk art. But folk art is by nature outsider art, and White’s songs are too calculated, his sound too self-conscious and too synthesized, to be organic or natural. Simply put, he is too much of an insider to make it work. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: C-

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.

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Music Music Features

sound advice

Playing Murphy’s on Friday, July 6th, Minneapolis’ Danny Commando Y Los Guapos are pretty highly regarded in their hometown, with a straightforward style that fits comfortably with the white-guy rock sound of recent Twin Cities exports such as Semisonic, Soul Asylum, the Jayhawks, and the Honeydogs. The Stonesy bar rock of guitar/bass/drums/trumpet that is captured on the group’s most recent album, Hell Over Purgatory, is likely to remind some of Morphine, but I find it less uptight and more inviting. In a week that is light on notable bands, this unknown-in-these-parts outfit is definitely a risk worth taking. — Chris Herrington

They have great stage names: Eldorado Del Rey, Slim Electro, and Randy Valentine. They use a beat-up piece of Samsonite luggage instead of a kick drum. They have maracas. They are The Porch Ghouls, and their loose, loungy answer to that hypnotic hill-country sound that pours out of north Mississippi is a hip-shaking blast of cool punk ruckus in a town that sometimes takes its blues heritage way too seriously. Porch Ghouls shows can certainly be reverent and restrained but they can also be boozy, all-night danceathons capable of transforming any venue into a roadhouse Saturday night. Surprise visits from local rapper Hunchoe the Phenom raise the roof every time.

The Porch Ghouls will be playing a free show on Sunday, July 8th, at Shangri-La Records to commemorate the release of their first record, a cover-laden 10-inch recorded by ’68 Comeback maestro Jeffrey Evans and put out by left-coast indie, Orange. The record includes yet another version of the classic song “Going Down South,” which we all need about as much as a second appendix, so ridicule them mercilessly. Enjoy all the rest. — Chris Davis

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Hot Properties Real Estate

Mid-Century Custom

It was the late 1940s. An all-consuming war had just ended. Domestic industries, including the housing market, were resurging. Traditional American forms like this Colonial Revival Cape Cod were the rage. (English Tudor and Mediterranean Revivals were out.) The G.I. Bill was fueling new construction, but most of it was smaller, one-story homes with only vaguely Colonial styling.

This home was obviously custom-designed by an architect. Great care was given to correct massing and details. The high-pitched roof and three dormers centered over the symmetrically placed front door and windows below are taken from early New England antecedents. The Georgian door surround, with its broken pediment and dents, is a touch of Colonial high style. If the shutters were hinged and operable, it would be too perfect.

An entry hall welcomes you. The generous living room runs front to back on the east side, getting natural light from three sides. A wood-burning fireplace is centered on the inside west wall. Even with its gracious scale, this is an efficiently laid out home. No space is wasted. Rather than carve out a full center hall from front to back and locate the staircase there, the stairs are placed at the back of the living room. It hurts neither furniture arrangement nor circulation.

On the opposite side of the foyer is the dining room with kitchen behind. Originally a screened porch ran along the west side, connecting to both these rooms. In the 1960s, the current owners enclosed the porch, creating a family room and enlarging the kitchen. The dining room still proudly displays two corner cabinets with carved-shell tops — another elegant touch like the front-door surround.

There are more custom built-ins throughout the house. In addition to ample work space and a home-office area, the kitchen has separate broom and pantry closets. The two original upstairs bedrooms share a bath with a fold-down ironing board. The upstairs hall has spare closets and walls of built-in drawers. Downstairs, an added master suite has a sitting bay flanked by bookcases. The master dressing and vanity both have fold-out mirrors over polished, white-marble tops and walls of storage.

The sitting bay in the master overlooks a brick patio in the backyard. A screen of evergreens, including some magnificent magnolias, terminate the view. This house isn’t one that’s lacked for maintenance. The installation of some lighting for art, maybe new counters and splashes in the kitchen, and a paint job, and it’s good for the next half-century.

2229 Jefferson Ave.

2,800 square feet, 3 bedrms, 2 1/2 baths; $335,000

Realtor: Sowell & Co., 278-4340, Agent: Ed Beasley

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News News Feature

MEMPHIS AND THE NBA

While the NBA Now team was certainly well aware of the success of major-league sports in Nashville, the inspiration and road map for landing the Grizzlies actually came from another peer city, Jacksonville.

The Jacksonville MSA of 1.1 million people is roughly the same as Memphis. Like Memphis, Jacksonville is a border city with just one major-league team. Jacksonville beat out Memphis for an NFL expansion team in 1993 by making a richer bid with a better stadium.

And finally, there was a key Jacksonville-Memphis connection. Daniel Connell, senior vice president of marketing for the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, was the college roommate of Mason Hawkins, chairman of the board of Southeastern Asset Management, the Memphis-based mutual fund company. Connell now serves on Southeastern’s board.

Hawkins and Staley Cates, president of Southeastern, began exploring the possibilities of Memphis getting an NBA team over a year ago. The first target was the Charlotte Hornets. When the focus shifted to the Vancouver Grizzlies, Connell’s advice and the positive Jacksonville experience served as a road map for Cates, who is a minority owner of the Grizzlies.

“If you did it the Jacksonville way, which is our comparable, [a major-league team] has a huge impact,” says Cates. “We watched it happen through the eyes of Dan Connell.”

With a reputation as picky “value” investors, Cates and Hawkins quietly laid the groundwork for the NBA. They met with FDX Corp. CEO Fred Smith, who agreed to bring in FedEx on a purely commercial basis. The public face of NBA Now — the mayors, Pitt and Barbara Hyde, the chamber of commerce — took it from there.

There weren’t any great secrets to be learned from Jacksonville, which was an expansion city in the NFL as opposed to a relocation city in the NBA. But the similarities to Memphis, combined with the business expertise and modest egos of the Longleaf team, provided an extra layer of confidence and credibility in the crunch.

“The Jaguars helped Jacksonville be better recognized with companies that were looking to expand or relocate businesses,” says Connell. “As an example, after we won the franchise we ran a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal with a helmet in the center that said look inside the head of the NFL and see why they picked Jacksonville. At that time, Jacksonville might not have even had the level of recognition that Memphis had.”

Since the Jaguars took the field in 1995, Jacksonville has enjoyed a growth spurt, coincidentally or not.

“The NFL gets the initial inquiry from site selectors,” says Connell. “The key thing is to get on that list of companies that the site selectors are going to query for information. Then at least you have a chance to sell yourself.”

Connell also shared his thoughts about sports and civic self-esteem with the Memphians.

“A lot of people have taken their disposable dollars and put them into Jaguars tickets instead of somewhere else, so we wanted to give back in a big way. It doesn’t always have to be money. If a player talks about the importance of staying in school or staying off drugs you’ve brought a new hero or role model to the city.”

The love affair between a city and a team (and, it should be noted, the Jaguars won early and often) in building the community is a nice story, but Connell says being the only game in town “puts extra pressure on the team,” even more so for the NBA with a 12-man roster compared to an NFL team’s 53-man roster.

If he were advising the Grizzlies, he would tell them this:

“The community needs to support the team, and I say that more for the community than for the ownership. I would like to think that community leaders feel some level of responsibility to help sell season tickets. The Grizzlies can put ads in the papers, but if community leaders are out there advocating and encouraging people to step up, that is where you are going to have the greatest opportunity for success.”

Connell’s not sure what, if any, impact his friendship with Hawkins and Cates had on the Memphis, but “wherever you got all your information, you obviously did it the right way.”