It’s Saturday night and you want to boogie. So what are you gonna do? Sure,
you could hit Beale Street and have a great time, but there are a lot of other
options out there in the Bluff City: college bars, karaoke clubs, after-hours
joints, gay bars, music clubs. The Flyer staff fanned out across town
on a recent Saturday night to conduct an informal report on Memphis after
dark. What we found confirms the old adage: Variety is the spice of (night)
life.
One More
2117 Peabody Avenue
Okay, listen up: Olivia Newton-John is not a lesbian. If you think
or heard otherwise, you are wrong.
That’s what the woman from Dallas said. She and a friend drove seven
hours from Texas to hear Newton-John perform in Tunica, and if there’s
anything you need to know about the Australian songbird, she’s the one to ask.
She’s the one with the Olivia Newton-John tattoo on the small of her back.
Now, how she made it here to One More on this Saturday night, who’s to
say? What’s more, it doesn’t even matter. This tiny place at the corner of
Cooper and Peabody is, by definition, a lesbian bar. In spirit, though, it’s a
neighborhood bar. It’s the kind of place to take a load off and maybe have one
beer too many. A place to shoot pool at its one table or maybe throw darts at
its electronic board. It’s a place to slow-dance and to stay until all the
songs you entered into the jukebox have played (Stevie Nicks is my
bitch!).
According to Dan, who does maintenance work for One More, there’s no
rough stuff. The only fight he remembers is the one he was in himself.
Earlier, though, the girl from Dallas whipped off her T-shirt to reveal her
sports bra, but she was just trying to one-up the woman who was bent on
interrogating a stranger about religion (Do you believe in God? Or do you
just think you do?) and making a show of her ability to make a gal squirm
by staring her down and asking way-personal, emotion-plumbing questions.
By 10:30, One More starts to fill: a straight couple, a gay couple, and
women, women, women. Within these four walls, painted with a mural involving a
number of flamingos, the women mingle and high-five and talk and talk. Your
ex-husband wanted a three-way? So did mine. There’s some discussion about
coming out and about how difficult it is for gay people to adopt a child. Two
Hawaiian honeys — one with a heck of a hickey on her neck — help the woman
from Dallas name all eight of the Hawaiian islands and pronounce them
correctly. Every now and then, someone cases the room looking for anyone who
might know the score of this night’s Arkansas game.
And above it all is Floyd. Literally. According to the bartender, Floyd
was a homeless man who did odd jobs around One More. Two regulars took him in,
and then he passed away. A son in another state didn’t want him. So here he is
now, cremated and in an urn resting on top of the beer cooler.
It’s not a bad place to be. — Susan Ellis
Yosemite Sam’s
2126 Madison Avenue
Frank Sinatra, Madonna, the Beastie Boys, George Jones, and Joan Jett:
The weirdest mixed bill in the history of music? Well, sort of. In one roller-
coaster five-song stretch, the karaoke crooners at this Overton Square hangout
took listeners from Ol’ Blue Eyes to Ms. Blackheart and never missed a beat.
Well, actually, they did miss a few beats. And a few notes, too. But it’s all
part of the gig at this oddball beer-joint cabaret.
The club is a sprawling space, decorated with an eclectic splatter of
dangling inflatable objects, old music posters, football team lights, and beer
signs. A large cartoonish mural of the man — Yosemite Sam himself —
dominates one wall. Also of interest is the club’s “Celebrity
Board,” which features signed photos of Elvis, Bear Bryant, Larry Bird,
George and Barbara Bush, and Lou Gehrig, to name but a few. One suspects that
most of the celebrities never set foot in the place, though there is a rumor
that George and Babs snuck in one night and laid down a mean version of
“Suspicious Minds.”
The routine is simple. You look through the songbooks scattered around
the joint, write down a song title and your name on a piece of paper, and hand
it to the deejay. In a few minutes, you’ll hear him say, “Dave,
c’mon down,” and the fantasy begins. You’re Bob Dylan or Shania Twain —
or whoever the hell you want to be. It’s cheap therapy, if nothing else.
The musical mix is as eclectic as the level of talent. I heard, for
instance, the worst version of “Me and Mrs. Jones” ever offered to
human ears. (It was compounded by the fact that the tipsy woman who
“sang” the tune changed the lyrics to “Me-e-e-e-e-e-e and
Mister, Mister, Mister, Mister Jones … “) Mind-bogglingly
hideous. She was followed by a man we came to call the “one-man Rat
Pack.” All night long, he sang Sinatra and nothing but. Wearing a suit
and white turtleneck, cigarette dangling from his fingers, he did the Chairman
of the Board’s memory proud. Or, at least, Joe Piscopo’s.
At the end of each number, there is at least polite applause, often led
by the genial bartender, Marty. No one boos or groans or makes fun of the
performers, no matter how pathetic the performance. And once in a while
somebody with a voice gets up there. We learned, for instance, to look
forward to one tall blonde woman’s appearances. She had it goin’ on. Her
version of “I Will Survive” made us believe she would.
And near the shank of the evening, Flyer writer Chris Davis and
some guy named Bruce delivered perhaps the finest version of “Sweet
Caroline” ever poured into a microphone. Brought down the house. You
should have been there. — Bruce VanWyngarden
The Lounge
Second Street and George W. Lee Avenue
At the Lounge, a singer-songwriter is finishing his set early. His guitar
keeps crapping out on him, he tells the audience, a crowd of married couples
and their friends. A couple of them comment on the irony: If there is any
place a guitar should sound good, this is it.
The Lounge, a fledgling venture (just weeks old), is housed in the Gibson
Guitar factory, a few steps from the Memphis Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum. And
entering the new club, it’s evident that music is the main focus here.
Paying the $5 cover and slipping through the opening in the heavy black-
velvet curtains that circle the inner sanctum is like bribing your way onto
the set of Unplugged, MTV’s old acoustic concert series. Oversized
booths, café tables, and square backless couches all face the small
elevated stage, giving everyone in the house a good seat.
But if the leather armchairs big enough for two, rhomboid tables, and
high ceilings provide a beautiful 14-carat-gold setting, the stage is the
club’s crown jewel. It gleams with a high shine, blue light bouncing off the
gleaming floors and the top of the baby grand piano. Below is a small moat
where a few enamored souls gently dance.
The singer-songwriter, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, engages the
similarly dressed crowd from a stool in the center of the stage. Most of them
seem familiar with his work; during a song about the shortcomings of one-night
stands (“minutemen” and women who are uglier in the morning), these
30- and 40-somethings bark along with the refrain.
The early crowd seems a little underdressed. The long, glossy, dark wood
bars that rim the entire place like chrome on a ’57 Chevy practically beg for
a Coyote Ugly turn, but no doubt the management frowns on that sort of
thing. But the place has posh down pat. One could easily imagine well-dressed
celebs piling into the banquettes and sipping champagne.
It’s a perfect place to see and be seen, but this bunch isn’t here for
that. They’re here for the music. When the singer puts away his guitar, they
leave in a mass exodus, as if they have to get home and pay the babysitter.
The crowd, which once filled almost every seat, dwindles to a handful of
couples and a group of men collectively celebrating their birthdays. An
eclectic variety of music sporadically blasts from the speakers overhead: Tom
Petty, Al Green, Brian Seltzer Orchestra.
As the night becomes morning, a New Memphis crowd — young, attractive
types who live in renovated downtown lofts or desperately want to — slowly
gathers at the bar. Trendily dressed and showing more skin than the early
crowd, they drink cocktails and buzz around each other. In fact, it’s so
Sex in the City there is actually a couple getting it on in the
bathroom. Once disturbed, they quickly take their show on the road. They
obviously didn’t hear the one-night stand song. — Mary
Cashiola
The Highland Strip
Conventional wisdom may suggest that Poplar Avenue is the city’s choicest
spot for running down pedestrians, but I’d like to place a vote for the
weekend nights on the Highland Strip. With a passel of bars, a load of hard-
partyin’ U of M students, and exactly zero traffic lights between Midland and
Southern, Highland is an always precarious game of human Frogger.
Crossing Highland was the only thrill-seeking proposition on this
otherworldly sleepy Saturday night. With University of Memphis classes only
recently in swing, you’d expect the strip to be jumpin’, but on this night it
seemed an almost languid experience. The Tigers football team is trouncing UT-
Chattanooga down at the Liberty Bowl at the season’s first home game and the
bars were bare. Even Newby’s, the strip’s cornerstone club, seemed to be
taking the night off. With no band playing, the club’s door people sat out on
the patio gabbing all night. Over at R.P. Tracks, three students who all
looked like the drummer for Limp Bizkit got drunk and debated the merits of
Taoism. Three other less-academic-looking young men entered in full Tigers
paraphernalia, only to have to watch a bar TV showing Tennessee slog its way
past Arkansas in a rain-soaked game as directionless as the mood on the strip
this night. In a side room, a wedding party provided more intimate, low-key
revelry.
Elsewhere on the strip, punk and goth kids hung out in front of the
Hideaway Café, a couple made out for at least an hour in front of one
of the strip’s tattoo parlors, and the male-to-female ratio at Highland Cue
was at least 4-to-1. A group of orange-clad frat types stood around the bar as
Tennessee finally pulled away from Arkansas, Nelly’s appropriately laid-back
hit “Ride Wit Me” flowing out of the jukebox. — Chris
Herrington
Patrick’s
4698 Spottswood
Don’t let the name fool you. Patrick’s is anything but an Irish bar.
Nestled into the corner of Spottswood Plaza across the parking lot from Target
in East Memphis, it’s a laid-back, unpretentious place — think Huey’s without
the toothpicks in the ceiling — that is packed to the gills with guys and
gals of a certain age and type every Saturday night.
And what age would that be? Well, let’s just say Patrick’s is what they
call a “cougar” bar in the Pacific Northwest, cougar being a semi-
affectionate moniker used in those parts to describe a youngish — in her 30s
or early 40s — woman, usually divorced. (Note my use of the word youngish,
indicating, obviously, on which side of the chronological Continental Divide
yours truly sits.) Still, youth must be served, wherever and however you
choose to define it.
It’s a happy crowd, no sloppy drunks in sight, where folks pay way more
attention to meeting and greeting than to adult-beverage quantity and quality.
Time-honored pickup lines that have been passed along from generation to
generation are overheard at the bar and on the dance floor, where, fortunately
for those watching, just about everyone has done a reasonable job of keeping
themselves in good physical shape, despite the challenges presented by Father
Time. Thank God as well that that blinding guy-glimmer you used to get at
places like Rampage a decade ago is nowhere in evidence. Gold chains are
out.
The music is, as my companion Thomas suggests, “not gonna hurt
anyone’s ears.” It’s performed more than capably by the Distraxshuns,
clearly regulars at Patrick’s and well-regarded by most present. Thomas is a
firm believer in the fact that not a single great pop-music melody has been
written since 1974 and the Distraxshuns do nothing to disabuse him of that
notion. Good, solid musicianship of all the rock-and-roll standards we know
and love.
After a little bar chatter and dancing, we moved to the periphery to
eavesdrop. A handsome fellow whose body language (and body) bespoke many hours
pumping iron was chatting up two cougars at the table next to ours, one of
whom, shall we say, had a considerable pulchritudinous advantage over the
other. Guess where Our Hero’s attention was focused? Alas, Maid Marian was no
maiden at all but happily married to a pilot who happened to be traveling this
particular evening. Which is why she was out with her friend (let’s call her
“Helen”), who (surprise?) was recently divorced and “really
looking to meet some new people,” as Marian put it.
Helen had done her damndest to look good for the occasion, but clearly
her efforts were lost upon the Workout Guy. Oblivious to her very existence,
he was in verbal hot pursuit of the girl from Sherwood Forest. Damn the
torpedoes. Full speed ahead!
We left before the final outcome of this biological tussle was
determined, happy to know that some things never, ever change. — John
O’Leary
The Spot
600 Marshall Avenue
The Spot is a modest bi-level place complete with bar, two dance floors,
stage, mini pool hall, and room for about 150 patrons. For many college
students, The Spot is also The Scene.
We wait in a line longer than that for a Victoria’s Secret lingerie show
at a boy’s school. A group of security guards are on hand to ensure that
everyone remains on their best behavior — or at least doesn’t fall asleep
waiting. There is even a car show provided by drivers speeding by the club and
taunting those in line with screams of “Losers!”
Actually they are the losers, because some very entertaining
people are standing in line. You can hear young men spouting laughable lines
of love like “I knew I was meant to come here tonight. It was to see your
smile.” Or “Why aren’t you smiling, baby? Is it because I haven’t
danced with you yet?” (Now there is a long line of women losing their
lunches.) And if you don’t want to talk, fun can always be found by checking
out the latest in urban fashions: Everything from ripped jeans to studded
bustiers can be found in the winding line.
Further conversations reveal a little club history. According to frequent
“Spotters,” the average wait in line on a busy weekend is at least
30 minutes. The cover charge is $10 and students get in for half price after
midnight. (Note: If you’re older than college age, don’t try to masquerade as
a college student; they will “spot” you!)
Inside, you are immediately thrown into a world of loud music, smoke, and
hormones. Strobe lights work the room, throwing flashes on the dancers and the
stage.
The second floor provides some space to look out over the floor below and
take in the scene. But because the second floor is also known for more
adventurous activities, dallying here too long can lead to fondling. In
various dark corners of the upper level, guys apparently can get a lap dance
or a “clothed” bump and grind.
At the end of the night, after dancing (to the sounds of Gangsta Boo, P.
Diddy, Maxwell, and Nelly), flirting with several handsome young gentlemen,
and drinking a cocktail or two, you can relish memories of The Spot as you
glance down at the bright-red “PAID” stamp on your right hand.
Oh, to be young again. — Janel Davis
Beale Street
Beale Street is jumping, literally. Rising and falling like the belly of
a panting dog, the whole of the street is consumed with catching up with the
next thing to chase. Women in tight dresses and crop-tops sway and sashay in
the same way that women on Beale Street always have. Men, sweat dribbling down
their faces and onto their Ricky Ricardo button-down shirts, stand around, run
around, jump around, each vying for a better view.
Standing in the cobblestone street’s party sludge, Beale is positively
magical — a brightly lit temple dedicated to partying. Sucking on a drink
table-side and watching the crooners croon and the dancers dance, you know why
tourists flock here. It’s Beale Street, it’s Saturday night, and you’re in the
belly of the dog.
Recent years have seen Beale imitations pop up in other American cities.
“Entertainment districts” they’re called, a polite name for neoned
blocks of corporate bars and T-shirt stands. To compete, Beale Street has
countered with a few of its own corporate bars and T-shirt stands. Some
popular spots play Top 40 hits, techno dance jams, and paeans to the disco,
but we leave those places to the tourists.
At This Is It! we grab a long-neck and sit at one of the many tables, all
of which seem to be in dark corners — a geometric mystery. The regulars dance
the entire set of the live performer and then stay on the floor to dance the
entire set from the deejay who plays hip-hop during breaks.
Later, we go outside and get a drink from a street vendor, enjoying the
fact that Beale is one of the few city streets in the country (and the only
one in Memphis) where you can drink in public. We stroll east, parting the
crowds, taking in the catcalls, dancing on the cobblestones. You can sit on a
patio — any one will do — and just watch the show. But for crowd-watching,
the upper deck at Alfred’s can’t be beat. And inside you can hear Kevin Paige
working the crowd into a frenzy with 1980s covers like “Jesse’s
Girl.”
At the other end of the street, the Dempseys thump out energetic
rockabilly to enthusiastic crowds at Elvis Presley’s Memphis. Instruments are
spun, climbed upon, and lit on fire while the sweaty performers never miss a
beat — or a punchline. At Blues City Cafe the drinkers crowd around one bar
and — on the other side of the restaurant — dancers crowd around the
other.
Everywhere in between — B.B. King’s, Silky O’Sullivan’s, Rum Boogie, the
Black Diamond — the sweaty, mascara-streaked faces of tourists and locals
grin and gleam, heads bobbing to the real sounds of Memphis.
Heading back east, we stop and take in the beer-absorbing grease of a
Dyer’s hamburger. It’s early Sunday morning on Beale, and, belly full, the dog
is asleep.
— Rebekah Gleaves
East Memphis
(and back again)
My husband Jonathan and our friends Joe, Carrie, and Billy explored the
Half Shell, the Tap House, and the Belmont Grill. The Half Shell is more a
restaurant than a bar and serves a full menu until 2 a.m. We were there early,
and so were a lot of families. According to Scott, a bartender, the place
exchanges its middle-aged iced-tea special-occasion first-date crowd for the
fun-loving big-tipping pre-alcoholic crowd of restaurant employees after 11
p.m.
There was a family near my aunt’s place when I was a kid who were
constantly making additions to their house. It started as a modest one-level
and grew into a towering three-story that looked as if it would collapse at
any moment. You could tell where each addition began by its color. The inside
of the Tap House has a similarly charming feel — like maybe the Boxcar
Children put it together. Two gals played folk covers for a crowd that was the
rough equivalent of a fraternity/sorority three-year reunion. We got the
feeling everyone knew one another from college. It was like we were the
invisible guests at a private party. But apparently this place gets kicking
around midnight.
I confess, I don’t remember much about the Belmont Grill. I do remember
thinking I was visiting the Half Shell’s more down-to-earth sister. We all
made further connections between the two. For example, Carrie observed that
there was a sensitive ponytail guy at both places. Joe noticed that the Half
Shell had a donkey painting and the Belmont had pictures of asses. Both served
a full menu until late and both were nice and dark. The crowd at the Belmont
was probably more typical of the later crowd at the Half Shell as well. I
don’t know about the rest of the menu, but the catfish po’ boy was great.
We returned to Midtown to catch the midnight animation festival at Studio
on the Square, careening into the parking lot around 12:15 a.m., late for the
Spike and Mike show. People were standing against the walls and sitting
on the floor and in the aisles. Everyone was laughing loudly and applauding.
It was a great experience. Memphis could use more celebrations of this kind,
where the marginalized people in film, music, and art are showcased and
rewarded with a warm, supportive (and perhaps a little drunk) audience.
— Lesha Hurliman
The Orchid Club
642 Beale Street
We get here a little early — just after midnight — after a trek through
various parts of South Memphis, sampling hot tamales cooked up by some of the
numerous parking-lot and street-corner vendors that are out most every
weekend. We’ve spent a considerable amount of time with Lester, a wiry, hyped-
up entrepreneur who says he is carrying on his grandfather’s tradition. He
began making and selling tamales in the 1930s, although Lester can’t seem to
remember if that was in Germantown or LeMoyne Gardens.
After drinking the tamale juice (read: spicy grease) out of a large
aluminum cooker as Tunica-bound gamblers stop in droves to get their lucky
dozen, we find Maurice, an elegant, willowy man in a large Panama hat. He is
set up in a big food-vending van on Third Street, complete with lawn chairs
out on an empty parking lot and his family, who are there helping him hand out
the corn-husk-wrapped beauties.
But we have to make this last stop: the Orchid Club.We have to see our
buddy, Sadie, who, after leaving Sadie’s Soul Food Kitchen and Cat Fightin’
Arena at College and McLemore some months back (and taking yet another few
months off while her broken leg mended), is back in action at new digs.
At the Orchid, the famed year-round Christmas decorations are gone, the
little nondescript building has undergone a facelift, and the interior has
been expanded to take up the entire space. The clutter behind the bar has been
replaced with some shelves above a mirrored wall lit with orange and blue
lights and dotted with an odd assortment of 1970s stemware.
We’re five minutes from the offices of this newspaper and a spit-wad’s
shoot from The Commercial Appeal building. Yep, it’s the old spot that
formerly housed Beale’s End, the after-hours bar at the un-touristy end of
Beale Street. Now, with the interior west wall screaming in big painted
letters surrounded by big painted cocktails, it’s the home of the Orchid
Club.
Sadie’s in her big new kitchen, ready for the night to get started. It’s
a sober, fly-on-the-wall kind of night for us. We meet Hollywood, the doorman,
and Womack, the deejay, who’s starting to liven things up with a string of
R&B tunes as the well-heeled crowd starts to filter in. And even though
we’re about to explode from the tamales, we can’t help it. We have to have one
of Sadie’s cheeseburgers. She serves up about 100 of them a night on Fridays
and Saturdays. They are so good they can’t be compared to any other burger in
town — heavy, greasy, loaded with mayo and onions and lettuce and tomato, and
gone in a few inhaled bites.
She also cooks up fried shrimp, fish sandwiches, smoked-sausage
sandwiches, and about 100 pounds of her famous chicken wings that people come
from all over town for. The Orchid Club will be open for a more varied soul-
food lunch in a few weeks, but for now it’s the only bona-fide supper club in
town we know of.
At 2:30 a.m., we’re full and tired. Not so the rest of the crowd at the
Orchid Club. The regulars are just starting to pour in and it’s wall-to-wall
people eating, dancing, playing pool, and congregating on the deck out back.
When we leave, Hollywood walks us out and makes sure our car isn’t blocked in
the parking lot. We say good night and know we’ll be back because if Sadie’s
in the kitchen, it can’t be anything but real.
— Tim Sampson
J-Wag’s Lounge
1268 Madison Avenue
It’s Sunday morning. Afternoon, rather. It’s 2 p.m. to be exact. I’m
sitting outside of Café Francisco on Main staring down a roast beef
sandwich approximately the size of a baby antelope. I stare at it vacantly,
much like God must have stared at Adam the morning after time began: as one
intimate with every physical detail of the construct before him but a total
stranger nonetheless. Though typically an early riser, I’ve only been up for
an hour, and the incredible edible at my fingertips, the exact-in-every-way
object that has passed through my lips on countless occasions, is as foreign
to me now as the starry contours of Alpha Centauri.
Try as I might, I can’t remember what happened last night.
I remember lying down on the slowly revolving sidewalk in front of the
Circle K at Madison and Cleveland. I remember having just enough cash left to
tip the cab driver when he dropped me at my house. The rest is recalled like
some bedtime story my mother told me while I was still in her womb. One of two
things is true: Either I failed in my mission to find the beating heart of
Saturday night or I am the victim of too much success. This is not a question
of seeing the glass half-full or half-empty. It’s a question of not being able
to see the glass at all. And the most disturbing question is this: Did I have
fun at J-Wag’s last night? Because I would certainly hate to think I feel this
bad for no good reason at all.
There is something decidedly tawdry about J-Wag’s, the most storied gay
bar in town. From the spare honky-tonk décor to the impossibly dark
patio, it has the feel of a rough-and-tumble roadhouse — the sort of place
where the combined number of teeth in the bar is directly proportional to the
number of patrons divided by two. Only the penis-shaped stage and dance floor
tell the true story.
It’s nearly 2 a.m. when I make the scene. The crowd is small but diverse.
Drag queens converse with men in cowboy hats and Wrangler shirts. White men
hold hands with black men. It is like some bizarre cross between Dr. King’s
best dream and Jesse Helms’ worst nightmare. Nobody is dancing. These are
things I remember clearly. There is an array of items for sale behind the bar:
cigarette lighters, B.C. Powder, bottles of poppers, cans of VCR head cleaner,
and a number of blue aerosol cans I can’t identify. “What’s in the blue
cans?” I ask the bartender.
“Lubricant,” he answers with a smirk.
“Oh. Well. What do you know about that? My, my, my, my, my. I’ll
take a can of the head cleaner.” When in Rome Out on the patio I’m
instructed by a helpful bystander on how to properly use the stuff. You spray
it on your shirt, inhale it through your mouth, and exhale through your nose.
Within seconds, half of your brain dies and it feels like a fire alarm is
going off in your head. This is when the memory started to go.
The next thing I do remember is standing over a largish African-American
drag queen who is on the floor pounding her chest and lip-synching her heart
out to “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls.
I notice that her wig has come off and is nestled like a bird’s nest between
her knees. A less than hunky fellow in a Hawaiian shirt sidles up to me and
puts his arm around my waist as a blonde diva in a purple gown begins to
pretend to belt out “Total Eclipse Of the Heart.” “No, thank
you,” I tell the man, removing his arm. He puts it right back around me.
“No, but thank you, really.”
It’s not the poor guy’s fault that I’m both straight and damn
irresistible. And truth be told, I’ve hit the age, girth, and level of
ugliness where being hit on is quite the unexpected pleasure, even when it’s
not exactly a Victoria’s Secret model that’s doing the hitting.
It was nearly 5 in the morning when I finally left J-Wag’s and took a
half-blind stumble to the nearest convenience store. I knew that hangover city
was my final destination. I knew that I would hate myself the next day. I
tossed the half-empty can of head cleaner in the garbage then fished it back
out of the garbage then threw it back in the garbage again, cursing it. I
called it the Devil. A wino clucked his tongue at me disapprovingly. And
that’s about all I know.
— Chris Davis