Month: May 2004

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Not on My Shoe

Is there anything more annoying than a blowhard? I know every profession has their nemeses, and mine are the numbskulls who insist on spewing their wine knowledge, attempting to impress spectators at wine tastings. These lingerers monopolize a pourer’s time (especially a celebrity winemaker), elbowing out others who might just want to taste and avoid getting sprayed with narcissism. Besides a kick in the ass, blowhards need a lesson in etiquette, and wine-tasting season is upon us. Here’s a list of etiquette points à la Emily Post that should help you navigate the sea of ascot-wearing wine blowhards:

· Although it ain’t pretty, spitting wine helps avoid embarrassing inebriation, lets you taste more without passing out, and reserves your tastebuds for more juice. It really doesn’t offend the pourers, so long as stray spray doesn’t hit their shoes or, worse yet, their face. But the spit bucket isn’t for everyone. Before debuting your spurting skills, practice aim at home. Tips: Purse your lips and roll your tongue to force it out in a steady stream. If practice hasn’t made your spittoon technique perfect, grab a glass or cup to serve as your mini-crachoir. (Sounds better in French, non?) If a small vessel isn’t available, lift the bucket and discreetly expectorate into it. Keep in mind that your aim worsens as you drink.

· Don’t block the spit bucket. The best way to get red wine spilled down your pants is to be the roadblock to dumping.

· When approaching a crowded table with a large wine selection, get your wine and get the hell out of the way. Camping around the pourer to wax philosophical only exacerbates everyone’s irritation. If the pourer is talking, listen from the side if you can. If you have specific questions, come back later when the crowd isn’t as thick.

· Respect the people behind the table. Pourers are there to educate about their wares, so pay some attention. Often, wineries have donated their product and time to introduce their selections to the public and if all you’re doing is stepping in front of them and saying, “Chardonnay, please,” then walking away, their trip from California or Europe is kinda wasted.

· Don’t wear cologne or perfume. Your nose is the entryway into taste when drinking, before the wine ever hits your palate. If you sniff a delicate Sauvignon Blanc with someone next to you drowning in Eau de Whatever, your olfactory glands will translate that sweet, rubbing-alcohol smell to the taste of the wine.

· Don’t wear light-colored clothes. You’ll regret it and get really miffed when someone accidentally spills a dark Cabernet on your pressed white pants. Red wine is really hard to remove; you might carry a spray bottle of Wine Away.

Recommended Wines

Sincerely 2003 Sauvignon Blanc Stellenbosch — Tastes like homemade grapefruit sorbet fresh from a frozen stainless-steel container. Aromatic with green grass and lemon zest. Great price for the quality. $13.

JackeRoo 2003 Shiraz — One of the best values out of Australia right now, this newly imported wine passes all the tests. It’s not too complicated, but for $6, it’s a perfect choice for everyday. Red fruits like cranberry surf on the tongue, while violets join in. $6.

Queen of Hearts 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Santa Barbara — Rich, earthy, and fragrant with lush dark cherry and mushrooms. Even a bit of blueberry thrown in there. At this price, who could ask for more? $10.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

THE BIG EATERY

When the salty, spicy essence of the crawfish étouffée spread throughout my mouth, I wanted to bang my fists on the table, cry “Great God Almighty!,” and hug everybody in the Bon Ton Café. I wanted to weep, run around the streets of New Orleans like a mad prophet, and never eat again. The fact that I had eaten only one bite was reason to celebrate and despair; I had so much left, yet I was on my way to being finished, and once it was gone, well

Once it was gone, there was the rest of the city to eat. And before that, there would be the bread pudding and the richest coffee this side of Europe, and after we walk the Quarter for a few hours, we can have beignets at Café du Monde and breakfast tomorrow at Croissant d’Or

Our first night in New Orleans we set off for some celebrity chef’s place — Paul Prudhomme, Emeril, somebody like that — but we weren’t up for a wait, and around one corner we saw a dark doorway with a sign reading “Napoleon House.” A flash of memory went off in my head: That’s the place that my writer friend Jeff in Dallas says is the reason he can’t move to New Orleans, because he would spend his whole life in the Napoleon House drinking beer. It got its name because some supporters of Napoleon met there to discuss his fate — in about 1810 — and a quick look around made me think the décor hadn’t been updated since. We ducked in and ordered gumbo.

That’s what it’s like eating in New Orleans: utterly overwhelming. No room at Prudhomme’s place, where the whole blackened thing started? Try the 200-year-old bar around the corner or put in a few more blocks and get the shrimp in sherry butter at Broussard’s, the creamy oyster stew at Arnaud’s, or the latest and greatest at Emeril’s. Why the hell not?

In less than a week, I experienced culinary bliss on several levels. I found myself walking in Jackson Square, eating a praline, which I’m sure is the sweetest substance on earth, and I looked up to realize I was halfway between, indeed less than a block from, Café du Monde and Krispy Kreme.

One day for lunch we went into the Central Grocery, ordered a muffuletta, and sat down at the counter. What we got was a sandwich about the size of a Frisbee, weighing a few pounds, made with ham, salami, mozzarella, and a salad of marinated green olives. Four adults can share one of these things. You eat half of one, and you’d better take a nap — or get some beignets and coffee.

At the far end of the spectrum, we ate at Galatoire’s to celebrate my brother’s wedding. Galatoire’s has been where it is, doing what it does, for 99 years, and I can’t imagine it needing to change. The fact that it’s on Bourbon Street, an island of elegance in that sea of idiocy, makes it that much finer. Men have to wear a jacket to get in, the waiters whirl about in tuxes under huge chandeliers, and they do, for example, potatoes about seven different ways, along with 13 salads, 18 shellfish items, 13 desserts, and so on. The menu looks like a Michener novel.

I had a classic New Orleans moment at Galatoire’s. I got the fish special, because it was trout and sounded good, and I didn’t even ask about the details. Trust the house, I told myself. I ordered julienne potatoes, because they were the only ones I hadn’t heard of, and I topped it off with eggplant béarnaise, because I like eggplant and béarnaise.

Out came the fish: fried, nothing on it. Julienne potatoes: cut into strips, fried. Eggplant: béarnaise sauce, yes, poured over eggplant, which had been fried. There is an art to frying food, and the masters of the trade are in New Orleans.

Compare this with the place my new sister-in-law took us, over by Tulane University, where they more or less swing by with a pail of boiled crawfish and dump it on the table. It was a little more civilized than that, but not by much. And, man, was it good. She also took us to a place called Domilise’s, which was out in a God-knows-where neighborhood, surrounded by shacks, more or less, but with a customer’s Rolls Royce parked outside. Two women stood behind a counter making po’boys that made me finally understand what everybody was talking about with the po’boys.

And then there are the beignets. Somehow, fried dough with powdered sugar seems to define New Orleans. It’s sweet, tasty, sinful, even a little scary, and you’d never do it at home, much less once — or, okay, twice — a day. You wait in line to eat something that does you almost no good, but once you get your order, plop one into your mouth, and sit back with the sugar on your face, the “mmmm” in your mouth, and the breeze coming off the river, you feel like calling on the Almighty and bonding with your brethren.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Grad Work

Spring break spent inside a wooden box. A golf course climbing the walls of a university art museum. A chalk-white alter ego squatting on a toilet. Explicit drawings of a figure experimenting with a strap-on phallus. What were these student artists thinking?

In five recent exhibitions, graduating students from the University of Memphis, Memphis College of Art, and Rhodes College asked questions and challenged existing attitudes. They saw the world anew by creating alter egos and multiverses that ignored the laws of time/space, corporate ownership, and class division. They experimented with new materials and looked for beauty in urban landscapes.

Discourse by Mikewindy at AMUM

One of the most striking works currently on exhibit is Mikewindy’s master’s thesis work Discourse, at the University of Memphis Art Museum. Discourse, a very large, surprisingly graceful sculpture created to fill the entire space of the museum’s entrance gallery, is the artist’s monument to golf. Slender pink rods of metal connect 28 multicolored and multishaped carved-wood golf courses that footstep along the 66-foot floor, climb the walls, and hover close to the gallery’s 24-foot ceiling.

Other strong work in AMUM’s master’s thesis exhibition (showing through May 28th) include Hugh Busby’s especially accomplished Accepted-Unaccepted, a film documentary exploring homosexual relationships. Busby cut and spliced prime-time television footage from news programs, docudramas, and comedy series into five short films that powerfully point and counterpoint stereotypes regarding homosexuality. The films also poignantly chronicle the challenges and deep bonds of the gay male union.

Exhilaratingly all-encompassing describes Johnny Goodwin’s photomontages for T-shirts, mugs, and postcards. Goodwin’s surreal landscapes are cohabited by cartoon characters, historical figures, Buddhist shrines, national monuments, brand names, and television and movie stars. Also on view is some fine technical artistry in Rebecca Cross’ prototypes for “artist-friendly” computer interfaces. Viewing photographer Kristopher Stallworth’s clean lines, spare compositions, and planes of pure pigment may enhance your observations of Memphis city streets as you recall the lighted storefront window floating in a black void in his C-print Poplar Ave., his lines of intensely blue shopping carts marching across expanses of gray in American Way, and red-brick facades framing saturated skies in Germantown Parkway.

Among the most original works produced for the University of Memphis bachelor of fine arts show at Studio 1688 in April were Berry Hooper’s experiments with material and form. Especially ingenious was Hooper’s Two by Two, a sculptural concoction of resin, fiberglass, and a king-sized bed sheet. Flexible and translucent, Two by Two wafted with the breezes coming through the gallery’s front door and imbued light passing through it with beautiful amber tones.

For her Memphis College of Art master’s thesis, Hillary Pesson created Art and Lies, a series of exquisitely rendered contour drawings depicting a young woman’s reactions to a dildo. Not primarily intended to shock or titillate, this figure’s gender experiments feel unabashedly private, focused, and reflective. Her gestures and postures are nuanced depictions of the wonder and uncertainty that accompany intense emotional and physiological experience.

Memphis College of Art graduate Marina Tami sculpts with neon-colored paper and pages from magazines. For her master’s thesis, My Pleasure, she rolled and stacked pages of pure pigment into a shape that, depending on one’s point of view, looks like a psychedelic hamburger, a box of 1,000-watt crayons turned on its side, pixilated peacock plumes, or the world’s crown jewels loaded on the bed of a semi. Exploring Tami’s pink, chartreuse, and electric yellow and blue building blocks (who needs Legos?) produces jolts of pure visual pleasure.

Thirty-one Memphis College of Art bachelor of fine arts candidates mounted a show that ran the gamut of artistic disciplines. Almost all the work was strong, including Tod Salin’s 3-D animation digital video, Space Pod; Thaddeus Bogg’s Skin I (imagine a large Malevich in off-white handmade paper with subtle embossing); and David Hardin’s Designer Dave Self-promotional, a hilarious packaging and selling of the artist as “a six-foot ultra-creative designer with incredible portfolio and work skills.” Extra kudos for photographer Moko Fukuyama’s creation of a campy, chalk-white omniscient observer who witnesses the lifestyles, anxiety, and tedium of modernity while squatting on a toilet, wandering city streets at night, and examining (not so) over-easy eggs strewn across a kitchen stove and floor.

The most compelling work in this year’s Rhodes senior thesis show (showing through May 15th) was Amanda Brown’s Blackification Box, a plywood think (and create) tank whose ceiling and walls are covered with pictures, drawings, and writings of African-American slaves, statesmen, and entertainers. This Hispanic and African-American artist, who also created two videos exploring racial stereotypes, spent a week in her wooden box considering her own and others’ racial prejudices.

Categories
Book Features Books

The Monster

Isn’t it so that new technologies, once conceived and perfected, will inevitably be used regardless of the dangers? Isn’t that the legacy of the bomb? Isn’t it only a matter of time before cloned humans roam the earth?

“The history of science suggests that is true,” says Dr. Jonathan Moreno, president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and bioethics commentator for ABC News. On May 13th from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Central Library, Moreno will deliver a lecture, “Brave New World: What’s the Price?,” as part of the library’s “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature” exhibit, which runs through August 20th.

“Someday there will be some cloned humans,” Moreno says, “and there will be a lot of suffering. There will be a lot of catastrophes, and there will be a lot of failed efforts along the way. It probably won’t be such a big deal though once people realize that these humans are genetically identical but not fully identical.”

Boris Karloff: The Monster

Courtesy Ronald V. Borst/Hollywood Movie Posters

Courtesy Universal Studios Licensing, Inc.

According to Moreno, it’s the symbolism of cloning and genetic modification, not the substance, that bothers people the most.

From its first printing in 1818, Mary Shelley’s literary nightmare about a scientist out to unlock the secrets of life has served as a cautionary tale for scientists everywhere. It continues to remind us that too often nature makes us pay for tampering with her mysterious plans. The “Frankenstein” exhibit — originally conceived by the National Library of Medicine — juxtaposes vanguard medical imagery from the 19th century with the evolving cultural status of Mary Shelley’s creation and shows how Shelley began a public debate that has continued for nearly two centuries.

“I’m going to talk about the good that can come from genetics versus the concerns and implications of making people,” Moreno says. “Images of attempts to clone animals cause alarm in humans. It’s because most all [of the animals] turn out to be monsters, just like Frankenstein was a monster, albeit a misunderstood monster. The mob always blames the monster while the people responsible for making it get away. You shouldn’t blame the victims.”

The ethical boundaries of genetic science are not easily circumscribed. The more we learn about the origins of humans and the origins of disease, the more difficult it becomes to draw the line between easing human suffering and notions of human perfection.

“There are gray areas, like gender selection,” Moreno says. “If a family already has a boy and they really want a girl, why shouldn’t they be able to increase their chances of having a girl?” he asks. “It’s these gray areas that are troubling.” From gender selection it’s not a huge leap to fully customized children. And that’s not even the scariest part.

“Government-created companies are creating banks of genetic material,” Moreno says. “These are to help us try to understand how genetics influences the way we get sick and age. Now, what happens if we discover that a certain ethnic group is more associated with the gene [linked to] alcoholism? Will preexisting bigotry and prejudice be reinforced?”

According to Moreno, these discoveries are inevitable.

Visible Humans

Computerized Images

National Library of Medicine

In 1993, the National Library of Medicine created The Visible Human Project on

the World Wide Web for the benefit of researchers and the public throughout the

world. The Visible Humans are available on the Internet at www.nih.nlm.gov.

“We don’t need genetics to tell us these things. These are things we already know. Certain groups are more likely to develop some diseases. Sociologically, there are also some things we can see, and what if we find some genetic component? What people have to understand is that every group will be susceptible to some disease in greater numbers. But will this new information enlighten us, or will it reinforce our prejudices? These are questions we have to ask.”

Despite the complexities, Moreno is hopeful that genetic enigineering will progress in an ethical way.

“If you ask people whether or not doctors should pursue genetic medical treatments, the answer is overwhelmingly yes,” Moreno says. “If you ask, Are you worried that genetic research could lead to some Boys from Brazil situation, the answer is YES! And that’s good. We should be conflicted about this. Scientists should be concerned, and they are; they are extremely sensitive. And they are talking about all of this.”

“This is a controversial exhibit,” says Heather Lawson, adult services coordinator for the Central Library. “Hopefully, it will lead to good discussions.”

The exhibit consists of reproduced images and text. But the library has assembled a number of items and events to complement the main exhibit. Nineteenth-century medical equipment is on display courtesy of the Pink Palace. Local special-effects wizard Matt Singer will show how advancements in medical prosthetics lead to advances in Hollywood monster makeup on July 13th. On August 5th, Dr. Gordon Bigelow, assistant professor of literature at Rhodes College, will discuss Frankenstein following a screening of the 1931 film starring Boris Karloff.

“We think this is a good lineup of events because it combines literature with current issues,” Lawson says. “Besides, who can’t enjoy Frankenstein?

For more information on “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” check out the library’s Web site, http://www.memphislibrary.org/InfoDATES/index.html.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Getting Some Kicks

From a distance, it might look like just another softball game. It’s a beautiful May evening. The sun is setting, creating long shadows on the fields, and there’s a slight breeze. As people watch from nearby bleachers, a team of 20- and 30-somethings in yellow T-shirts fields the ball. On closer inspection, you can read the team’s shirts: “Will kick for beer.” Then you notice the ball: 10 inches of red rubber.

Call it regressive therapy. Since last summer, the ball fields at Tobey Park have hosted an adult kickball league on Wednesday evenings.

“It’s like a third-grade reunion,” says Patrick Halloran, co-founder of the league. “It’s our flashback to childhood … with adult beverages.”

The rules are roughly the same as co-ed softball: Teams “at bat” have to alternate boy, girl, boy, girl, and there’s no stealing base. “The only difference,” says Halloran, “is that you can hit them with the ball. It can turn into a dodge-ball match.”

Halloran and Justin Lachey founded the league last summer with four teams. They said they had played kickball as part of a charity event and enjoyed it. Lachey also had a friend who told him about a kickball league in Washington, D.C.

“We thought it would be fun to start a league,” says Halloran. “I tell people we’re playing kickball and they say, ‘Kickball? Like what you did in third grade? That sounds kind of cool.'”

Now in its third season, the league has grown to eight teams, mostly by word-of-mouth. Friends of team members come out just to fill in and find themselves wanting to join a team. Even some softball players on nearby fields want to get in on the action.

For those who might not remember third grade very well, in kickball, the pitcher rolls a rubber ball toward the “batter.” It’s difficult to get a strike, let alone strike out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t embarrass yourself by kicking poorly. Like, say, by tripping over the ball. After you kick, you run to first base.

When asked the best way to “bat,” Halloran says it depends if you’re a guy or a girl. A guy, he says, should just kick it far, while a girl should kick it down. (A short, high kick is an easy out.) And if there’s a dispute over a call, it’s easily solved with a quick round of rock, paper, scissors. Says Halloran: “It’s like one, two, three … shit, I’m out.”

When Lachey and Halloran began to talk about starting a league, teammate Bobby Smith thought they were nuts. Now, he says, Smith sees the game as a good way to hang out.

“Softball is too competitive. You have Mr. Softball who comes out in full cleats with his ball bag,” says Smith. “We’re just out to have a good time. There’s competitiveness, but it’s a fun competitiveness.”

With four restaurant/bar teams and two teams from Morgan Keegan, there are some loose rivalries. The other two teams are a neighborhood team and one composed of people who work at FedEx. Last year, the Half Shell team took home first place. But rivalries aren’t the point. In fact, players gladly fill in with other teams if they don’t have the needed men or women.

There have been a few injuries, such as pulled hamstrings and quads and a couple of twisted ankles, “but no blood yet,” says Halloran. “You’ve got to stretch. People kick the ball and then take off running as hard and as fast as they can, and they almost die.” But more than one player begins their warm-ups by popping open an aluminum can.

Injuries notwithstanding, the kickball league seems more a social activity than an athletic one. In the stands, there’s an easy camaraderie — and several coolers. A few people discuss Cinco de Mayo plans and two players arrive in sombreros. An older homeless man who often watches the games has been dubbed “Blue,” after a character in the movie Old School, in which a bunch of 30-somethings relive their youth by starting a frat.

Near the end of the game, a player arrives and asks where his team is scheduled to play. The answer is a field on the other side of the park. Halloran says it’s either a long walk or a short drive. “You came out here for exercise anyway,” says Lachey. But that’s not entirely true.

“Most of the players go out afterward,” says Halloran, “either to Central Barbecue, because they’ve got a team, or to the downtown [Blue] Monkey. It’s mixed too. It’s not like a certain team goes to a certain place.”

Now if only they could bring back freeze tag, kick the can, ghosts in the graveyard, and four square.

Kickball playoffs are Wednesday, May 12th and May 19th, at Tobey Park. To inquire about forming a team, e-mail phalloran3@hotmail.com.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Van Lear Rose

Loretta Lynn

(Interscope)

Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, which was produced by the White Stripes’ Jack White (and mastered in Memphis at Easley McCain Studios), might be the most praised album of 2004 so far, but there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical about that.

Over the past decade, there have been dozens of these high-profile “comeback” records from aging stars. Almost all of them are celebrated, particularly by national, mainstream media outlets and daily newspapers, and many of them are dull or worse. The best –Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, Merle Haggard’s If I Could Only Fly, some of the lower-profile recent Willie Nelson records (Spirit, Rainbow Connection) –tend to come when these artists are left to their own devices and happen to find a groove. The higher the concept — celebrity-guest songwriters, duet partners, or producers –the more potential for a disconnect between the press a record gets and its listenability. Examples: Johnny Cash’s youth-marketed, Rich Rubin-produced mythology exploitation jobs, Solomon Burke’s R&B-for-NPR Don’t Give Up on Me, Nelson’s cluttered, major-label snores Milk Cow Blues and The Great Divide.

So, how come Van Lear Rose is a high-concept comeback worthy of its ink? Start with the vocals: On Don’t Give Up on Me, the aging Burke sounded like a shadow of his ’60s self, but, at age 68, Lynn’s rich Appalachian twang is still close to vintage. Then listen to White’s astute production. His sonic fingerprints are all over Van Lear Rose, especially when he revs up his guitar. On the lead single, “Portland, Oregon,” White adds an arty guitar overture that Owen Bradley would have never allowed, while on “Have Mercy,” he does a credible impersonation of a 21st-century Sam Phillips. But White also knows when to show restraint and doesn’t let his personality overshadow Lynn’s. At its best, Van Lear Rose evokes the musical spirit of late-’60s Lynn without imitating the sound.

But the real reason Van Lear Rose is such a triumph is the songs, all of them written by Lynn, the majority of them great. Most of these songs fit familiar types, and thus their uniform excellence testifies to Lynn’s formal songwriting chops. Some are pure country: There’s the archetypal elegance of “Trouble On the Line,” which White accents with steel and acoustic guitar licks. “Women’s Prison” is a brand-new condemned-person’s lament not far below the form’s standard-bearer, “The Long Black Veil.” And “Mrs. Leroy Brown” is a slice of honky-tonk that sounds modern and classic at the same time.

Others are pure Lynn: “Portland, Oregon” is a good-lovin’ duet where Lynn has White step into the Conway Twitty role. Best of all is “Family Tree,” which might be the sequel (and equal) to “Fist City.” An understated little shuffle with steel-guitar accents and a perfect fiddle solo, Lynn aims the song at another piece of “trash” trying to steal her man, and as much as I’ve always disliked the discourse that dismisses modern Nashville in favor of costume alt-country bands, it’s inconceivable that an under-40 CMT starlet could sing this songwith the gravity and identification Lynn brings to it. On the chorus, Lynn delivers (considering the source) one of the coldest kiss-offs ever recorded: “No I didn’t come to fight/If he was a better man I might/But I wouldn’t dirty my hands/On trash like you.”

Then there are songs about right now, songs that explore the reality of a coal miner’s daughter not as a young mother keeping honky-tonk angels away from her man but as widowed empty-nester. With White adding harmony and lending the song a shot of “Hotel Yorba”-style front-porch intimacy, “This Old House” looks back on that life with simultaneous sadness and joy, while “Miss Being Mrs.” examines the otherworldly loneliness at the end of a 50-year marriage with such matter-of-fact realness (and resolve) that you realize what a projection the topic is in most other country songs.

From White’s perspective, Van Lear Rose is a reminder that his musicality can still rise above his status as volatile media figure. And it’s also the better sequel to White Blood Cells (which was dedicated to Lynn), since Lynn is both a better songwriter than Jack and a superior singer to Meg White or Holly Golightly. For Lynn, it’s a valedictory for a career that stands among country music’s most compelling. The “comeback” record it really reminds me of? Billy Bragg and Wilco’s miraculous Mermaid Avenue, where they updated some vintage Woody Guthrie songs with wonder and love and inspiration. Only this time the songwriter was around to sing them herself.

Grade: A

Categories
Music Music Features

Local Beat

Snax Memphis, the local music-booking company founded two-and-a-half years ago by Mike Smith, 32, and Gary Crump, 27, takes a big step later this month with their production of a North Mississippi rock and blues show Saturday, May 22nd, at Mud Island Amphitheater.

The North Mississippi Allstars will headline the show, the first production Snax has organized outside of shows at Young Avenue Deli (where Smith is the general manager and talent buyer) and similar-sized clubs and small local festivals, such as Taste of Midtown.

“This is definitely the biggest show we’ve put on in terms of expense and, presumably, attendance,” says Smith. “It’s been a big undertaking but nothing we haven’t been able to handle.”

Snax got its start when Smith and Crump met while working on management and booking for onetime local road warriors Big Ass Truck. “We’d talk and decided that, if and when Big Ass Truck stopped touring, we didn’t want to stop doing stuff with music,” says Crump.

What the pair did was form a two-pronged booking company. They book local bands out of town — most prominently, Lucero, whom Crump works with closely –and touring bands in town, most at the Deli. But the Mud Island show, which will also feature Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cary Hudson, Duff Dorrough, Afrissippi, and possibly segments from a new documentary film about Oxford band Beanland, marks a new chapter for the company.

“Mud Island had been talking to us about getting some more shows after their $3 concert series [Memphis Jam] had been so successful last year,” Smith says. “As far as expenses, Mud Island is pretty reasonable, so it’s very feasible for us to do shows there. The amount of profit is the reason some other promoters haven’t been able to take advantage of it. There’s not a ton of profit to be made, but if you’re talking about two young guys putting a show together, the profit looks pretty good. If you’re working for a big company that needs a larger profit margin, it might not be worth it.”

Because Mud Island is a city-owned property, no promoter can have exclusive rights, which makes it a perfect venue for Snax to try to expand its operation.

“We’re looking to do shows that other people might be overlooking for the area,” says Crump. “There are bands [we’d like to book] that ordinarily might not even route through Memphis. We want to put Memphis more on the map for those medium-sized shows that now people are driving to St. Louis or New Orleans or Atlanta to see.”

Snax would like to promote four to five shows at Mud Island this year. “If that goes well, turn that into maybe 10 shows next year,” Smith says.

Next week’s package show at Mud Island may be Snax’s biggest production yet, but it’s not the only thing the company has going right now. In addition to Lucero, Snax is working with local bands The Glass (whom they paired with Lucero on the road recently), Vending Machine, and Free Sol (whose bookings are being handled by recent Snax associate Chris Gere), as well as Atlanta band Outformation. Snax booked Steve Earle for the Memphis Arts Council‘s Artrageous event Friday, May 21st, and, in addition to shows coming up at Young Avenue Deli (perhaps most notably a June 9th gig from indie icons Yo La Tengo), has spread some shows to other local venues, with a pairing of Drag the River and Lucero frontman Ben Nichols Thursday, May 20th, at The P&H Café.

Another player for Snax is JC Youngblood, the tour manager for The Gamble Brothers Band, who has helped in a variety of areas, including promotion, sound, and handling some events.

“There are a lot of great bands in Memphis that need exposure and need direction, and if we can help with that, we want to do it,” says Smith. “And there are a lot of great shows that need to come to town that other people aren’t doing, and we want to do that.”

Tickets for the Mud Island show are $15 and are available through Ticketmaster.

E-mail: localbeat@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Music Music Features

Straight Gangster

It’s only May, but 2004 has already proven to be a golden year for local rappers: Three 6 Mafia are still riding high on the success of Da Unbreakables, while just last month, Yo Gotti inked a deal with TVT Records. And now, underground tape king Criminal Manne — back in Memphis after a five-year run on the Houston-based Rap-A-Lot label — is moving in for his piece of the action.

“I was selling 1,000 underground tapes a week,” boasts Criminal Manne. “I didn’t even have a car when I started out. I was moving tapes by hand. I’d go to the clubs and swing ’em. Man, wherever anybody was at, I was trying to sell ’em a tape.”

But despite moderate success as part of the Project Playaz collective — and myriad promises made by Rap-A-Lot — Criminal Manne (the 25-year-old South Memphis native picked up his name a decade ago, while he was doing a stint in juvenile detention) is starting over. Determined to make it this time around, he’s armed with a new manager (Checliss “Big C” Rice), his own record label (Big Daddy Entertainment), and a hot single (“Tryin’ To Bust Something”).

The self-described Einstein of the operation, Rice is owner of the local Madhouse Records label and the Exclusive Gang clothing line. He claims to have a meticulous business plan that will help his client earn his first million.

“I grew up in the ‘hood — food stamps, seven people in a two-bedroom apartment, the whole kit and caboodle,” Rice says. “I’m determined to make it. I’m going to be Memphis’ answer to Puff Daddy or [Cash Money co-founder] Baby.” Crediting his real estate background along with the discipline he learned playing high school football, Rice is confident that his battle plan will work.

Criminal Manne, like his manager, understands the market all too well. “A lot of folks get in the rap game and think they’re gonna go platinum, but they just sell a few thousand albums,” he says. “The market is getting flooded. Everybody thinks they can spit.

“Major labels are coming out with so much bullshit — all that commercial smoochy-smoochy rap,” he continues. “You’ve got to feed the underground. Niggers wanna get in their car and turn on the radio and hear some shit that’s straight gangster, right from the ‘hood. It’s about the South right now: You can stay down here and sell a million records. Nobody wants to hear [Boogie Down Productions’] ‘Stop the Violence’ or any of that shit. Everybody wants to get crunk! They wanna hear ‘I’m gonna bust your motherfucking head.'” Shaking his head gleefully, Criminal Manne giggles and adds, “It’s straight-up!”

Even though Criminal Manne is clearly aware of the economic advantages of playing up the gangster lifestyle, he maintains that his violent content (and moniker) is no put-on. “I rap about my life,” he explains. “I don’t sugarcoat it. I see and live this shit every day. I’d be a fake if I was rapping otherwise.

“Look at me honestly. What do I look like?” he asks, pointing to his pigtails and mouthful of gold teeth, then to the 26-inch silver rims on his Chevy Tahoe. “It’s hard to stay out of jail,” he admits. “The shit I speak, I’ve done. But with rapping I can let a lot of emotions out. It’s better than going out and, pow-pow, getting 20-to-life. I want to be the motherfucker who finally makes it. Or, if I don’t, people say ‘he’s still straight.'”

Watching Southern rappers like Lil’ Jon and David Banner cash in on the crunk movement just fuels his fire. “I’m seriously hungry, and there’s a big plate sitting out there,” Criminal Manne says. “They’ve already got their plates. They’re burping, gaining weight, everything. Now I need to get my food.

“Success is based on image, point-blank. If you see a motherfucker at a bus stop swinging some CDs, he might be harder than Tupac. But if you see another motherfucker on the opposite side of the street with a laptop, selling his box of CDs out of a Bentley, who are you gonna buy a CD from first? It shouldn’t be like that, but it is. It’s like if you don’t have no money, we don’t see you.

“I want to catch everybody’s attention for 30 minutes,” Criminal Manne says. “If I get you that long, you’re gonna feel me. I can write four or five songs a day. It’s simple: Once you have a catchy hook and a thumping beat, you got it.”

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Music Music Features

Sound Advice

Sharon Jones hails from James Brown’s hometown of Augusta, Georgia, and practices the same kind of proto-funk R&B the Godfather of Soul developed in the mid-’60s: soul exhortations over spare, popping rhythm with just a little chitlin-circuit bottom. On Dap-Dippin’ with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, her recent record for Brooklyn’s Daptone Records, Jones leads an eight-piece band through a confidant variation on this vintage sound, spiking it with a bit of Stax-style pleading and updating it just enough to include a Jam-Lewis cover with the Janet Jackson hit “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”

The 40-something Jones had apparently been making her living as a wedding singer before the folks at Daptone made her an in-demand figure among underground audiophiles who worship vintage soul sounds. Local DJ/crate-digger collective Memphix fits the category and will be hosting Jones’ set at the Hi-Tone Café Monday, May 17th, where she’ll be appearing with labelmates The Sugarman 3.

For rock fans, the best bet may be at the Young Avenue Deli on the same night, where the Elephant-6-identified Of Montreal headline what should be a strong triple bill. The psychedelic pop band has a new record out on indie Polyvinyl, Satanic Panic From the Attic, which has been getting glowing reviews. They’ll be joined by Chicago’s The M’s, who push retro-rock forward a decade with nods to T.Rex and Mott the Hoople, and locals Vending Machine, whose lovely bent-pop might be one of the local scene’s hidden treasures. —Chris Herrington

If you are a fan of all things vintage, then you’re probably well acquainted with Deke Dickerson, a West Coast roots musician who has fused elements of rockabilly, Western swing, traditional country, and mid-century rock-and-roll into a rollicking red, white, and blue parade of American guitar styles. Dickerson can segue from a classic murder ballad into the kind of eerie surf-rock that defines modern noir. He’ll do a free 5 p.m. set at Goner Records in Cooper-Young on Sunday, May 16th. Later that evening, he’ll be playing another free show down the street at the Glass Onion with Amy & The Tramps. Can’t beat the price for either show.

If you need a good solid dose of Southern punk with a little German garage tossed in, you’ll want to drop in at the Hi-Tone Café on Saturday, May 15th, to see Tyler Keith & The Preacher’s Kids and The Dutch Masters. When the Dutch Masters played their debut set at the Buccaneer, the floors literally shook. Redondo Beat, a German garage group with a Phil Spector fetish, will be joining the local rockers. —Chris Davis

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News

The Big Eatery

When the salty, spicy essence of the crawfish étouffée spread throughout my mouth, I wanted to bang my fists on the table, cry “Great God Almighty!,” and hug everybody in the Bon Ton Café. I wanted to weep, run around the streets of New Orleans like a mad prophet, and never eat again. The fact that I had eaten only one bite was reason to celebrate and despair; I had so much left, yet I was on my way to being finished, and once it was gone, well

Once it was gone, there was the rest of the city to eat. And before that, there would be the bread pudding and the richest coffee this side of Europe, and after we walk the Quarter for a few hours, we can have beignets at Café du Monde and breakfast tomorrow at Croissant d’Or

Our first night in New Orleans we set off for some celebrity chef’s place — Paul Prudhomme, Emeril, somebody like that — but we weren’t up for a wait, and around one corner we saw a dark doorway with a sign reading “Napoleon House.” A flash of memory went off in my head: That’s the place that my writer friend Jeff in Dallas says is the reason he can’t move to New Orleans, because he would spend his whole life in the Napoleon House drinking beer. It got its name because some supporters of Napoleon met there to discuss his fate — in about 1810 — and a quick look around made me think the décor hadn’t been updated since. We ducked in and ordered gumbo.

That’s what it’s like eating in New Orleans: utterly overwhelming. No room at Prudhomme’s place, where the whole blackened thing started? Try the 200-year-old bar around the corner or put in a few more blocks and get the shrimp in sherry butter at Broussard’s, the creamy oyster stew at Arnaud’s, or the latest and greatest at Emeril’s. Why the hell not?

In less than a week, I experienced culinary bliss on several levels. I found myself walking in Jackson Square, eating a praline, which I’m sure is the sweetest substance on earth, and I looked up to realize I was halfway between, indeed less than a block from, Café du Monde and Krispy Kreme.

One day for lunch we went into the Central Grocery, ordered a muffuletta, and sat down at the counter. What we got was a sandwich about the size of a Frisbee, weighing a few pounds, made with ham, salami, mozzarella, and a salad of marinated green olives. Four adults can share one of these things. You eat half of one, and you’d better take a nap — or get some beignets and coffee.

At the far end of the spectrum, we ate at Galatoire’s to celebrate my brother’s wedding. Galatoire’s has been where it is, doing what it does, for 99 years, and I can’t imagine it needing to change. The fact that it’s on Bourbon Street, an island of elegance in that sea of idiocy, makes it that much finer. Men have to wear a jacket to get in, the waiters whirl about in tuxes under huge chandeliers, and they do, for example, potatoes about seven different ways, along with 13 salads, 18 shellfish items, 13 desserts, and so on. The menu looks like a Michener novel.

I had a classic New Orleans moment at Galatoire’s. I got the fish special, because it was trout and sounded good, and I didn’t even ask about the details. Trust the house, I told myself. I ordered julienne potatoes, because they were the only ones I hadn’t heard of, and I topped it off with eggplant béarnaise, because I like eggplant and béarnaise.

Out came the fish: fried, nothing on it. Julienne potatoes: cut into strips, fried. Eggplant: béarnaise sauce, yes, poured over eggplant, which had been fried. There is an art to frying food, and the masters of the trade are in New Orleans.

Compare this with the place my new sister-in-law took us, over by Tulane University, where they more or less swing by with a pail of boiled crawfish and dump it on the table. It was a little more civilized than that, but not by much. And, man, was it good. She also took us to a place called Domilise’s, which was out in a God-knows-where neighborhood, surrounded by shacks, more or less, but with a customer’s Rolls Royce parked outside. Two women stood behind a counter making po’boys that made me finally understand what everybody was talking about with the po’boys.

And then there are the beignets. Somehow, fried dough with powdered sugar seems to define New Orleans. It’s sweet, tasty, sinful, even a little scary, and you’d never do it at home, much less once — or, okay, twice — a day. You wait in line to eat something that does you almost no good, but once you get your order, plop one into your mouth, and sit back with the sugar on your face, the “mmmm” in your mouth, and the breeze coming off the river, you feel like calling on the Almighty and bonding with your brethren.