Month: April 2005

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We Recommend We Recommend

saturday, 30

Did you just call me a hoe? The Giant Garden Garage Sale and Plant Sale is being held by the Memphis Area Master Gardeners organization and will feature all kinds of gardening equipment, from books to mowers. It’s from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Shelby County Extension Office. Casting director Linda Phillips-Palo, whose credits include The Rainmaker and The Virgin Suicides, will hold a free workshop on auditioning at TheatreWorks, 10 a.m. to noon. Come early, space is limited to 100 (527-8300, ext. 3, for more information). Expect lots of art, food, and music (including a performance by Emmylou Harris) at today’s Oxford Double Decker Arts Festival in Courthouse Square in Oxford, Mississippi. Americana band The Tennessee Boltsmokers are at the P&H Cafe. The annual fund-raiser, the Playhouse on the Square Art Auction,, is tonight at the theater, starting at 6:30 p.m.

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Editorial Opinion

EDITORIAL

Last weekend, the much ballyhooed and egregiously misnamed “Justice Sunday” was held in Louisville, Kentucky. The event was sponsored by several right-wing Christian groups that claimed the gathering was meant to protect “people of faith” against the evils of “activist judges.”

Family Research Council president and event organizer Tony Perkins said, “We are not saying that people who disagree with us are not people of faith.” However, promotional materials for the event directly implicated Senate Democrats’ possible use of the filibuster to fight some of President Bush’s judicial nominees as the work of heathen nonbelievers.

It was an over-the-top spectacle that played to fear, rabid ideology, and an ignorance (or a purposeful ignoring) of history. The fact that certifiable nubjob James Dobson (who bravely exposed the SpongeBob SquarePants homosexul conspiracy and who recently compared the Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan) was one of the primary organizers and speakers for the event should have given even the most uncircumspect politician pause. But no. Tennessee senator and Majority Leader Bill Frist saw the gathering as a chance to make political hay with religious conservatives for his all-but-announced presidential run in 2008.

Though hundreds of religious leaders, even his own minister, implored Frist to reconsider participating in the event, the senator joined the festivities and reiterated his threats to change Senate rules while simultaneously calling for “more civility in political life.” Sorry, Senator, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t proffer civility and reason and simultaneously pander to religious wackos.

In denouncing the filibuster, Frist neglected to mention that in 2000 he was among a group of conservatives who voted to filibuster an appeals court judge nominated by then-President Clinton. Frist’s reason: Judge Richard Paez was “out of the mainstream of political thought and … should [not] be on the court.” And so, we must add hypocrisy to the sins of the ambitious Senator Frist.

To his (minimal) credit, Frist shied away from direct attacks on the judiciary, saying, “… the balance of power among all three branches requires respect — not retaliation.”

But a man is known by the company he keeps. And we suspect Frist will long rue the company he kept last Sunday.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Wonders on Wheels

“We are going to kick them in the teeth right when they walk through the door.”

Sounds like Glen Campbell, vice president of the Wonders Series, is preparing for a rumble at the “Art of the Motorcycle” show, on display at The Pyramid through October 30th. Actually, he’s talking about the striking design of the exhibition, which features some 100 motorcycles from around the world, from a steam-powered 1884 Copeland to a Viking-inspired 2004 Honda Rune.

“It’s an avant-garde art exhibit, the kind of thing you might see in San Francisco or New York, but you’ve never seen this in Memphis before. Motorcycles are like sculptures in steel, rubber, and chrome, and we’ve displayed them like that,” says Campbell.

But a Wonders show devoted to motorcycles?

Well, it worked before. “Art of the Motorcycle” was originally produced in 1998 by the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, displaying more than 100 motorcycles from around the world. Considered a groundbreaking show for an art museum, it set new attendance records for the Guggenheim and then traveled to Chicago, Bilbao, Spain, and Las Vegas.

Memphis was going to be part of that exhibition tour, but because of scheduling problems, the show would have opened here in the winter –not a good time to host it, particularly when many visitors might ride in on two wheels.

But the staff at Wonders remained in touch with the Guggenheim Foundation. “Eventually we worked out a deal where we would essentially reconstitute the show,” Campbell says. “It would follow the same guidelines, the same curatorial intent, and the same concepts.”

The Memphis show, however, doesn’t include the same motorcycles. In fact, only five of the bikes from the original show are in this exhibit. When the Guggenheim exhibition ended, those bikes were returned to their owners. Wonders borrowed this exhibit’s bikes from collectors and museums throughout the United States and Canada.

The collection embraces the complete history of motorcycles, ranging from the Copeland steamer with a top speed of 12 mph (“Can you imagine riding something while sitting on a hot boiler about to explode?” asks Campbell) to a 1991 Suzuki Hayabusa that can take riders to a pulse-pounding 193 mph. In between, there are motorcycles from France (an 1897 Leon Bollée), the United Kingdom (a 1905 Royal Riley with a wicker sidecar, a 1929 Excelsior Super X, and a 1929 Scott Super Squirrel once owned by Steve McQueen), Italy (a 1927 Moto Guzzi and a 1956 Aermacchi Chimera), Germany (a 1942 KS-750 complete with machine gun mounted on the sidecar), Spain (a 1972 Bultaco 250 dirt bike), and even New Zealand (a 1994 Britten V1000 that had a top speed of 186 mph).

Memphis is represented by two bikes owned by Elvis Presley — a 1965 Honda Dream and a striking maroon-and-white 1957 Harley-Davidson. Elvis later sold the Harley to a friend, who held onto it all these years. One of the Wonders docents was overheard telling a group of visitors, “And a while back, he sold it to Graceland for $300,000.” Wonders won’t discuss the costs of some of these machines, but you get the idea.

Campbell understands that not everyone is fascinated by the roar of a mighty V-twin motorcycle — even one owned by the King of Rock-and-Roll:

“But I think this show will appeal to a lot of people. After all, we’ve had visitors who didn’t know anything about ancient China or the Medicis but almost universally loved the exhibits. The way we do it, the way we explain it, makes it work for the visitor who may not have a background in that particular subject.”

The motorcycles are arranged chronologically, each one mounted on a wooden or metal platform and illuminated by spotlights. An acoustiguide narrated by Tonight show host (and avid motorcyclist) Jay Leno tells the story behind each bike. It’s too bad, though, that “Do Not Touch” signs are mounted on each platform, because it’s tempting to hop aboard. What would it be like, one wonders, to hurtle down the road at 100 mph on a 1914 Cyclone — a ride made all the more thrilling since that machine, designed for track racing, didn’t have any brakes.

A red ribbonlike roadway (“sort of our version of the yellow brick road,” explains Campbell) twists through the exhibition. Along the way, text panels set each grouping of bikes within their historical context, and huge blowups of images from such classic films as The Wild One, The Matrix, and Easy Rider show the motorcycle’s role in popular culture.

The star-spangled “Captain America” chopper from Easy Rider is here — sort of. The original, considered one of the most famous motorcycles of all time, mysteriously disappeared before the 1969 film was released. But an accurate reproduction is on display, set off from the rest of the bikes by a mesh curtain — the motorcycle world’s version of the Mona Lisa.

Helping Wonders chief curator Stevel Masler acquire all the bikes were Ed Youngblood, who served 19 years as president and CEO of the American Motorcylist Association, and Pete Gagan, president of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America.

Gagan brought five machines from his own collection to Memphis. He participated in the original Guggenheim show and is enthusiastic about the Memphis version. “I think this is a wonderful exhibition,” he says. “The architects [Memphis’ Hnedak Bobo Group] have done a fabulous job laying it out, and the Wonders people have been great. This is the first time a show like this has appeared in the South, and there’s a lot of motorcycle enthusiasts down here who will want to see it.” •

Categories
News The Fly-By

ENLIST FRIST

In March, Tennessee senator and notorious kitty vivisectionist Dr. Bill Frist met with several evangelical Christian leaders who have been working with G.O.P. lawmakers to ensure that our federal courts are stacked top to bottom with cat-hating conservative judges. The evangelicals have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts for being too liberal. Now it would appear that they are also plotting a violent campaign against felines and have called upon the services of a man who knows a thing or two about murdering the cute little critters.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, told Frist, “and there’s more than one way to take a black robe off the bench.”

Please note the order of priorities and keep family pets off the street at night. — Chris Davis

Plante: How It Looks

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News The Fly-By

Blowing Smoke?

Mayor Willie Herenton began his fiscal year 2006 budget presentation to the City Council last week with a speech outlining the city’s budget deficit, a proposed 54 cent property tax increase to combat it, and plans for restoring city services to an acceptable level. The mayor mentioned a number of factors contributing to the revenue shortfall, including a reduction in state-shared revenues, increased security measures following the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the 2003 windstorm commonly referred to as Hurricane Elvis.

In fact, the July 22nd windstorm was the second factor mentioned by the mayor on his list of contributing factors to the city’s monetary woes.

Hurricane Elvis did leave widespread destruction in its wake; even the Flyer offices were closed for a week following the storm, due to a power outage. But since then, the storm has taken the rap for everything from lower economic production to a decline in the number of city tourists. During last year’s round of budget meetings, for example, administrators and division directors bemoaned the storm and the resulting decreased revenues. Lower property-tax revenues, increased repair costs, and equipment and supply purchases were all partially attributed to the storm.

Admittedly, the city did suffer damage requiring millions of dollars in repairs, but most of those funds were reimbursed, and are still being reimbursed, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). When asked about the windstorm’s actual lingering effect on the budget shortfall, Herenton told the Flyer that it was “infinitesimal.”

“It’s all listed [in the proposed budget],” he said. “Look in there, you’ll see.”

But the windstorm monies — both reimbursed and outstanding — are hard to find. No line items exist for these categories, and the reimbursed funds are distributed throughout city divisions for various uses.

FEMA records show that Shelby County received about $52 million in reimbursement funds for the storm. That money was then distributed by the Memphis/Shelby County emergency branch to the city, MLGW, Memphis City Schools, outlying communities, and for uninsured personal property losses.

FEMA’s reimbursement rate is 75 percent of incurred expenses. City finance director Charles Williamson said the city received $5.1 million in April, bringing the city’s total to $8.6 million. An additional $1.5 million is still expected. Once that payment is sent, Williamson will present a final report to the City Council. Under former finance director Joseph Lee, the city submitted $14.9 million in costs to FEMA. The city’s insurance company has also reimbursed the municipality $2 million. To date, the city’s windstorm-related expenditures are $13.6 millon. At these reimbursement rates, the city will be left with only about $2 million in outstanding costs.

The real budget eye-opener is unpaid property taxes (see chart below). City treasury records show more than $23 million in uncollected taxes for 2004.

“The effects from the windstorm are residual because some people still haven’t paid their property taxes from that year [2003],” said Williamson. “If you’ve got to choose between house repairs and paying property taxes, then you’re probably going to repair your home first.”

Bottom line: While the storm did have some effect on the city budget, the lower-revenues trend was established long before. The mayor mentioned this catastrophe in his budget speech, but nowhere did he mention the “conservatively optimistic” revenue predictions compiled by the city’s budget and finance office which skewed the financial outlook. •

NEWS FEATURE by JANEL DAVIS

Property Tax Collections

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Taxes Outstanding $3,564,483 $5,386,282 $7,891,289 $11,171,917 $23,245,779

Bankruptcy $133,683 $250,563 $617,031 $786,163 $1,177,978

Categories
News The Fly-By

Orwellian Developments

I was all set to write a column about the nuclear option — the proposal to change the rules of the Senate in order to get President Bush’s most questionable judicial appointments through — when, lo, word came that there is no nuclear option anymore. It is now called “the constitutional option.”

Who changed it? Why, the Republican Party, of course. Having found that “nuclear option” does not poll well, the Republicans simply decreed the rules change can no longer be described by that name. Further, the Republican Party sent media operatives around to major news organizations to inform them that anyone who fails to obey the new diktat on usage will be demonstrating the dread “liberal bias.”

Since this particularly fateful rules change was first christened “the nuclear option” by Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi in 2003 and has been called “the nuclear option” ever since — by Republicans, along with everybody else — I have to say this is a distinctly Orwellian development.

In fact, given the implicit threat that the Republican Party faithful will be encouraged to denounce all news outlets that do not conform to this new political correctness, I’d say it is not only ridiculous but also dangerous — quite a feat.

I shall, of course, continue to refer to the proposed change as the nuclear option out of a sense of obligation to freedom of speech. I would be shocked if anyone in the media did otherwise.

Now, back to substance. Americans are notoriously bored by governmental process. If you want to lose readers, just start a story with “House Bill 787 was passed out of subcommittee by a unanimous vote on Tuesday.” So, convincing folks that changing Senate Rule 22 is a danger to the republic is a challenge. But this really is about protecting the rights of the minority in the Senate, the right of every senator to filibuster.

In the old movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the key scene is Jimmy Stewart’s filibuster on behalf of the people, which triumphantly wins over his fellow senators. Under the changed rule, Mr. Smith would have to keep his mouth shut.

Actually, no one filibusters anymore. The last filibuster against a judicial nominee was in 1968, when the Republicans successfully filibustered for four days to stop Abe Fortas from becoming chief justice of the Supreme Court. These days, if there’s a serious threat of filibuster, the leaders broker a deal.

But the Democrats are threatening to filibuster the same Bush judicial nominees they busted in his first term, leaving the poor man with only a 95 percent approval rate for his nominees. Bush promptly renominated seven of these 10 dog judges, and now the Republicans are prepared to change the rules so they can be cleared by a simple majority, rather than winning the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster.

Since what goes around comes around, some Republican senators are deeply troubled about the prospect of being in the minority themselves someday without the right to filibuster. Further, in order to change Rule 22, the Senate also has to change the rules on how to change the rules. At present, a two-thirds vote, 67, is required to change the rules, but under a procedural ploy, this will be brought up “out of order,” so it requires only 51 votes.

Look, this is a system of government based on protecting the rights of the minority. It is also based on the premise that there are three separate branches of government, each of which forms a check and a balance on the others. The system was carefully designed to prevent the dictatorship of the majority.

How God got involved in all this is a bit of a mystery. Some Christian Dominionists decided the Almighty is in favor of changing Rule 22. Led by James Dobson, who runs Focus on the Family, they decided 22 is “a filibuster against the faithful,” implying and in some cases stating that anyone who opposes them is anti-Christian and probably working for Satan.

Last time I checked, no one had elected Dobson to decide who is a Christian and who is not. It’s a joke that the right wing claims it is against “judicial activists.” What they want are judicial activists who agree with them. These people don’t want to govern, they want to rule. •

Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Music Issue

Taking Stock

Scoping out the best records and biggest changes in Memphis music at the decade’s midpoint.

How the Memphis music biz has changed over the past five years.

Things in Memphis move slower than molasses. Most of the time, you can’t notice the changes unless looking from afar, because if you stare at something too long, nothing seems to change. But there have been significant changes in the local music scene in the past five years and not just in the influx of new bands to replace old ones. Rather, a few more significant changes have altered the landscape of Memphis music:

Memphis Gives Itself a Group Hug

The opening of the Smithsonian Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum as well as the Stax Museum of American Soul Music have allowed Memphis to finally acknowledge its music pedigree. While the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum is significant for its scholarly approach and Smithsonian affiliation, the building of the Stax Museum with local government and foundation support on the empty lot where Stax Records once stood was a major step toward Memphis appreciating its non-Elvis soul, R&B, and gospel heritage. Social clubs for professionals such as Mpact and Tha Movement have also included Memphis music as focal points for their civic gatherings, a much-needed boost from the future Memphis movers and shakers.

Information Technology Changes the

Live-Music Scene

The late ’80s and early ’90s were the halcyon days of the music fanzines. To discover great music outside of the mainstream music press back then, fans had to scour fanzines. These days, Web sites, message boards, and blogs have completely changed the way music information is obtained and shared, and the advent of broadband has provided fast and easy Internet access.

In Memphis in the last year, music-show information has become omnipresent in blogs and message boards. Scenestars.net, Rachelandthecity.com, Pulpfaction.blogspot.com, Livefrommemphis.com, Goner-records.com, Memphisrap.com, and Memphismojo.com all have live-show information that is often more up to date than the information provided by the clubs themselves. The Center City Commission even has a weekly e-mail newsletter pitching the hot downtown shows of the weekend. Consequently, even the most obscure shows have more immediate visibility. Attendance seems to be up all over the city, and the Internet information is certainly one reason.

Rap Comes Out of the Closet

The biggest seller in the music business in the ’90s was rap music. But rap was rarely performed in Memphis. Rap in Memphis was almost like Elvis’ dirty shaking hips in the ’50s: It existed, but nobody discussed it and if they did, it was in a pejorative manner. Now there are a couple of clubs (Premiere and Plush) that host hip-hop acts, and Memphis in May has booked some of the biggest Memphis rap stars. Memphis rap has become a large commercial presence.

On the other end of the hip-hop spectrum, Memphix and its various offshoots and DJ crews have been the catalyst for getting the soul/hip-hop DJ movement into the rock-club scene. They have also combined modern soul acts such as Sharon Jones and Nathaniel Mayer with DJs to bring dance fans to see live bands and live-music fans to dance to the DJs after the bands finish. Their shows create a crossover effect for disparate music fans and a buzz not previously seen in the Memphis market.

Growth of the Music Biz in Cooper-Young

In the last five years, two recording studios, Goner Records, Black Lodge Video, several new restaurants, and at least one new late-night music venue have joined the Young Avenue Deli and the Memphis Drum Shop in making Cooper-Young the capital of the Midtown music and entertainment scene. The organic growth of this neighborhood has evolved in a far more interesting way than the force-fed development of Overton Square and Beale Street, creating an enticing mish-mash of entertainment options. Remember, the music biz comes in many forms: retail, live bands, studios, and DJs. Cooper-Young has almost everything — more than any other neighborhood in Memphis.

Swing Is Not the Thing

Swing night died a faddish death several years ago. In its place as scene du jour, Goner Records’ far-reaching influence (and Web site) has helped spur an immensely successful garage-rock scene. In fact, garage-rock in Memphis is so strong that even the worst garage bands in the country get a better shot at an audience than most other genres of music. Midtown dives such as Murphy’s and the Buccaneer have risen from the dead to join the Hi-Tone Café and Young Avenue Deli in providing multiple musical options several nights a week — a far superior amount of live music than five years ago. At some of these smaller clubs, even a sparse turnout (with buzz enhanced by blogs and Web sites) creates an exciting atmosphere for the live-music experience. •

Sherman Willmott founded Midtown institution Shangri-La Records and wrote April’s Memphis magazine cover story on the music of the films Hustle & Flow and Forty Shades of Blue.

By Sherman Willmott

The local music that mattered most

over the past five years.

m

usic geekery and list-making go together as naturally as baseball fandom and statistics. Over the past few months, the Web has been littered with music sites making “half-decade” lists, an only slightly arbitrary exercise so much fun that we decided to take the cue and compile our own listcentric examination of local music at the decade’s midpoint. Since our list is dominated by the Reigning Sound rather than Radiohead, we like it better.

In conducting a smaller, more hand-picked equivalent to the local music poll that typically graces our annual music issue, we started with a core of regular Flyer music writers, Chris Herrington, Chris Davis, Andria Lisle, and Andrew Earles, and then invited six Memphians who listen to a lot of local music and whose opinion we respect: Shangri-La Records founder Sherman Willmott, Cat’s Music Midtown manager Steve Walker, Goner Records owner Eric Friedl, WEVL disc jockey Hayden Jackson, Easley-McCain Recording engineer Kevin Cubbins, and former Flyer music editor Mark Jordan. We thank them all for their participation.

We had everyone submit a list of their 40 favorite local records of the half-decade, then compiled the lists into the composite list below. Our 10 voters named 135 records. Here are the top 40.

1. Too Much Love — Harlan T. Bobo: Bobo’s first solo effort was a treasure chest overflowing with melancholy gems and sunny offbeat love songs. It’s romance distilled: tattered, delirious, fragile, sly, and disarming. Breaking and entering never seemed so sweet; blue skies never seemed so vastly overrated. Too Much Love should never be scored with stars but with valentines. — Chris Davis


2. Time Bomb High School — The Reigning Sound: Finding the perfect balance between noise and nuance, ex-Oblivian/Compulsive Gambler Greg Cartwright crafts his testament: not so much a tribute to the overlooked era of pre-hippie ’60s rock and soul as an invocation, concocted out of record-shop dust. An act of loving, genius craftsmanship that absorbs and reinvigorates its earlier pop sources as much as Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft” or DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing. — Chris Herrington

3. Cloud-Wow Music — Shelby Bryant: Giddy, personal, airy, effortless, and effervescent, Cloud-Wow Music is cotton candy for the ears and candied apples for the mind’s eye. Simultaneously innocent and worldly, Bryant’s sonic smile forms a tragicomic bridge to a magical land where Syd Barrett is king, hormones sing, and everything you see is yours to keep until somebody takes it away. — CD


4. Too Much Guitar! — The Reigning Sound: Could this be the hardest, heaviest record ever made that can truly be slotted as soul music? Ollie Nightingale and Eddie Floyd gone punk-rock. Letter-bomb valentines to Hank Ballard and Sam & Dave. All sound and fury; zero posturing. A rocketship of a record that’s loud at any volume. — CH

5. Doing the Distance — Snowglobe: A 44-minute rock symphony marked by its excited creativity, casual density, and palpable camaraderie. No other local record in recent memory sounds so huge yet so intimate. — CH


6. Break Up Break Down — The Reigning Sound: Sure, Greg Cartwright rocked harder with the Oblivians (and even on later Reigning Sound recordings), but his songwriting skills and his gift for crafting simple, thoroughly infectious melodies are best represented on this Reigning Sound debut, which concocts a folk-rock paradise where the Byrds and Crazy Horse make beautiful music together. “I don’t require that you be true to me, just as long as you come home,” Cartwright moans as the album downshifts into full-on honky-tonk. And now that he’s abandoned Memphis for Ashville, North Carolina, we know exactly how the poor boy feels. — CD

7. The Royal Sessions — The Bo-Keys: Listening to The Royal Sessions, it’s easy to imagine that Stax Records never had a date with the bulldozer. That’s all you need to know. — CD


8. The Hell You Say — Cory Branan: No one has written sharper songs about Memphis life. Over the past five years, no one in Memphis has written sharper songs — period. — CH


9. That Much Further West — Lucero: Just another bunch of Southern boys dreaming of nights in NYC, and they make those dreams reality here, breaking free of the “local band” designation with this debut on national indie Tiger Style, which also happened to be their grittiest, most consistent record. — CH


10. Black-Wave — Lost Sounds: One listen to this epic sonic assault and it’s clear that the band’s nemesis is its own hometown: lifeless bar-band blues, suburban sprawl, pressure to conform, the crush of violence and poverty safely overlooked by half the city. All reasons to kill, but the Lost Sounds confront it all with the only weapons at their disposal: shrieking guitars, whiplash drums, panicked keyboards, outraged voices. — CH


11. Our Land Brains — Snowglobe: A little more folkish, a little less confident than Doing the Distance, this debut is no less lovely or dreamlike: horn overtures leading into righteous campfire sing-alongs; an introduction to a band representing something new for Memphis music. — CH


12. Mouse Rocket — Mouse Rocket: Lost Sounds’ Alicja Trout takes her ostensible side project center-stage with a poppier, more straightforward rock record that’s also filled with sardonic humor and sly smarts. — CH


13. The Delicate Seam — The Bloodthirsty Lovers: The Grifters and Big Ass Truck didn’t seem to have much in common. Here’s proof otherwise: the Grifters’ David Shouse and the Truck’s Steve Selvidge explore their jones for the delicate architecture of art-rock guitar. — CH


14. Start With the Soul — Alvin Youngblood Hart: The sharpest guitar player in a city full of them sets the blues aside and takes its baby, rock-and-roll, out for a stroll. — CH


15. Don’t Throw Your Love Away — The Tearjerkers: Jack Oblivian redefines roots music as country-boogie, blues, punk, and cock-rock collide on his band’s brand-new second release. — CD

16. Makeshift #3 — Various Artists: A definitive snapshot of a time and place, the artier edges of Midtown Memphis, circa right now. — CH


17. Concorde — The Glass: Gorgeous, lurking, and romantic, the Glass — like their kinsmen the Satyrs — represent a lighter, lovelier but no less haunted or haunting shade of goth. Concorde aches, pines, shrieks, and wallows in the glorious uselessness of life. — CD


18. Romeo Hood — The Preacher’s Kids: If Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers had been raised in the Pentecostal church and educated in a Tupelo whorehouse, they might have sounded a lot like Mississippi punk Tyler Keith. Romeo Hood is third-generation Chuck Berry: angry, paranoid, working-class punk stripped down to its bare and beautiful bones. — CD


19. “Shake Hands With Shorty” — The North Mississippi Allstars: The hypnotic drone of hill-country blues meets the nimble jamming of the Allman Brothers. The result: a definitive local group is born in the surest connection of art and commerce from a Bluff City guitar band since the Box Tops. Conclusion: Yep, this record should probably be a lot higher on this list. — CH


20. From Senegal to Senatobia — Othar Turner: From Senegal to Senatobia pits drum-corps precision against expressive African percussion with Turner’s fife whistling over the top of it all. And North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson brings along his slide guitar. — CD


The Next 20: The Bloodthirsty Lovers — The Bloodthirsty Lovers; A New Commotion, A Delicate Tension — Viva L’American Death Ray Music; Lost Sounds — Lost Sounds; I Can’t Stop — Al Green; I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down –R.L.Burnside; Crystal Gazing, Luck Amazing — The Compulsive Gamblers; Bad Mood Rising — The Tearjerkers; Wrecked — Halfacre Gunroom; The Satyrs — The Satyrs; Grateful To Burn — Andy Grooms; Rat’s Brains & Microchips — Lost Sounds; Wild Emotions — Preacher’s Kids; Everything’s OK — Al Green; Launch Pad Rock — Eighty Katie; Disco Eraser — Final Solutions; I’ve Lived a Rich Life — Jeffrey Evans; Big Lonesome Radio — Mark Lemhouse; Unlimited Symmetry — The Coach and Four; Lucero — Lucero; Arkadelphia — Rob Jungklas. •

Incoming

A tip sheet to some of this summer’s locally connected releases.

Welcome to The Memphis Flyer‘s annual Music Issue, timed to coincide, as always, with the Beale Street Music Festival, the city’s busiest weekend of music every year. It should be even busier than normal because the Memphis Grizzlies’ playoff games will share downtown space with the Music Fest. (And if you think I’m mad at the National Basketball Association for making me miss the Roots on Sunday night, you’re right.)

You won’t find a more comprehensive guide to the festival than our pullout included in this issue. As for the rest of this year’s Music Issue: Well, it looks a little different. The local-music poll that’s filled this space for the past four years is on hiatus, victim to an ill-timed paternity leave for the election commission of one. The poll will likely return next year, but for now we’ve tried to assemble a mix of local stories that tap into the future, present, and (immediate) past of Memphis music.

Over the next couple of pages, we offer a tip sheet on some of the many locally connected records that should be showing up in stores this summer. On page 26, we use the current decade’s midpoint to take stock of what’s changed and what’s mattered most in Memphis music over the past five years. Shangri-La Projects’ Sherman Willmott, a longtime local-music watcher, surveys the big changes. Then he joins our regular stable of music writers and a few invited guests in naming the best local records of the decade so far.

As for the present, Bianca Phillips dives deep into the burgeoning all-ages punk scene (page 32) that is uniting the long-divided music scenes of Midtown and East Memphis. Andria Lisle is in London (page 22) where Memphis music got the grand treatment with an “It Came From Memphis” concert series. And Andrew Earles (page 20) checks in on local recording studio Easley-McCain as its owners continue to sort through the damage of a March fire.

We think it’s a good package of pieces, and we hope you agree. Have fun at Music Fest, and we’ll see you again this time next year. — Chris Herrington

Damage Done

Sorting through aftermath of the Easley-McCain Studio fire.

The birthplace of several important alt-rock records (most recently the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells) and a key component in the creative matrix that drives Memphis’ Midtown-based indie-rock scene, Easley-McCain Recording Studio, located at 2272 Deadrick Avenue, was dealt a horrible blow when a blaze wiped out the studio’s control room, waiting area, and sections of the second floor, which was being used for storage and a smaller studio area.

The March 2nd fire, discovered by engineer Kevin Cubbins, spared the tracking room (or “big room”). The door was closed, and the wall that separates this room from the remainder of the studio acted as a firewall. The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, but investigators have narrowed its origin to the area of a wastebasket and electrical outlet. “I don’t know, and I don’t think they really know yet,” says studio owner Doug Easley. “It wasn’t arson. Use that as your big quote. It wasn’t arson.”

Little compares to the despair of watching something close to you burn uncontrollably, but an adage holds true: It could have been worse. “It’s only equipment. People aren’t replaceable. I’d much rather go to a storage unit than go to a bunch of funerals,” Easley says.

“We’re sorting out what was burned and destroyed and what was burned and can be cleaned or salvaged,” says Davis McCain, Easley’s longtime partner. “Unfortunately, the destroyed pile is getting bigger.”

But six weeks later, Easley and McCain aren’t just sorting through the damage. They’re also sorting through the ramifications of insurance negotiations.

“It’s amazing how little communication goes on [with insurance companies]. As long as they can hold onto their money, they’re happy,” Easley says.

The process isn’t helped by the enormous amount of work required to catalog the damage, a process that has required equipment dealers to help value some of the studio’s more esoteric items.

“Every piece is a line on a form, then there is a value that you have to give it,

and then [the insurance company] wants to know where you got that number,” Easley says.

“We’re just digging out from under this incredible mound of charred stuff. If the process seemed slow at the beginning, it’s really slow now,” McCain adds.

Despite the damage, work continues for Easley-McCain. Some remote work is taking place. For instance, Cubbins headed up to a rented cabin in Arkansas last week to finish an album with local band the Glass, a project that began at Easley-McCain. And Easley makes clear that, whatever the impact on the studio itself, the fire has also had an impact on local musicians now short a recording outlet.

“People are always saying, ‘Let’s do benefits.’ It’s a nice gesture, but there’s no way to know right now what they would be funding,” McCain says.

“I thought we should have a reverse benefit. Everybody who ever came

to the studio, they’d come to a show, and they’d get $5 at the door and free beer,” Easley adds. “We always tried to make it an all-inclusive thing, where people went to have a good time and where a lot of great things emanated from. In retrospect, it’s been a great run for us, but we didn’t do it by ourselves.”

The studio’s future is still in flux, pending the slow process of sorting out damages and insurance claims. At present, Easley and McCain are pricing rooms for temporary rental and ferreting out locations for in-progress projects. “I’ve been looking for places to continue some projects I had going,” Easley says. “Though it’s premature to say exactly what, we are continuing in one form or another. I’m not retiring.”

By

Andrew Earles

From Memphis to London

——

I never thought I’d be talking Memphis music in a sushi restaurant on the River Thames, but, come lunchtime on Saturday, April 9th, that’s exactly what I did. Beginning Sunday, April 3rd, London’s Barbican Arts Centre launched a month-long Memphis music festival — named “It Came From Memphis” after Robert Gordon’s book — and, for one action-packed week, I got to help Gordon, Barbican programmer Bryn Ormrod, and a few dozen musicians bring a little Southern hospitality across the pond.

Everyone I met in London was gracious, eager to hear about Memphis, and ready to party all night long. Many of the music fans knew even more minutiae than I did, wanting to dig deep with questions about the glory days at American Studio, the truth about Alex Chilton, and obscure releases on tiny labels such as Fernwood and Barbarian.

Journalists wanted to focus on the seedier side of Memphis. One story in Time Out London opened with a description of the rats that currently inhabit the Hotel Chisca on Main Street (where Dewey Phillips once broadcast his Red Hot & Blue radio show), while articles in London’s daily newspapers bypassed the typical tourist fare for grittier sites such as Wild Bill’s and Willie Mitchell’s Royal Studio. Meanwhile, bona-fide pop stars such as Spiritualized’s Jason “Spaceman” Pierce and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie seemed to be on cloud nine while soaking up the Southern scene.

Imagine: Halfway around the world, people actually “get” Memphis music.

Although the festival — with nights honoring Memphis studios Ardent, Hi, Sun, Stax, and a detour to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio located just a few hundred miles away in northern Alabama — lasted all month, my own trip was fast and furious. I was in on Thursday and out on Monday, just long enough to catch two nights at the Barbican: a Muscle Shoals concert anchored by guitarist Jimmy Johnson, bassist David Hood, and organist Spooner Oldham, all original house players at the studio, and a Delta blues concert that starred T-Model Ford, Kenny Brown, Little Milton, and Bobby Rush.

Just how did the Barbican pull off such a festival anyway?

“Two years ago, I was on my way to Austin, Texas, and I stopped off in Memphis,” says Ormrod. “I knew about Graceland, Al Green, and Stax beforehand, but in Memphis, I had an epiphany. Thinking about characters like Charlie Feathers and Furry Lewis, it struck me that there’s an incredible story here. I was interested in the social history of Memphis, and I saw an opportunity to dig a bit deeper and peel away the layers. My job is to tell the story of music from different parts of the world and tell how it impacts what’s going on in the U.K.,” he says, explaining that he produced a similar festival, “Beyond Nashville,” at the Barbican in 2001.

A fortuitous meeting with Irish documentary filmmaker Paul Duane at a North Mississippi Allstars concert led Ormrod straight to Robert Gordon.

“Paul had raised seed money from the Irish film board for an It Came From Memphis documentary, and he and I shot a teaser two-and-a-half years ago,” Gordon says. “He gave Bryn a copy of my book, and, last winter, I received an e-mail saying they’re going to do this festival.” Gordon ended up becoming the festival’s curator. “It was the best possible situation, because all I had to do was come up with the ideas,” he says. “And because the Barbican is subsidized by the City of London, we had plenty of artistic freedom.”

Ormrod appreciated Gordon’s portrayal of the underground, alternative universe of Memphis music. “We didn’t want to tell the obvious,” he says. “What seemed important were the stories about people such as Jim [Dickinson] and Furry — crazy avant-garde people that seemed to be a part of the energy. You can go to Memphis as a tourist and get a sense of the big parts of history, but it’s not easy to discover the hidden things. Black history is still underrepresented in Memphis, even though it’s the bedrock of everything that’s going on.”

Initially, Gordon and Ormrod conceived of a festival anchored by legends such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Alex Chilton. While negotiations with each of those musicians fell through, they seemed pleased with the final line-up: Jimmy Crosthwait, Dickinson, and Sid Selvidge performing as Mud Boy & the Neutrons and Memphis expatriate Tav Falco, the North Mississippi Allstars, Monsieur Jeffrey Evans, and the Tearjerkers performed on Ardent night. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section backed singers Mavis Staples, Bonnie Bramlett, George Soule, Donnie Fritts, and Tony Joe White, while the Hi Rhythm Section backed Ann Peebles, Syl Johnson, and Percy Wiggins. Ike Turner, Billy Lee Riley, Cowboy Jack Clement, and Sonny Burgess & the Pacers headlined Sun night, and Booker T & the MGs and the Bo-Keys performed behind Mable John, Eddie Floyd, and William Bell on Stax night.

All in all, the Barbican purchased upwards of 150 airline tickets to bring Memphis music to London.

“The only thing I’d like to have done differently is have more contemporary sounds,” Ormrod says. “I would have loved to have the Reigning Sound or an Oblivians reunion, and jazz guitarist Calvin Newborn would’ve been nice. But we got Jim Dickinson, a guy with a history that really connects different stories together. You can link up so many characters — Tav, Dickinson, and [photographer William] Eggleston — in the same crazy web of understated music that’s proven to be so influential.”

Between 1,500 and 2,000 music fans attended each performance, while countless more took in afternoon shows on the free stages in the Barbican’s mammoth lobby, went to lectures, or viewed Memphis-centric screenings in the “It Came From Memphis” Film Festival.

“You wouldn’t have had a crowd like that in Memphis,” Selvidge confirms. “Those Londoners really respond to the myths behind the music — the stuff Robert wrote about in his book.” Explaining that he’d like to put together a similar concert series in New York’s Lincoln Center, Selvidge jokes, “It Came From Memphis has had more lives than a cat. By my count, Robert’s got six more incarnations to go.”

“London’s Channel Four is very interested in funding the It Came From Memphis documentary,” Gordon confirms. “As always, there’s more of an interest in Memphis outside of town.”

While the Barbican audience loved certain acts, such as Selvidge’s a capella rendition of “Bo Weevil” and Ike Turner’s hard-boiled blues (“He had the devil on both shoulders,” Ormrod notes triumphantly), one performance didn’t go over so well. Robin Denselow, music critic for the Guardian newspaper, described soul-blues singer Bobby Rush as a “battered playboy, [with] suggestive lyrics directed at his teenage dancer.”

From my own seat in the audience, I felt a collective gasp when Rush unveiled a giant-size pair of woman’s underpants while the Brits, aghast, reacted with silent embarrassment. “They were stunned,” Gordon says. “Nothing in their society had prepared them for it, and they simply didn’t know what to do.”

By Andria Lisle

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

friday, 29

It’s the last Friday of the month, so that means The South Main Trolley Art Tour, 6 to 9 p.m. While you’re downtown, check out the opening reception for Greg and Christine Long’s “Ireland, Tradition, and Today: A Marriage of Art” at Durden Gallery, 6 to 9 p.m. MCA’s MFA candidates are showing what they learned at various sites around town; check out mca.edu or call 272-5111 for more information. “and Everything’s Picking Up Speed,” an exhibit featuring the work of seven artists from around the country, opens at Material. “Red Thread” is a one-night-only art show curated by Rhodes student Tamara Glas as part of the school’s gallery-management class. This show includes works from nine artists from five countries and is being held at Congo Theatre at the First Congregational Church, 6 to 9 p.m. And, yes, we do know today’s the first of the three-day Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival. There’s a whole Flyer supplement devoted to the event, including schedules, artist bios, and a map, somewhere in this paper. Check it out.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Crisis of Faith

So far, most American media outlets seem to be walking on eggshells to avoid tough coverage of the new pope. Caution is in the air, and some of it is valid. Anti-Catholic bigotry has a long and ugly history in the United States. News organizations should stay away from disparaging the Catholic faith, which certainly deserves as much respect as any other religion.

At the same time, the Vatican is a massive global power. Though it has no army, it is more powerful than many governments. And these days, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is the capital of political reaction garbed in religiosity. Many dividing lines between theology and ideology have virtually disappeared.

After more than two decades as a Vatican power broker, Joseph Ratzinger is now in charge as Pope Benedict XVI. He is extremely well-positioned to push a long-standing agenda that includes hostility toward AIDS prevention measures, women’s rights, gay rights, and movements for social justice. No one in the hierarchy was more vehemently opposed to condoms, this, while millions of people contracted cases of AIDS that could have been prevented.

During the 1980s, it was Ratzinger who led the charge from Rome against the wondrous spirit and vibrant activism that galvanized Catholics and others across Latin America. While many priests, nuns, and laity bravely joined together to challenge U.S.-backed regimes inflicting economic exploitation, intimidation, torture, and murder with impunity, Ratzinger used the Vatican’s authority to undermine such community-based resistance. He silenced outspoken church officials and installed orthodox clergy who would go along with the deadly status quo.

For right-wing religious activists, Ratzinger has been a godsend. And now that he’s running a church with 1.1 billion members, the odds are excellent that he will proceed to gladden the hearts of misogynists, homophobes, and right-wing crusaders around the world. Contrary to the predictable media spin about the uncertainty of his papal course, everything we know about Ratzinger’s extensive record during the last quarter-century tells us that he is a reactionary zealot who is determined to shove much of the history of progressive social change into reverse. He is a true believer.

The new papacy is a huge gift to the minority of conservatives in the United States who are trying to impose their version of morality on the country and the world.

Soon after the 2000 presidential election, an astute analyst of far-right religious movements, Frederick Clarkson, wrote that “both the evangelical and Catholic Right are developing and promoting a long-term, fundamental approach to the practice of faith that links political involvement with faith itself. ” Clarkson added that “a shift in the political culture suggests that personal and unedited expressions of religious belief for political purposes are no longer considered unseemly. Indeed, the suggestion is that they are beyond reproach.”

And that’s much of the problem. When debatable positions are “beyond reproach” — when religiosity provides cover for all manner of manipulations and repression — it’s easier for demagogic power-mongers to get away with murder.

Journalists should not let pious proclamations intimidate them. When the policies of a president or prime minister result in suppression of human rights or fuel public-health disasters, the news media should not hesitate to expose the consequences. And the policies of a pope should be no less scrutinized. •

Norman Solomon’s latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, will be published this summer.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Kung Fool

Kung Fu Hustle is a genuinely sweet fable wrapped in layer after ridiculous layer of unadulterated kung foolishness.

Filmed on huge sound stages, Kung Fu Hustle is also a grand and beautifully made essay on the history of physical comedy in film with nods to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Sergio Leone, Bollywood, Warner Bros. cartoons, A Clockwork Orange, the Coen Brothers, Terry Gilliam, The Shining, Shogun, West Side Story, Spider-man, The Silence of the Lambs, every Chinese folk tale ever told, and every 1970s-era martial-arts flick ever shot by the Shaw Brothers. That may sound like an awful lot of homage crammed into a 95-minute movie, but in this campy, action-packed ode to comic-book fatalism, nothing seems excessive or out of place.

Writer/director/star Stephen Chow’s understanding of cinematic language and his ability to use audio/visual cliché as a kind of shorthand makes English subtitles unnecessary. If the film were entirely wordless there would be no question as to what was going on, and the laughter would be every bit as pervasive.

Set in a squalid future where a gang of youthful, ax-throwing miscreants rules the streets as well as the halls of justice, Kung Fu Hustle imagines a topsy-turvy world where only the poverty-stricken Pig Sty Alley remains untouched by crime and relatively peaceful. Well, until a pair of bungling would-be criminals (Chow and Lam Tze Chung) show up trying to convince the Sty-dwellers that they are members of the ax-gang, accidentally setting into motion a classic battle between the unexpectedly good and the unimaginably wicked.

As a child, Sing (played by Chow) was conned by a street hustler, who took the youngster’s life savings in exchange for a worthless dimestore book about kung fu and some mystical-sounding gobbledygook about how Sing has been chosen as the protector of all mankind. The young Sing’s first attempt to do good by saving a little deaf girl’s lollypop from older ruffians goes badly, and though he saves the lollypop, he takes a beating and suffers a humiliation so terrible he’s determined never to do good again. The lollypop functions as a motif as innocent and sweet as Chaplin’s flower in City Lights, which is the obvious inspiration for Kung Fu Hustle‘s backstory. The second time the fateful lollypop appears now old and crusty there can be little doubt that Sing’s latent heroism will reemerge.

Even without Sing, Pig Sty Alley is well-protected by a quintet of unlikely kung fu masters: a gay tailor, a humble noodle maker, a lowly coolie, a skinny landlord, and his shrewish wife. If Kung Fu Hustle has a moral, it’s that value lurks in the least-obvious places and that those who don’t measure up against the status quo are in no way diminished by their artificially imposed shortcomings.

Yuen Qiu is hysterical as Pig Sty Alley’s exceptionally loud muumuu-and slipper-wearing landlady. Qiu is never seen without a cigarette dangling from her lips, and the way she moves it from one side of her mouth to the other without ever touching it with her hands is a masterful exercise in physical comedy the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the end of the silent era.

Many critics have already labeled Kung Fu Hustle as a live-action cartoon, which is accurate but only to a degree. While there are many comic elements lifted directly from the Chuck Jones playbook, and there are certainly times when the plot seems to mimic exactly the classic encounters of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, this isn’t some vapid Jim Carrey vehicle with a Mandarin accent. In spite of its animated antecedents, Kung Fu Hustle is more informed by Chaplin’s City Lights, Keaton’s The General, and Harold Lloyd’s famous “glasses character” than it is as Roger Ebert has suggested by Bugs Bunny. For that matter, Chow’s visual style owes more to the surrealist painter Rene Magritte, and to Big Lebowski-era Coen Brothers than it does to “Merrie Melodies” or even the tradition of kung fu action movies.

As wrongs are righted through a series of absurd and magical conflicts between the unlikely good guys and the forces of darkness, Kung Fu Hustle becomes a smart, subtle, and artfully produced answer to a rather obnoxious staple of cable television: the 1980s teen romp Revenge of the Nerds. In Chow’s universe, all things stylish, glamorous, and expensive are inextricably bound up in villainy, while beauty is hidden behind thick glasses and heroism is only fostered by the school of hard knocks. If Kung Fu Hustle is ultimately an exercise in absurdity, it is also a love song to underdogs and a strong warning to oppressors everywhere: There are a lot of poor, downtrodden people in the world and their kung fu is better than yours. •