Month: September 2005

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q & A: Susan polgar

Chess — it’s not just a man’s game anymore, and, ladies, you have Susan Polgar to thank.

Polgar paved the way for women in the once male-dominated game. In 1986, she broke the gender barrier by qualifying for the Men’s World Championship. Then, in 1991, she earned the Men’s Grandmaster title, the highest honor in chess.

Last weekend, Polgar was in Memphis to teach and demonstrate simultaneous games at Lausanne Collegiate Schools’ chess camp. Since chess instills discipline, focus, and critical-thinking skills in its players, we couldn’t let the opportunity pass without learning from a Grandmaster. — By Bianca Phillips

Flyer: What was it like when you achieved the Men’s Grandmaster title?Polgar: I felt really motivated to get there and prove that women are just as capable as men in chess and basically anything that requires thinking. I was very proud.

When did you first become interested in chess?I started when I was about 4. A few months later, I had my first big success winning the championship in Budapest for girls under age 11. I won all of my games, 10 out of 10.

didn’t you break a Guinness World Record recently?I had to walk over nine miles while playing 1,131 games over 16 hours of time. I broke four different records. The main record was to play 326 different opponents simultaneously. The other record was playing 1,131 consecutive games, some against the same opponent. The other two records related to the score.

Do you still play every day?I still prepare when I play a big tournament or exhibition.

How does chess relate to everyday life?Chess can teach you responsibility. When you make a move, you have to plan ahead and consider opponents’ moves, just like in life. When it’s a rainy day, take an umbrella. The more you get into chess, the more you discover logic and discipline and not rushing through decisions.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Blue Ribbon Babies

Maybe the Memphis City Schools’ Blue Ribbon Plan should be recreated throughout the community.At a recent meeting, MCS board president Wanda Halbert complained that the Blue Ribbon magnets that both she and Commissioner Tomeka Hart had on their cars were gone.

“We don’t know if anyone has taken them,” Halbert said. “Maybe they fell off when we washed our cars …”

“I didn’t wash my car,” interjected Hart.

“Well, we don’t know, but they’re gone,” Halbert said.

If they were taken, it’s the only bad behavior that has increased since the plan was implemented. Put in place by the superintendent after the board banned corporal punishment last year, the Blue Ribbon Plan includes increased personal interaction (less paddle, more prattle?) to improve student behavior and school safety.

Figures comparing the first 20 days of the new school year to last school year were encouraging. Fights decreased 40 percent; officer referrals dropped 34 percent; and district suspensions decreased 57 percent.

“I think it’s probably due to a more conscious effort on the part of teachers, administrators, and the support teams at the schools to be more proactive in dealing with the kids. In other words, letting them know what the expectations are and recognizing when [students are] doing well,” said Denise Johnson, the district’s Blue Ribbon Plan coordinator.

During Johnson’s 10-year tenure as principal at Sherwood Middle, an orientation was held at the beginning of each school year at which the kids were read the rules. Under the Blue Ribbon Plan, Johnson takes children to the physical location where certain behavior is expected.

“For example, if you have a certain procedure in the cafeteria — in terms of where students line up, which door they go into, what do they do with their trays — you actually take the kids to the cafeteria and walk through it,” she said. “You display what the appropriate behavior is. I never did that as a principal. Never.”

The dress rehearsal gives children an explicit understanding of what’s expected and a chance to practice the rules.

“Sometimes when we tell the kids to walk on the right side of the hallway and to use their inside voices, you have to have them practice, because, to a kid, what’s an inside voice?” Johnson asked. “We used to say things to children like ‘Be respectful’ and ‘Be kind.’ What does that look like? What does that sound like?”

The idea is impact the overall climate and culture of the schools and, in the process, increase student achievement, attendance, and participation.

“You have some kids who come to school every day. They never miss a day, but they’re not engaged at all,” Johnson said. “They’re not being disruptive, but they’re not achieving academically because they’re not engaged. There are a lot of children who have been allowed to progress to a certain level just because they’re quiet and obedient, not because they were actually mastering all the work they needed to master.”

Though the school district recently made enough progress to get five schools off the state’s “high priority” list, there’s still room to improve. And reasons to do so.

One thing that has come up in the coverage of Hurricane Katrina is the poor performance and fiscal difficulties of New Orleans’ public schools. But, in many ways, the fate of New Orleans rests on those very schools. The city might be ready for visitors in time for New Year’s, but with its schools shuttered until next fall and its teachers looking for jobs in other cities, New Orleans isn’t ready for families to move back.

We’d be wise to remember that New Orleans isn’t the only city whose future rests on its schools.

“What we’re trying to do is get people to think differently about dealing with children,” Johnson said. “In the past, our way of trying to do that was to put out the bad kids, just put out those kids who won’t do what you want them to do, but we can’t afford to do that. They’re part of our citizenry and our community.”

Without this change, we’d be missing more than our magnets.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Best In Class

“They say the best classes go to the fastest/Sorry, Mr. West, there’s no good classes/Not even electives, not even prerequisites/You mean I missed my major by a coupla seconds?”

On his new CD, rapper Kanye West sums up the horror of course registration, that free-for-all of academic ambition that pits college students against each other for a few available spaces in each class.

It’s a horror many know. “I remember registering in a huge auditorium and getting absolutely nothing,” says Glen Munson, now an award-winning registrar at Rhodes. Munson designed a system of advance registration that responds to student demand, adding sections where necessary.

So, what are these much-desired classes? Deans, registrars, and faculty from three local universities told us what classes top the list at their institutions. What we found is that college is still the way most of us remember: a place for young pagans to discuss sex, bodily excretions, and the finer points of public speaking.

Rhodes College’s Most Popular Class: Sex and Gender in the New Testament — a study of New Testament passages pertaining to sexual activity.

Why? “I think the boys probably take it because they hear the word sex and the girls take it because they hear the word gender,” says Ashley Kundif, a Rhodes sophomore.

Runner-Up: Astronomy — an introduction for nonscience majors.

Why? “It seems almost like we’re hard-wired to feel curious about the stars. We’re all pagans at heart,” says Jay White, the professor who teaches the class. Christian Brothers’ Most Popular Class: Christian Ethics — a critical investigation of the theological convictions grounding Christian understandings of doing what is right.

Why? “It’s a popular class because we discuss a lot of hot-button issues: the death penalty, homosexuality, and war,” says Professor Peter Gathje. “The students get very excited to discuss issues of sexuality.”

Runner-Up: Parasitology — the study of the morphology, taxonomy, life cycle, distribution, pathology, and control of parasites of man and other animals.

Why? “I think it’s a morbid fascination with the things that cause explosive diarrhea,” says Dr. Stanley Eisen. “This is a class you really experience. When I teach about ticks and lice, I can watch my students scratching themselves. When I teach about flukes and tapeworms, some of them start to lose weight.” University of Memphis’ Most Popular Class: Introduction to Film — a comprehensive study of the form’s function and a history of film art.

Why? “A lot of students sign up because they think it’s going to be easy, eating popcorn and watching movies,” says Professor Danny Linton, “and they end up getting an F.”

Runner-Up: Oral Presentation — principles and practices of basic oral communication.

Why? “I think students like this class because … you can stand up and speak without fear of your peers booing and throwing things,” says instructor Andre Johnson.

Categories
News

Small Town, Big Trouble

Years ago as a young, stupid boy, me and some buddies went on a fishing trip in a small town in Arkansas. We arrived well after dark, cracked a few jokes about the town as we passed through it, and looked forward to settling down in the cabin we had rented. Tomorrow we would be on the river, and we’d be killin’ fish right and left.

Just outside of town, I notice flashing lights behind us. I figure there is an emergency someplace, so I pull over. Sadly, so does the cop — right behind me. As it happens, I was on the shoulder of the highway, right in front of a sign that said “Speed Limit 55.”

Now, this was back in the day when police officers had you come sit in the car with them. So I go sit in the car with him. He’s asking the usual questions — where ya headed, where ya from, and so on — when I notice that his radar gun says 44 mph. I look at him, I look at the sign in front of my car, I look back at the radar gun. He seems to be writing a ticket.

“Um, officer?”

“Yep.”

“I, uh, see that you clocked me at 44 mph.”

“Yep.”

“Well, I, uh, see that the speed limit here is 55.”

“Yep.”

“Right, so I was wondering: Am I getting this ticket for going too slow?”

“Nope. You did 44 back in town.”

“And what’s the speed limit there?”

“15.”

Ouch.

Not much to say after that. I mean, I tripled the speed limit, I’m a stupid kid from Memphis, and he’s a cop holding all the cards. This is where you pretty much twiddle your thumbs and wait for your reckoning.

He tears off a piece of paper and was about to hand it to me when he says, “Tell you what. You were going three times the speed limit in an area where children might have been present and that constitutes reckless endangerment, and for that, I’d have to take you and your car in, and the ticket for that is a whole lot of money. So I tell you what. Let’s just say you were doin’ 30 and there weren’t any kids around. That’s about 75 bucks, and you still get to go fishing instead of calling your parents to get you out of jail.”

He was playing good cop and bad cop. I was still twiddling my thumbs, only now I was also experiencing some realizations. This was a grown-up situation I was in.

He goes on: “All of that would go on your record, and then the insurance company finds out and your parents, so I tell you what … ”

I notice that he wasn’t saying “How about” or “What do you think.” He was saying “I tell you.” There were the words, and then there was the message. And the message was “bend over.”

“I tell you what,” he says. “If you just settle this right here — for, say, 50 bucks. I’m sure the judge’ll see clear not to put it on your record. Makes it easier for everybody.”

Through the dense fog of teenage stupidity, reality became clear. If there even is a judge, the odds of him ever hearing about this little encounter would be pretty slim. There was a much better chance Mrs. Cop was about to get a nice steak dinner.

“Well,” I say, “that sounds good. Let’s just settle this right here, then.” Completely hip to the scene now, I add, “I assume cash works better?”

“Yep. Cash works better.” And it does.

I pull out basically all the cash I have and hand it over. All clear, but now I feel like a grownup, having essentially paid a real, live bribe for my freedom. So now I want to chat — you know, chum it up with the guy.

“So, how many police are there in this town?”

He seems bemused, to say the least. “Just me and one other officer.”

“How many police cars?”

“Just this one. We share it.” He hands me a piece of paper and sends me back to my car with a wry grin and a pleasant “Don’t forget to obey the speed limit.”

Back in the car with my buddies, I look at the paper. It says something about a citation but nothing at all about that 50 bucks. Funny. My buddies look terrified. But not me. I was a man now. I look at them coolly, and I tear up the paper.

They are shocked, amazed, horrified. But I was cool. I was also working on my story. “Screw this town,” I say, “and screw this ticket. I blew through this craphole so hard it took half the cops and every car they had to bring me down! They were gonna put me in jail too. But I slipped the cop a little somethin’.”

Just then the cop drove by us, and I give him a casual wave. I’m sure he didn’t notice, but my friends sure did. I slid ‘er into drive, cocked one arm on the wheel, and rolled back down the highway.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Finder Keepers

There’s a reason why today’s kids, while abandoning the time-honored traditions of kick-the-can and tag, still migrate toward treasure hunts. Really fun video games abound with uncovering secret treasure hiding beneath five layers of passwords, slaying evil gargoyles along the way. Finding treasure has an addictive feeling of accomplishment.

Wine importers get this high every day in the grown-up world. Importers, individuals with unrelenting passions for wine, scour the earth to find the next great wine treasure, meeting in dusty cellars to uncover hidden greatness. Each wine they import bears their name on the label, so that with only one glance, you can be assured of a deliciously addictive drink.

Most importers specialize in one country and cover the regions with eager expertise. Kermit Lynch, a California importer and retailer who spends half the year in the south of France, reportedly tastes every wine he puts his name on. Then he negotiates with the small producers to allow him to represent their pride and joy in the United States. I discovered one of my favorite Bordeaux whites, Chateau Graville Lacoste, by eyeing Lynch’s name on the label.

Enter Robert Kacher. Prolific and worshipped by wine snobs across the country, Kacher, obsessed with uncovering only the highest-quality French juice, finds these obscure little vineyards and creates a following with just 12 letters on the label. I have never tried a wine imported by Kacher that didn’t completely rock. Even when you haven’t heard of the region or the maker, and perhaps even the grape names, you can pop the cork of a Kacher-selected wine and be assured of a good time, usually at a good price.

Dan Philips, an enthusiast in his late 30s, traverses the expanses of Australia to import the best wines Down Under has to offer. In 1997, he formed a company called Grateful Palate, which now represents so many award-winning wines I can’t keep up — from Paringa to Trevor Jones to his own label, Marquis Philips. If you’re looking for the juiciest, meatiest shiraz from Australia, write Grateful Palate on your hand, in your PDA, or in your planner, since you’ve found a reliable path to nirvana.

If Austria or German wine calls your name, seek out Terry Thiese. Wine Advocate succinctly said of him: “In a country where selling high-quality German is akin to swimming against the current, [Thiese] has done a remarkable job, making true believers out of many skeptics.” He finds wines that have soul and only represents those that are craft-made, with the winemaker following production from grapes to bottle. He also imports champagne. Mmmm …

Jorge Ordoñez has been importing Spanish wines since 1987, before they were cool. He works tirelessly to educate winemakers about updating old techniques that will improve their quality and thus make Spanish wines more competitive. Consequently, Ordoñez finds almost absurd bargains from the corners of this vast wine-producing country.

Recommended Wines

Due to small production, these wines will be difficult to find, but look for importer names on any label.

Domaine La Hitare 2003 Les Tours Gasgogne (France)

Unique flavors and unique grapes, like ugni blanc and gros manseng, from a relatively unknown region in France. Tastes like overripe grapes and has a zingy, fizzy thing that finishes with a rush of lemon. Amazing price. Kacher selection. $7.50.

Chateau Grande Cassagne 2003 Costieres de Nimes (France)

Bursts at you with strawberry, plums, and spicy white pepper. Elegant, sophisticated juice, and it’s pink. Gasp! Kacher selection. $10.

Vega Sindoa 2002 Cabernet Tempranillo Navarra (Spain)

Chocolate, leather, dark cherry, and black pepper make you want to don an apron and use it for cooking. But don’t — savor it. Ordoñez selection. $14.

corkscrew@creativeloafing.com

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Run Away!

There’s a trend in modern playwriting to oversimplify some important historical event or revolutionary scientific theory, reduce said event/achievement into a multipurpose metaphor, and then mercilessly beat the poor innocent metaphor into a quivering, pulpy puddle of meaningless theatrical goo. The model works well enough for genuinely sophisticated authors like Michael Frayn (Copenhagen) and Tom Stoppard (Arcadia), but in the hands of lesser lights, it’s a recipe for fresh-baked yawns.

William Nicholson’s The Retreat From Moscow — running at Circuit Playhouse through October16th — may draw its inspiration from a disastrous military campaign that claimed the life of a half-million soldiers, but the play, which focuses on the crumbling relationship between a pair of suburban British empty-nesters, is only epic in its predictability. But fine performances by Irene Crist and Barclay Roberts and the playwright’s unmerciful wit keeps this little play from becoming a victim of its grand pretensions.

Napoleon’s escape from Russia was a grisly affair fraught with death, devastation, and — in its darkest moments — cannibalism. The poorly provisioned French, having narrowly escaped the terrible fires of Moscow, fled past earlier battlefields where rotting corpses still littered the ground. Bands of Cossacks terrorized the tail of the fleeing army, and those not strong enough to press on were left to die. There’s a famous story about a prostitute following the army, who, as the horses staggered and fell dead, nursed her infant on equine blood. When she reached a swollen river, she held the bundled, blood-nourished baby over her head and successfully forded the icy flood, where so many French soldiers and horses were swept away. By comparing this epic horror to the tale of a couple who’ve simply grown bored with one another highlights a devastating mania affecting the modern middle class: a belief that all human suffering is somehow relative and comparable.

Edward (played by Roberts) is a history and religious-studies professor who loves to put off household chores and vanish into his crossword puzzles. Alice (played by Crist) is a poet and poetry enthusiast whose sometimes embarrassing need to be seen by her husband and defined by their relationship drives Edward further and further away. He secretly begins an affair and suddenly leaves the unstable Alice perched somewhere between murder and suicide.

The newly blissful Edward and the despondent Alice are unable to communicate with one another, so they turn their son Jamie, a good-natured schlub with no luck in love, into their long-suffering messenger. In this thankless role, Tristan Shields effectively whispers and shuffles and muddles through, begging his crazy mother to be strong and carry on so that her son can know that even life’s coldest dish might be endured. Shields’ closing poem — no fault of the actor — is as hard to weather as a Russian winter.

Although the playwright’s metaphor is vulgar, and he relies too heavily on traditional gender models and the well-worn words of famous poets, Nicholson knows how to tell a story using only the essentials of action and language. At his best Nicholson’s lean prose calls to mind authors like David Mamet and Harold Pinter. Unlike Mamet and Pinter, Nicholson has no use for revelation or surprise and prefers to fish for aphorisms and wax profound. Director Jerry Chipman’s austere staging meshes well with Nicholson’s mostly to-the-point dialogue, and the anti-chemistry between Roberts and Crist reduces the temperature in the theater by at least 10 degrees.

Alice is a deeply fascinating, if thoroughly annoying creature, but even in Crist’s capable hands, it’s hard not to blame every injustice in the world on this one woman’s infantile needs and her caustic assaults on peace and quiet. At Moscow‘s preview performance the audience grunted at her verbal assaults and openly rooted for the cowardly Edward, who — Roberts’ sympathetic, teddy-bear performance aside — is nobody’s hero. But this is Crist’s show, and she carries it well, mining laughter from darkness, depression, and desperation.

Categories
Music Music Features

Record Roundup

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Memphis music is a constantly changing, ever-evolving thing: The proof is right here on my desk, where fresh releases from local labels crowd demos from brand-new bands. Factor in the spate of recent reissues, and the stack of CDs threatens to topple under its own weight. If, like me, you chose to spend the summer months holed up at home instead of battling the humidity and smoke at local clubs, you’ll need a primer to decipher the latest crop:

The four-man band Cooter McGee claims influences such as Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Los Lonely Boys, Sufjan Stevens, Howlin’ Wolf, Ugandan folk music, and “the techno that WEVL played on Friday and Saturday nights.” They first surfaced at open-mic nights at the Stage Stop and Full Moon Club, recording an original demo CD at the Switchyard recording studio in Nashville. Songs such as “Dark Hero” and “Pumpkin Pie” point to thoughtful, country-tinged frat rock, à la Hootie & the Blowfish or Better Than Ezra. Look for Cooter McGee at Neil’s and the Full Moon Club this fall. To listen to their demo or get an updated performance schedule, go to CooterMcGee.com.

Members of Okraboy and The Ruffin Brown Band recently merged to form the seven-piece Giant Bear. An eclectic, rootsy group which features banjo, cello, flute, and mandolin, Giant Bear chose to hone its craft on the road, landing at the California ranch of chanteuse Victoria Williams, who sat with the group during a few stops on their West Coast tour. A more Southern-fried version of the New Pornographers (substitute Jana Misener‘s chops for Neko Case’s sultry vocals), Giant Bear is currently hammering the Southeast, hitting venues like St. Louis’ Off Broadway, Jackson, Mississippi’s W.C. Don’s, and Atlanta’s Brandyhouse. Log onto the group’s MySpace page (MySpace.com/GiantBeat) to hear tracks such as “Man on the Mountain” and “Genes Not Chords,” then mark Friday, October 7th, on your calendar: That’s the date of Giant Bear’s next hometown gig, scheduled for the Full Moon Club.

Arkansas-born singer-songwriter Jim Wilson has been flying beneath my radar for years, but my eyes and ears are now focused, thanks to Nancy Apple, whose Ringo Records is releasing Wilson’s This Old House later this month. Laden with folksy commentary worthy of John Prine or Jesse Winchester, the album was recorded locally at River City Sound. If you missed Wilson’s record-release party Wednesday, September 21st, at RP’s Billiard Company Restaurant & Bar, you’ll have another chance to tune in: Friday morning, September 23rd, Wilson appears on “Live At Nine,“ on WREG-TV. For more on This Old House, go to RingoRecords.com.

Memphis International Records bellies up to the bar with two new releases — the Forty Shades of Blue soundtrack (label co-owner David Less did a brilliant job as music supervisor on the made-in-Memphis flick) and Swedish singer Louise Hoffstren‘s latest, From Linköping to Memphis, recorded at Ardent and Memphis Soundworks earlier this year. The latter is a bluesy, sensual album which features back-up from some of this city’s greatest musicians, including keyboardist Lester Snell, guitarist Steve Selvidge, and drummer Steve Potts, as well as horn players Jim Spake and Scott Thompson and the triple-threat string section of Jonathan Kirkscey, Jonathan Wires, and Peter Hykra.

Forty Shades, meanwhile, combines familiar tunes such as Albert Collins‘ “Snowed In” with newer cuts such as Jim Dickinson and Sid Selvidge‘s “No Room for a Tramp” and songs by The Red Stick Ramblers and Earl Thomas, which Less culled from the Memphis International catalog.

And last month, the San Francisco-based record label DBK Works reissued The Memphis Horns‘ first solo album, which originally appeared on the Cotillion label in 1970. A brassy, boozy take on soul classics such as Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose” and “Sad Song,” the Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham-penned weeper “Cry Like a Baby,” and Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully,” this album features trumpeter Wayne Jackson and saxophonist Andrew Love at their very best, backed by a dream band that includes fabled guitarist Charlie Freeman and drummer Sammy Creason. One of the most criminally underrated instrumental albums to come out of the Stax era, the CD version of Memphis Horns was years overdue. Thankfully, the album got the proper reissue treatment, complete with new liner notes and remastered music.

Categories
Music Music Features

After the Goldrush Went Bust

Little Rock’s the Boondogs make expert bedroom dream pop buttressed by rock-solid melodies, subtle but powerful guitar work, and the scratched-throat beauty of husband-wife band leaders Jason Weinheimer and Indy Grotto.

The rise of indie-yuppie acts like Death Cab for Cutie (who just jumped from indie to major label) and practically any other group appearing on a soundtrack from The O.C. ought to signal great times ahead for the Boondogs, especially since Fever Dreams, the band’s newest album on Little Rock’s Max Recordings label, wipes the floor with Death Cab’s Plans.

But the Boondogs know better. The band’s ship was supposed to come in with the late-’90s dot-com tide, specifically the Garageband.com site, a widely praised venture spearheaded by the Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison. Garageband accepted mp3s from unknowns and unsigneds from all over the country and let online listeners vote for who should win a major-label contract.

In 1997, the Boondogs put out their first album, Smarter Than Some, on Valmar, a Little Rock label that lasted less than a year. Short of moving to New York City or Austin, something the Boondogs had no intention of doing, the group was running out of options to break their sound wider than the city limits of Little Rock.

“I read about [Garageband] in The New York Times and uploaded two songs the next day,” Weinheimer says. “We had our music at mp3.com already, but nothing really came of that. The Garageband model was appealing for two reasons: the air of legitimacy that Jerry Harrison brought and the power-to-the-people aspect of the contest.”

As it turns out, the people, at least the ones who clicked on the Garageband site, were taken with the Boondogs’ sound, which, at the time, was slightly salted with alt-country atmospherics.

By November 1999, when the first Garageband contest voting closed, the Boondogs had the first and second most popular songs (“Carbon or Gold” and “40 Day Ahab”) and were awarded the first record contract given out over the Internet. The signing made national news wires. Things looked good for the little band from Little Rock. The high didn’t last long.

“It took us almost four months to get a contract together,” Weinheimer notes ruefully. “The first contract [Garageband] sent us was not even close to fair and agreeable. The scary thing is we heard that three other bands signed the ‘standard’ contract with no negotiations whatsoever.”

Garageband, with all of its dot-com sparkle, was turning out to be yet one more label with more hopes and dreams than expertise. Still, the Boondogs had the sweet $250,000 first prize to cover expenses for a new CD, which was recorded in Memphis’ Ardent Studios with the highly regarded Jim Dickinson on board as producer.

“We knew from the very beginning there were people running the show who had no idea how to put a record out,” Weinheimer says. “We acted in good faith, though, and hoped for the best. Of course we got cash up front to be safe. In the end, they spent approximately $300,000 on the band, and we got to have a lot of fun making the record and playing a bunch. They were in breach of contract early on for not putting our record out in time, but they kept us happy with generous tour support and the like. About six months before [Garageband] closed up, we saw what was happening and just decided to ride it out.”

Though they retained the rights to all the songs generated in the Ardent sessions, the Boondogs declined to put out an album they felt wasn’t ready and, with Garageband gone, would have had no backing. Instead, the band kept at it in Little Rock and, starting in 2001, made and released two EPs and a full-length CD recorded on home studio equipment. Inevitable lineup changes, fewer and fewer live dates, and Weinheimer and Grotto having their first child seemed to signal a major slowing down for the Boondogs.

But Fever Dreams demonstrates that the band’s larger ambitions aren’t dead. Produced by Fat Possum founder Bruce Watson in his Water Valley, Mississippi, schoolhouse studio, Fever Dreams‘ lyrics speak of restlessness, anxiety, and paranoia while the well-appointed pop music beneath it is as lush as a bed of silk.

“You won’t believe what I saw in a dream/It’s the end of the world as we know it/The end” goes the opening of Fever Dreams. Grotto and Weinheimer trade songs throughout, a conversation of sorts, with Grotto’s shimmering “I Don’t Belong” being one of the record’s many highlights.

“A friend heard the record and asked what our fascination with the apocalypse was all about,” Weinheimer says. “But he missed the point. It’s really just an obsession with the apocalypse as metaphor. I mean, ‘the end of the world as we know it’ could really just be the end of a nice dinner. The check comes; it’s time to pay. What a drag. Who wants to go home?”

The Boondogs’ home is Little Rock, but their sound is larger than that. Hopefully they won’t need an Internet start-up to have that message heard this time.

Categories
Music Music Features

The Password Is Diversity

Ekundayo Bandele was going to bars, clubs, and coffeehouses all across Memphis, and he was sick of it.

“Pretty much I got tired of being the only black face in a white audience or seeing one white face among a whole bunch of black faces,” he says.

So he decided to do something about it. Bandele started the Speakeasy, a rotating group of poets, musicians, comedians, and actors who perform at 8 p.m. every Thursday at the Jack Robinson Gallery in the South Main Arts District.

If the Speakeasy really were a Prohibition-era bar, the password would be “diversity.” The goal each week is to have four or five completely different performers on stage.

“Different ethnically, racially, in age, gender, and even sexual preference,” Bandele says. “We want each program to be as diverse as possible, and we do that to pull a diverse audience. If the audience ever shifts one way or the other, I’m going to say that the Speakeasy is a failure.”

So far the mix has been balanced, with audiences of 80 or so being half white and half black. The type of performers has been varied as well. “It’s about integrating performance art and introducing spoken-work artists to folk musicians and comedians to classical pianists,” Bandele says.

Bandele, who splits his time between New York and Memphis, used to hold performances at his store, Threads Vintage Clothing, before it closed. He’s also had seven plays produced and runs a mobile car-detailing business called Bandele’s Washworks.

For the Speakeasy, Bandele searches for performers at places such as the Full Moon Club, Nappy by Nature, and Java Cabana. He found Keith Green, a guitarist who once played with Albert King, on the street.

“He was just sitting outside of Café Francisco picking the guitar,” Bandele says. “He was this old white cat who looked like a bluesman. I said, ‘Man, you sound good,’ and I told him what I did. He got excited, and now he’s going to play here.”

Before someone plays the Speakeasy, they must agree to a few ground rules. First, artists aren’t allowed to introduce themselves or talk about what they are going to perform. “We’re taking the ego out of it. It’s only your art. That’s it. Nothing else,” Bandele explains.

Second, the only way you can be included on the club’s roster is to come and pay the $5 cover charge on a night you’re not featured. It’s a way to show support for the other artists.

The Speakeasy is like an artist cocktail, with everyone getting paired up with their polar opposite. Bandele thinks about that when he’s making up a roster of artists. “I’m just sitting there looking at who I’ve got black, who I’ve got white, male, female, whatever,” he says.

That could mean Keisha, a black jazz singer, performing with Jobu Babin, a white musician who plays the bass and guitar and uses computer effects. Or maybe Brothas’ Keeper, a black poetry group, gets paired with Misti Warren and Davy-Ray, a white duo who play folk and other acoustic music. The mix depends on Bandele’s feel of the audience.

“I orchestrate it on the energy of the audience. When the audience is getting a little laid-back, I want to shock them,” he says.

And just as the artists change from week to week, so does the room. Bandele rearranges the couches, chairs, and tables. Sometimes there is one rug for performers. Other times there are two. Each set-up adds a different feel to that night’s performance.

While the Speakeasy might appear to have some attributes of an open mic, Bandele is quick to dismiss that notion. During an open mic, a lot of upcomingperformers are thinking about what they’re going to do instead of paying attention to what’s happening on stage.

Poets, musicians, and comedians are in the audience at the Speakeasy, but there is no anxiety because they aren’t performing. “They’re just there to watch,” Bandele says. But nervousness does strike some artists about to perform.

“I would attribute that to the makeup of the audience. We have such a diverse audience in age and race and gender. In Memphis, it’s hard to find places like that,” Bandele says.

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News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Illustration by Greg Cravens

1. Germantown officials — who seem hell-bent on portraying their community as the silliest city in America — complain about the “unsightliness” of a trailer set up by a restaurant owner to collect donations for victims of Hurricane Katrina. We would ask the citizens of New Orleans to apologize to the good people of Germantown — except we can’t find them.

2. Memphis Light, Gas, and Water says customers can expect much higher utility bills again this winter. Thanks to rising gas costs and — yes, that pesky Hurricane Katrina — utility bills could increase 70 percent. Okay, so this year, the increase is due to Katrina; last year there wasn’t enough natural gas supply; the year before that it was 4 percent rate hike. What’s the excuse going to be next winter?

3. Hurricane Katrina actually means good news for Millington, when the U.S. Navy announces it may transfer some 375 personnel from a naval base in New Orleans. The bad news comes to those 375 personnel, who probably joined the Navy because they liked, oh, the ocean and ships and things like that, and now their new home is 400 miles from the nearest ocean.

4. FBI agents arrest a University of Memphis student after discovering an airline pilot’s uniform, a map of the Memphis airport, and a DVD titled How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act. Why, that all seems harmless enough. Wasn’t that Adam Sandler’s latest movie?

5. Ophelia Ford wins her brother John’s old state Senate seat by just 13 votes. Her Republican opponents manage to put a strange spin on Terry Roland’s loss, saying it shows voters are “sick and tired of the leadership provided by the Fords.” Huh? She won, didn’t she?