Month: December 2005

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Final Notice

In Memphis and Shelby County, the cycles are so arranged that one year out of every four is election-free. The year just past, 2005, should have provided such a hiatus, but its political circumstances were so momentous as to keep politics — and politicians — in everybody’s face all year long even though there was no full-scale balloting.

Ah, but late in 2005 there was one local political race of consequence — a state Senate special election race in District 29 that managed to echo the year’s biggest, most overarching political event, the so-called Tennessee Waltz scandal alleging wholesale corruption in both state and local government.

And it was, after all, the eve of 2006, a year which will boast the largest ballot in local history, including races for everything of consequence but the White House. Multitudes of politicians were launching plans for political campaigns, and several score of them had their races under way.

By way of farewell to this eventful “off”-year, here is a Top 10 list of highlights from 2005. Apologies to David Letterman and, for that matter, to readers who would just as soon forget that some or all of this actually happened:

10) The incredible shrinking treasury: Actually, make that “treasuries,” since both city and county government experienced grievous shortfalls during the year. Both governments were forced to bite the bullet — closing useful programs and even shutting down long-running boondoggles. High side: The county commission imposed a moratorium on new development. Low side: The city terminated recreation programs, including (sigh!) summer softball.

9) The incredible shrinking mayor: Or maybe this erstwhile mayor-for-life is just laying back. In any case, there were frequent occasions, several of them high-protocol, when Memphis chief executive Willie Herenton was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, rumors of every known kind — some flattering, most not — continued to swirl about him.

8) The incredible un-shrinking violet: Councilwoman Carol Chumney continued her high-profile undeclared campaign for mayor in 2007, jousting with both Herenton and councilmates at every opportunity and working up a legitimate following in the process.

7) MLGW: So many controversies revolved around the city’s mammoth utility, ranging from rate questions to leadership squabbles to a ruined dialogue with the City Council to recurring rumors of potential future sell-offs that even the lingering TVA pre-purchase scandal was made to seem dull normal.

6) TennCare: Now you see it, now you don’t. Governor Phil Bredesen said he had no choice, for budgetary reasons, but to drastically cut the rolls of the state-run health-insurance system. Various critics, ranging from aggrieved activist groups to state senator Steve Cohen, a potential gubernatorial entry, kept insisting he did.

5) A C: Shelby County mayor Wharton finally moved beyond merely looking good to provide solid leadership in the areas of urban sprawl and alternative revenue sources. A C-D.C.? No, no congressional race, but some were touting him as the next city mayor. Meanwhile, his reelection is a shoo-in.

4) Harold Ford Jr. and friends: Though progressive Democrats simmered over what they saw as his Blue-Dog equivocations, the 9th District congressman’s campaign was inevitably the centerpiece of national media attention to a U.S. Senate race in Tennessee that also included Democratic state senator Rosalind Kurita and three name Republicans: ex-Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker and former congressmen Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary.

3) John Ford: A one-man Titanic saga (or should that be Sink the Bismarck!), the once-and-futureless state senator would have gone down in the Tennessee Waltz anyhow, but he’d already sprung a thousand leaks from the investigations of his wheeling and dealing that resulted from the financial info in this frequent father’s petitions for child-support relief.

2) Roland v. Ford et al.: or however the messy post-District 29-election challenge comes to be known to history. Live state senators and not dead voters will take a shot at resolving it in January.

1) The Tennessee Waltz: The FBI’s “e-Cycle” sting made for bad music in its allegations of extortion and bribery on a massive scale (involving, among others, the aforesaid John Ford and various other local pols), but it served as a rousing overture to the New Year’s special legislative session on ethics reform. I mean, let’s think positive, right?

Next: 2006, which will be busier and, just possibly, better.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Good News?

It is clear we will need to practice hard on our credulity in the future just to get a grasp on how dumbfounding the entire Iraq war is. We need credulity up to Wonderland’s White Queen’s standards, believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast every day — practice, practice, practice.

For starters, we find the Pentagon investigating itself over the secret military practice of paying to plant news stories in Iraqi papers. Now, since it’s a secret practice, I don’t know if the Pentagon will be able to find out much, but the way it works is U.S. military personnel, also known as soldiers, write “news” stories full of reassuring news.

National Public Radio reports that stories are filled with hyperbole and pro-U.S. rhetoric. One story written by the military and obtained by NPR dated November 22nd says military leaders are succeeding in stopping terrorists. It continues, “They have proven this as quiet slowly begins again to settle on the streets of western Iraq.” At the time, insurgents were staging over 700 attacks per week — up from 150 a week the previous year.

The stories written by the U.S. military are handed over to a defense contractor called the Lincoln Group, run by young Republican political operatives. They in turn pay Iraqi newspapers and television stations to run the stories.

In an attempt to justify this, former Army spokesman Charles Krohn told NPR: “I don’t think there’s any need for secrecy, but I think it’s pretty well understood that it’s the custom in that country to pay journalists and to pay newspapers. And certainly, I think the record that Saddam has done this and others do it is pretty well established.”

Isn’t it nice that we’re following in Saddam’s footsteps? The problem is one of credibility, in a nutshell. Bruce McCall has performed a great public service in The New Yorker by imagining headlines for U.S.-created stories in the Baghdad Daily Bugle:

“26 Million Iraqis Unhurt in Latest Terror Blast.”

“Few Changes Needed to Change Abu Ghraib into an Applebee’s.”

“Voting Machines in Upcoming Elections Donated by Florida.”

If you still can’t think of any good news to create, study the recent work of the American news media, particularly cable TV, on the subject of the Iraqi elections. Just like Charlie Brown and the football, they fall for it every time. Those heroic purple thumbs, “70 percent of Iraqis Vote.” How would anyone know? Well, there were long lines. There were long lines in Ohio last year too. It meant there weren’t enough polling places. Does anyone know what the Iraqis were voting for? Does three separate little state-lets seem a likely answer? (Some analysts actually think this may be the optimum outcome.)

Meanwhile, we are further tested by the president’s improbable proclamation that he has the right to ignore the laws and Constitution because he is a wartime president. Actually, that’s a real problem. We can’t declare war because we haven’t been attacked by any government, territory, or military.

Dick Cheney, it turns out, has been fretting about this since the Nixon administration, when we used to talk about the imperial presidency. Trouble is, none of the administration’s actions have ever been discussed — Bush and Cheney just usurped the authority.

If Bush were a different kind of president, they might have gotten away with it right after 9/11. People were genuinely frightened, and there’s always that old fantasy that somehow Daddy Will Take Care of Us If We Do Exactly What He Tells Us To Do.

But George W. Bush is not a daddy president. He’s the Testy Kid — Mr. Snippy. He sees no reason why he should answer to us.

Attention, Americans: We have, under the Constitution, a strong executive, noticeably more so than in other democracies. The whole history of the struggle for freedom is about how to curb and balance the powers of the executive.

The United States of America has over 200 years of experience with these questions, and you know what? George W. Bush is not the smartest guy to come along in over 200 years. Be cautious. Be very cautious. Do not endorse authoritarianism out of knee-jerk partisan impulse. This shoe will be on the other foot eventually.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Let’s Review

Memphis art in 2005: awe, outrage, and pure sass. In a year filled with natural disasters, war, and political mayhem, many local artists did some soul-searching and reassessing. Some of the past year’s most memorable exhibits were unabashed responses to life in 2005. The following are a few of these shows, some outside the mainstream. For a variety of reasons they stick in the mind’s eye and serve as postscripts to a visually exciting and multifaceted exhibition year.

In a November exhibit at Material was Bryan Blankenship’s Bed, a curious bed of nails in which 12 milk-white clay cones — suggesting breasts and penises simultaneously — pushed through a ceramic mattress painted a 1950s turquois-and-orange plaid. Sassy and serious, Bed told tales of outmoded attitudes (both moral and aesthetic) and of disquieting sleeps.

Blankenship’s Terrene 4, a December Caseworks display at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, was far eerier. Inside a violet-lit white cube, a broken clay rope was held up by six metal poles to form a bridge spanning the lower left corner of the cube to the upper right corner. The poles had been partially whited-out along the bottom so that they appeared to be floating or submerged. Terrene means “of the earth,” but there was no solid ground here. It had been wiped out by a blizzard or maybe a flood like the one caused by Hurricane Katrina, and the bridge is broken and cannot be crossed.

For their collaborative installation, “Where I Draw the Line” at Second Floor Contemporary in November, Jeff Mickey and Bobby Spillman also had Katrina on their minds. Spillman drew cartoons of overturned houses and uprooted trees on a large canvas painted lime and lemon sherbet colors in Sweeter Homes and Gardens. His paintings’ sardonic and volatile titles — Neapolitan Neighborhood, You Said What, and Smoke, Smoke, Smoke — spoke of upheavals inside as well as outside the homes.

Mickey dangled a tiny house on a wire beneath what looked to be the hands of a huge clock (Home at 8 Home at 9), topped a seven-foot wooden funeral pyre with a metal bed (Chester Pyre), and built a row of wooden bungalows on the slats of an empty tomato crate (Vine Ripened). Post-Katrina (and the Southeast Asian tsunami and Pakistan earthquake) and beyond TV sitcoms and political rhetoric about family values, Spillman’s and Mickey’s works drew a line that encompassed all of life, including its cataclysms, its slow decay, and the emotional as well as the physical.

In a March show at Second Floor Contemporary, Tom Lee responded to war and rumors of war by rewriting a children’s marching song (“This old man/he play won/he play knick-knack/on a son”) and creating a tale of mayhem complete with cardboard circular saws, amputees, bones, and, most harrowing, graphite cartoons of baby-faced bombers, with the sign of the cross on their tails, gleefully engaging in 21st-century holy wars for their religious and political patriarchs.

At AMUM’s “MAX: 05” in July and August, Pinkney Herbert’s white-hot yellows, orange-ochre, and liquid blues blasted through incinerated architecture and suggested a world capable of and seemingly bent on self-destruction (Inferno, oil on canvas). In March at Perry Nicole Fine Arts, Meikle Gardner filled the walls with a series of grids (oils on canvas) that kept us out (Fence(d)), drew us into Escher-like infinities (Spirit Ditch), and looked like an internal switchboard for a primordial mind (Shiva Saw).

Johnny Taylor’s paintings in his June/July exhibit, “Texas Medicine,” at Jay Etkin Gallery dealt with material goods, including soda bottles, antique typewriters, and light bulbs. In riverrun (acrylic on panel), three rows of antique Remingtons stood ready to type out an endless stream of words (including “riverrun,” the first word in James Joyce’s 1937 stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, Finnegans Wake). Instead of depicting a series of seductively smiling Marilyn Monroes, Taylor painted three Morton Salt Girls who had lost their flow (When It Rains It Pours 1-3). Trapped inside thick dark outlines, faces turned down and to the side, the girls were weary, perhaps, of their own mass proliferation and appeared to be looking for a means of escape.

In a November show at Perry Nicole, Chuck Johnson combined vintage photo portraits with encyclopedia illustrations, geometric patterns, abstract gestures, and small realistic paintings. How could so many genres work together without becoming jumbled and confused? Remarkably, as it turned out. This skilled mixed-media artist (he executes all the genres well) created nearly seamless mosaics that suggested fully lived lives. Among them were star child #2 and mother & daughter.

A couple of late-year photography exhibits provided poignant auld lang synes. For her November show “Blackbird” at David Lusk Gallery, Jeane Umbreit hand-painted black-and-white photos of crumbling pre-Civil War brick, a wounded blackbird, eroding commercial buildings, and the poised, penetrating gaze of a young African-American woman. With this body of work she wove a subtle narrative about slow, inexorable changes in the Southern ethos. Eric Swartz also invoked the passage of time with terse titles (Ram, Dodge, No, and Dash) and intensely saturate digital close-ups of rusted-out vehicles back-dropped by early-spring greens in the exhibit “Machines a Dyin’ & Green Things a Growin'” at Gallery 314, which continues through January.

Underground art was at the P&H Café, where intense art-related discussions often continued past midnight. The later the hour, the more evocative the art became. For example, in October, Pink Grenade, Darla Linerode-Henson’s transparent glass sculpture, appeared to be dribbling down the wall.

Mel Spillman capped off 2005 with some quirky Southern sass at the Vault Room, a new late-night art space inside R.P. Billiards on Highland. A group show in December included Keep Your Feet Out My Shoes and Six Feet High and Rising, two floral tapestries on panel that Spillman created with Mississippi water and mud.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters To The Editor

Blown Away?

I was blown away by the Rolling Stones’ concert at the FedExForum, and I was blown away by Jackson Baker’s incisive review (The Bang’s Still There,” December 8th issue).

The essence of the Stones is that they always deliver the goods, and this concert was no exception. Mick Jagger is an unrelenting force of nature. And the music was incredibly tight and energetic.

After more than 40 years of performing and recording rock-and-roll classics to the delight of millions of fans, the Stones are indeed a way of life.

Randy Norwood

Memphis  Thanks, Tennessee

I hope that this finds all of you doing well. My wife Bonnie and I are from Katrina-stricken Mississippi, and we want to let the nice people of Memphis and Tennessee know how much we appreciate all that has been done for us!

As musicians who were scheduled to perform all over your beautiful state the week of the hurricane, we were able to play our dates, see some of the world’s most beautiful scenery, and meet the nicest people anywhere. Thanks again, and Merry Christmas! We love you.

Bobby and Bonnie Hathorn

Ellisville, Mississippi

Shep

Having been an employee at the Juvenile Court during the time when former clerk Bob Martin retired and former clerk Shep Wilbun was appointed by the County Commission, I am somewhat familiar with the events that transpired before, during, and after Wilbun’s tenure.

I find some of the comments Wilbun made to Jackson Baker curious, to say the least (“Getting It Back Together,” December 8th issue). Wilbun was quoted as saying, in response to the father of the young lady in question, that “There was no proof, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that something had transpired.” Seems to me that what that really means is that Wilbun felt Mr. Catron was indeed guilty of “inappropriately touching” the young lady.

But in the very next paragraph, Wilbun seems to have a change of heart about the validity of the claims leveled by the young lady’s father. Wilbun states that “[Catron] was entitled to the presumption of innocence. Wilbun is in the proverbial position of wanting his cake and eating it too. First, he presumed that Mr. Catron was guilty and then he claims to have afforded Catron the presumption of innocence, which allowed Catron to continue receiving a payroll check for a month. I wonder how hard it is to balance on the fence, as Wilbun does. Perhaps that’s why he still has yet to admit any wrongdoing whatsoever on his part.

Chris Campbell

Cordova

Carpetbaggers?

If anyplace in the United States should be familiar with the term “carpetbagger,” it’s Memphis. Moving the King Biscuit Blues Festival to Memphis is a classic example of the imposition and co-opting of someone’s culture without regard to its heritage. Where was the Performa company 20 years ago when the folks in Helena, Arkansas, conceived of and created the festival? Where was Performa through the many years of struggle for funding, trying to keep the festival alive and free of charge?

Performa’s John Elkington now would like us to believe this fine festival belongs on Beale Street. The Blues Foundation and Living Blues should be outraged and doing everything in their power to alert the blues community to this gross injustice. Those of us in the blues community should boycott the effort of Performa and the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau to attempt to co-opt the King Biscuit Blues Festival.

David D. HorwitzTucson, Arizona

 

Old and new

Thanks to Mary Cashiola for “Broke and Building” (In the Bluff, December 22nd issue), in which she quoted Superintendent Carol Johnson as saying, “We’re bringing the old with the new, so it won’t feel like a brand-new building.”

That’s character. Emerson said: “Character is adroitness to keep the old and trodden round, and power and courage to make new roads to new and better goals.”

As Cashiola beautifully concluded: “Hopefully, MCS is paving the way for the future, not just throwing away money on the past.”

Have a New Year filled with much happiness.

Arthur Prince

Memphis

Editor’s note: Same to you, Arthur. And to all of you Flyer readers as well. See you in 2006!

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

We Recommend

saturday December 31

AutoZone Liberty Bowl Football Classic

Liberty Bowl Stadium, noon (tickets, 795-9095)

Make plans to attend this annual New Year’s Day football game. This year, it’s Tulsa versus Fresno State.

Dave Matthews Tribute Band, Dog Hair, and The Jon Felix Trio

The Peabody (1-800-PEABODY),

8 p.m.-2 a.m.

Plan this party around hotel packages ranging from a $35 entry fee to $750 for a two-night New Year’s vacation. Sunday brunch is served the next day.

Death Du Jour Dinner Theater’s Mystery Ballroom Blitz

Draper‘s, 6110 Macon Rd. (377-0143), 8 p.m.-midnight. $50

Enjoy an interactive theater experience featuring dinner, entertainment, and celebration.

Mr. Del featuring Frayser Boy, The Raleigh Symphony, The Sophomore Rising, Eat Lead Traci, and This Side of Summer

Skatepark of Memphis (737-8448) 6:30 p.m. $10

A diverse bill and an early start time make this an interesting show to check out.

Soul Enforcers

The Brinson at 341 Madison (524-0104), $10 advance, $15

New Year’s Eve Reggae Love Party with live music, open mic, and spoken word poetry. BYOB.

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra

Cannon Center (454-6774), 8 p.m. $75

A night of light classics and pop favorites with guest pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Then dance in the New Year with Joyce Cobb and her band.

Egypt Central

New Daisy Theatre (525-8979), 7 p.m. $10 advance, $15

Memphis + Egypt = Metal New Year!!!

saturday December 31Amy and The Tramps

Boscos Squared (432-2222), 10 p.m. $10

Local faves and complimentary champagne make a perfect pair.

The Preacher’s Kids, The Joint Chiefs, Loose Diamonds, and

The Hook-Up

Hi-Tone (278-8663), 9 p.m. $7

This is the party for those who like to listen loud and stay out late.

Augustine, Noise Choir, Vending Machine, and Antique Curtains

Young Avenue Deli (278-0034). 9 p.m. $7

A stellar line-up of local rockers will keep you company all night long.

Uptown Saturday Night Comedy and Ricky Strickland

Isaac Hayes Club (529-9222), 10 p.m., $20

Enjoy New Year’s comedy and music downtown at Peabody Place.

Angel Sluts, Six String Jets, The Shitfits

Murphy‘s (726-4193), $5

Free party favors and a complimentary champagne toast.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot

We know some readers only pick us up for the music listings or News of the Weird. To think that each reader carefully absorbs every word we’ve written would be flattering ourselves. And, deep down, we know better. But still, we’d like to offer a little challenge: an end-of-the-year final to determine how well you’ve been paying attention. And if you have a stack of old Flyers lying around, well, consider it open-book. — By Bianca Phillips and Chris Davis

1) City Council member Rickey Peete claimed he saw an increase of this in Memphis after Hurricane Katrina:

A. People coming to Memphis from New Orleans in need of shelter

B. FEMA trucks passing through our area en route to New Orleans

C. Downtown panhandlers

2) Prior to the Memphis opening of Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, radio personality Janis Fullilove said this about the film:

A. “It’s the best thing since Wonder Bread.”

B. “I would have been much better in the role of Nola.”

C. “People already think Memphis is a backwater river town. It will just further their perceptions.”

3) After a state investigation, the Love in Action ministry was cited for:

A. Treating mentally ill patients without a license

B. Psychological abuse of children

C. Being a waste of parents’ money since, according to the American Psychological Association, “straight camp” programs don’t work

4) Why were some workers at The Commercial Appeal upset this year?

A. Co-workers of movie critic John Beifuss were jealous that the local band Scandaliz Vandalistz wrote a song about him.

B. They were tired of kid pictures in the neighborhood Appeal sections.

C. Various labor disputes

5) Why did some Memphians want a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest removed from the park bearing his name?

A. The statue makes him look fat.

B. They think that a monument honoring the former Ku Klux Klan leader is offensive.

C. To make way for a shiny, new statue of Willie Herenton.

6) In December, 18-year-old Jessica Booth was arrested after plotting to kill four Hispanic men over what?

A. A brick of cocaine

B. A pound of marijuana

C. A block of queso fresco cheese

7) What was the name of the film Memphis lobbyist-turned-FBI-informant Tim Willis partially shot in the offices of the feds’ fake company, e-Cycle Management? And what local luminary starred?

A. Bringing Up Baby 2 with Willie Herenton

B. Street Life with D’Army Bailey

C. Money Talks starring John Ford

Answers: 1) C; 2) C; 3) A; 4) C; 5) B; 6) C; 7) B

7 correct: Perhaps you should consider a career in journalism. Better yet, public relations. It pays more.

5-6 correct: Okay, so you may not know it all, but we can tell that you try to pick up the Flyer every week. You just can’t retain everything you read. And that’s okay.

3-4 correct: You’re one of those people who only reads the Flyer when you’re stuck at a bar by yourself.

0-2 correct: It was nice of you to pick up this issue.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Old Year, New Year

Last year at this time we editorialized with a wish list for 2005. Looking at it now, we find a mixed bag of disappointments and pleasant surprises.

On the first score, for example, we hoped that a newly reelected President Bush might remember — and act upon — his erstwhile campaign rhetoric concerning “compassionate conservatism.” Instead, we got more of the same old corporate welfare state — tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by the middle and poor classes who have been freshly gouged by an egregious “bankruptcy reform” bill that basically nullifies altogether the option of filing for real bankruptcy relief. The good news: Bush’s predatory scheme to privatize Social Security was booed off the stage and dropped from the congressional agenda.

We also got more, not fewer, casualties and catastrophic costs in the needless, and seemingly endless, war in Iraq. The good news here is that many of those who formerly acquiesced in the war or even supported it, like Congressman Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, have soured on the folly and even called for a timetable to end it. At least one serious presidential candidate, Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold, has made opposition to the war a plank in his platform. Good for him, and shame on those politicians who continue to equivocate.

Last year we expressed the hope that 9th District congressman Harold Ford Jr., a politician of rare potential, might prove a leader in shoring up our social safety net and in restoring sane and effective foreign policy goals. Not to belabor the point, but Ford, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate, seems for strategic reasons to have blunted the edge of his promise — supporting ill-considered initiatives ranging from the GOP’s Terri Schiavo flim-flam to the aforesaid bankruptcy bill. We hope for better things in 2006 but aren’t exactly holding our breath.

Nor are we as optimistic entering the election year of 2006 as we were last year concerning the administration of Governor Phil Bredesen, whose economies, reform instincts, and administrative skills, all of which we praised back then, seem to have been taken up to the edge and over in the case of the state’s now seriously truncated TennCare program.

Not to accentuate the negative, though, there were, after all, areas in which our hopes were not only realized but exceeded. Last year, for example, we wished to get “the mojo back for University of Memphis basketball.” Wow, did we! As we speak, John Calipari’s talented Tigers are ranked fourth in the nation, and so far (we are holding our breath here!) there’s not a hint of the grungy behavior that afflicted last year’s underachieving team, on or off the court.

Mike Fratello’s Grizzlies ain’t doing too bad, either. And, though the great DeAngelo Williams was hobbled here and there and didn’t realize his (and our) Heisman hopes, he led the football Tigers to the team’s third consecutive bowl game.

Yes, yes, the sports world is what the late Howard Cosell called the “toy department” of life, but we take our blessings where we can — and who knows? Maybe some of this success will bleed over into the real world in 2006.

Categories
Cover Feature News

World of Sound

It’s been estimated that some 30,000 records get released every year. There’s so much music out there that no one — no matter how much time, money, access, or enthusiasm — can hope to keep up. But that doesn’t mean our stable of music critics haven’t tried. Collectively, we heard hundreds of the year’s best records and have compiled personal lists of the crop’s cream. Popular music is our most democratic, most pluralistic art form. Every year-end list is a state-of-the-culture address. Here’s what our 2005 sounded like:

Chris Herrington

1. Separation Sunday — The Hold Steady (Frenchkiss): The next three records on this list have tons to say about the world we’re living in, but this intricate concept album from a Brooklyn guitar band mostly illuminates a world of its own creation. While his comrades are busy cribbing classic-rock guitar and piano riffs, songwriter supreme Craig Finn spins a chronologically complex, intellectually addictive, and emotionally engrossing tale about a Catholic high school girl sucked down a drug-culture rabbit hole and onto a 16-year, cross-country journey back to salvation, with Sopranos-worthy subplots (“Charlemagne in Sweatpants”) along the way. Mixing up their mythologies and pushing them out through p.a. systems, the Hold Steady concoct a twisty good-girl-gone-bad narrative that plays like a rock-and-religion version of Mulholland Dr., albeit with a much happier ending.

2. Arular — M.I.A. (XL): It was absolutely no surprise to see this Sri Lankan/British import fail to cross over into the American mainstream. No matter: Fusing Jamaican dancehall, Brazilian baille funk, American hip-hop, and British techno and grime into something as spellbindingly new as it is utterly familiar, this homemade polyglot pop is an instant dance party. Twentysomething Maya Arulpragasm may not have completely sorted out her conflicted feelings — terrorist or freedom fighter? — about her estranged Tamil Tiger father, but in the crossfire of global pop genres, political bullhorn lyrics, lovely double-dutch melodies, and utter confusion, she fashioned something more important: the year’s most undeniably crucial album.

3. Late Registration — Kanye West (Roc-a-Fella): While Kanye West’s masterful 2004 debut The College Dropout was built around high-concept anthems (“We Don’t Care,” “All Falls Down,” “Jesus Walks”), the lyrical profundity of this far sneakier follow-up is almost casual. It’s in the litany of mundane social ills on the sadly beautiful “Heard ‘Em Say”; the Randy Newman-esque satire of pimp-rap and R. Kelly-R&B sleaze on “Celebration”; the incredibly gentle counterpoint to Houston hip-hop’s myopic content on “Drive Slow.” Instead, Late Registration is more immediately bracing as music: Bringing in pop producer Jon Brion as a collaborator, this is West’s attempt to make a hip-hop album with the opulent soulfulness of a classic Stevie Wonder or Curtis Mayfield disc. Mission accomplished.

4. Black Dialogue — The Perceptionists (Def Jux): This two-MCs-and-one-DJ Boston group is not your typical indie-rap outfit. Lyrically, they’re neither obscure nor overtly confessional; musically, they’re a return to hip-hop’s head-bobbing basics. They’re more a cross between late-’80s political rap like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions and the smoother early-’90s boho hip-hop of Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest. Black Dialogue has a little less musical juice than the former but a worldview that’s more grounded and more expansive. Funniest song of the year: “Career Finders,” which offers job counseling for gangsta rappers.

5. Man Like Me — Bobby Pinson (RCA): I’ve long been a defender of big, bad mainstream country music against its mostly knee-jerk detractors, and I think the genre’s in better artistic shape right now than ever in my listening lifetime. But even I can’t imagine this individualistic, gruff-voiced songwriter having much of a chance at lasting Nashville stardom. Which is too bad, because Bobby Pinson’s debut album is a wonder. More than anyone else on either side of country’s mainstream/alternative divide, Pinson respects the touchstones of country music — small-town life, simple Christian faith, high school sweethearts, family heritage — while investigating them fiercely. And no one else in music right now redeems red-state religiosity so convincingly.

6. Bang Bang Rock and Roll — Art Brut (Fierce Panda import): Like Brit-rock heroes Pulp, but more crude, more punk, maybe even funnier, this band of London never-will-bes are too cranky to be trendy (“Yes, this is my singing voice/It’s not irony”), and besides, they have more important things on their mind: “We’re gonna be the band that writes the song/That makes Israel and Palestine get along!” Maybe not, but they sure have plenty to say about old girlfriends, new girlfriends (“I’ve seen her naked! Twice!”), younger siblings, poor bedroom performance, and museum etiquette, among other topics.

7. Little Fugitive — Amy Rigby (Signature Sounds): It’s sad that Rigby’s bid at a Nashville songwriting career failed, because nobody writes sharper songs about love and sex on the wrong side of 40. Oh well, country radio’s loss can be your gain. On her best album since her career-making 1996 debut Diary of a Mod Housewife, Rigby is all over the place: a new husband’s ex-wife, her identification with Rasputin (“In 1981, I withstood similar attack/I got hit but I came back”), a dream about Joey Ramone, old flings, needy men, that exasperating thing called love. Her fizzy voice is as charmingly limited as ever and, as always, bolstered by bull’s-eye phrasing.

8. The Woods — Sleater-Kinney (Sub Pop): The best American guitar band of their generation, they make a bid for reinvention by cranking up the amps and delivering the most fuzzed-out, most distorted, heaviest, and most effed-up record of their career. It falls well short of past career peaks Call the Doctor, Dig Me Out, and One Beat, but along the way it suggests that as long as Corin Tucker’s voice, Carrie Brownstein’s guitar, and Janet Weiss’ drums are the parts that form the whole, it’s impossible to make a less than stellar record.

9. Kerosene — Miranda Lambert (Epic): Who could have predicted that a third-place finisher on cable’s Nashville Star — a small-town Texas girl with pin-up looks — would pen the class-rage anthem of the year? Or that, after ripping off Steve Earle’s “I Feel Alright” and ripping it apart on that title single, the rest of her smart, tough, almost entirely self-written debut album would be almost as strong? Pop music: where the unexpected always happens.

10. Extraordinary Machine — Fiona Apple (Epic): Here’s an album of confessional singer-songwritery break-up songs for people who are skeptical of such things, because Fiona Apple sure seems skeptical of them. Apple’s bright latticework lyrics are full of uncertainty and sardonic self-doubt and are put over by a singer with a sharp feel for the theatrical and jazzy. For someone so smart and so demanding, she’s also kind. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t merciless when she wants to explicate a relationship gone awry. (“I opened my eyes while you were kissing me once/More than once/And you looked as sincere as a dog.”)

Honorable Mention: Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike — Gogol Bordello (Side One Dummy); There’s More Where That Came From ­— Lee Ann Womack (MCA); Stairs & Elevators — Heartless Bastards (Fat Possum); Get Behind Me Satan — The White Stripes (V2); Run the Road — Various Artists (Vice); You Could Have It So Much Better — Franz Ferdinand (Domino); The Sunset Tree — Mountain Goats (4AD); Be — Common (Geffen); This Right Here Is Buck 65­ ­— Buck 65 (V2); Celebration Castle ­— The Ponys (In the Red).

Top 10 singles: “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People” — The Legendary K.O.; “Alcohol” — Brad Paisley; “Heard ‘Em Say” — Kanye West; “Kerosene” — Miranda Lambert; “1 Thing” — Amerie; “I May Hate Myself in the Morning” — Lee Ann Womack; “Random” — Lady Sovereign; “Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Remix)” — 50 Cent & The Game; “Since U Been Gone” — Kelly Clarkson; “Stay Fly” — Three 6 Mafia.

Stephen Deusner

1. Black Sheep Boy — Okkervil River (Jagjaguwar): Driven less by narrative than by themes of prodigality and responsibility, this concept album based loosely on the life of doomed singer Tim Hardin towered above higher-profile releases by similar-minded artists such as the Decemberists and the Mountain Goats. It expands Okkervil River’s sound well beyond the sleepily eccentric Americana of past releases, granting them a much greater range and sophistication to highlight Will Sheff’s intense vocals and intelligent songwriting. No album combined matters of the heart and of the head quite so naturally or overwhelmingly.

2. Separation Sunday — The Hold Steady (Frenchkiss): Channeling the Beats via Jesus’ Son-era Denis Johnson, the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn writes skewed story-songs set among the junkies and hoodrats of Minneapolis, who contemplate Catholicism and Kate Bush between highs. Meanwhile, the band cops inspiration from classic-rock sources like Springsteen and Fleetwood Mac, creating an enormous sound for these big urban tales. Perhaps the only album this year that’ll make you dig out your old Bob Seger LPs.

3. Twin Cinema — The New Pornographers (Matador): Chief Pornographer A.C. Newman’s consistency threatens to become boring: This makes three uniformly excellent albums he’s made with this binational superdupergroup, and, like its two predecessors, it seems like it’s untoppable. I keep expecting him to flounder, and he keeps refusing to write a bad song.

4. The Woods — Sleater-Kinney (Sub Pop): Six albums without a hit or even much of a following beyond a coterie of enamored fans and critics, Sleater-Kinney go for broke by changing record label and producer, bolstering their sharp punk style with mountains of feedback and indulging Carrie Brownstein’s guitar-goddess jones on the 11-minute sex epic “Long Time for Love.” The result is an album that’s among the year’s best and most adventurous. Too bad nobody beyond enamored fans noticed.

5. Alligator — The National (Rough Trade): The year’s ultimate grower: Underestimated upon release, this Ohio band’s third full-length made more sense after repeated listens, when Matt Berninger’s oddball lyrics and fevered delivery revealed the dark humor behind the depressive veneer.

Honorable Mention: Bang Bang Rock and Roll — Art Brut (Fierce Panda import), Illinois — Sufjan Stevens (Asthmatic Kitty), Late Registration — Kanye West (Roc-a-Fella ), Arular — M.I.A. (XL), Apologies to the Queen Mary –Wolf Parade (Sub Pop).

Andrew Earles

1. Dinosaur, You’re Living All Over Me, Bug — Dinosaur Jr. (Merge reissues): Please allow a pedestrian but very true statement: This is my favorite band of all time. You’re Living All Over Me (1987) was this eventual writer and music geek’s life-changing album. Years later, I can still listen to it straight through without a tinge of boredom. You might even say that it continues to excite me. In the original J. Mascis/Lou Barlow/Murph line-up, Dinosaur Jr. had a heavy hand in creating several underground genres of the future: indie rock, alternative country (listen to the debut), plus the re-embracement of ’70s metal. The debut (1985) and You’re Living All Over Me are very different albums, though they are as seminal as anything produced by Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, or the Replacements (or anyone) in the ’80s. The wheels had begun to fall off byBug (1988), relegating it to a lowly “great” status.

2. Secret Migration — Mercury Rev (V2): Everyone loves getting a lot when they’re not expecting much. I was expecting next to nothing from this once-mind-blowing band that had seemingly settled into less adventurous territory 15 years into the game. Whoops. They went and pulled off a downright beautiful and grandiose pop album.

3. 4 — Major Stars (Twisted Village): Rock musicians tend to peak early in their careers. Major Stars are the exception to this rule. Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggers had been making and peddling mostly obscure fringe rock and noise for almost 20 years when they formed this fully realized psychedelic, solo-happy, barnstorm of a band back in 1998. It got better — exponentionally — with each album. If Sonic Youth removed all arty pretensions (fat chance) and reemerged as a jam band (not in the dirty-word sense), it would approach what the Major Stars leave laying on the cutting-room floor.

4. Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era 1976 — 1996 — Various Artists (Rhino): That this set claims to represent an era or movement is a misnomer. The package’s honorable accomplishment lies outside of the several forgettable inclusions that fall into the late-’70s/’80s garage-psych revival (Chesterfield Kings, the Fleshtones). There are many styles covered: ’80s college rock, ’80s American indie rock, British jangle pop, New Zealand pop, L.A.’s Paisley Underground, etc. Do yourself a favor and get floored by powerful early versions of the Church, the Screaming Trees, and the Bangles, or get seduced by the flawless pop of the Chills and the Posies. And that’s merely scratching the surface.

5. Closing In — Early Man (Matador Records): Early Man’s debut three-song teaser EP sounded like uninspired indie-metal fakers indecisive about which strain of real metal to plagiarize. But this full-length debut proved I was dead wrong in that unfair assumption. The metal record of 2005.

Honorable Mention: The Runners Four — Deerhoof (Kill Rock Stars); Celebration Castle — The Ponys (In the Red); Cardinal — Cardinal (Wishing Tree reissue); Broc’s Cabin/Mariposa — Rein Sanction (Sub Pop reissue); Never Let Us Speak Of It Again — Out Hud (Kranky).

Andria Lisle

1. Saw Mill Man — Cast King (Locust Music)/You Ain’t Talkin’ to Me — Charlie Poole (Columbia/Legacy box set): Overlooked 79-year-old country singer Cast King (who, legend has it, cut a few songs at Sun in the ’50s) surveys the world from his perch atop Alabama’s Old Sand Mountain and finds it sadly wanting on this astonishing curveball from Chicago’s eclectic Locust label. Meanwhile, Charlie Poole’s music marks the rough-and-tumble times of the late ’20s. Poole’s indelible, ramblin’ banjo licks and sonorous growl provided respite from the cold reality of the American Depression; today his music sounds no less pertinent.

2. Late Registration — Kanye West (Roc-a-Fella): In a year that yielded so many unexpected rap pleasures (Young Jeezy’s “Go Crazy,” Lil Wayne’s “Hustler Musik,” and the entire Hustle & Flow phenomenon), Kanye West nevertheless stole the show with his sophomore album. “Gold Digger” got me moving. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” made me think. But West’s unscripted outburst on NBC’s Hurricane Katrina telethon sealed the deal: I love this man.

3. Weird Tales of the Ramones — The Ramones (Rhino box set): Three CDs and a DVD bundled up in a weird, wacky comic book, this box set is just dumb enough to make you yuk out loud yet sophisticated enough to share coffee-table space with the photography books and stack of New Yorkers. If you’re a fan, you probably already possess these recordings, but you’ll buy this one for the beautifully wrought accoutrements.

4. The King Khan & BBQ Show — The King Khan & BBQ Show (Goner Records): Brazilian and Canadian musicians (who recorded in Germany), the King Khan & BBQ Show are an utterly confounding group. Trying to decipher the details is like peering through Alice’s looking glass: Sometimes they appear in blackface; other times, they wear ghostly white makeup. Their songs — about inane activities like a “Fish Fight” and “Waddlin’ Around” — reverberate with old-school cool and modern primitivism alike. Musically, they might be the Monks’ illegitimate children, weaned on Bo Diddley records and horror-flick soundtracks. Whatever the lineage, their trashcan beat proved irresistible during their Gonerfest and Rockening appearances in Memphis this year.

5. Run-D.M.C., King of Rock, Raising Hell, Tougher Than Leather — Run-D.M.C. (Arista/Legacy reissues): Recorded in the mid-to-late ’80s, shortly before rap became a million-dollar industry, these rudimentary, albeit innovative, albums epitomize the DIY aesthetic of the New York scene. Utilitarian boasts like “Sucker MCs” quickly gave way to rap-rock collaborations like “Walk This Way,” the catalyst that pushed hip-hop into the pop mainstream. With Tougher Than Leather, Run-D.M.C. rendered itself obsolete, although two decades later, the group’s rise (and fall) still sounds explosive — particularly in comparison to the current crop of cookie-cutter thug superstars like G-Unit and Terror Squad.

Honorable Mention: One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Groups Lost & Found –Various Artists (Rhino box set); Brick — The Talking Heads (Rhino box set); Transistor Radio — M Ward (Merge); The Singing Drifter — Blind Arvella Gray (Conjuroo); Lookaftering — Vashti Bunyan (DiCristina/Fat Cat).

Werner Trieschmann

1. Kerosene — Miranda Lambert (Epic): No, I never expected to have the third-place finisher of Nashville Star‘s first season anywhere near my Top 10 list, much less my favorite album of the year. But 2005 was a great year for country music and Lambert’s album is best of them all: It rocks (the title track), weeps (“Greyhound to Nowhere”), and bounces (“Me and Charlie Talking”). Lambert, who just turned 22, defied Nashville tradition by writing or co-writing every song on it. Nashville fought back by making sure every single track sounds like one million bucks.

2. Man Like Me — Bobby Pinson (RCA): The best-written songs this year can be found on this debut album by a Nashville songwriter turned singer. The images here — short-fused cherry bombs and shotgun-blasted “Welcome” signs for claustrophobic small towns — are as sharp as Springsteen in his prime. Pinson’s gritty voice puts him outside Music Row’s fast track, and that’s fine, because it suits his darker approach.

3. Illinois — Sufjan Stevens (Asthmatic Kitty): The indie-pop record of the year, no question, and its ambition to sum up a state is as outrageous as the resulting sound is deep and pleasurable. Sure, Stevens keeps inserting himself into the story, but it’s not narcissistic or off-putting. And the small army of voices and instruments that support him find interesting ways to startle your ears.

4. Late Registration — Kanye West (Roc-a-Fella): The best decision by a megalomaniacal pop star in 2005 goes to West for handing the production keys to his sophomore release to pop producer Jon Brion. The resulting orchestrated hip-hop might not get any cred from crunk devotees, but that’s their problem; this album sounds great.

5. Tough All Over — Gary Allan (MCA): Last year, Gary Allan’s wife committed suicide, and Tough All Over is a response record that, incredibly, never begs for sympathy or wallows in self-pity. Allan’s cool tenor is a wonder, and “Nickajack Cave,” a song about Johnny Cash’s attempted suicide, rips your head off.

Honorable Mention: A Bigger Bang — The Rolling Stones (Virgin); Celebration Castle — The Ponys (In the Red); Somebody’s Miracle — Liz Phair (Columbia); The Story of My Life — Deana Carter (Vanguard); Fever Dreams — Boondogs (Max Recordings).

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Conversation Pieces

Holiday parties — especially those with crappy food and drink — can really suck. But, like a bird that strategically aims its business for a clean car, a carefully plopped comment can make anyone raise an eyebrow or chuckle. I’ve compiled a list of completely geeky, useless wine facts to drop on unsuspecting bores, if only to entertain yourself.

• Studies have shown that the more you know about wine, the better experience you will have with it. In brain experiments while consuming the juice, experts showed activity in the frontal cortex — where memory and emotion are processed — while the laymen did not. Moral: Drink more wine, and you too can have increased brain activity.

• Two out of three bottles of wine sold in the U.S. are from California. Take that, snobby French.

• There are over 3,500 wineries in the United States — and apparently growing by the day in no-longer-so-scenic Napa Valley. Can anyone say Disneyland?

• Vineyard land in Napa Valley now goes for $100,000 acre, with prime locations selling for over $200,000.

• The next new trend out of Australia is wine in a can. Try to think of vending machines without shivering with anticipation.

• The United Kingdom is the largest importer of American wines, with other big markets including the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ireland, and Denmark. So the Brits do have taste after all.

• Costco is the country’s leading retailer of wine, selling more than $598 million worth of wine in 2002.

• In 2004, red wine edged out white wine sales for the first time in recent history. The health-benefit report has been heard, ladies and gentlemen.

• Slovenia is purported to have the oldest grapevine in the world, at 400 years. The Zametovka vine still produces 77 to 121 pounds of grapes per year, enough to make 100 eight-ounce bottles.

• Lightly chilling a red wine will make it taste less astringent and tannic. If you serve it around 65 degrees — the original “room temperature” — the wine will taste more balanced than when served at 78 degrees, the current version of room temperature.

• Wine is produced in every state in the United States. It’s not all drinkable, but it’s available. The best wines that I’ve tried, outside of California and New York, can be found in New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia.

• The cork oak tree takes 40 to 45 years before a sapling can produce a stopper thick and consistent enough for wine. And, like a tourist, it prefers sunny, mild climates.

• The wire cage on a Champagne bottle is called a “muselet” and comes from the French word “to muzzle.”

• White wine gets red wine stains out, if poured on the spot immediately after a spill. I’ve tried it. It works.

• My favorite drinking toasts:

“To lying, cheating, stealing, and drinking — may you lie to save your brother, may you cheat death, may you steal someone’s heart, and may you drink with me.”

“Friendship’s the wine of life. Let’s drink of it and to it.”

Happy partying.

Recommended Wines

Oberon 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) — Smooth, elegant texture, black-pepper spicy, rich dark cherry, chocolaty, and most certainly decadent. Amazing deal on a very high-quality Cabernet from the famed Napa Valley. $19

Palandri 2004 Sauvignon Blanc Boundary Road SE (Australia) — A simple, drinkable Sauv Blanc from down under with hints of green grass and lime. An everyday wine. $10

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From The Editor: Keeping It Simple

“It was beautiful and simple, as all truly great swindles are.”

— O. Henry

I like simple things — the cardinal singing on the trellis as I sip my coffee; the fog that hides a cold stream before the sun clears the trees; the smell of jasmine on a summer night; the sweet rumble of a Gibson J-45 in open tuning.

Yep, simple is how I roll. Simple is beautiful. Simple is easy. Simple is as simple does.Which makes what I’m about to say a little surprising: It’s my wish for 2006 that all of us begin to realize that the siren song of “simple” has led us far, far astray.

Slogans, for example, are seductively simple: “Stay the Course”; “Bush Lied and Soldiers Died”; “Don’t Cut and Run”; “No Blood for Oil”; “The War on Christmas.” They’re either infuriating or satisfying, depending on your point of view. Simple works great for bumper stickers; not so well when it comes to policy decisions.

When, for example, the president says there are only two courses in Iraq — defeat or victory — what kind of moron would choose defeat? Simple, right? But what is victory? A secular Arab democracy? If last week’s voting is any indication, we’re more likely to have spent three years and thousands of lives setting up an Iran-like Islamic state. Is that victory or defeat? What do you think? One thing is sure: It’s not so simple, after all. In fact, it’s damned complicated.

In 2006, it would behoove us all to move beyond our chosen slogans and embrace “the complicated,” especially in matters of life and death and politics. Let’s try to reason with one another, instead of just reacting to each others’ “simple” solutions. Let’s keep simple in its place — for happiness and pleasure.

Now, excuse me while I go find my Gibson. Oh, and have a Happy New Year. How hard is that?

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

P.S. Next week, look for the Flyer‘s Annual Manual issue. We’ll be back with a regular issue on January 12th.