How did Joe Cooper, of late a disqualified candidate in a Memphis City Council race, become a Milwaukee police official with a badge? (This is from an AOL daily post about outfitting cops with body cameras.)
Well, okay, it’s not Joe, but the gent second-from-left, presumably the Milwaukee police director, does appear to be a separated-at-birth case.
And, for that matter, the gentleman on the left, who looks mayoral, could be a perfect genetic cross between Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell and his CAO, Harvey Kennedy.
Maybe Milwaukee is the entry point to an alternate universe.
Ross Johnson plays the River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater on Saturday, October 24th.
The last group of River Series shows at the Harbor Town Amphitheater were such a success that the organizers have decided to go for round two! The River Series is sponsored by Goner Records, The Downtown Memphis Commission, Wiseacre Brewing, Miss Cordelia’s, and Shoulder Tap Records. The Wiseacre beer is free, but each show requires a $5 donation to benefit the school. All shows start at 6 p.m., with the first band on by 7. The schedule is below.
Sunday was a big night at the Orpheum for Addams Family director Cecelia Wingate. Not only did her spooky musical lead the pack in Ostrander Awards, she also picked up an Ossie for best supporting actress for her work in Distance, a Voices of the South world premiere. Other big winners included Bad Jews and Vanya, and Sonia, and Masha, and Spike.
Winners in the college division included The Physicists, The Wedding Singer, Good Woman of Setzuan, and Thebes: Contending with Gods and Contemplating Sphinxes.
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There
Mary Poppins starts the show. Practically perfectly.
Sound Design: Gene Elliott — The Woman In Black, New Moon Theatre Company
Lighting: Jeremy Allen Fisher — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Set Design: Jack Yates — The Heiress, Theatre Memphis
Costumes: Paul McCrae — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Props: Bill Short — Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, New Moon
Hair/Wig/Make-Up: Paul McCrae, Buddy Hart, Caiden Britt, Ellen Ingram and Justin Asher — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There (2)
Hostess/Mostest = Sister Myotis.
Small Ensemble: Bad Jews, The Circuit Playhouse
Large Ensemble: Once on This Island, Hattiloo Theatre
Featured Role/Cameo: Marc Gill — Kiss Me, Kate, Playhouse on the Square
Best Original Script: Mountain View, POTS@TheWorks
Best Production of an Original Script: Distance, Voices of the South
Leading Actress in a Musical: Emily F. Chateau — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Leading Actor in a Musical: Robert Hanford — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Supporting Actress in a Musical: Leah Beth Bolton — Kiss Me, Kate, Playhouse on the Square
Supporting Actor in a Musical: John M. Hemphill and John Maness — Kiss Me, Kate, Playhouse on the Square
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There (3)
Addams Family Traditions.
Music Direction: Adam Laird — Kiss Me, Kate, Playhouse on the Square
Choreography: Jordan Nichols and Travis Bradley — Kiss Me Kate, Playhouse on the Square
Direction of a Musical: Cecelia Wingate — The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Best Musical Production: The Addams Family, Theatre Memphis
Leading Actress in a Drama: Laura Stracko Franks — Bad Jews, The Circuit Playhouse
Leading Actor in a Drama: Devin Altizer — Tribes, The Circuit Playhouse
Supporting Actress in a Drama: Cecelia Wingate — Distance, Voices of the South
Supporting Actor in a Drama: Johnathan Williams — King Hedley II, Hattiloo Theatre
Direction of a Drama: Irene Crist — Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Playhouse on the Square
Best Production of a Drama: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Playhouse on the Square
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There (4)
Character Assassins!
Special Award: Ed Finney, Isaac Middleton, and McCheyne Post — Original Music & Musicians — Mountain View POTS@TheWorks
Janie McCrary Putting it Together Award: Ekundayo Bandele
Ekundayo Bandele putting something together.
The Gypsy Award: Kim Sanders
The Behind the Scenes Award: Andrew Clarkson and The Jeniam Foundation.
The Larry Riley Rising Star Award: Chelsea Robinson
The Eugart Yerian Lifetime Achievement Award: Karin Barile, Playhouse on the Square
Glenda Mace, Karin Barile, Daniel Martin
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There (5)
Kiss Me Kate‘s Original Gangstas
Ostrander College Division Winners, 2015
Set Design: Brian Ruggaber — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Costumes: Clara Seigler — Thebes: Contending with Gods & Contemplating Sphinxes, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
Lighting: James Vitale — The Tragedy of Macbeth, University of Memphis
Props: Kathy Haaga — The Good Woman of Setzuan, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
Hair/Wig/Makeup: Janice Benning Lacek — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Sound Design: John McFadden — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Featured Role/Cameo: Drake Bailey and Marlon Finnie — The Tragedy of Macbeth, University of Memphis
Leading Actress in a Musical: Audrey Smith — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Leading Actor in a Musical: Sterling Church — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Supporting Actress in a Musical: Casey Greer — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Supporting Actor in a Musical: Bradley Karel — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Cast of ‘The Physicists’
Music Direction: Zach Williams — The Good Woman of Setzuan, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
Choreography/Fight Choreography: Jill Guyton Nee — The Wedding Singer, University of Memphis
Leading Actress in a Drama: Sarah Brown — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Leading Actor in a Drama: David Couter — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Supporting Actress in a Drama: Katie Sloan — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Supporting Actor in a Drama: James Kevin Cochran — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Direction: Bob Hetherington — The Physicists, University of Memphis
Large Ensemble: The Good Woman of Setzuan, McCoy Theater, Rhodes College
Best Production: The Physicists, University of Memphis
Special Awards: Construction and Performance of Dragon — Thebes: Contending with Gods & Contemplating Sphinxes, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
Sean Roulier — Original Music, Thebes: Contending with Gods & Contemplating Sphinxes, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
The Witch Ensemble — The Tragedy of Macbeth, University of Memphis
The Ostrander Awards, 2015: Like You Were There (6)
This weekend, September 3-6, marks the ninth installment of the music festival, which benefits the Church Health Center. 29 fine examples of Memphis music will play at Crosstown and Overton Square, including Jack Oblivian, Nots, Mancontrol Stephen Chopek, Mark Edgar Stuart, Hope Clayburn, and the North Mississippi Allstars. You can see the full lineup here.
Folk rockers Deering and Down will play Saturday night at Lafayette’s. The dreamy video for “You’re The One” was directed by Matteo Servente. It makes extensive use of projection mapping, a relatively new technique for manipulating video to conform to—or often distort—the surfaces onto which it is projected. The projection mapping used here, which doubles as lighting for Lanna Deering’s ethereal performance, was created by Christopher Reyes.
Music Video Monday: Deering and Down
If you would like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. We’ll see you at Rock For Love!
It’s WMC weatherman and wrestling host Dave Brown’s last day on the job. He’ll be missed for many reasons. In addition to weather reporting he was a disc jockey, and hosted local TV shows like Dialing for Dollars. But this is how your Pesky Fly chooses to remember him— moderating a squabble between Jerry Lawler and Adam West.
Shelby County Schools (SCS) announced Monday morning that the district will be filing a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee for failing to “equitably and adequately fund public school education for all students.”
An email sent to media on Monday morning said the SCS board believes the funding the state currently provides isn’t equal to the actual cost of educating the district’s students.
The district has been considering filing such a lawsuit for several months, and in February, the board voted to look into filing a suit. SCS will join seven other Tennessee school districts that are also suing the state. SCS claims the state owes them $103 million.
“Our students deserve fair treatment – access to a quality education and a fair opportunity to lead a successful life,” said SCS board chair Teresa Jones. “However, we have had to constantly cut resources, lay off needed staff members, and remove programs that can help our students remain competitive. In a time when academic and career standards are increasing, our students need more resources.”
When the Memphis Tigers kick off this Saturday against Missouri State, the 51st season of college football at the Liberty Bowl will be underway. Which makes this the perfect time for a countdown of the Tigers’ five biggest home wins over their first half-century at the Fairgrounds.
5) October 10, 1987: Memphis State 13, #15 Alabama 10 The Tigers and Tide had met three previous times in the Eighties, with the cumulative score Alabama 109, Memphis State 22. The Tigers were 1-3 entering the game, their fourth of the young season against SEC opposition. (After opening with a win over Ole Miss, the Tigers had lost to Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.) A Tiger goal-line stand thwarted Bama tailback Bobby Humphrey and friends in the second quarter, keeping the game close as both offenses struggled for traction. (They combined to pass for merely 144 yards.) Tiger tailback Gerald White scored on a three-yard run midway through the third quarter to tie the game at 10, and John Butler connected on a 47-yard field goal in the fourth quarter for the decisive points. Alabama edged the Tigers in the Liberty Bowl (10-7) four years later, but hasn’t returned since.
Danny Sparkman leads the Tiger attack against Ole Miss in 1983.
4) November 29, 2014: Memphis 41, Connecticut 10 For some perspective on this regular-season finale, consider the score of the teams’ meeting a year earlier at UConn: Huskies 45, Tigers 10. No game better encapsulated the program’s complete turnaround than this American Athletic Conference championship-clinching evisceration (cats over dogs!). A year after finishing 3-9, the Tigers found themselves 9-3, and awaiting a bowl bid. There was a confetti shower during a trophy presentation on Rex Dockery Field, for crying out loud. I’ve yet to attend a more surreal moment as a Memphis sportswriter. The score was still close (13-3) at halftime, but Paxton Lynch delivered three touchdown passes in the third quarter to make the final period a prelude to a party unlike these parts had ever seen before.
3) October 16, 1965: Memphis State 33, #10 Mississippi State 13 If you attend this year’s Ole Miss game (October 17th), you’ll be sitting in the Liberty Bowl 50 years and a day after the Tigers’ first win in the stadium. They lost the Liberty Bowl’s inaugural game to, ahem, Ole Miss on September 18, 1965 (34-14). But after a pair of road losses, the Tigers returned to the Fairgrounds and administered a clobbering to the Bulldogs, the first victory in what would become a five-game winning streak under coach Billy Murphy. Tailback Billy Fletcher was the star for the Tigers and, doubling as the team’s placekicker, was responsible for every point the home team scored. He was named “Back of the Week” by the AP.
2) September 3, 1983: Memphis State 37, Ole Miss 17 Before there was Larry Porter, there was Rex Dockery. In the first two years (1981 and ’82) under Dockery, the Tigers won exactly two games (and lost 20), scoring as many as 20 points in a game but twice (one of them a loss to Georgia Tech). But an era took a turn, you might say, in the 1983 season opener. Starting his first game at quarterback for the Tigers, Danny Sparkman led Memphis State to 435 yards of total offense and helped end a six game losing streak to the Rebels. The Tigers fell behind, 17-10, in the third quarter, only to score the game’s final 27 points. Freshman tailback Jeff Womack ran for two second-half touchdowns. The win sparked a revival and the Tigers also beat Vanderbilt and Mississippi State on their way to a 6-4-1 finish. Dockery lost his life in a plane crash 19 days after the season finale, a 45-7 drubbing of Louisville.
1) November 9, 1996: Memphis 21, #6 Tennessee 17 The Tigers and Vols had played 15 times (seven times at the Liberty Bowl) and UT had won every game. This was the haves of Knoxville against, well, Memphis (3-6 entering the game). Peyton Manning behind center for the visitors, Qadry Anderson for the home team. The crowd of 65,885 that filled the Liberty Bowl to capacity brought an orange hue to large sections of the stadium. The halftime score (7-7) would have been considered a victory of sorts by many Tiger fans. But when Kevin Cobb returned a kickoff 95 yards — after being dropped to his elbow, but not a knee — the Tiger faithful held out hope for the monumental. Trailing 17-14 with six minutes to play, the Tigers converted on fourth-and-one in their own territory before Anderson completed a 41-yard pass to Chancy Carr at the UT 16-yard-line. Fullback Jeremy Scruggs barreled for 13 yards before Anderson completed a game-winning pass to tight end Chris Powers near the right side of the end zone with 34 seconds left on the clock. The crowd that stormed Rex Dockery Field was dressed almost entirely in blue.
The Flyer’s annual Tiger football preview hits the streets Wednesday, September 2nd.
Robert Lipscomb, the director of Housing and Community Development, has been relieved of duties following a criminal complaint “of a sexual nature,” according to a statement issued from Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office at about 11 p.m. Sunday.
Here’s Wharton’s statement in full:
On Friday, August 21, 2015, Mayor A C Wharton, Jr. and [MemphisPolice Department] Director Toney Armstrong spoke by phone to an adult male who made a criminal complaint of a sexual nature against City of Memphis Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb. This complaint was criminal in nature based on the fact that the individual in question claimed to have been a minor at the time of his alleged sexual encounters with Dir. Lipscomb.
Mayor Wharton immediately ordered Director Armstrong and a team of his top investigators to travel to Seattle, Washington to meet and interview the complainant; this interview took place within days of this individual’s conversation with the mayor and the police director.
Based on this criminal complaint, Mayor Wharton has relieved director Lipscomb of duty pending the results of a full investigation.
“These allegations are extremely disturbing.” Wharton said, “To ensure that we leave no stone unturned, in addition to referring this matter to the District Attorney General’s Office, we will also seek legal counsel as to if any other state or federal agencies should be involved in this investigation.”
This story will be updated as more details become available.
After years of only being available on VHS, The Decline of Western Civilization documentary series finally got the Blu-ray box-set treatment it desperately deserved. Focusing on three different eras of the underground Los Angeles music scene from 1979 to 1998, The Decline forced viewers to look past the spikes, leather, and spit and into a world of homeless teens, drug and alcohol abuse, and senseless violence. While the first installment of The Decline is definitely the most popular, all three documentaries stand the test of time. The new box set comes with a bonus disc featuring tons of outtakes, commentary, and unedited interviews, in addition to a booklet that expounds on the cultural significance of what director Penelope Spheeris (Black Sheep, Wayne’s World) calls her greatest work.
In the Beginning
Punk rock has always been an easy target for the film industry (Repo Man, Thrashin’, The Return of the Living Dead), but no filmmaker took the musical phenomenon seriously quite like Penelope Spheeris and her 1981 documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization. The film focuses on the early days of the Los Angeles punk world, specifically the scene that started at the Masque and then spilled into whatever clubs would host the unpredictable and often violent gigs. Quite simply, The Decline is the definitive source on the early days of punk rock and hardcore in Los Angeles, along with the Brendan Mullen and Marc Spitz oral history We Got the Neutron Bomb.
Spheeris shines the spotlight on groups like Germs, X, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Alice Bag Band and allows the editor of Slash magazine, Claude Bessy, aka Kickboy Face, to be the voice of his leather-clad generation in multiple captivating scenes. Spheeris also secured one of the last interviews with Jan Paul Beahm (aka Darby Crash), as the singer died of an overdose/suicide months before the movie premiered in Los Angeles. Other highlights include early footage of Fear front man Lee Ving’s approach to crowd interaction and the Black Flag interview at their home “The Church,” in which then-Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes shows off the closet he calls home.
Heavy Metal Excess
The second documentary in The Decline series might not be the most bleak, but it’s certainly the most cringe-worthy. Spheeris had a much larger budget for The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years and enlisted the help of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Lemmy Kilmister, Ozzy Osbourne, and Steven Tyler (among others) to explain the heavy metal phenomenon that took L.A. by storm in the mid-’80s. You can probably guess how the story plays out: groupies, cocaine and alcohol, more groupies, gallons of hairspray, and loads of money from record companies cashing in on a new style of rock-and-roll.
Paul Stanley is literally lying in a bed of groupies whenever he appears in the documentary (sans makeup, of course), and somehow Kilmister of Motörhead got the “voice of reason” role as he ponders the social significance of heavy metal while overlooking the Los Angeles skyline.
Yes, this documentary is as strange/corny as it sounds, but it’s also extremely entertaining. While the other two documentaries in this series preach a mantra of social change, all of the subjects in The Metal Years just want to be rock stars, no matter how much of a long shot it might be. Tyler claims that he lost millions by “snorting up all of Peru,” and, honestly, anything Tyler says during his short time on camera is worth the price of admission.
But it’s not all fun and games and spandex in The Metal Years, especially when Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. appears noticeably wasted and floating fully clothed in his pool, exclaiming that he’s a full-blown alcoholic. He then confesses to drinking five pints of vodka a day before pouring a whole fifth of vodka on his face and sliding into the pool.
While The Metal Years might have some big-name cameos, most of the bands that perform in the movie (except for Megadeth) never made it big.
Show’s Over
By the time The Decline of Western Civilization: Part III came out in 1998, Spheeris had a blueprint to work with. She’d already exposed the wayward youth of Los Angeles twice, whether she was focusing on the metal scene on the Sunset Strip or the dawn of punk rock in L.A. clubs like the Masque and the Whiskey. The Decline: III focuses on a group of outcasts known as “gutter punks.”
While the punk rockers in the first Decline at least claimed to want to change their world, the street dwellers in The Decline: III just want to get drunk. Really drunk. Most of the subjects interviewed by Spheeris have either run away or been kicked out of their parents’ homes, resorting to living in the gutters, on rooftops, and in squat houses of seedy downtown Los Angeles when they aren’t taking part in delinquent behavior.
Though the bands featured in TheDecline: III (Naked Aggression, Final Conflict, Litmus Green, and the Resistance) still preach social change, their audience seemed to be totally missing the point. With quotes like “I live for beer” rampant throughout the documentary, Spheeris perhaps captured a group of individuals not as interested in changing the world as they are in self-destruction.
While the first Decline captured the youthful spirit of a new social movement and The Metal Years captured the decadence and machismo of the ’80s L.A. metal scene, The Decline: III doesn’t find youth in revolt or with aspirations to be like the rock stars plastered on their walls. Instead, it finds youth in decay.
courtesy of Goner Records 
