Month: February 2016

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Complete 2016 Beale Street Music Fest Lineup

Here is the complete lineup for Beale Street Music Fest 2016. This year the lack of hip-hop and rap artists is noticeable, but big names like Neil Young, Weezer, and Beck round out an otherwise (musically) diverse lineup. Order your tickets here, and read my rundown on artists not to miss here.  

Friday, April 29
Neil Young + Promise of the Real, Weezer, Train, Panic! at the Disco, Grace Potter, Gin Blossoms, Young the Giant, Trampled By Turtles, The Struts, Coleman Hell, Walter Trout, Julien Baker, Doyle Bramhall II, Larry McCray, Ghost Town Blues Band, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and Terry “Harmonica” Bean

Saturday, April 30
Meghan Trainor, Modest Mouse, Jason Derulo, Barenaked Ladies, Yo Gotti, Violent Femmes, Cypress Hill, Jonny Lang, Moon Taxi, Lucinda Williams, Houndmouth, Los Lobos, The Front Bottoms, Better Than Ezra, LunchMoney Lewis, Ana Popovic, Luther Dickinson, Will Tucker, Amasa Hines, Magic Dick and Shun Ng, Jack Semple, Charles Wilson, Duwayne Burnside, Blind Mississippi Morris, and Larry Long & Reverend Robert Rev  

Sunday, May 1
 Beck, Paul Simon, Zedd, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Cold War Kids, The Arcs, Bastille, Courtney Barnett, Indigo Girls, Blackberry Smoke, The Joy Formidable, The Lone Bellow, Bernard Allison, Those Pretty Wrongs, John Primer, Alex da Ponte, John Nemeth, Brandon Santini, Barbara Blue, Leo Bud Welch, and Bill Abel 

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Beyond the Arc Podcast, #45: Gasol Surgery and the Stretch Run


This week on the show, Kevin and Phil talk about:

  • The Grizzlies’ announcement that Marc Gasol had successful surgery on his foot and what his recovery might look like.
  • Whether the Grizzlies can make the playoffs without Gasol and without time to integrate their new additions
  • A farewell to Jeff Green, who is a good dude even though we’re glad we don’t have to watch him anymore.
  • What does Lance Stephenson bring to the Grizzlies?
  • The Grizzlies at the trade deadline—what moves did they make, and why did they work?
  • Is PJ Hairston going to be a legit NBA player? Will he get enough minutes on the Grizzlies for it to matter?
  • Kobe’s last game at FedExForum on Wednesday—is Tony Allen going to play and guard him?

The Beyond the Arc podcast is available on iTunes, so you can subscribe there! It’d be great if you could rate and review the show while you’re there. You can also find and listen to the show on Stitcher and on PlayerFM.

You can call our Google Voice number and leave us a voicemail, and we might talk about your question on the next show: 234-738-3394

You can download the show here or listen below:


Categories
Music Music Features

Beale Street Music Fest 2016: Who to Watch

Beale Street Music Festival recently released the complete musical lineup for this year’s weekend-long concert. Here’s a small sample of some of the talent that will be rockin’ on the river this year.

Friday, April 29th

Neil Young + Promise of the Real

Neil Young. On the river, the first night of Beale Street Music Fest. Do I really need to tell you to be there? Do you like music? Good answer. I thought we were about to have a problem. In all seriousness, if this doesn’t get you excited, you may need to check your pulse.

Weezer

These platinum-selling pop-punkers have been at it for over 20 years, releasing hit after hit in between throwing parties on cruise ships and collaborating with current stars like Best Coast. Weezer will be on tour with Panic! At the Disco, who are also playing Friday night.

Julien Baker

Memphis’ biggest breakout star of 2015 keeps killing it, landing a spot on Beale Street Music Fest after a solid year of touring and seeing her name on every music-media outlet that’s relevant. Her first album, Sprained Ankle made plenty of year-end lists, but we were already onto Baker before she became a media darling. See our cover story on her from last summer for proof.

Trampled by Turtles

Minnesota’s Trampled by Turtles have seen their fair amount of success since forming in 2003, and the alt-country band will be setting out on a long tour with the Devil Makes Three shortly after their performance on Friday night. No stranger to festivals, the band has also played San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Firefly Festival, Rock the Garden, and the All Good Music Festival.

Saturday, April 30th

Yo Gotti

The king of Memphis has been on a tear lately, releasing hit after hit of club-ready, social-media-referencing rap songs. If Yo Gotti keeps up his summer show at Mud Island, this could mean that two epic outdoor Gotti concerts are heading your way soon. Yo Gotti put the city on his back, and his love for Memphis is well-known. Don’t miss Yo Gotti, and remember, it goes down in the DM.

Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes are no strangers to Memphis, having played the iconic Antenna club and, more recently, the Mud Island Amphitheater. The band has been active since 1980 and are best known for their quirky hit “Blister in the Sun,” although they’ve also had hits with “Kiss Off” and “Gone Daddy Gone.”

Cypress Hill

Who can forget the group that sang “Tell Bill Clinton to go and inhale?” Other than Snoop Dogg, no other artist or group personifies what it means to be a stoner better than Cypress Hill, the group that brought you songs like “Hits from the Bong,” “Superstar,” and “Dr. Greenthumb.” Cypress Hill were the first Latino-American rap artists to go platinum, and their music is immediately recognizable, as is B-Real’s high-pitched vocal approach. Get ready to go insane in the membrane.

Moon Taxi

Nashville’s Moon Taxi also earned a spot on Coachella, and their Day Breaker tour sees the band getting a slot on Beale Street Music Fest. Active since 2006, the band played the David Letterman Show and has had television placements from companies like BMW, HBO, the MLB, and the NFL.

Sunday, May 1st

Beck

Beck is back, only this time he’ll be at Tom Lee Park instead of the Mud Island Amphitheater. The Los Angeles singer/songwriter always puts on a great show, and his collaboration with Jay Reatard was proof that while Beck is definitely big time, he still keeps his ear to the underground. Anyone who was at his Mud Island show knows that Beck is not to be missed.

Paul Simon

Paul Simon has been a hit factory since the ’60s, cranking out songs like “Mrs. Robinson,” “The Sounds of Silence,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” He was awarded the first Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007 and has written music for Broadway and television. He’s been on Saturday Night Live 14 times and has 12 Grammy awards, making him one of the most successful artists on the entire Music Fest lineup.

Zedd

Grammy award-winner Zedd plays the last night of Beale Street Music Fest, and if the hype around this artist is any indication, his set should be a gigantic dance party. Mixing elements of electronic music with pop sensibilities, Zedd makes music larger than life, and he’s got the hardware to prove that he’s making some of the most influential music of the genre.

Alex da Ponte

Alex da Ponte just released her latest album, and the local artist is one of many worth catching over Music Fest weekend. On All My Heart, da Ponte wears her emotions on her sleeve, making for an earnest and honest album that will get stuck in your head after only a couple listens. Her song “Nevermind” is already a local hit, but don’t expect da Ponte to stay local for long.

Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett had a spectacular 2015 due to her amazing album Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit. We had her album and her Third Man Records single as some of our favorites of the year, so we’ll take credit for this one. You’re welcome.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

“Broad City” and “Girls” Vie For The Voice Of A Generation

Abbi Jacobson and Illana Glazer of Broad City

It is unfair that Broad City and Girls are so often mentioned in the same breath because the two shows’ differences are many, while their similarities are surface-level. Both are half-hour comedies about white, female friends in their mid-twenties as they navigate sex, jobs and friendship in New York City. Both are written, directed and acted by their female creators. And both are saddled, time and again, with defining Who Young Women Are for the dry sponge of baby-boomer-run media. With both series debuting new seasons this month (Girls on its 5th and Broad City on its 3rd), we should ready ourselves yet again for an endless puddling of comparative lit devoted to the shows, in the mediocre company of which we can count this blog.

Despite their skin-deep similarities, Broad City and Girls are different species. It’s easy to love Broad City and hate Girls. It’s fun to watch Broad City while, at times, it almost physically hurts to watch the self-defeating character machinations of the women and men on Girls. And while Lena Dunham’s sea-change of an HBO show tends to garner criticism for its white, middle class myopia, Broad City gets a critical pass, even a critical hi-five.

Broad City, a Comedy Central production, takes the classic plot approach pitting its odd couple leads against an episode-defining event. One of the show’s inaugural episodes follows Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer as they try to raise money to go to a Lil Wayne concert, navigating everything from Craigslist to the Q Train to make it happen. In its newest episode, Abbi and Ilana struggle to make it to a former roommate’s art opening, encountering rabid warehouse sales, a circus school graduation, and a moving porta potty along the way. The structure is predictable but the take is fresh — the show’s humor is expertly patched together from whatever was on Twitter last week and the fucked up story your friend from college told you about her crush. In this new episode as in the past two seasons, they pull it off.

Formally, Broad City is the “Frogger” episode of Seinfeld taken to its logical conclusion. Nothing ever happens. It doesn’t matter if George Costanza gets Frogger across the street or not. It doesn’t matter if circus school is in session. It is less about the characters, lovable as they are, than it is about the weird fabric of New York City. This bodes well for the series longevity, so long as the writing stays good.

But the by-the-book approach of Broad City also somewhat limits what I cringe at calling the “radical potential” of a show like Broad City, because, at the end of the day, this is a complex portrait of being young and loving weed and hating your job in New York City, but it’s a simple draft of what female friendship looks like.

Allison Williams, Jemina Kirke, Lena Dunham, and Zosia Mamet of Girls

Girls— frequently intolerable, unkind to its characters, caricatural, too white, set in New York City but never on the subway (this really annoys me) — nonetheless stakes a more difficult claim. It still seeks, and has always sought, to expand the category of what kinds of female relationships, bodies and emotions can be shown on mainstream television. In its 5th season, we meet Marnie (Allison Williams) on her wedding day, neurotically over-directing her doomed nuptials with chronically selfish boyfriend, Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach.) (If you don’t want spoilers, stop reading here.) Hannah is on hand, acting surly: “She has been so inappropriate and unsupportive of me all day,” Marnie complains to Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), while Jessa (Jemima Kirke) flirts with danger in the form of Hannah’s ex, Adam (Adam Driver). The episode switches lithely between the women’s wedding preparations and the men’s. The writing is good: “This conversation sounds like a fucking E. E. Cummings poem,” rails the series current hero, Ray, when Adam and Hannah’s new boyfriend engage in a long-form, male emotion-grunting session. 

As far as episodes go, the newest is far from the most challenging. Girls cut its teeth on crack, nudity, awkward sex, alcoholism, BDSM and (perhaps most offensive) painfully unlikeable characters. None of that here. The biggest success of the first episode of the 5th season of Girls is that we have the same characters, improbably intact, that we started out with years ago. They have changed the way real people change — subtly. They have not been good friends to each other, but they have not been entirely bad friends to each other. Instead, the quartet of women proves something that is very true but too rarely portrayed, which is that sometimes your best friends are not the people you most like, but the ones you end up with. And that is okay.

Yes: With the start of these new seasons, I still feel some aversion to watching Girls and I like watching Broad City. Both are good shows. Neither offers a good five point summary of what is means to Be Female and In Your Twenties Today (take note, think-piece editors of the world.) They aren’t really even comparable, except that when both premiere new episodes next week, I have to say — despite how much fun Broad City is, I’ll probably watch Girls first. 

Categories
News News Blog

Weirich Says She’s Not Guilty of Misconduct in Jackson Trial

CREDIT: YouTube

YouTube

Weirich (right, standing) implores Noura Jackson (far left, seated) ‘Just tell us where you were!’ during her closing argument.

An attorney for Shelby County District Attorney General (SCDAG) Amy Weirich said she is not guilty of any misconduct in the Noura Jackson trial and charges for discipline against her should be dropped.

These are the two of the biggest claims from Weirich’s attorney Jef Feibelman who filed a response for Weirich Friday to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Responsibility (TBPR), the agency that oversees and disciplines attorneys in the state.

The TBPR filed a petition for discipline against Weirich last month. Its petition said during her closing argument against Jackson, Weirich improperly commented on Jackson’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent at her trial by stating “in a loud tone of voice: ‘Just tell us where you were! That’s all we’re asking, Noura!’” (See video below.)

The TBPR also filed petition for discipline against Shelby County Assistant District Attorney Stephen P. Jones for not giving Jackson’s attorneys evidence that could have helped her defense during the trial. The TBPR said Jones has not yet responded to the petition.

The petition against Weirich is listed in 34 separate statements ranging from mundane facts like Weirich’s current work address to the chief charge that her conduct “caused actual injury” to Jackson, to others who participated in the trial, judicial resources, “and to the administration of justice.”

The state’s petition also asked that a hearing on Weirich’s case be convened and order discipline, if the hearing panel deems it fitting. The TBPR prescribed a censure of Weirich, which is a public rebuke of her actions that comes with a small fine but no suspension of her law license.

Weirich’s attorney responded to all 34 statements in the petition, admitting some of them (like her work address) but denying any that suggest wrongdoing on her part.

Feibelman says that opinions from the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and the rulings of the trial court “establish conclusively…that Ms. Weirich is not guilty of any misconduct as charged.”

At the suggestions that Weirich’s closing-argument statements were improper, Feibleman said, “It is Ms. Weirich’s belief that she did not improperly comment on the right of” Jackson to remain silent at the trial.

He said the trial court found that Weirich was not asking the question to Jackson at the time, therefore violating her Fifth Amendment right to silence, but that Weirich was simply quoting a witness, Jackson’s aunt, from earlier in the trial.

“No court has ever stated that Ms. Weirich acted with intent or was guilty of any ethical misconduct,” Feibelman said in his response. “Explicitly and implicitly they have found otherwise.”

As far as the TBPR saying Weirich spoke in a “loud tone of voice,” Feibelman said “the trial of Noura Jackson was very intense and every lawyer, in the course of the trial, engaged in vigorous advocacy.” But, he said, Weirich admits to speaking the words.

Weirich also denied that her closing-argument statement was not supported by relevant or admissible evidence, as the TBPR claimed. Weirich also denies that her statement caused actual injury to Jackson’s defense, the other parties in the case, judicial resources, or the administration of justice.

The TBPR’s petition for discipline for Weirich states that after her misconduct in the case has been established, aggravating factors could be considered to justify an increase in the degree of discipline given to her.

“Ms. Weirich has substantial experience in the practice of law which justifies an increase in the degree of discipline,” reads the state’s petition.

Weirich’s attorney denies this “inasmuch as there has been no misconduct.” As to her level of experience, Feibelman said, “In fact, Ms. Weirich’s contributions to the profession and to her community as well as her many years in public service all speak in her favor.”

To watch Weirich say “Just tell us where you were! That’s all we’re asking, Noura!” — the phrases at the center of her possible discipline — scroll to the 3:27 mark of the video below.  

Weirich Claims No Guilt of Misconduct in Jackson Trial

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies announce Marc Gasol had successful surgery on foot fracture

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

The Grizzlies have announced that Marc Gasol has undergone a successful surgery on his right mid-foot fracture:

Marc Gasol underwent successful surgery on Saturday, Feb. 20 to repair a non-displaced Type II fracture of the navicular bone in his right foot. Although Marc will not return to the court this season, he is expected to make a full recovery. The surgery was performed by foot and ankle specialists Dr. Robert Anderson of OrthoCarolina and Dr. Drew Murphy of Campbell Clinic.

Team sources I talked to explained that they’re pretty optimistic about Gasol’s recovery from this injury—that as long as he takes the rehab seriously and takes care of himself, it shouldn’t have any impact on the length of his career. A Type II fracture without displacement is a much better diagnosis than a Type III fracture, for instance, which means the navicular bone breaks all the way through. These sorts of injuries have afflicted other players who didn’t recover successfully from them, to be sure, but the Grizzlies are optimistic that the specifics of Marc’s injury mean he has a much higher likelihood of recovery than others.

It’s still a serious injury, and Gasol’s recovery will have to be taken just as seriously to make sure it doesn’t turn into some sort of inexorable slide into perpetual foot injuries. Clearly Gasol is out for the year, and my assumption would be that he isn’t playing for Spain in this summer’s Olympics, either, though that’s still just an assumption on my part. It sounds like their goal for a return is training camp, but clearly that’s not set in stone, and if he’s not ready by then, it’s in everyone’s best interests to wait as long as it takes.

On the court this season, how does it matter? In a way, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen for this season—as we’ve seen from the first two games of the Goon Squad era so far, playing without pressure but with a chip on their collective shoulder has always been good for these Grizzlies. Either way, we now have official confirmation that Gasol won’t be re-joining them until after this season is over, and that Gasol has a long road of rehab and recovery ahead of him before he gets back in a Grizzlies uniform.

You can read the full Grizzlies release—including a quote from Gasol—here at grizzlies.com.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Backpfeifengesicht!

For Lent this year, I’ve given up paying attention to election coverage. Just kidding! Instead of staying engaged, I’m hate-watching “Decision 2016” like it’s the last season of How I Met Your Mother. Hopefully I won’t hate the ending as much.

The story lines haven’t changed much since last summer. Ted Cruz is still the poster child for backpfeifengesicht. Seriously. Google “punchable face.” There is actual science behind this. Donald Trump hasn’t run out offensive things to say, nor has he suffered any consequences for saying them. Hillary Clinton hasn’t worn the same pantsuit twice. Jeb Bush? Pretty sure he’s the inspiration for Arrested Development‘s Buster Bluth. I’m still waiting for Marco Rubio’s alleged charisma to make its debut. Oh, and Ben Carson’s still out there giving hope to aspiring brain surgeons who are, um, not smart.

Somebody call me when someone manages to hold Bernie Sanders down long enough to get a comb through his hair. Or when the primaries are over. Whichever comes first.

Election Day is more than eight months away, and I am already over it. It’s going to be a long year, and not because there is an extra day in February.

I’m over the constant emails with the ambiguous subject lines, always asking me for a dollar, or $27, like the world’s most persistent panhandlers. I have opened exactly one of these messages, from James Carville, titled “whackadoodles.” Spoiler alert, it wasn’t actually from the Ragin’ Cajun. I only opened it because I wanted to reward the copywriter for capturing my attention. Game recognize game, or something.

Then there are the debates. Surely after nine episodes of the GOP Clown Car Hour, the candidates must be weary of trying to think of new and innovative ways to express how much they hate Obama, Muslims, women, minorities, immigrants, taxes, and poor people, and love guns, Jesus, corporations, and Reagan. We get it. Yet there are three more scheduled. Might I suggest a Thunderdome format? Or the Eliminator from American Gladiators? Let’s just get this thing over with already.

Of course the Democratic debates are more substantial in terms of policy discussion — there are only two candidates. They still have to talk it out a dozen times, though, so every network gets a piece. And the debates are no more illuminating or informative unless you consider the number of millennials who probably had to Google “Henry Kissinger” during the last one. Because he’s relevant in 2016. Thanks for reminding us how old you are, Bern and Hillz! Your Snapchats and emoji tweets are bae and so on fleek, it’s easy to mistake you for fellow youths.

Thanks to the internet, social media, and TV news, we have rapid access to just about everything there is to know about every candidate. Why is it that, when technological advancements have streamlined and simplified every other facet of life, national elections take longer and longer? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. It’s money. It’s always money. Ted Cruz was the first to declare his candidacy last March, and it wasn’t to give us extra time to learn to like him. No, he needed to start raising money. Because running for president is really, really expensive. Which contradicts the whole idea of government being “by the people” and “for the people.” Good thing that line is from the Gettysburg Address, not the Constitution, or we’d be in big trouble.

Candidates spent more than $70 million on advertisements in Iowa, a state that is 90 percent white and one that has little impact on the outcome of the general election. It derives its “importance” from the fact that its caucus system is so complex and convoluted it has to go first. Local businesses — restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and the like — reap economic benefits.

All together, the candidates spent $27,000 on pizza. That’s a lot of pepperonis.

Jeb Bush spent $15 million in Iowa and placed sixth. If I were him, I would have bought fewer ads and more pizza. Instead he went and spent more than $30 million in New Hampshire. He placed fourth! These are supposed to be the “fiscal responsibility” guys! Think of all the problems $30 million would solve. The amount losing candidates spent in that tiny state could have bought new pipes for the entire city of Flint, Michigan.

The longer the election takes, the more it costs. That’s why everyone who runs for president is either a millionaire or a corporate puppet, or is constantly in your email begging for money. Or all of the above. It’s the American way, until it’s no longer profitable.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and digital marketing strategist.

Categories
Art Art Feature

“Blind Navigator” at Crosstown Arts

If someone were to draw a Venn diagram that had, on one side, a circle that held within it “truly funny stuff” and, on the other side, a circle that contained “contemporary painting,” the realm of overlap would be next to nonexistent. If you don’t immediately think, “Wow, contemporary painting, LMAO,” that is because the kind of contemporary painting that makes it to museums and galleries is not usually very funny, and when it tries to be funny, it is often becomes even more un-funny. Your standard art jokes are up there with the worst forms of humor — self-referential, often elitist, dumb.

We need funny art. Not knee-slap funny, George-Carlin-as-a-painting funny. Not puns. (Never puns.) What we need is the kind of work that makes you feel like someone has opened a window to let air into the room. What contemporaneity demands of us is art that is heavy as a Rothko chapel but light as a Kanye meme.

The best local entrants in the category of “it makes you laugh, but you’d also frame it” are painters Alex Paulus and Clare Torina, whose exhibition, “Blind Navigator,” is currently on view at Crosstown Arts. Both Paulus and Torina have a talent for making work that is visually and conceptually depthy and feels drawn from some kind of long-lost iPhone scroll. We need paintings like Paulus’ Forever Dog, which features a panther-like canine harbinger of an unknown apocalypse, infinitely looped into his own black shadow. Or Torina’s outsized Wet Wipe in Paradise, an LP-shaped version of a wet wipe, which neatly draws a through-line between Jimmy Buffett, sterile Floridian resorts, and bottom-of-your-pocket paper refuse.

From Wet Wipe in Paradise to That Seems Not Right, Clare Torina and Alex Paulus create dreamlike art that is simultaneously funny, familiar, and surreal.

Torina, who lives and works in New York but got her bachelor’s degree in Memphis, makes paintings that feel digitally collaged but with none of the tautness and restraint of Photoshop. In Torina’s paintings, shadows appear without whatever or whoever cast them. Dreamlike elements — temples, pets, pants, bones, and flowers in Styrofoam — coexist in an unnaturally immediate space. There is a feeling of the surreal-in-the-sharable that lends the work a familiarity.

Paulus has been making and showing paintings around Memphis for years. The work in “Blind Navigator” is his best to date. Paulus’ style, which is plasticky, grotesque, and always a tinge nihilistic, really hits its stride in paintings like No more P bear (a polar bear with a red “X” painted over its face) and Rig King (a goony blond guy shouldering a missile.) As far as names go, both Torina and Paulus follow Los Angeles-based artist Jim Shaw, whose sardonically titled “Thrift Store Paintings” recently merited a retrospective in New York’s New Museum. Paulus’ work, like Shaw’s, feels down-to-earth, only in a universe that has flipped its shit. Paulus’ work exists in a world of internet tabloids and Reddit. To quote the title of a Paulus painting that shows a series of messily skewed celestial paths: That seems not right.

Paulus and Torina arranged “Blind Navigator” so that nothing feels quite to-scale: a toilet paper roll the size of a toddler holds a silk flower while hand-painted human bones lie in a pile nearby. Another work by Torina is a pair of checkered pants, Freudian in proportion, called For Grandpa’s Ghost. These details chock up to a subtle Wonderland effect.

“Blind Navigator” is an uncommonly good show. It takes risks. It joins a dry sense of humor with an “only in Vegas for the night, baby,” bring-it-on sensibility. It is critical without being cynical. Paulus and Torina meet the challenges of making paintings in an image-saturated age smartly, and with warmth.

Categories
Music Music Features

Faith Evans Ruch is Back with New Music

Since her debut album 1835 Madison was released in 2013, Faith Evans Ruch has been one of the most distinct voices in the Memphis music scene, teaming up with big-name players like Rick Steff, Roy Berry, and Luther Dickinson to create her soulful brand of folk rock. I sat down with Ruch to find out more about the two singles she’s releasing on Tuesday, February 23rd, at Lafayette’s Music Room, how recording at Royal Studios influenced her as a songwriter, and how getting your heart broken might be a blessing in disguise.

– Chris Shaw

Memphis Flyer: Your new song “Sugar” is a lot more soulful than some of your earlier work. Was that an intentional transition?

Faith Evans Ruch: Yes, it was. My first couple of albums were very much on the folk side of Americana music, and I really wanted to venture out and explore some other areas. I started focusing more on soul music and Memphis music. I set out to write a song that wasn’t “folk-y,” and I sat down and wrote the chorus first. I was listening to a lot of Nina Simone and Etta James, and I think I captured that pretty well. I was trying to channel Memphis.

This was the first time you’ve worked at Royal Studios. What was that experience like?

It was awesome. I’m kind of a creature of habit, and I did my first two albums at Music+Arts over on Nelson and Barksdale. When I played the stuff for producer Kevin Houston, he said the songs were really soulful and suggested that we go to Royal. You can really feel the soulful spirit in that room, and I think these are some of the best vocal performances I’ve ever recorded.

Lyrically, “Sugar” is a pretty classic love song. Can you explain the inspiration behind it?

When I started writing the hook, I was honestly just thinking about how all my other love songs are really sad, and I just wanted to make something more positive. I came up with the chorus, and then I got stuck because I didn’t have a lot of positive experience from my personal life. Once I got into the relationship I’m in now, things changed, and I found inspiration for the song.

Both of the singles that you’ll be releasing on Tuesday were recorded in one day. Was it intimidating to try and have them completed in one recording session?

I’m a nurse, so I’m used to working strict, regimented days. We did “Sugar” and “Thank You” in about 10 to 12 hours, but I wasn’t worried about the time. I’ve never had any issues with getting things done in the studio. The creative process can take longer sometimes, though. At times the songs just flow, but other times there are cases of serious writer’s block. These two singles got written at different times. I had “Thank You” done for over a year, but “Sugar” had most of the parts written in one day.

I really liked the horns throughout “Thank You.” It definitely has a soul vibe to it, but there are also some elements of classic country. Is that how you’d describe it?

I’m from the South, and I grew up listening to soul music, but, as I said earlier, I’m also very inspired by folk music. There are times when I have to tell myself, “OK, we are not writing a folk song today!” But I think you’re right, there are elements of soul, but it also has some classic country going on, which is why I think it sounds so unique.

There’s a line in “Thank You” that says “Thank you for breaking my heart.” That’s kind of an interesting line in the sense that most people wouldn’t be thankful for something like that.

I wrote that song after the last Folk Alliance, and it was a very personal experience. I started to play the first song I ever wrote at the Alliance, and started explaining that I had my heart broken and I loved music and it just wasn’t enough to listen to it anymore. For a while, I was so heartbroken, it was all could I write about. I had to meet someone and have my heart broken to experience all the cool things I’ve done with my music, and I started to think I ought to say thank you to the person that broke my heart, because what I’ve been able to do with my music is way cooler than that relationship could have ever been.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Soup Sunday Winners, plus a Slideshow!

The results from the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Soup Sunday: 

Best Bread: Hilton Memphis Telera Bread
Best Soup: Bardog Chicken Velvet
Best Dessert: Nothing Bundt Cakes
Best Gumbo: Hilton Memphis Gumbo
Best Specialty Item: Half Shell Lobster and Shrimp Bruschetta

[slideshow-1]