No team in the American Athletic Conference has so thoroughly dominated Memphis as have the UCF Knights. With its thorough declawing of the Tigers Saturday night in Orlando, UCF has won 10 consecutive games in the series, many of the wins by similarly lopsided scores. (The Tigers’ only win in the series came in 1990, before UCF was an FBS program.)
Memphis actually led after the first quarter, thanks to a two-yard touchdown run by Patrick Taylor to culminate the Tigers’ opening drive. But UCF took firm control of the game with a pair of touchdown strikes in the last five minutes of the first half. A 34-yard pass from Knight quarterback McKenzie Milton to Tre-Quan Smith made the score 23-7 at halftime, and the Tigers never mounted a comeback.
Senior quarterback Riley Ferguson personified the Tiger struggles, throwing three interceptions and losing a fumble in one of his worst performances at the FBS level. (Ferguson tossed a 14-yard touchdown pass to freshman Damonte Coxie on the game’s final play.)
The Tiger defense continued to show serious flaws, allowing 603 yards (350 on the ground). Adrian Killins led the Knights with 115 yards rushing, most of them on a 96-yard touchdown gallop in the second quarter that gave UCF a 16-7 lead. Milton completed 19 of 31 passes for 253 yards and three touchdowns to help the Knights improve to 3-0 (1-0 in the AAC).
No Tiger ball-carrier gained as many as 50 yards and star receiver Anthony Miller was held to just three catches for 37 yards. Tony Pollard caught three passes for 75 yards.
The loss drops Memphis to 3-1 for the season (0-1 in the AAC). The Tigers travel north next week for a Friday-night tilt at Connecticut. The Huskies fell to 1-3 Saturday, losing 49-28 at SMU. The Tigers won their last meeting with UConn in 2014 (41-10) at the Liberty Bowl.
For a second day, the weather gods smiled on the afternoon show. This one, at Memphis Made Brewery, featured a truly international cast, with Magic Factory from New Zealand being the farthest afield.
The Memphis band Model Zero made something of a debut with a groovy, hybrid drum machine and live drummer setup.
Model Zero
The atmosphere was friendly, with some kids running around and old friends reconnecting. Allison Green, a New Orleans photographer, has been covering Gonerfest for four years. “It’s my friend’s bachelorette party, so I’m taking it a little easy. I love shooting candids at the day shows more than anything.”
She says Gonerfest has been one of her favorite events to photograph. “Visually, Ty Segall’s set he did a couple of years ago was brilliant. He knows how to put on a show.” she recalled. “Hank Wood and the Hammerheads blew me away. They had two different drummers, and it was the best I’ve ever seen that done. There were tribal undertones, with traditional drums on top, and it was amazing.”
The highlight of her Gonerfest so far was Thursday night’s Sweet Knives performance. “I love Alicja Trout. I was a huge fan of the Lost Sounds. My buddy Rob and I were working in the darkroom—we went to college together—and he said, ‘You need to come to this show with me!’ That was my introduction to the Memphis scene in Chicago. It was 2004, probably? That’s when I saw the Lost Sounds. Alicja’s just the nicest human being in the world. I adore her. It’s very nostalgic for me.”
Kyle Johnson and Alyssa Moore keep Gonerfest sounding good.
Memphis bassist Jeremy Scott said it’s important to pace yourself during these long day/night show combos. “I love the outdoor shows at Murphy’s. Blood Bags, out of New Zealand, played last night, but they first played last year, and I saw people in the room with their jaws dropped. They were just that freakin’ good. Heavy, no bullshit, straightforward rock.”
He has played Gonerfest four times, but last year’s Reigning Sound reunion was his favorite. I don’t think we knew we were going to do it ever again, so to have that go off as well as it did was a lot of fun.”
I didn’t get pictures of anyone I talked to, so here are a couple of random guys.
Thunderroads, a Japanese band, closed out the after with a spectacularly athletic set that ended with Masahuru, brother of Seiji from Gonerfest favorites Guitar Wolf, leaping from the landscaping.
Masahuru of Thunderroads
Friday night at the Hi Tone started off with Frantic Stuffs from Osaka, Japan playing a charming, English-challenged set. Outside, Goner Records founder Eric Friedl was happy with the way things were going. “The first band is killing it, and it’s as full as it was last night already.”
Finding bands to fill out the weekend is a year-round job, he says. “There are a range of bands you would like to get. Then some people approach us and say, we’ll build a tour to get there, or we’re going to be on tour, it would be great if we could play. Then other people we ask. It’s kind of a random mix. We don’t have enough money to say, ‘We want you. We’re going to fly you in and put you up.’ So it has to be a collaboration between the bands and us. That’s why it works, I think. People really want to be here. People like Mudhoney, Cosmic Psychos—these bands could make more money other places, but they want to be here.”
In the crowded Hi Tone, San Fransciso’s Peacers delivered noisy power pop seeped in Big Star harmonies and Husker Du noise meltdowns.
Gonerfest 14: Friday (3)
Foster Care from New York City blew the roof off with rude, old school hardcore. When the crowd started to throw beer cans onto the stage (a sign that things are going well at Gonerfest) Foster Care’s bassist upped the ante by emptying out the contents of a trash can onto the audience, then wearing the trash can while he played.
Foster Care, with trash can.
The set ended with a punk puppy pile.
Foster Care gets intimate with the fans.
Lindsey, a Memphian attending her fourth Gonerfest, was there for one band. “Nots are my favorite!”
Gonerfest 14: Friday
Nots had their coming out party at Gonerfest a few years ago, and now they’re a staple of the festival. This year, fresh off the road, they did not disappoint, putting forward some new, synthesizer heavy songs, mixed with guitar-led screamers.
Gonerfest 14: Friday (2)
Tyvek, another veteran Gonerfest band, rose to the challenge the Nots laid down. pushed and swayed.
Tyvek
Sydney, Australia punks feedtime’s drummer was rejected for his visa, so the band played their headlining set with Anthony from San Francisco’s Leather Uppers sitting in. At that point, the Hi Tone main room was so packed I couldn’t make it in the door. I paused for a moment to talk to Elise from Salt Lake City, Utah. “I’ve been to Memphis, but this is my first Gonerfest,” she said. “It’s fucking awesome. I like everything about Memphis—the culture, the people, the music.”
Rep. Black waits for chance to speak to GOP breakfasters as John Ryder introduces her.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Diane Black, the U.S. Representative from Tennessee’s 6th congressional district (suburban Nashville and parts east of the state capital), was in Memphis this morning, speaking to a crowd of some 50 to 75 people, including numerous mainstream Republicans, at a meet-and-greet breakfast at Owen Brennan’s Restaurant
On the basis of her current political position, personal wealth, and the kind of support that ensures you can raise significant money, many observers believe she’s the front-runner in the GOP primary field, though, in an interview before she addressed the breakfast group, Black professed an appropriate humility on the point, saying, “I don’t ever want to think of myself that way.”.
She was introduced by John Ryder, the longtime GOP national committeeman and former general counsel for the Republican National Committee, who said that Black was ““one of the smartest, toughest, solid conservative office-holders I have ever known, and I’m proud to support her for Governor.”
Black spoke at some length, beginning with a self-introduction containing details of a modest upbringing in Maryland, in a “good Christian home” with hard-working parents who had to make do with grade-school educations but who have survived, at age 92 each, to see their daughter on the cusp of her latest political milestone.
The congresswoman earned a nursing degree and came to the Nashville area 32 years ago with her husband, a toxicologist. As she noted, she has served, sequentially, six years in the Tennessee House, six years in the state Senate, and seven years in the Congress.
Black stressed the importance of “values” and suggested that two of her opponents, unnamed, had “picked up on” her emphasis on the theme. Although she maintained that Tennessee was “in good shape” overall, she thought it could still do better (noting that the state possessed 10 of the country’s most poverty-stricken counties) and should aspire to a place “in the Top Ten of states where people want to come.”
Apropos the state’s need to attract sources of economic development, Black said she made it a point when traveling in-state to catch broadcasts of the local news, and when she spoke of watching an hour’s worth of Memphis news on TV, her audience groaned sympathetically with her pained expression —the implication being that what she’d seen had been heavily salted with crime news, although she went on to mention an “uplifting” item about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “Those are the kinds of things I want to hear,” she said.
On health care in general , she said she thought Tennessee should think “out of the box” and proclaimed her view that the state’s Medicaid system, TennCare, had “decimated the public health system” by undermining local health departments.
Black made much of her belief in localism and stated that as the focus of her current statewide tour.. “I want to make sure I hear what needs to be done. I think local is the best that you can get. I’m not going to come in and tell locals what to do — as long as it’s legal and moral.
Asked by Germantown School Board member Amy Eoff about what Eoff saw as an ongoing “politicization of education” by both federal and state governments, Black seemed to concur. “I want schools to be local, to do what they need to do within their community,” she said. Vouchers might work in one place but not another. Ditto with charter schools. “ I don’t like to pigeonhole any particular area. Is that the thing that works for that particular area? What I don’t want to do is shove it down anybody’s throat and say that’s what you’ve got to do.”
Empathy with local concerns was something of a leitmotif in Black’s remarks. She embraced attendees’ expressed disappointment about delays in completing Interstate 69 and developing the West Tennessee megasite, as well as a sense that the state is defaulting on its funding obligations under the Basic Education Plan (BEP).
Black said she would be unable to attend a gubernatorial forum scheduled for Saturday evening at the Germantown home of John Williams under the auspices of the Shelby County Republican Women.
After a blisteringly hot Cooper Young Festival, the weather for the Gonerfest opening ceremonies in the Cooper Young gazebo was just about perfect.
King Louis and Abe White rock the crowd at the Cooper Young gazebo for Gonerfest 14’s opening ceremonies.
The talent, however, was less cooperative. Gonerfest staple King Louis was scheduled to open the show with former Manatees and True Sons of Thunder member Abe White on drums, leading into Memphis legend Greg Oblivian Cartwright. Instead, Cartwright—in town from Asheville, North Carolina where he’s raising a brood of kids—opened up with some new songs in a more mellow mode, before being joined by Louis on drums for “Bad Man”, “North Cakalacky Girl”, and ‘Hey Hey Mama”. From there on, White, Cartwright, and King Louis swapped around in various configurations, calling out songs, (Louis’ rendition of “Streets of Iron”, a song he performed with Jay Reatard, has become a memorial tradition at Gonerfest) until the permit ran out. As Goner Records owner Zach Ives said, “There are no schedules in rock and roll”.
Goner Records’ Zach Ives and Greg Cartwright
At 9 PM, the party cranked up at the Hi Tone, where a mixed crowd of Memphians, and international visitors sipped the tasty Memphis Made Brewing Gonerfest beers: a Sessions IPA and the ever popular Gönerbraü. A man named Efe was in town from Toronto, Canada for his second Gonerfest. “One of the things I had to think of before coming was whether or not the political climate would effect it,” he says. “Those kinds of things have far reaching consequences.”
The Canadian wondered if the “Trump effect” had suppressed the number of international travelers coming to the festival. “Maybe people are bummed out,” he said. “But I’m here. There’s a lot of bands from Japan, a lot of bands from New Zealand. Other people have mentioned it, too.”
But after last year’s Gonerfest, Efe says he couldn’t bear missing it this year. “It’s great. I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t like it! I love the aspect of discovery. Gonerfest has a mix of legendary bands—we know you know this, or, look it up—and a bunch of new bands that you look up on Soundcloud and go, holy shit, that’s awesome! That’s the most rewarding part. I hope they keep it that way. In America, you’re saturated with all these big music festivals, but it’s very generic, paint-by-numbers type stuff.”
Benni
The diversity of musical styles was evident from the beginning, with Benni, a new act on the Goner roster. The New Orleans-based keyboardist has played with several Goner-adjacent acts rock acts, but his debut album is all analog synths action.
Gonerfest 14: Thursday
By the time New Zealand screamers Blood Bags’ put a cap on their set, Efe’s turnout worries appeared to be misplaced, as the Hi Tone big room filled up.
Hi Tone crowd
Sweet Knives, the Memphis band made of some former Lost Sounds members, including Alicja Trout and Rich Crook, John Garland, and Jonny Valiant, played a blistering set of mostly new songs. The band was in rare form, and the crowd ate it up. Why doesn’t every 14 year old cool girl in America have Trout’s music in their playlists?
Gonerfest 14: Thursday (3)
Los Angeles’ Die Group kept the party rolling with the kind of chunky, muscular riffs that are Gonerfest specialties.
One of the most anticipated acts of the weekend was A Giant Dog, garage rock powerhouses from Austin. Singer Stephanie Ellis was all flailing limbs and piercing screams, grabbing the crowd from the first notes. The band had been hanging out with some folks from down under, so they climaxed their set with a spirited cover of INXS’ “Don’t Change”.
“This is my first Gonerfest,” she said later. “A Giant Dog has been together for nearly a decade. We’ve attended Gonerfest, and we wanted to play. We played the Hi Tone when there wasn’t anybody here. So this is our first Gonerfest, and it’s a damn fucking good one!”
Gonerfest 14: Thursday (2)
Gonerfester crashing after the first full day of rock.
State officials launched a program in Shelby County recently to more widely spread an anti-HIV drug here to help curb the area’s high rate of virus and to, ultimately, “bring and end to AIDs.”
The Memphis metro area ranked eighth in the country last year for the diagnosis of HIV and the number of people living with the disease. Diagnoses are highest in the South, disproportionately affecting black men.
The campaign aims to get more people taking a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), an HIV prevention drug. Taking one pill per day, the drug block the virus from taking hold and spreading through the body.
The campaign was launched by the Tennessee Department of Health and the Memphis Ryan White Part A Program in collaboration with Project PrIDE through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If you’re HIV-negative, PrEP is a simple addition to your daily routine that can help you protect yourself without having to drastically change your lifestyle,” said Jessie Claudio, a PrEP Navigator with OutMemphis. “Anyone considering PrEP should contact a local Navigator.”
Navigators work through the program to screen potential PrEP users and then “navigate” them to the drug, which is only available by prescription. Claudio said Navigators can help candidates find local health care providers, and help them buy the drug even if they don’t have insurance.
In Shelby County, there are five Navigator organizations funded through Project PrIDE as part of the Get PrEP TN campaign: Friends for Life, Le Bonheur Community Health and Well-Being, OutMemphis, Partnership To End AIDS Status, and The Haven.
To learn more about PrEP and find a Navigator, visit GetPrepTN.com.
People ask me all the time, “Do you still post pictures of street weaves?” The answer?
— It’s complicated.
The urban fascination with road braids, runaway head-hamsters and snatched wigs blossomed overnight. And, because my click-age journalism instincts are poor, the bigger TumbleWeaves got, the faster I lost interest in a probably classist niche Fly on the Wall certainly helped create.
Time passed— people kept sending photos. More time passed — More photos reminding me how much damn hair is woven and wadded into the daily tapestry. Like this dangling braid set caught up in the vines and saplings in Flyer-alley back behind our office building.
I’ve held onto this haunting, nearly-Nouveau beauty for a couple of weeks and might not have posted it if one of my kids hadn’t seen it and helpfully explained, “That’s a ‘natural weave.”
In an effort to increase opportunities for youth in the city, Memphis’ community centers will have extended hours, the city announced Thursday.
The city’s Division of Parks and Neighborhoods’ 24 community centers will be open for a combined additional 280 hours each week.
Director of Parks and Neighborhoods Maria Munoz-Blanco said the additional operating hours are cost neutral and in line with the mayor’s priorities for the city’s youth.
“Identifying efficiencies in our operations has enabled the increase in community centers’ operating hours without additional funds, improving the services that the Parks Division provides to our community,” Munoz-Blanco said.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said two of his highest priorities are expanding opportunities for Memphis’ youth population and enriching neighborhoods.
“Whether it be with extended library hours, more programming in our communities centers, and now these longer community center hours, our administration continues to show we’re reinvesting in our young people and our neighborhoods,” Strickland said. “I’m proud of the work Maria and her staff have done not only to provide these opportunities, but to do it in a way that’s responsible to taxpayers.”
On weekdays, the centers will be now be open until 8:00 p.m. and until 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, enabling the launch of a youth flag football league.
Deni Reilly, owner of the Majestic Grille along with her husband Patrick, confirmed today that the pair’s Majestic Hospitality consulting firm will take over the operations of the Brass Door. They are working with the Irish pub’s owners Meg and Scott Crosby and Seamus Loftus.
The Brass Door has been closed since July.
“There’s not too much to tell at this point,” says Reilly, noting that the parties just solidified the plans. She says that the site will stay the Brass Door, and that Patrick, who is Irish, is designing a pub menu.
The plan, says Reilly, is to open the side bar first for the sports fans to watch games as soon as a couple weeks, and to have the Brass Door open before the end of the year.
“It’s beautiful,” says Reilly of the Brass Door. “It’s a great concept with a great rep and a great following. We’re going in there to tighten some things up.”
The Reillys most recently transformed the underperforming Riverfront Bar and Grill into the Front Porch.
Crowds gathering in Health Sciences Park to support the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue.
The Tennessee Historical Commission’s chairman sent a letter to city officials Thursday saying that it will not vote on the waiver to remove the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue from Health Sciences Park in Memphis at its October meeting.
Addressed to the city’s attorney Bruce McMullen, the letter, from chairman Reavis Mitchell Jr. announced that the commission cannot vote on the waiver until it approves a new rule-making process.
Mitchell said the proposed rules will be voted on at the commission’s Oct. 13 meeting. Because of legal provisions, the commission must pass the new set of rules before voting on any waiver requests.
This means that the earliest the commission will vote on the city’s request might be at its next meeting in February 2018.
Mayor Jim Strickland issued a response to the chairman’s announcement, saying that the decision was unilateral and made without a vote of the commission. [pullquote-1]
“We are hopeful that a majority of the commission members themselves support our petition and are equally hopeful that this bureaucratic maneuver is not being used to blunt the momentum we’re seeing in our city in support of our petition,” Strickland said. “Memphis is as unified on this as anything we’ve seen…Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative ― we’re all behind this.”
Strickland said he will personally attend the Oct. 13 meeting to request that the 29 commissioners hear the waiver petition.
The decision to delay the vote on the city’s waiver petition comes as good news to the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).
SCV spokesperson Lee Millar released this statement Friday:
“The Sons of Confederate Veterans is pleased with this latest ruling from the Tennessee Historical Commission concerning the proper procedure to examine Memphis’ petition to remove the Forrest Equestrian Statue.
This ruling confirms that there are laws in place regarding these procedures and that the legal process will be followed, as expected.
And we expect the City of Memphis and all its citizens to abide by the laws and the legal process.
The SCV and the Forrest family members continue to strive for the retention of all monuments and statues and the preservation of our American history.”
Facebook
#takeemdown901 founder Tami Sawyer and fellow activist Earle Fisher
However, local activist and creator of the #takeemdown901 effort, Tami Sawyer said in a Facebook
post Thursday that there’s no surprise in the commission’s decision. “They are who we thought they were.”
“The question is,” Sawyer continued, “Mayor Strickland, are you ready to unleash the dogs? Are you ready to take this statue down?”
Sawyer adds that if the Confederate statues still stand in Memphis when the city commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, then “we are the most hypocritical, unjust city in this nation.”
JB 
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Brass Door, Facebook 
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