Month: September 2020

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Dirty Streets Live Platter Takes You Back to Pounding ’70s Riffs

Don’t sleep on the Streets! Good advice in any context, but in this case it means keep Dirty Streets, the band, on your radar. Because if you need a fix of slamming old school hard rawk, they deliver it and then some on this year’s release, Rough and Tumble (Alive Naturalsound).

They’ve honed their sound for over a decade on the Memphis scene, to the point where this live album has an offhand power and precision bespeaking years on the stage. In this case, the room was the sound stage at Ditty TV, the internet broadcast studio on South Main that mixes live performances with a steady feed of music videos. It’s ostensibly Americana-oriented, but the diversity of their programming makes it clear how inclusive that genre has come to be.

Whenever a band performs on Ditty TV, they receive a video of the moment that they can use any way they see fit. This also goes for the multi-track recording, often engineered by the great Doug Easley.  That’s exactly how it went down when Dirty Streets performed there, and this album is the result.

For that very reason, it may be the least rowdy live album ever recorded. Performances at Ditty TV typically have few if any audience members — certainly, there are none to be heard on this album. Indeed, the performances are so tight that many may not realize it was recorded live. Nonetheless, that setting of a live taping for broadcast seems to have brought out in the band a focused energy and drive that rarely comes out in purely studio-based recordings. These songs were slammed out one after the other in real time, with no overdubs after the fact. And the consistency of this album is a tribute to how together this band really is.

What they deliver is a wide ranging set from their catalog, brimming over with hard rock nuggets that might have had them touring with Free or Nazareth back in the day. Justin Toland, the power trio’s singer and guitarist, has the classic voice of the soulful rocker, well suited to shouting tunefully over pounding guitar riffs. Indeed, when they try their hand at not one, but two songs by the classic writer Joe South, the rock/R&B hybrid that emerges evokes the similar aesthetic of Detroit’s Scott Morgan.

The rest of the set is a stroll through their originals, which, like the White Stripes, can feel like a tour of ’70s riffs without the cringe-worthy sexism that usually goes with the music of that era. For my money, the highlight is “Take a Walk,” where Toland breaks out the wah-wah pedal to great effect. 

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Crusonia on the Delta Celebrates Memphis’ Agricultural Innovation

CREDIT: David Mark/Pixabay

Curious how healthy food gets to your table? There are plenty of ways, and these days, Memphis seems to be at the center of them all.

In recent times, the Mississippi Delta has been a hotbed of new trends in the fields of agriculture, food, and health. While many companies are blazing new trails, a changing global landscape has pressed many into a constant stream of innovation. To celebrate how local organizations have become leaders in such practices, Crusonia on the Delta (formerly known as Davos on the Delta) is hosting its fourth annual summit to recognize how cities like Memphis are thriving in the agricultural sector.

This year’s virtual Food Is Health forum marks Crusonia’s fourth annual summit. Discussions and conversations will be centered around how cities like Memphis have pursued new growing methods in response to issues like climate change, cost, and resource availability. Other topics include the effect of processed food on health, food transparency & sustainability during COVID-19, and how agricultural innovation is centered around Memphis.

Many of Memphis’ innovations have been boosted by large entities like Agricenter International, while companies like The Seam and Indigo Ag are making huge strides in creating more efficient agricultural technology.

Some notable local speakers include Rob Carter (FedEx), Barry Knight (Indigo Ag), and M. David Rudd (president of University of Memphis). To reach a broader audience, this year’s virtual summit is free and open to the public.

Crusonia on the Delta’s Food Is Health forum takes place Wednesday, September 30th, from noon-6 p.m.

For more information on Crusonia and registration, visit crusoniaonthedelta.org.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

From Lynne Sachs to The Wiz: Indie Memphis Announces 2020 Line Up

Ira Sachs, Sr. in Lynne Sachs’ documentary Film About A Father Who

In a virtual version of its traditional preview party, Indie Memphis announced the lineup for its 23rd annual film festival. The opening night film is Memphis-born director Lynne Sachs’ documentary A Film About A Father Who. Sachs draws on 35 years of footage she shot of her father, Ira Sachs, Sr., to draw a portrait of a family struggling with generational secrets. Michael Gallagher, programmer for the Slamdance Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere in January, said “This divine masterwork of vulnerability weaves past and present together with ease, daring the audience to choose love over hate, forgiveness over resentment.”

Sachs is the most prominent of the Memphians among the dozens of filmmakers who have works in the 2020 festival. The Hometowner Features competition includes Anwar Jamison’s feature Coming to Africa, a bi-contentental production which was shot both here in the Bluff City and in Ghana. We Can’t Wait is director Lauren Ready’s documentary about Tami Sawyer’s 2019 campaign to become Memphis’ first Black woman mayor. The Hub is Lawrence Matthews portrait of Memphians trying to overcome discrimination, underemployment, and financial hardship in an unforgiving America. Morreco Coleman tells the story of Jerry C. Johnson, the first Black coach to win an NCAA Basketball title, with 1st Forgotten Champions. The detective thriller Smith is a neo-noir from director Jason Lockridge. Among the dozens of Memphis-made short films on offer will be “The Little Tea Shop,” Molly Wexler and Matteo Servante’s moving portrait of beloved Memphis restauranteur Suhair Lauck.

Director Anwar Jamison (far left) filming Coming To Africa in Ghana.

World premieres at Indie Memphis include Trimiko Melancon’s race relations documentary What Do You Have To Lose? and Cane Fire, director Anthony Banua-Simon’s incisive history of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i.

Indie Memphis remains devoted to the latest in film innovation, but the festival’s Retrospective series alway offers interesting and fun films from years past. In 2020, that includes The Wiz, Sidney Lumet’s 1978 cult classic remake of The Wizard of Oz with an incredible all-Black cast, including Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow and Diana Ross as Dorothy. Joel Schumacher, the legendary writer/director who passed away this year, wrote the screenplay, which was adapted from a 1974 Broadway show. He will be honored with a screening of Car Wash, the 1976 comedy which is the definition of classic drive-in fare.

Ted Ross, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and Nipsey Russell in The Wiz

With film festivals all over the United States facing cancellation because of the coronavirus pandemic, the theme of this year’s Indie Memphis is “Online and Outdoors.” Screenings will take place at the Malco Summer Drive-In and at various socially distanced outside venues across the city. All films will also be offered online through the festival’s partnership with Eventive, the Memphis-based cinematic services company that has been pioneering online screening during the pandemic. “We hope to bring people together, in person and online, and provide inspiration and an outlet,” says artistic director Miriam Bale. “In order to counter Screen Burnout, we’ll be offering a series of what we call ‘Groundings’ throughout the digital festival, including a meditative film called ‘A Still Place’ by festival alumnus Christopher Yogi.”

You can buy passes for the 2020 festival at the Indie Memphis website. The Memphis Flyer will have continuing coverage of the fest throughout the month of October. 

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Minority Rule: Want Real Majority Leadership? Vote!

CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons

Imagine living in a country where a minority group that comprised a mere 6 percent of the population was in complete control. A country where a full 94 percent of the populace had no say whatsoever in their own governance. Does this sound like some future dystopian version of America, given our present trajectory? Sorry. This was the political reality of America at the time of the first presidential election in 1789.

Many of those who signed our Declaration of Independence would have argued that the phrase “all men are created equal” only referred to land-owning Christian white males. At the time, the Colonists were still bound to that lowest form of oligarchical governance, the monarchy. The above statement was not penned as an enlightened declaration of inclusion, but solely to invoke a political break from that monarchy.

Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Jefferson

Thankfully, Thomas Jefferson, though himself a slave owner, was also a student of the Enlightenment. He understood that the prophetic words, however he had to spin them at the time, would eventually come to be taken more literally. Fifty years after the signing, Jefferson said of the Declaration: “May it be to the world the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

At the time of the Revolution, free Americans were divided into two classes. You were either somebody, which almost exclusively meant being born into wealth and privilege, or you were nobody. And nobodies, even white male nobodies, were not allowed to vote. Additionally, prior to 1828, some states’ “religious tests” required voters to be professed Protestants. The last vestige of the property ownership exclusion was not abolished until 1856. Even then, some states continued to disallow non-taxpaying citizens the vote for another half-century.

The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 opened the voting booth to naturalized, non-native-born citizens. Although the Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to former male slaves in 1870, most Southern states — Tennessee being foremost among them — concocted such Jim Crow-era stumbling blocks as poll taxes and literacy tests that persisted until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Women, regardless of race or status, could not vote prior to ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The final expansion of American voter eligibility did not occur until 1970, when the minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.

Now try to imagine living in a country where only 43 percent of the population was in control. Even after all of our incredible progress in the ensuing 227 years since the first presidential election, that’s the percentage of the total population who voted in 2016. Certainly an improvement, but still hardly representative.

So here we are, 20 years into the 21st century, and still we have to ask ourselves to what degree do “ignorance and superstition” continue to rule our lives? Although Tennessee ranks 14th in the nation in terms of our number of eligible voters, we are 49th when it comes to actual voter turnout. In 2016, 2.4 million Tennesseans stayed home and did nothing, which is not only inexcusable, but unacceptable. The next time anyone tries to convince you that Tennessee can’t be “flipped,” consider the fact that nearly twice as many of our people failed to uphold their civic duty as voted for Trump in 2016.

As we continue to transform into a more enlightened and egalitarian nation, the pace of this effort will be wholly dependent upon the action, or inaction, of every eligible voter. We can only “assume the blessings and security of self-government” when every person who can legally vote, votes. Without question, 2020 will be the single most significant election since 1860 — the election that was immediately followed by the bloodiest decade in American history. And the outcome could very well be determined by those who, in the past, for whatever reason, have chosen not to participate.

If you care about your country, if you care about preserving democracy for future generations, your job this election is not only to vote, but to motivate every other citizen who sat out 2016, especially those who would not have had the right to vote in 1789, to vote in 2020 like their lives depended on it.

Voter registration deadline is October 5th. Early Voting is October 14th through October 29th. Last day to request an absentee ballot is October 27th. The election is November 3rd.

Aaron James is a seventh generation Tennessean, retired architect (Texas and New York), self-published author, and Independent Centrist candidate for U.S. Senate.

Categories
News News Blog

New Arcade Plans to Bring Retro Feeling to Cooper-Young

CREDIT: Source: Nerd Alert Facebook

Source: Nerd Alert Facebook

A new arcade venture is set to open in Cooper-Young this weekend, bringing a vintage feel to the area. The arcade, called Nerd Alert, will house classic ’80s arcade machines, nostalgia and retro horror memorabilia, as well as oddball and gag gifts.

Nerd Alert is run by Melissa and Tyler Oswald. The couple, who in the past operated a similar venture in Morris, Illinois, called CLUTTER, relocated to Memphis earlier this year with the purpose of bringing a more nostalgic feel to the city. Since late July, the couple has been hard at work remodeling and renovating their shop.

In line with CDC guidelines, all arcade cabinets have been spaced out to adhere to social distancing policies, and masks are required for entry. They are also asking that all patrons take advantage of sanitizing stations placed throughout the shop.

Nerd Alert will celebrate their opening day on September 26th. They are located at 1061 S. Cooper Street.

Categories
News News Blog

Fewer Than 7,000 in Quarantine Here

COVID-19 Memphis
Infogram

Fewer Than 7,000 in Quarantine Here

New virus case numbers rose by 85 over the last 24 hours, the figure falling again this week after a spike related to the Labor Day holiday.

Total current active cases of the virus fell to 1,631, down from the 1,668 cases active Thursday morning. That figure had dipped to 1,399 recently.

The Shelby County Health Department recorded 1,936 tests given in the last 24 hours. Total tests given here now total 437,157.

The latest weekly positivity rate fell slightly from the week before. The average rate of positive tests for the week of September 13th was 6.3 percent, down from the 6.5 percent rate recorded for the Week of September 6th.

The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 30,922. Two new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Total deaths now stand at 451.

There are 6,991 contacts in quarantine, down slightly from the 7,008 in quarantine Thursday morning.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Defrocked Democrat John Deberry Stars at GOP Event

CREDIT: Connie McCarter

Connie McCarter

DeBerry with Republican well-wishers

It isn’t often in an election year that a prominent declared Democrat becomes the star at an official Republican event, but that’s what happened this week when John DeBerry headed the card at a Republican rally at local GOP headquarters.

It should be remembered, of course, that DeBerry, who has represented state House District 90 in the legislature for 26 years, was formally booted off the party ballot earlier this year by the state Democratic executive committee. His offense? Years of alleged over-coziness with Republicans, especially in support of their positions on social issues such as abortion.

There is no great surprise, therefore, that DeBerry’s cause would have been taken up by Republicans. He is running for reelection as an independent, but is regarded as something of a lion by the GOP.

Hence his getting top billing at a candidate event of the East Shelby Republican Club Tuesday night. Others appearing included Patricia Possel, the party’s nominee in House District 96 and Rob White, running in District 86.

In his remarks, DeBerry clung to the identity of independent, explaining the background of his status this way: “I’m running as an independent not because the folks in my district didn’t qualify me to run. They did. Not because they hadn’t voted for me 13 times. They had. Not because they didn’t know what I was saying before. They’ve known that since 1995. But because … a group of people, many of whom have never set foot in District 90 in their lives, sat in a zoom meeting in the middle of a pandemic, [and] with 48 hours notice … removed a 26-year-incumbent from the ballot.”

He enlarged upon that point while engaging in some media-bashing: “It’s not whether or not you are Democrat or Republican, or whether you like the president or you like the challenger, but what the media has been able to do is take our eyes off the prize, what is important, the principles that are important, that made this nation in the first place — the principles that made us great, that gave us a great economy, that gave us freedom.”

Elaborating further, he underscored his anti-abortion position: “The media has been able to make us stupid, to the extent that we’re not looking at what’s really important. What’s important. What’s important is whether or not we protect life, whether an unborn child has the constitutional right to be born to take his or her first breath as a human being. I’ve always wondered how a human male and a human female can get together and have something that is not human.”

And, without specifying anybody in particular, DeBerry warned of candidates who held social and political ideas antithetical to his own. “What do these people stand for?” he asked. “What do they stand for? Are they murdering babies? Are they destroying the institution of marriage? Are they allowing those who refuse to obey the law to have more protection of the law than everybody else? Are they removing our First and Second Amendment rights?”

Clearly, DeBerry, a businessman (marketing, advertising, and public relations) and minister, is hopeful of compensating for his lack of a party label on November 3rd by putting together votes from independents and Republicans, in addition to those Democrats who remain loyal to him. He is opposed by Democratic nominee Torrey Harris, who is counting on the support of the party faithful.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Hen House Wine Bar Slated To Open In October in East Memphis



Chairs for Hen House Wine Bar, which is slated to open at the end of October in East Memphis, are now filling up the Dockery house.

They have 40 chairs in the house and more on the patio and in the garage, says Michaela Dockery, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Dr. Dee Dockery. “We look like a bunch of hoarders right now,” she says.

And, she says, “I’m just going to park in the driveway now. Hopefully, our floors will be finished in the next week or two. Things are going much faster now.”

The 2,700-square-foot restaurant is at 679 South Mendenhall Road “across the street from Gibson’s Donuts and Half Shell. Boyle Investments renovated the entire block, so it is all white brick, blue stone patios.”

Michaela, who moved to Memphis with her family as a child, originally is from California, one of eight children in a “huge Italian Catholic family.”

She met her husband, an interventional spine physician at Campbell Clinic, in Memphis. “We travel a good amount and we love food. We love wine. We always try to find really cool spots and we always do. I said, ‘Gosh, if we could only bring something like that to Memphis.’ We talked about it for so long. Finally, last summer, he came to Santa Barbara with me. He said, ‘I totally get you now.’ Just the way life there is so laid back. Everything is centered around wine, food, family. He really saw how that brings people together.”

Dr. Dee and Michaela Dockery

They decided to open their own restaurant in Memphis. “Why don’t we just do a really cool elevated wine bar that’s not pretentious? Something really fun Memphis doesn’t have. Find a great chef. Give an experience. My language of love is serving and I love cooking for friends, hosting parties.”

The restaurant would be “kind of an extension of my living room.”

She wanted to create a warm, friendly feeling so people would say, “I’m not going to see my bartender at the Hen House, I’m going to see my friend ‘Tony’ at the bar.

“The vibe of the whole place is, once again, togetherness. There are plenty of sit-down places in Memphis, but you don’t have a lot of places where you can enjoy a really great meal and great drinks, but in a lounge environment.”

Hen House will be furnished with “couches and really comfortable chairs, low coffee tables. Just to kind of give the feel that you’re in the living room and you’re enjoying small plates and passable items. I really wanted to create something different where you’re comfortable and you’ll stay longer. You feel like you’re at someone’s house, their living room, instead of out.”

As for the food, Michaela says she wanted to “marry Southern California to elevated Southern. I wanted to have some great California feel. Al fresco items. Tacos. Buffalo cauliflower. Fresh seafood.”

Southern-style food would include dishes such as shrimp and grits. And, she says, “I want to bring in some nostalgic dishes that make you feel comfortable and think about your grandparents. Bring in an incredible chicken and dumplings. On the menu you’re going to see a lot of that. 

“You’re going to find your vibe on the list no matter if you’re vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free. We have something for everybody. We’re going to have a very seasonal menu. It’s very important for me to give good quality ingredients and items.”

Matthew Schweitzer is executive chef. “I could tell he was a hard worker. He had worked for some incredible restaurants in Memphis, but more than that, he had a passion to create something on his own. It was extremely exciting to be able to give that to him and let him go crazy.

“He’s been developing the menu for the past several months and it’s been really exciting to see him get to do what he’s always wanted to do in his own space.”

It’s become “a family thing” with Schweitzer working on the menu in the Dockery kitchen with their children helping, Michaela says. “I knew he was hungry and had so much potential. He’s young. And he’ll end up being a highly respected executive chef. We’re lucky we were able to start him on that journey.”

Schweizer is happy with the “connection” between himself and the Dockerys. “It doesn’t happy very often in life,” he says.

As for creating dishes in the family kitchen and getting to know the family, Schweitzer says the Dockery residence is “like my second home.

Matthew Schweitzer at a menu development tasting at the Dockery home.

Michaela describes the Hen House wine list as “a unique selection of small batch wines. A boutique offering. I wanted to work with mainly smaller boutique wineries because I feel like they’re able to give so much love to their wine. And I want to bring in wines everyone wasn’t familiar with to kind of broaden everybody’s palette. We all get so used to our favorite wine and we see the same thing over and over.  And you also get the notion to have good wine you have to pay a high price. Boutique vineyards and wineries are able to give you an incredible wine experience at an inexpensive price because of the way they make everything.”

And, she says, “I collaborated with some wine makers last year to start learning about wine and I harvested with them and created the wine for this year with them. It got my feet wet. I thought, ‘This is what I want to keep doing. Yes, I love wine and being able to entertain at the Hen House, but I also want to make wine.’”

She “fell in love” with the wine-making process. “There’s so much that goes into wine, but more than anything, wine is, for me, togetherness. And it’s happy tears. It’s sad tears. It’s celebrations. It’s life. It’s death. Wine is a part of everything in so many people’s lives.

“I want to be able to sit with a group of customers and pour my wine. So, that is definitely a labor of love and a work in progress I hope to be able to present to Memphis sometime next year.”

MIchaela Dockery gets in step with the wine-making process in Caifornia.

The decor of Hen House will be very California dreamy. “When you walk in the front door, I want it to feel like you are in Santa Barbara. I want it to feel like you are someplace else. I’m bringing in a lot of my style that I know will reflect that as well as marrying in the Southern California. We’ve got a lot of white-textured walls. And we have a lot of arches. We have a lot of detail to finish. A lot of organic layering and colors. I love decorating and I love designing. It’s so much fun for me.”

Tara Engelberg of Tara Felice Interiors is her designer.

Hen House will include a private cellar. “Where folks will also be able to enjoy a private tasting or a romantic dinner.”

Michaela is especially excited about “The Bubble Room,” which she has kept secret until now. “When it came to going out for a girls’ or guys’ night, bachelorette party, or whatever, there was not a place that you could go that was not a full-blown restaurant. I wanted to be able to create that. We have a small, little space that fits about 30 to 45 people, but it’s a room of its own. The Bubble Room. You walk in and there’s all kinds of crazy decor. Black tile on the floor, pink flamingos top to bottom on walls, wallpaper. Just a really fun vibe. A total celebratory vibe.”

A good amount of The Bubble Room decor is “found items,” Michaela says. “My designer and I have worked since day one. We both love to treasure hunt. We’ve been tracking unique things for that room down to the vintage glassware. Everything is mismatched, very eclectic.

“I’m super excited about announcing that room. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun and we’re going to build a ton of memories in there.’

So, where did the name “Hen House” come from? “I was very sick for five years straight. I went through 15 surgeries. My husband, Dee, basically created my own lounge for me in our bedroom.”

The room became her “living quarters,” Michaela says. Her girlfriends helped transform the room. “They decorated. They put things up on the wall. They made a little bar area. They made me feel like everything was fun. We’d all get in my bed, have a glass of wine, talk, and hang out. It became this thing. Every time Dee came home there was always somebody there with me.”

Dee used to say, “Oh, the hens are here. The hens have gathered.”

When Michaela announced the name “Hen House” for the new restaurant, the marketing team was thrilled.

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Flow: Live-Streamed Music Events This Week, September 24-30

Charles Lloyd

This weekend brings a veritable explosion of live-stream options, including the 17th annual Gonerfest. This year, the festival is entirely online, with a mix of live-stream and pre-recorded performances, all curated by Goner Records. Parallel to all that is Central Tennessee’s gift to music, Bonnaroo, also virtual this year. But perhaps most auspicious of all is Saturday’s special jazz trio live-stream including Memphis-born legend Charles Lloyd.

REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.

ALL TIMES CDT

Thursday, September 24
Noon
Live DJ – Downtown Memphis Virtual Carry Out Concert
Facebook

8 p.m.
Devil Train – at B-Side
Facebook

12 a.m. through Sunday, September 26 at 11:30 p.m.
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival: Virtual Roo-ality
YouTube

Friday, September 25
5 p.m. through Sunday, September 27 at 6 p.m.
Gonerfest 17 – Virtual concerts hosted by Goner Records
Facebook    Website   Tickets

Including
CHEATER SLICKS (Columbus, OH)
QUINTRON & MISS PUSSYCAT with Sam Yoger on drums (New Orleans, LA)
JACK OBLIVIAN & THE SHEIKS (Memphis, TN)
MELENAS (Pamplona, Spain)
THE REBEL (London, UK)
MARY TEE & BRUCE BRAND (London, UK)
MICK TROUBLE (New York, NY)
GEE TEE (Sydney, Australia)
ARCHAEAS (Louisville, KY)
EN ATTENDANT ANA (Paris, France)
BLOODBAGS (Auckland, NZ)
DAVID NANCE (Omaha, Nebraska)
SABA LOU (Berlin, Germany)
NA NOISE (Auckland, NZ)
DICK MOVE (Auckland, NZ)
NICK ALLISON (Austin, TX)
OH BOLAND (Galway, Ireland)
OUNCE (Auckland, NZ)
AQUARIAN BLOOD (Memphis, TN)
GUARDIAN SINGLES (Auckland, NZ)
BELLA & THE BIZARRE (Berlin, Germany)
THIGH MASTER (Toowoomba, Australia)
TOADS (San Francisco, CA)
MICHAEL BEACH (Melbourne, Australia)
EXBATS (Tucson, AZ)
OPTIC SINK (Memphis, TN)
TRUE SONS OF THUNDER (Memphis, TN)
LOUSY SUE (Indianapolis, IN)
ABE WHITE (New Orleans, LA)
ZERODENT (Perth, Australia)
SHAWN CRIPPS / LIMES (Memphis, TN)
CELEBRITY HANDSHAKE (Portland, Maine)
BIG CLOWN (Memphis, TN)

8 p.m.
Marcella Simien – Live from Memphis Slim House
Benefit for Music Export Memphis Covid Relief
Tickets

Saturday, September 26
6 p.m.
Grace Askew – at South Main Sounds
Facebook

6 p.m.
School of Rock Presents: Pearl Jam vs. Smashing Pumpkins
Facebook

9 p.m.
Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain and Julian Lage
Facebook    Tickets

Sunday, September 27
3 p.m.
Dale Watson – Chicken $#!+ Bingo
Facebook

4 p.m.
Bill Shipper – For Kids (every Sunday)
Facebook

Monday, September 28
5:30 p.m.
Amy LaVere & Will Sexton
Facebook

8 p.m.
John Paul Keith (every Monday)
YouTube

Tuesday, September 29
7 p.m.
Bill Shipper (every Tuesday)
Facebook

8 p.m.
Mario Monterosso (every Tuesday)
Facebook

Wednesday, September 30
8 p.m.
Richard Wilson (every Wednesday)
Facebook

Categories
News News Blog

Active Virus Cases Slide Again

COVID-19 Memphis
Infogram

Active Virus Cases Slide Again

New virus case numbers over the last 24 hours rose by 147, slightly above yesterday’s total of 96 new cases.

Total current active cases of the virus fell, though, to 1,668, down from the 1,731 cases active Wednesday morning. That figure had dipped to 1,399 recently.

The new testing figures remain high. The Shelby County Health Department now reports the total number of tests given, not just how many individuals have been tested. The figure rose from 431,848 on Wednesday to 435,221 Thursday morning.

The new reporting process changed the weekly positivity rates going back to March, in many cases the figures were reduced. For example, in July’s height of the pandemic (so far), the positivity rate on tests was around 16 percent. With the new testing reporting process, the figure was reduced to 12 percent in numbers released by the health department.

The latest weekly positivity rate rose slightly from the week before. This figure enjoyed weeks of declines following the county mask mandate and the closure of bars. The average rate of positive tests for the week of September 6th was 6.5 percent, up slightly from the 6 percent recorded the week before.

The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 30,837. No new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Total deaths now stand at 449.

There are 7,008 contacts in quarantine, a drop from the 7,032 in quarantine Wednesday.