Christian rapper PreacherMan is back for his second appearance on Music Video Monday. For this one, the gospel slinger takes aim at a target that was close to Jesus’ heart: pride.
Specifically, it’s the pride that comes from accumulating big stacks of money, without regard for how it came to be in your wallet. “Vanity” shows the hip hop pastor in a more narrative mood, telling the story of a Memphis street mogul who has profited much, but is about to lose it all the same way he got it. It’s a timely message in this wealth- and status-obsessed era. Take a look:
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) and Design Marketplace Material Bank have partnered to bring the Hip Hop Architecture Camp to Connect Music on Vance this week.
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp was created in 2016 by Michael Ford, a licensed architect. The week-long camp is designed to “introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, urban planning, creative place-making and economic development through the lens of hip hop culture.”
The camp is based on “four Cs,” which are creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. According to the DMC, students will work in unison with architects, urban planners, designers, community activists, and hip hop artists throughout the camp to “create unique visions for their communities which include the creation of physical models, digital models, and the creation of a Hip Hop Architecture track and music video summarizing their designs. ”
“Downtown has to be everybody’s neighborhood,” says Brett Roler, the DMC’s senior vice president of planning and development “We’re trying to build a Downtown for everybody. … We try to make decisions through that lens. ‘Are we building a Downtown that is fair and equitable and inclusive and inviting for everyone in Memphis and across Shelby County.”
Roler says that this is a part of the DMC’s commitment to “promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in our city’s future.
“We know that diversity, it just doesn’t happen by accident. So, what we’re trying to do is take intentional steps to invite people, to encourage people to be proactive in making a Downtown that everyone feels connected to.”
According to Roler, the Hip Hop Architecture Camp is an opportunity for students to gain exposure to architecture by using hip hop music and culture as a catalyst while also showing them the many ways that they can play a role in their community.
“You might say ‘What’s hip hop got to do with architecture?’ and I think that’s a fair question,” Roler said. “However, if kids feel like hip hop and music [are] something that [young people] are comfortable with, something that is accessible to them. There are ideas and principles that apply equally to architecture and hip hop. Whether we’re talking about form, rhythm, structure, it’s all the same. I think Michael has found a way to take something that can be boring, and esoteric, and complicated more accessible and interesting.”
Only 2.8 percent of architects in the United States are minorities, according to the DMC. While a 2022 report from the National Council of Architectural Registration Board states that diversity efforts in the architecture field have improved, the DMC says that minority groups continue to be underrepresented.
(Courtesy Hip Hop Architecture Camp)
“If Downtown is really going to be a place for everyone, then everyone has to help create it,” Roler continues. “People of color are woefully underrepresented in the design field, architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture.
“What I love about Hip Hop Architecture Camp is that it gives us the chance to show kids that they can be a part of creating neighborhoods that you love. You can play a role in building great places and great neighborhoods.”
Roler says that they initially explored other options for camps, such as producing their own. However after seeing the success of the Hip Hop Architecture Camps in other cities as well as the way the experts teach students important concepts in a fun and appealing way, they decided to bring the camp to Memphis.
The DMC is also helping to sponsor an architecture camp hosted by the Memphis chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which Roler says is geared more so to students who have already solidified that they want to pursue a career in architecture. Roler says that he hopes the Hip Hop Architecture camp will serve as a “feeder” for the AIA camp to continue diversity efforts in architecture, as this camp is for students who may be unfamiliar.
“How do we ensure that the people building Downtown are reflective of our broader community?” Roler asked. “If our broader community is 65 percent African American, I think we need more people of color building Downtown, developing Downtown, opening businesses Downtown, and that’s what we are working on.”
Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth are both Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder.
There are two schools of thought on how to make a movie about comic book superheroes. The first is to try and make it realistic and grounded in the real world. That’s what Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy did for Batman and The Joker. Those films are grim and violent, long on visceral thrills, short on humor.
The second school of thought is to make comic book superhero movies more comic book-y. Outlandish plots, self-aware asides, and jaunty humor are the order of the day. The best example of this school of thought is the wacky Batman TV series from 1966. Richard Donner’s earnest 1978 Superman is a less extreme version.
Students of the gritty school accuse the other side of not taking the source material seriously, while the comic book-y school believes that the grittys fundamentally misunderstand the source material. Since films about superpowered people wearing tights punching each other in space are ubiquitous to the point of being mandatory, the question “Is Batman a good-natured altruist like Adam West or a glowering neo-fascist like Robert Pattison?“ has outsized impact on the culture.
The two philosophies collide violently in Thor: Love and Thunder. Chris Hemsworth has now appeared in nine films as Thor, but he didn’t find his footing until 2017’s Thor: Raganork, when director Taika Waititi empowered him to go for laughs. Since then, the himbo from Asgard has been a breath of fresh air when things get a little too self-serious in the MCU.
The gritty side is represented by Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher. As Nolan’s gravelly voiced Batman, he wrenched the gravitas out of a rich boy who dresses like a bat to play cops and robbers. Making the DC hero into a Marvel antagonist is a admittedly stunt casting, but Bale is a phenomenally talented actor who played one of the greatest villains in cinematic history in American Psycho.
Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder.
Gorr is the first person we see in Love and Thunder, wandering through the desert of his home planet on a pilgrimage to the shrine of his god Rapu (Jonny Brugh) in an effort to save his daughter, Love (India Rose Hemsworth, who is actually Chris Hemsworth’s daughter) from the blight that has consumed their world. But Love dies anyway, and when Gorr meets the real Rapu, he makes it clear that he doesn’t care about the sufferings of the little people who worship him. So Gorr grabs the nearest weapon, which happens to be the god-killing Necrosword, and vows to wage a campaign of deicide, beginning with Rapu.
Meanwhile, Thor is hanging out with the Guardians of the Galaxy, saving planets and — having sculpted his Avengers: Endgame dad bod into a chiseled god bod — looking good doing it. Thor’s intro sequence epitomizes why I prefer the comic-booky approach to comic-book movies. I can get detectives chasing serial killers and corrupt cops anywhere, but only Waititi can give me a space Viking fighting an army of owl bears on hover bikes.
Thor gets wind of Gorr’s anti-god crusade, and returns to Earth to check on New Asgard, where the refugees from his destroyed home planet are now running a tourist trap. Sure enough, Gorr and his shadow monsters have come calling. But the Asgardians are putting up a fight, led by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and The Mighty Thor (Natalie Portman).
Hold up — there’s another Thor? And he’s a she? And she’s Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster, who, for budgetary reasons was unceremoniously written out of the story after Thor: The Dark World? Yes, yes, and yes. Since the breakup, Jane’s had her ups and downs, first becoming a famous physicist and then contracting terminal cancer. She heeded a psychic call to New Asgard, where the reassembled pieces of Thor’s broken hammer Mjolnir prolonged her life and granted her the powers of the thunder god. As we’ll see, facing an ex who also has his old job is just the beginning of Thor’s problems.
Love and Thunder is a deeply divided movie. On the one hand, you’ve got a hero dying of cancer and a villain whose motivation is literally the Greek philosopher Epicurius’ Problem of Evil. On the other hand, you’ve got Hemsworth mugging for the camera and the director himself (as Thor’s sidekick Korg) narrating as a “once upon a time” story. Bale tries valiantly to fit in, but he’s got one gear: “intense.” Portman is professional who understands the assignment, and is able to at least fake having fun. Ultimately, the film collapses under the weight of its contradictions. Love and Thunder can’t decide if it wants to laugh at itself or soar into Valhalla, and ends up doing neither well.
Tameka "Big Baby" Goodman (Photo courtesy of SouLink Music)
Though she grew up in Shreveport, Lousiana, and will be laid to rest there in a ceremony on Saturday, July 9th, Tameka “Big Baby” Goodman was a Memphis performer through and through. Having had health issues for some years, the singer’s death on July 4th was not completely unexpected, but nevertheless sent many Memphis musicians and fans into shock. Goodman was 47, and died from complications related to a heart attack she had in 2016.
Guitarist Joe Restivo worked with her well before then, and thus experienced Goodman in her prime. And his awe is palpable when he recalls her performances. “I worked for her for three years, around 2010-13, at Memphis Sounds, which was this underground soul club. I was playing with the band A440, run by John Williams. As a guitar player, for me to work with a singer of that caliber was an honor. She had an incredible instrument.
“She could generate a lot of power as a singer, but was also very subtle. She could sing in a whisper. Amazing pitch, tone, all that, but the thing about it was that she was amazing at crowd work. She could improvise; she’d pick someone out of the crowd and kind of play with them. She was way more than just a singer. She was a true entertainer, and I think that’s kind of rare these days.”
He pauses, then adds, “And she was one of the nicest, kindest, sweetest women that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Tameka “Big Baby” Goodman (Photo courtesy of SouLink Music)
That’s echoed by all who met her. Singer (and Memphis Slim House executive director) Tonya Dyson befriended Goodman soon after she relocated to Memphis. “I met Big Baby in 2005 or ’06, when she moved here after Katrina,” Dyson recalls. “And she was just a sweetie pie. She had this big Afro, and dressed really Afrocentric, like me. And she could just sing. She really knew her music, and the history around it. So we could talk all day. And she was so straight with everyone, across the board. She was super supportive and she kept up with people. She would call you and leave you a voicemail for your birthday. That was the type of person she was. Just super funny, jovial and happy.
“Even when she got sick and had that massive heart attack, she was still making jokes, and in great spirits. You wouldn’t have known that she had technically died twice on the table. There was a gig she played right after the heart attack, where she gave a powerful testimony. They were telling her family she might not live, and then they said, ‘If you do live, you’ll need hospice care.’ And yet there she was, standing there with a cane, singing!”
Recalling the time of Goodman’s first heart attack, Dyson marvels at her resilience. “They intubated her and it was sitting on her vocal cords. They thought she may not be able to even talk anymore. And within a year, she was up and singing again. That was just the person that she was. She wasn’t gonna take no for an answer, not even from life.”
Goodman’s manager, Jawaskia “JL” Lake, recalls how her life changed for the better in Memphis. “She was born and raised in the church,” he notes, “and she did some things in Shreveport, but she came to Memphis after Hurricane Katrina, and man, when she got there, she blew up. Eventually she even toured the country. She played the Apollo and a whole lot of other places.”
Just as Restivo noted Goodman’s quick wit with a crowd, Lake emphasizes her creativity. “It was hard to have a practice because she was just so creative. She made up stuff right there on stage. She was really one of a kind. You never knew what she was going to do, and she really knew how to grab the crowd. She was a fun, comical person, so she knew how to grab that crowd and interact with people. And just have a good time. She made that a part of her show.”
He also stresses the importance of her longstanding residency at Memphis Sounds. “She created her platform at Memphis Sounds, but after that she played all over the city, including a lot of weddings, a lot of corporate gigs. And she created big fan bases in Jackson and Bolivar, Tennessee. In Bolivar, her show got rained out once, but the people were so determined to see her that we had to find another location, on the spot.”
Lake notes that, though she returned to performing after her heart attack, that rally was short-lived. “It’s actually been about three years since she performed. She had already stopped before Covid. She was in and out of the hospital, and we just lost her.”
Many in the city are grieving, and many are making the trip to Shreveport for tomorrow’s memorial service. Lake notes that plans are being made for a separate memorial service in Memphis, sometime in the near future.
Reflecting on her artistry, Lake concludes, “She was an amazing talent. And you need to pull her up on YouTube to really see how amazing she was.”
“The last song she worked on was with me,” Lake notes, “because I’m an artist as well. We did a song together, and it’s the very last song she ever recorded. We were like brother and sister. She’s the type of person, where once she got to know you and open up to you, it’s like family.”
A memorial service for Tameka “Big Baby” Goodman will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 9 at the Light Hill Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Memphis hasn’t offered many chances to hear music that’s completely spontaneous since the glory days of the ’90s, when the likes of George Cartwright roamed these streets. But that’s changing. Many improvisation-friendly fans were captivated and inspired by the Dopolarians’ set at the Green Room in pre-Covid 2020, and other groups dedicated to freedom in music have percolated up from time to time. Now, Goner Records is leaping into the fray, bringing storied saxophonist Jack Wright to B-Side Memphis this Friday with his trio, Wrest.
Wright, who one musician described as “the Johnny Appleseed of free improvisation,” has toured relentlessly since he began in 1979, and has scattered many seeds along the way in the form of “leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, the entire range of volume, intrusive and sculptured multiphonics, vocalizations, and obscene animalistic sounds,” as his website puts it.
He’s also put a great deal of thought into what makes for great improvised performances, namely in his 2017 book, The Free Musics, and that must also count among the seeds he’s planted — all fostering an approach to sound that’s very different from our pop-music-obsessed conventions. And that’s where Goner comes in.
As Goner Records founder Eric Friedl describes it, Friday’s show arose out of the label’s fascination with another underground’s underground artist, Reverend Fred Lane, who first emerged from Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the ’70s and ’80s with his trademark mix of swinging jazz, country, and Dadaist lyrics. Reissuing his first albums recently tapped Goner into an entire parallel universe of free music.
“I was contacted by Evan Lipson, current bass player for Fred Lane about hosting a show for a group he was playing with, Wrest,” says Friedl. “I knew Evan was a monster on bass, and wanted to make something happen even before I heard this band. Then I checked ’em out. They were wild. I had not heard of the leader, Jack Wright, but was very intrigued by his playing and his biography. Community organizer, travelling the world, playing under the radar of most listeners — but obviously a master. Percussionist Ben Bennett plays a pile of self-made drums, stretched membranes, and other objects which are hit, rattled, and blown. What a trio!”
Pairing Wrest with an appropriate opener was the next challenge, but luckily there’s a regional free jazz Renaissance taking off under our very noses these days, centered on the Mahakala Music imprint in Arkansas, owned by a University of Memphis alum, Chad Fowler. He can often be heard with guitarist David Collins’ group, Frog Squad.
“Who to play with ’em? Some more straight jazz didn’t seem to make sense,” muses Friedl. “Some noisy whippersnappers could work. Our man on the scene Jimmy Enck brokered a deal with local horn heavy Chad Fowler, who brought his collective Deepstaria Enigmatica on board in their debut performance.”
That new group features Fowler and Collins with Jon Scott Harrison on drums and a certain Misterioso Africano playing the “mystery.”
Putting it in perspective, Friedl says, “I hope people come check this show out — it’s got world-class players on a small stage in Memphis, worthy of a large jazz festival in Europe.
“We had a great turnout for a couple of shows of percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, playing bowed gongs and big and small drums and percussion. I’m always very interested in bringing avant garde sounds to Memphis. People will enjoy the spirit and music even if they don’t think they will. It’s fun and alive, in real time. Bring an open mind!”
Wrest and Deepstaria Enigmatica play B-Side Memphis on Friday, July 8, 8 p.m. $10.
So, it’s likely you read about the 10-year-old rape victim who couldn’t get an abortion in Ohio. The story came to light shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24th. Ohio’s six-week “trigger ban” came into effect three days later and prohibited the child from getting an abortion in her home state. Her pediatrician called a colleague in nearby Indiana and arranged for the traumatized child-abuse victim to have an abortion there. (Indiana legislators have since indicated they will pass an abortion ban in an upcoming special session.)
The Ohio case has become something of a flash point for the abortion debate. A sampling of commentary on social media:
“My heart absolutely BREAKS for that child but who are we to question what God is doing?”
“God has a plan and a purpose for everything, and it’s not our place to try and take matters into our own hands no matter how badly the situation hurts.”
“Every life is precious in His sight.”
Others see it differently:
“Why did God create the doctors and medicines that allow her to have a safe abortion?”
“Why is God’s will behind the rape and Satan’s will behind the abortion?”
“If everything is God’s will and she has an abortion, isn’t that abortion then also God’s will?”
And on it went and on it goes.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves declared June to be “Sanctity of Life Month” in celebration of SCOTUS’ overturning of Roe v. Wade. Mississippi, it should be noted, has the highest infant and fetal mortality rates in the U.S. and the lowest life expectancy, so Reeves is totally on-brand with his pro-life bilge.
And, to demonstrate that it’s not just Southerners who can utter evangelical garbage with a straight face, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem went on national television Sunday, mostly to fluff Donald Trump in hopes of enhancing her vice-presidential ambitions for 2024. But moderator Dana Bash had the poor taste to perform journalism and confront Noem with the case of the Ohio girl. It didn’t go well for Noem, who shuffled and deflected and avoided answering the question for several minutes. Which answered the question.
Former Vice President Mike Pence came out of hiding long enough to speak the GOP’s fetal-attraction fever dream out loud, calling for a national ban on abortion, because God hates abortion — and also little girls, I guess.
Have any of these people ever actually known a 10-year-old girl? At 10, a little girl is in fourth or fifth grade. Fourth or fifth grade. Let it sink in. Think about a 10-year-old girl you know or have known — their innocence, their joy, their spirit. If they get pregnant, it is by definition because they were raped. It doesn’t matter if it was an uncle, a brother, a father, or a random evil stranger. An innocent child was the victim of a brutal, heinous crime. And now the law of the land in more than half of these dis-united states is (or soon will be) that that child deserves to be punished.
The emphasis on child-rape and incest is helpful in illustrating the horrid absurdity of the SCOTUS ruling, but the most important thing to recognize is that the right to privacy and bodily autonomy for half the American population has been taken away. A 10th-grader, a mother of three with an ectopic pregnancy, a 40-year-old rape victim — all will be legally mandated to carry their pregnancy to term in much of the U.S. Their faith doesn’t matter — Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Flying Spaghetti Monster worshippers. What matters is that American women are now required to adhere to a pseudo-religious tenet held by 13 percent of the country’s adults. A tiny minority has spent years working on packing the Supreme Court for the express purpose of overturning Roe v. Wade. They have succeeded. They have taken away an American woman’s right to decide what’s best for her body.
It’s time to rage, folks. It’s time to get triggered and get organized and get loud. In a free country — in a real democracy — this cannot stand.
Archie waved me over to the pastry case. He sort of crouched down on my level — I was 11 or so at the time and quite a bit shorter than the tanned, mullet-sporting man my mom was dating — and he spoke in something approaching a loud stage whisper. For Archie, that was as close to being incognito as it got. His voice was a boom with a ragged edge. He wore a small gold hoop in his ear, was perpetually clad in a hoodie and shorts, glowed with an incandescent suntan, rode a motorcycle, and had strong opinions about everything. Whispering was not his style.
“Watch this,” he said, as he stuffed a dozen or so cookies in the front pocket of his hoodie.
Stealing isn’t really stealing if it’s food and you need it, he explained. And if you were stealing from someone who could afford to eat the cost. It’s best to steal things that are hard to inventory — bakery items don’t have barcodes, and you don’t really look too conspicuous grabbing things from the serve-yourself section of the store. As long as you act cool, you’re not likely to get caught. Or so Archie said.
That was my first brush with crime. My mother’s boyfriend (at the time) taught me how to steal food from big grocery store chains.
I was a Good Kid though, the kind who never really wanted to make trouble, so of course I was completely petrified. It felt as though someone threw a switch and aimed three or four spotlights at me. Sweat prickled on my brow and the back of my neck. My skin flushed. My back went rigid, and all my movements were strangely stiff. In short, I was a caricature of conspicuousness. I felt sure that someone had seen, that — as foolish as it might sound — everyone knew. The cookies in Archie’s hoodie pocket might as well have cast a cartoonishly green radioactive glow. At any moment, I was sure a plainclothes detective would grab me by the arm and steer me into the store’s interrogation chamber.
Of course, none of that happened. Archie and my mom paid for a few items at the register, we strolled out the automatic door, and Archie offered my younger sister and me a fistful of stolen cookies. If memory serves, I declined. As protégés go, I was off to a rotten start.
Not long after that, my mom decided it was too onerous a task to keep hiding her drug use from me and enlisted me as a sort of partner-in-cover-up, if not an actual partner-in-crime. Though she eventually made the leap to stronger stuff, at the time it was just marijuana, so no big deal. (Though, of course, I was again petrified. Gasp! “Reefer madness! In my own home?!”) Now, I often wonder if my mother ever would have dabbled in more dangerous drugs if there weren’t such a stigma associated with drugs in general. It’s easy to feel locked out of so-called “normal” society, locked into a cycle of illicit activities, black market solutions, and stolen cookies. Would things have been different if she felt like she could have gotten help without being arrested or fired or shamed? If, maybe, it was a little easier for a waitress at a diner to feed and house her kids. If there were more readily accessible services to help single mothers, people with chronic illness — all categories she falls into. In other words, if we viewed crime, which is, after all, a social construct, a little differently. If we spent our resources on prevention, instead of protection and punishment.
This has been much on my mind of late. Maybe because crime has been a hot topic in the Shelby County District Attorney race. Maybe it’s because of the Jan. 6th hearings, detailing some of the most brazen crimes ever committed. High crimes, treason, that the “law and order” crowd seem, well, more or less okay with. I suppose that has something to do with what we consider crime. When asked to imagine an illegal activity, theft might be the first thing to come to mind. That could be because property is so tangible. Or because gains from social spending would take years or even a generation to show clear results. Hard to campaign on that, I suppose. Maybe it just pays to keep people focused away from crime committed on a larger scale.
It can be seen in our national priorities, in our bloated police budgets. It doesn’t seem in keeping with the way society has changed to continue this way, to view criminals and crime as a force of nature, something that just occurs.
I’m biased, of course, but it seems like we’ve thrown dollars at “protection” for decades with little to show for it. There are costs, too, in seeing dangers lurking everywhere, in the belief we need protection from other people. “Tough on crime” sounds good on the surface, or is at least straightforward and easy to digest, but if it worked, wouldn’t we have seen results by now? Call me a bleeding heart, a liberal looney tune, but I can’t help but wonder what the world would look like if we stopped viewing our fellow citizens as dangers against which we need protection, if instead we saw crime as evidence of a social system out of balance. It would take a massive shift in how we view the world, not to mention how cities draw up their budgets. It would be a difficult, lengthy process.
Jesus Christ Superstar rocks the Orpheum as the last show of the “pandemic” season.
October 5, 2021 is a day Brett Batterson will never forget. That’s when Come From Away opened at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Memphis, marking the return to live performance after 18 months of pandemic shutdown.
“That opening night is one of the greatest nights I’ve ever experienced in my career,” says Batterson, the Orpheum’s president and CEO. “Everybody was so excited to be there, and the audience was just so grateful for Broadway to be back in the Orpheum. The cast was excited to perform for people. It was like a magic stew of emotions that was just wonderful.”
When Jesus Christ Superstar opened on June 28th, it marked the belated end of the star-crossed season that began in March 2020. “It feels really good to have what we call the pandemic season behind us, and we start our new season in just a few weeks with My Fair Lady, followed by To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Located at the western edge of Beale Street, the century-old theater has witnessed a lot of changes Downtown, but nothing like the last few years. It has been a time of both growth and tragedy. “I think Downtown Memphis is starting to see the resurgence, the coming out of the plague. If you come down here on a Friday or Saturday night, there are people everywhere. I don’t think we’ve seen the return of all the office workers that we need for the restaurants to have a lunch crowd, but on a weekend night, there’s a lot of people down here.”
Batterson sees the crowds as a continuation of positive trends the pandemic interrupted. “When I first arrived in Memphis six and a half years ago, I think Memphis was just at the tail end of the low self-esteem problem that Memphis has suffered from since the assassination of Dr. King. Shortly after I arrived, people started making plans and talking about how great of a city it is. Nashville is a tourist trap while Memphis retains its soul and authenticity. That’s the big change I’ve seen — Memphis is proud of itself again, as it should be.”
The Orpheum is about to dance into its next season in late July with My Fair Lady, followed by To Kill a Mockingbird.
Downtown Delights
The Orpheum was once a movie palace owned by Memphis-based Malco Theatres. Just a short hop down Front Street, Malco’s newest movie palace is the Powerhouse, a seven-screen multiplex built around a historic structure which once provided steam power for next door’s Central Station. On Saturdays, the Powerhouse’s parking lot plays host to the Downtown Memphis Farmers Market. Sergio Brown is one of the dozens of vendors who gather under the T-shaped shelter every week to hawk their locally produced wares. His company, Earthworm Plants, is based across the river in West Memphis. “We just started, so this is our first year here in Memphis,” he says. “The support we’ve gotten from Downtown has been amazing. When people from other states come here, they’re just amazed at what we do.”
Earthworm Plants is part of a wave of new businesses that have opened in the pandemic era. A few blocks to the east is South Point Grocery, the latest venture by Castle Retail’s Rick James, which filled a need created by Downtown’s growing population. But South Point’s biggest draw is the sandwich counter, run by Josh McLane.
Like many people in Memphis, McLane is a man of many hustles. He’s a well-known comedian and drummer in the punk-folk duo Heels. (Their new album, Pop Songs for a Dying Planet, will be released in October.) His sandwich skills first got attention when he manned the kitchen at the Hi Tone music venue. “Unlike other people, when I’m hammered and make a sandwich at 3 in the morning, I write it down,” he says.
At lunch time, there’s a steady stream of foot traffic coming through the door for McLane’s creations. “I genuinely get a kick out of being able to say, ‘Come see us for lunch, and I will get you outta here in five minutes, unless we have a giant line — and even then, it’s gonna take 10, tops.’”
McLane says the wave of new businesses was born of necessity. “That first year of Covid, everybody started opening something, either because you had nothing to do or you had no money coming in. And after that first year, everybody who wasn’t good at it or didn’t have a good enough sustaining idea got weeded out and everybody else just kept going.”
Good Fortune Co. is a new eatery that has been earning raves Downtown. Co-owner Sarah Cai lived in Collierville until she was 13, when her father was sent to China to open a new FedEx hub. “I’m from here, and I always wanted to come back,” she says. “We had been paying attention to restaurants in the area and what was popular. There was really nothing like this kind of cuisine, and from what I could tell, there was nobody who could bring the kind of experience that we have had, traveling and working abroad in different places.”
All of the food at Good Fortune Co. is made by hand. “The kimchi is important to me,” Cai says. “It’s something I’ve always made on my own because when you buy it, it just doesn’t taste the same. The whole [restaurant] concept stemmed from scratch-made noodles that have always been a huge part of my food. Dumplings are my food love, my passion. I’ve been making them since I was a kid with my family. They had to be on the menu. I knew I wanted it to be Asian, but influenced by a lot of different regions, not necessarily Chinese or Japanese. My background is really mixed. My mom’s Malaysian and my dad’s Chinese. I’ve traveled all around Southeast Asia, so I’ve been inspired by a lot of different flavors. What I wanted to showcase here is the fusion of those authentic flavors. The food itself is kind of Asian-American — like myself.
“I’ve been able to come back and rediscover the city as an adult. It’s a totally different experience. Memphis is really cool! I’ve lived in China, Austria, Europe. I’ve traveled all around the world, and Memphis is one of the most authentic cities I’ve ever been in. It’s gritty, but it’s all part of the charm — it’s just a genuine place. I’m really happy to be able to be a part of this world now.”
A larger-than-life Red Queen plays her twisted game of croquet at the Memphis Botanic Garden.
New Growth
She’s 19 feet tall, weighs 15,110 pounds, and her dress is made from 6,507 plants. The Red Queen is the most spectacular creation of “Alice’s Adventures at the Garden,” the larger-than-life new exhibit at the Memphis Botanic Garden. The living statuary of the timeless characters from Alice In Wonderland, like the Cheshire Cat, the Queen’s chessboard full of soldiers, and Alice herself, originated at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Alice and her companions have made a big splash, says Olivia Wall, MBG’s director of marketing. But the exhibit is just one of the new features at the 96-acre garden. “We have gone through a lot of transformation,” she says. “We are just finishing up a capital campaign that was focused on campus modernizations, so part of that, like the visitor center, was completely redone in 2022. It’s been a lot of change and a lot of transformation for the better. We are always focused on our mission, which is connecting people with plants. How can we best do that?”
The Alice figures are made from steel armatures and given color and shape by plants and flowers. In the summer heat, it can take 90 minutes just to water the Red Queen. Other artists were invited to participate. “We have these renditions of the White Rabbit around the grounds that local artists created,” Wall says.
There are also interactive elements. “It’s classic literature, so we have quotes from the book around to help put it into context. Kids can have their own imaginary tea party. They can pretend to be the March Hare or the Mad Hatter.”
Wall came to Memphis in 2014 to get her master’s degree from Memphis College of Art. The Cooper-Young resident says she’s a “Midtowner through and through.”
Midtown has been the focus of intense development in the pandemic era, with new apartment complexes springing up everywhere. “They’re called ‘five-over-ones,’” says F. Grant Whittle. “They’re the apartment buildings like they’ve got on McLean and Madison. They are built with concrete on the first floor and then stick on the upper floors. They’re easily put up. They’re not hideous, and they’re not beautiful, but just getting apartments in place for people to live is important right now.”
Whittle and his husband Jimmy Hoxie recently opened The Ginger’s Bread & Co. on Union Avenue. “Jimmy was working at City & State making pastries, and they didn’t need him anymore because they didn’t have many customers. At the same time, a man moved out of a duplex we owned and I said, ‘Jimmy, why don’t you go over there and start baking? We can sell your stuff online.’ And so, that’s what we’ve been doing since the beginning of the pandemic. Then, I was let go from my job. I needed something to do. So we sold the duplex, and we used the money to open this place.”
Since they opened earlier this summer, bread, cookies, and cheesecake have been flying off the shelves. “I think that this little part of Union is ripe for renewal and regrowth,” Whittle says. “I really like Cameo, which is a bar that just opened at Union and McLean. I can walk there in five minutes. They’re still getting their sea legs. They’re trying to do a good product there, and the food is not too bad.”
Midtown remains a cultural center. The history of Memphis music is enshrined on Beale, but the present and future lives in places like The Lamplighter, B-Side, and Hi Tone. The reopened Minglewood Hall is once again hosting national touring acts. In the Crosstown Concourse, the Green Room offers intimate live music experiences, and the 400-seat Crosstown Theater recently put on a blockbuster show by electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. Not far from the towering Concourse is Black Lodge.
The movie mecca began life more than two decades ago as a tiny Cooper-Young video store. Now, it not only boasts one of the largest DVD and Blu-ray collections in America, but also a state-of-the-art sound system and multiple projection screens. “We’re proud to be serving a full menu of food as well as a full bar,” says Lodge founder Matt Martin. “Come in and check out some of our signature cocktails and dishes designed by our chef and co-owner James Blair. We are pleased to finally offer a full nightclub experience to Midtown Memphis. We’ve got great EDM shows, great bands, movie screenings, burlesque and drag shows, comedy, and video game tournaments — and our AC is amazing!”
Jessica Hunt tends bar at the artsy and new Inkwell.
Another Midtown dream realized is Inkwell. The popular Edge District bar was founded by Memphis artist Ben Colar. “The concept was to create a super dope cocktail bar where people could just kind of be themselves,” says bartender Jessica Hunt. “It’s Black-owned, so Ben wanted to show the city that there are Black bartenders that can do really good craft cocktails.”
The relaxed vibe is maintained via cocktails like the Sir Isaac Washington, a complex, rum-based, summery drink. “It’s always a breath of fresh air to come in here and work around people I love,” says Hunt. “Plus, I get to meet so many cool, artsy people!”
Yola, Oliva DeJonge, Baz Luhrmann, Tom Hanks, Alton Mason, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Jerry Schilling, Pricilla Presley, Riley Keough, and Lisa Marie Presley at the Graceland premiere of Elvis.
Music for the Masses
“Memphis’ identity is its musical history,” says the Orpheum’s Batterson. “Our tourism is music tourism. There may be some Broadway fans, or the timing may be right so that we’ve got Bonnie Raitt or Bob Dylan at the Orpheum, but most of the tourists are music people who want to hang out on Beale Street, go to Graceland, go to the Stax Museum, go to Sun Studio.
“I think we have some real gems in our museum system, from the National Civil Rights Museum to the Brooks and the Dixon and MoSH. An hour at Sun Studio is probably one of the most important hours you can spend in Memphis — that and going to Stax and seeing Isaac Hayes’ gold-plated car!
“I am shocked at how many Memphians have told me they’ve never been to Graceland. To me, you’ve got to go once. If you never go back, that’s up to you. But you’ve got to go once. How could you have this huge, international tourist attraction in your city and not ever go? I don’t get that.”
With Elvis, the spectacular new biopic from Australian director Baz Luhrmann, the King of Rock-and-Roll is once again topping the box office. After earning a 12-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, Luhrmann and his stars, including Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, made their American debut at the Guest House at Graceland. “It’s something that younger people don’t understand,” said Luhrmann to a packed house. “They know they’re very interested in this film because they’re very interested in instant fame. You can get on TikTok and have 20 million followers the next day, and you’re famous. But when Elvis came along, the teenager had just been invented. The idea of young people with money was a new idea. There was no precedent for someone driving a truck one minute and being a millionaire and the most famous man on the planet the next.”
As he stood on stage with Elvis’ wife Priscilla Presley, daughter Lisa Marie, and granddaughter, actor/director Riley Keough, Hanks, who plays Elvis’ infamous manager Col. Tom Parker, recounted the welcome they had received. “We visited the home of the King last night. It is a place that is, I think, as hallowed as any president’s home, as any museum dedicated to a particular type of art. What’s unique about it is, it is so firmly stamped with the name Presley, and it would not have existed were it not for the city of Memphis and the genius of a one-of-a-kind artist who, more than anybody else in music or any sort of presentational art, deserves the moniker of the singular word ‘King.’”
photo: Michael Donahue
Brennan Williams, John Pera,
Joey Eddins, and Gavin Richards
Band name inspirations come from everywhere.
Take Switches.
“I came up with the name Switches actually at 3 in the morning when I was in my room asleep and my lights were still on and I did not want to get up and flip the switch to turn it off,” says bass player Gavin Richards, 17.
“A lot of people think it has some really deep meaning when it doesn’t at all.”
Switches, a punk/grunge band that also includes guitarist/lead singer John Pera, 18; guitarist Brennan Williams, 17; and drummer Joey Eddins, 17, formed March 5th. The group played its first big-name club, Hi Tone, July 1st.
Like older bands, Switches members are writing, rehearsing, thinking about recording, and dealing with nervousness on stage. But Switches is fresh. It’s hungry.
“I didn’t start singing until this year,” Pera says. “We were all like, ‘Who’s going to do it?’ I was like, ‘I guess I can.’ I’d never done it before. I usually play guitar and stuff.
“It was kind of hard, but you kind of get used to it. I’d go in my car and yell a lot so it wouldn’t hurt as much. Singing along to the radio. At first, I would almost cough up a lung after trying to get through it. It was like I was about to pass out. I still do that a little bit, but only at the end of the show.”
Switches (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Richards got his first guitar five years ago. “YouTube videos were my teacher,” he says.
He and Williams got into Green Day at 13. “They sounded so different from what was on the radio. Powerful. Just a different sound.”
They watched Green Day’s 1992 videos.“They were pretty young. Like 16 and 17. And we were like, ‘We could do that. We could be just like them, play shows like them.’”
Richards got serious about music and wanted to play shows. But, he says, everybody except Eddins, who joined after they formed Switches, is from Germantown. “In Germantown, there are not really any music venues to play at.
“We didn’t know how to get our sound out there, to get us playing music to any crowd of some sort.”
That changed after he began driving and discovered “there’s stuff to do everywhere” in Memphis. “Especially for young people like us.
“I could go pretty much where I felt like going. A lot of local shows. I started seeing a lot of the music scenes there, and that changed the game entirely.”
After discovering Hi Tone and Lamplighter Lounge, Richards thought, “We can play here.”
“Memphis was the place to go. That’s where you have an audience no matter where you go. Memphis has a bunch of different scenes for a bunch of different music.
“When I saw kids my age playing in bands to pretty decent-sized crowds and a lot of my friends were going to them, I really wanted to start playing shows like this.”
Richards began writing songs as a freshman. “Everything changes going from middle school to high school. It brings a lot of things and emotions on you and you need an expressive outlet for it.
“I was first dipping my toes into water as a songwriter, but I kind of didn’t know where to go with it. Ideas would come up and I would write them down and nothing would ever come from it.”
They now have six originals. Richards wrote music and lyrics to “Castle,” their most popular song. “This girl gave me a Silly Bandz in the shape of a castle. I pretty much made it about that.”
Switches (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Asked what sets Switches apart, Williams says, “I think it’s our energy. For sure. We’re all friends. And we got chemistry with each other. And we cooperate really well.”
“I love that it’s raw punk and it’s so fun to play,” Eddins says.
The big picture for Switches? “We’re just kind of playing it by ear right now,” Richards says. “Playing shows. Having fun around Memphis. Maybe some trips to Nashville or something like that. So, nothing too crazy — world domination or something like that.”
After a pandemic-prompted hiatus, Quark Theatre is back and ready to start its fourth season with Wakey, Wakey by Will Eno.
This is not the first time Quark is putting on Wakey, Wakey, having performed it back in October 2019, but, as Quark co-founder Adam Remsen says, “A lot of it seems a lot more personally relevant. It’s such a layered script. And counting both of the productions we’ve done, I’ve probably gone through that script a hundred times now, and I continue to find new things that I have not noticed before.”
The play opens with a presumably terminally ill Guy, rousing from a nap and asking, “Is it now? I thought I had more time.” For the next hour of the play, Remsen, who will reprise his part as the protagonist, explains, “It’s this sort of meandering monologue, where he talks about all different things — a lot about love and life and death. Though, that makes it sounds very serious, and it’s a very funny play. For something that deals with such heavy subjects, I’m always amazed at how lightly it keeps moving along. It’s so well-written.”
Interestingly, the playwright Will Eno went beyond providing the script, Remsen says. “When we did the show for the first time, we applied for the rights and we got them and got an email that Will likes to be personally involved in productions of his play.” So the group emailed with Eno, asking questions and receiving long, detailed, and personable responses. “It’s unheard of. I have literally never heard of another playwright doing that,” Remsen continues. “There were some points in the play that were confusing, and it helped us kind of figure out what was going on with those and what we were going to do. He was also very clear … that he understands that every production is different and the goal is to make this your production.
“It’s such a personal play, and it actually specifies in the script that when the play ends that in the lobby there are food and snacks and drinks provided and everyone should come out in the lobby including the cast and have a little small reception or party.” This intimacy, Remsen adds, will also be afforded in the size of the space being lent by Germantown Community Theatre. “It’s a small theater; it’s a hundred seats. … We want people to be as close as possible to the stage.”
As such, this play is within Quark’s affinity for simple, nuanced performances. “[Co-founder and director Tony Isbell] and I enjoy theater that takes out anything extraneous,” Remsen says, “where it’s just the actors, a script, and an audience. … We stick to fairly small shows, fairly new shows usually, and the kind of shows that we do are the kind no one is going to do in Memphis if we don’t do them.”
Wakey, Wakey will run through July 17th, Thursday-Sunday, but Quark isn’t stopping there this season. Unlike seasons past, this season will have four productions, not two. Up next is What Happens to Hope at the End of the Evening, which Quark put on in March 2020, having to cancel its run after two performances.
Wakey, Wakey, Germantown Community Theatre, 3037 Forest Hill Irene Road, opens July 7, 8 p.m., $20.
