Archives

Categories
Music Music Features

On the Road Again

Austin’s South By Southwest Music Festival might be the biggest and best annual musical gathering in the country. But even if you don’t have the time or inclination to make the daylong drive, brave the crowds, and spend the dough to do SXSW yourself, Memphis’ proximity to Austin yields a chance for local music fans to sample the festival every March, because bands make pit-stops in the Bluff City on their way to or from Austin.

The number of SXSW-related shows hitting town this month is down a little from last year (as are the number of Memphis bands heading to Austin, from 10 last year to four, officially, this year: Lucero, Bloodthirsty Lovers, Retrospect, and Epoch of Unlight). But the dynamic still spurs a richer, deeper club schedule than at any other time of the year, and the following cheat-sheet doesn’t even include SXSW bands with Memphis stops scheduled for later in the spring (Hella, Mosquitoes, Golden Republic, Dead Meadow) or late additions sure to pop up after press time.

Thursday, March 10th

Melissa Ferrick (with Garrison Starr)

Hi-Tone Café

Ferrick and former Memphian Starr both broke out during the alt-rock/Lilith Fair boom of the mid-’90s and have kept on touring and putting out records long after major labels determined that left-of-center women were the absolute last thing they were interested in.

Saturday, March 12th

Taylor Hollandsworth

(with Harsh Krieger and

40 Watt Moon)

Young Avenue Deli

On his debut EP Shoot Me Shoot Me Heaven, this Birmingham, Alabama, rocker offers a more than credible take on the bluesy, swaggering, post-Stones punk-blues of bands such as the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers.

Luke Temple

Hi-Tone Café

This uber-talented Seattle singer-songwriter drops his debut album, the Beatlesque Hold a Match for a Gasoline World, next month. With his novel arrangements, precise singing, and smart songwriting, Temple could be on the verge of something big.

Sunday, March 13th

Tristeza and Nora O’Connor

Hi-Tone Café

This is an odd pairing: an indie rock quintet (San Diego’s Tristeza) that specializes in moody instrumentals and a veteran alt-country siren (O’Connor) with the vocal chops to go mainstream. A former member of the Blacks and Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire and a recently ubiquitous background singer, O’Connor’s torch-song-y country is every bit the rival of similar but more heralded artists such as Alison Moorer and Mindy Smith.

Wednesday, March 16th

The Reputation

(with I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House)

Young Avenue Deli

Elizabeth Elmore’s college band, Sarge, was one of my faves: a nifty little pop-punk answer to the sharp-fanged, male-centered relationship analysis of early Elvis Costello or a less grandstanding alternative to Exile in Guyville. Elmore’s lyrics are only slightly less distinct in her grad-school band, the Reputation, but she still rocks out with a surly Chrissie Hynde flair.

Thursday, March 17th

Son Volt and Anders Parker

Newby’s

Over the past decade, Jay Farrar’s solo career has drifted into irrelevance with each passing year as his onetime Uncle Tupelo sidekick Jeff Tweedy has turned Wilco into one of America’s biggest bands. Maybe that’s why Farrar is touring under the name of his post-Tupelo band, Son Volt, even though the “band” contains no other original members. Son Volt, second edition, has a new album out in September, with the original lineup celebrated this spring in a live record from New West and a retrospective sampler on Rhino. But regardless whom he’s playing with, one imagines that Farrar’s deep, rich voice remains a powerful weapon. Parker, the driving force behind alt-country-connected Varnaline, opens the show in Memphis and got an assist from Farrar on his latest solo record, Tell It to the Dust.

Friday, March 18th

The Apes (with Vending Machine and the Klopeks)

Young Avenue Deli

This Washington, D.C.-based quartet, which eschews guitar in favor of an organ-driven hard-rock/garage style, has made Memphis a regular stop on their trips to Austin over the past couple of years. This spring, they’ll be playing a showcase for their new label, Birdman Records, which will be releasing a new full-length, Baba’s Mountain, next month.

Zombi (with Simon and SonsofBitches)

Hi-Tone Café

This could well be the sleeper show of the month. The instrumental duo from Pittsburgh builds horror-movie soundtrack music (they may share a hometown with director George Romero, but their music evokes Italian scare-master Dario Argento) from a battalion of keyboards, synthesizers, and drums. Watching them re-create the sound live should be quite a sight.

Sunday, March 20th

The Bloodthirsty Lovers (with Noise Choir)

Young Avenue Deli

This longtime “solo” project from ex-Grifter Dave Shouse is now a collaboration with ex-Big Ass Truck guitarist Steve Selvidge. Rounded out as a live band by a New York-based rhythm section, this ostensibly “local” band doesn’t play around town much at all. In fact, this will be the first local appearance since the late 2004 release of their album The Delicate Seam.

Monday, March 21st

Enon and Swearing at Motorists (with Circuit Benders and Color Cast)

Hi-Tone Café

Five years ago, Enon’s debut, Believo!, sounded like a totally original brand of industrial dance-pop: Philly soul as performed by robotic droids or something Prince might concoct if cryogenically frozen and thawed out during some future dystopia. I’d lost track of the band since then, but the new Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence, which sounds totally different and yet oddly the same, brought my old appreciation back in a familiar rush: disco-funk baselines bouncing off girl-group vocals, straightforward songcraft blended with car-factory percussion, a new spin on indie-rock trip-hop. Ohio’s Swearing at Motorists proffer a more earthbound strand of lo-fi indie rock.

Guitar Wolf and Fantasy’s Core

(with the Secret Service)

Young Avenue Deli

A week packed with Japanese bands begins with Tokyo’s loudest, fastest punk-rockers, who boast more than a couple of connections to Memphis’ own garage-punk and trash-culture scenes. They bring with them Nagasaki’s Fantasy’s Core, a bunch of yakuza-movie enthusiasts who operate under the slogan “Eccentricity & Chaos & Eros & Humor Rock’n’Roll!!”

Wednesday, March 23rd

DMBQ and The Immortal Lee County Killers (with the Oscars)

Young Avenue Deli

These labelmates on garage-rock-oriented Estrus Records promise perhaps the loudest show of the month. DMBQ is a psychedelic Japanese rock band featuring members of Shonen Knife and Damo Suzuki. They’ve been around since the late ’80s and attack with a sound that submerges screaming Hendrixian guitar solos and triple-time Bo Diddley beats in art noise. Not as out-there as countrymen the Boredoms but definitely in the ballpark. Southern boys the Immortal Lee County Killers aren’t from these parts, but their heavily blues-based garage-punk fits neatly into one of Memphis’ most fruitful sounds over the past decade.

Electric Eel Shock (with The Thieves)

Hi-Tone Café

This Japanese punk trio has a domestic full-length out this month called Go USA!. The same album apparently did pretty well in Europe, where it was released with a different title: Go Europe!. If that amuses you, as it does me, and you like basic, noisy punk rock, then this is for you.

Thursday, March 24th

Clem Snide and The Marbles

Hi-Tone Café

Though not as flashy as some of the louder bills on the calendar, this might be the best show of the month. Recently relocated from Brooklyn to Nashville, Clem Snide marries elegantly arranged but never-too-neat acoustic-based rock to one of the most compelling and distinct songwriting personalities you’ll ever hear. Band bard Eef Barzelay walks a tightrope between empathy and sarcasm, sans net, on nearly every line of every song. (Barzelay to a sensitive young thing who thinks his pain is unique: “The first thing every killer reads is Catcher in the Rye.”) He’s back in vintage form on the band’s new The End of Love after the relatively straightforward sincerity of the underrated Soft Spot. Unlike most low-key, lyric-focused bands, Clem Snide delivers live, especially with their penchant for inspired, totally straight-faced covers (on their last two visits: Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and P.Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life”). Opening act Marbles is actually Apples in Stereo founder Robert Schneider gone solo, trading that band’s ’60s-style rock for a more ’80s blend of synth-pop but with the same supernatural skill for melodies and hooks.

Cephallic Carnage

Full Moon Club

This Denver metal band records for stalwart Relapse Records, which means they’re more likely to spin your head around with ear-splitting riffs and avant-garde sounds than get high with your girlfriend backstage after the show. Not that the Full Moon Club has a backstage.

Saturday, April 2nd

Heartless Bastards (opening for

The Drive-By Truckers)

New Daisy

Okay, let’s get this out of the way first: Regardless of what you may read elsewhere, Heartless Bastards singer Erika Wennerstrom doesn’t sound like Janis Joplin, not even when she really belts it out, as on “Runnin'” from her band’s recently released Fat Possum debut, Stairs and Elevators. Joplin was a force of nature. But you can see where the comparison comes from, because this Cincinnati band plays a brand of blues-rock you might have heard at the Filmore West back in ’67. Yet, there’s something more agreeably modest about Heartless Bastards than any other good blues-rock band I can think of. Chalk it up to Wennerstrom’s honest, matter-of-fact songwriting, which is often inspirational without ever striving for that effect. I can’t vouch for the band live, but Stairs and Elevators is one of my favorite records of this young year, and you can always head down for the headliners: The Truckers are one of the best live bands on the planet and now boast the best trio of songwriters in one rock-and-roll band since, I dunno, the Beatles?

Categories
Music Music Features

Local beat

Last December, I pegged guitarist Ron Franklin‘s group, The Entertainers, as one of the best bands of 2004. Their self-released album, 50,000 Watts of Heavenly Joy, was an edgy concoction of roots rock-and-soul that, in my book, deserved a listen alongside more popular local releases such as Harlan T. Bobo’s Too Much Love and the Reigning Sound’s Too Much Guitar. Now, I’m happy to report, Franklin’s latest project, The Natural Kicks, have just released a 10-song album that’s an early contender for best local release of 2005.

“The alternate tunings I use with the Entertainers caused me to bleed every day,” jokes Franklin, “so I started the Natural Kicks as a cop-out.” Explaining that he laid the groundwork for the group early last year, when he was living in Amsterdam, he adds, “I stole the band name from Ray Charles’ ‘It Should’ve Been Me.'”

“I started remembering all these songs that dated back to when I was just a kid learning to play guitar,” Franklin says. “Stuff like the Kinks’ ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ and a Motown song called ‘Leavin’ Here,’ which I first heard on a Who record. For some reason, I had Jack Yarber‘s drumming style in my head.”

Upon his return to Memphis, Franklin recruited Yarber and bassist Ilene Markell. Armed with a handful of covers — including Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” and Huey “Piano” Smith’s “Talk to Me” — and five original tunes, he booked a recording date for the trio at Willie Mitchell‘s famed Royal Studio.

“It’s my favorite place in the world,” Franklin proclaims. “I couldn’t see recording these songs anywhere but Pop’s place. The vibe in there is very distinctive.”

The Natural Kicks’ album, pressed on Franklin’s own Miz Kafrin Projects label and distributed by Pennsylvania’s Get Hip Records, is a vinyl-only release. “Comparing the sound quality of CDs to vinyl, there’s a dramatic difference,” says Franklin, an avowed analog fan. “It’s like looking at a Xerox of a Van Gogh painting and then seeing the actual oil on canvas. People don’t mind shelling out a few bucks for a vinyl album, but who wants to buy a CD when you can burn one?”

Franklin has more projects planned for 2005, including a documentary film starring Monsieur Jeffrey Evans called The Man Who Loved Couch Dancing and a vinyl release of the film soundtrack, which includes cuts from Evans, Tim Prudhomme, occasional Entertainer Alicja Trout, and Detroit garage god Mick Collins.

This Saturday night, the Natural Kicks are hosting a record-release party at the Young Avenue Deli with Prudhomme’s Half Staff. For more information, go to MizKafrin.com.

“I just sat in with the Natural Kicks once or twice, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in on a recording session,” Jack Yarber says with a laugh. “I like Ron’s songs. We can do some country-type rhythms, then switch to fast ’60s garage or Bo Diddley-esque rhythms. Playing drums like that is a workout and a challenge.”

Yarber’s own band, The Tearjerkers, are celebrating a record release of their own: Their sophomore album, Don’t Throw Your Love Away, came out this month on stalwart indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry. The songs were culled from sessions at Bruce Watson‘s Money Shot studio in Water Valley, Mississippi, and at Jimbo Mathus‘ Delta Recording Service in Clarksdale.

But the Tearjerkers have undergone a lineup change since the album was recorded: Guitarist John Whittemore has taken a leave of absence, leaving Mathus to fill in. More recently, Mr. Airplane Man‘s Margaret Garrett joined the group.

“Margaret sings a lot of leads, which makes it easier on me,” Yarber says. “She’s gotten everybody excited about the band again. We’ve come up with a bunch of new songs, and we’ve already recorded some at Scott Bomar‘s Tri-State Studio.”

In April, the Tearjerkers are headed to London along with dozens of Memphis musicians — including Booker T. & the MGs, The Hi Rhythm Section, Jim Dickinson, Tav Falco, The North Mississippi Allstars, and The Bo-Keys — for the It Came From Memphis Festival, curated by local author Robert Gordon.

E-mail: localbeat@memphisflyer.com

by

Categories
Art Art Feature

Child’s Play

When Tom Lee was young, he drew cartoons to vent his anger and to express ideas that were outside the mindset of his Southern Baptist preacher father. The adult Lee is still venting through cartooning — in this case, all over the gallery walls of Second Floor Contemporary for his exhibit “What’s This?”

In the exhibit, he’s challenging assumptions and asking a lot of questions — about black-and-white morality, about polarized political thinking, about sacrifice — that are delivered via a children’s marching song, lovable killer aircraft, torn-raw canvases, and relentlessly turning circular saws.

Charcoaled directly onto the walls are Lee’s version of the children’s song “This Old Man” and his cartoon squadron of plump killer jets. With weapons of destruction loaded under their wings and the sign of the cross on their tail fins, these eager little crusaders blast out of their hangars spewing rockets to the accompaniment of “This old man/he play/won/he play” (untitled wall panels 1, 2, 3, and 4).

In cartoon panel number five, one of the little jets falls from the sky into the overlapping blades of circular saws. Smoke from the wreckage billows into the sky, and the words “knick knack” written across the smoke complete the shape of a large cross.

Frame six finds the determined little jet rising back up as its nose breaks out of the waves created by the teeth of the turning blades. In frame seven, the word “son” hovers in blank space above an ocean filled with circular saws.

Lee’s lyrics tell the story of an old man who demands a son’s complete obedience so that he can triumph (“this old man/he play/won/he play/knick knack/on a/son”). The song and cartoons bring to mind myriad and complex dynamics — the Son of God crucified and risen, parental expectations, political patriarchy hungry for conquest, and doctrines that require blind sacrifice. The saws engulfing and resurrecting the little plane contain elements of many ideologies’ hopes for life after death — the kamikaze pilot, the Islamic soldier killed in battle, Shiva the dancing Hindu deity (who forever turns as he/she creates/destroys/creates/destroys), and the phoenix, another fearless flyer that rises out of the ashes.

No cartoon characters come miraculously back to life in Lee’s last three wall panels. Instead of charcoal characters, the artist uses torn canvas and bleached bones to depict a more vulnerable state. In panel eight, a crime-scene victim is outlined with embroidery. Lee has written “knick” next to the man whose right leg has been amputated at the knee. The word “knack” and a homemade bomb are placed on the victim’s other side close to where his left forearm was ripped from the canvas.

Wars are equal-opportunity victimizers and in the next frame, “Patty’s whack” is administered by an eight-foot circular saw that juts from the wall and cuts a large piece of raw canvas nearly in two. The vertical slit, roughly sutured with red thread, creates a disconcertingly powerful image of a woman “whacked” by war.

The far back wall of the gallery contains the conclusion to Lee’s song, “gives him back a bone.” In a chillingly minimal and unglorified depiction of sacrifice, the artist completes his cycle of 10 panels using stark white bones hanging against a stark white wall.

“What’s This?” projects a sense of urgency. Before you exit the gallery, look back down the hall to the back wall and that blade ripping through the canvas. It’s pointing directly at you. Though the edges around the torn canvas have been crudely stitched, the rift is still there, just like the one in our country and our world split by ideologies.

In his artist’s statement and in conversation, Lee speaks of breaking down barriers, avoiding categorization, questioning rather than concluding, and reasoning from multiple points of view. This exhibit challenges us to do the same. n

“What’s This?” at Second Floor Contemporary through March 11th

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Sturm und Drang (Shang-a-Lang)

/H2>

In 1986, four years after its modest off-Broadway opening, Little Shop of Horrors — a campy, ’60s pop-inspired creepshow of a musical based on schlock filmmaker Roger Corman’s ultracheap film of the same name — was again transformed into a popular, expensive, and extraordinarily well-made bit of musical cinema starring such known commodities as Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, and Vincent Gardenia.

Set in a hopelessly broken urban landscape where “the hopheads flop in the snow,” the film flirted hard with the play’s original themes: addiction, sadistic relationships, greed, and mankind’s eminent corruptibility. But Hollywood wasn’t ready to bank on a zany comedy where all the characters are ultimately devoured by a flesh-eating plant bent on world conquest, so the ending was altered. In typical comic-book fashion, the boy got the girl, the monster got blown up, and all of the baddies got what was coming to them. And so the play’s greatest irony was rendered impotent.

Little Shop‘s chorus, three cool black chicks more Motown than Greek, provide the framework for this candy-coated, but politically savvy, morality tale. In an often-reprised number, they sing about “the meek,” who, according to the often-quoted (and perhaps misinterpreted) Bible verse, will someday inherit the earth:

They say the meek shall inherit — You know the book doesn’t lie

It’s not a question of merit; it’s not demand and supply

You know the meek are gonna get what’s coming to them by and by.

In the stage version of Little Shop, the meekest characters are used, abused, and ultimately eaten as they feed any number of beasts: the market, the media, the status quo, and eventually Audrey II, a blood-sucking, limb-chomping plant discovered by supergeek Seymour Krelbourn, a mild-mannered skid-row florist with a slim-to-no chance of ever pulling himself out of the gutter. Grim metaphors are piled up like syrup-drenched pancakes — an exhilarating, relatively low-budget antidote to the coked-up, trickle-down ’80s, an era famous for glorifying corporate ruthlessness and rampant consumerism.

From the end of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Little Shop was produced frequently by regional theaters across the country and at least five times in Memphis. A recent Broadway revival, criticized by some for its lack of intimacy, has pumped new life into a production well on its way to becoming an old warhorse. It has done so at a time when the conditions that made the play so prescient in the 1980s have returned, and in force.

The Broadway tour of Little Shop of Horrors opened at The Orpheum February 15th and runs through February 20th.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Hotties

What makes a person hot? Is it a Barbie-thin waistline, perky D-cups, and a J.Lo booty? Or perhaps a successful career, a well-fitted Armani suit, and a Texas-sized I.Q.? It’s subjective, really. But there’s no doubt that brains, style, and looks are all hotness factors.

Since Valentine’s Day is upon us again, we’ve been thinking long and hard about our favorite local hotties. We even called together a hottie meeting to toss around names of potential candidates for our first-ever Memphis Flyer Hot List.

It was truly a bonding experience for our staff. We learned who had secret crushes on which local hotties. It was like a junior high slumber party sans the pillow fight. Anyway, after much deliberation (and some giggling), we narrowed our list down to those we consider to be the Bluff City’s hottest men and women. You might want to get your fire extinguisher ready.

Hot Newscaster Bora Kim

Occupation: FOX 13 reporter

Availability: Single

Whether it’s the latest news on the mayor’s lovechild or on-the-scene coverage of Memphis’ hottest nightclubs, Fox 13’s Bora Kim has it all without looking plastic or fake. Originally from Los Angeles, Kim moved to Memphis to work for Fox, and we’re damn glad she did. Even when nothing interesting is happening, she’s a good reason to watch the news.

Worst job you’ve ever had?

I used to wait tables at a sushi restaurant, and we had to learn all the names in Japanese. I’m Korean, but everyone thought I was Japanese.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
I’d select a female vice president.

Which celebrity do you most resemble?
Everyone says I look like Lucy Liu. I don’t think I do, but it’s just because I’m Asian.

What are you reading now?
Rowdy Memphis by John Branston.

Most embarrassing moment?
When I called Three Six Mafia Thirty-Six Mafia [on the air]. They warned me time after time, and I still said Thirty-Six Mafia.

Bad habits?
I have an insatiable appetite, and I don’t eat very well. I eat candy bars for breakfast and dinner. I eat whenever I feel like it, and people hate me for it.

Favorite food?
Anything, but I love hole-in-the-wall hamburger places.

Favorite body part?
The hands. You can tell a lot by someone’s hands.

Morning beauty regimen?

I’ve taken it to 10 minutes. Shower, turn on the news, put on my makeup in like two minutes, read the paper — all at the same time.

Deal-breakers?
Lack of trust, incompatibility, lack of passion.

Hot Nurse Jason BodÇ

Occupation: R.N.

Availability: Married

A couple of times a year, nurse Jason BodØ visits the Flyer offices to dole out B-12 shots to our staff. You have to sign up in advance, and for some strange reason the women in the office are the first to put their names on the list.

What’s in your pocket right now?
Nothing. I’ve got sweats on.

Last book you read?
Chemistry 101.

Most embarrassing moment?
Getting caught running to the mailbox in my underwear.

What makes a person hot?
I guess the eyes. We’ll keep it P.C.

Best gift you’ve ever given?
My love.

Favorite action figure/hero?
The Rock.

Mary-Kate or Ashley?
How about both?

Favorite movie?
The Matrix.

Best place to take a date in Memphis?
Krystal.

Turnoffs?
Hairy armpits on women.

Hot College Athlete

DeAngelo Williams

Occupation: U of M student/athlete

Availability: Single

In high school, everyone wants to date the hot football star. For some of us, that desire has never left. Tiger tailback DeAngelo Williams, with his innocent-yet-mischievous smile, is the kind of guy we all have a crush on. He recently decided to stay at the U of M for another season rather than go pro. For that, we’re very glad.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
I would address the starvation problem in the U.S.

Describe yourself in three words.
Caring, fun, and giving.

Best date you’ve been on?
Any date that does not exceed $50.

Turnoffs?

A woman who smokes!

Favorite fast food?
Rally’s.

Mary-Kate or Ashley?
The one who is not in rehab.

Which celebrity do you most resemble?
Usher.

Last book you read?
Three Little Pigs. To a group of kids.

Favorite movie?
Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Butterfly Effect.

Time for the mile run?
Around 5 minutes.

Hot Media Personality Carol Coletta

Occupation: Consultant and producer/host of NPR’s Smart City.

Availability: Married

Radio talk-show host Carol Coletta is an in-charge woman who commands attention with her radio show, her public-policy and government projects, and that cute, short blond haircut.

What did you eat for breakfast today?
One frozen biscuit and Earl Grey tea.

Deal-breakers?
I’m really flexible. I used to think it was bad shoes, but I’ve gotten used to those. If a guy is a Republican or if he doesn’t like basketball or ballet.

Worst date?
It was in high school when I had two dates in one night. It was very tense because I had a deadline.

Best place to take a date in Memphis?
If it were a new relationship, I’d go to the ballet or to a basketball game, so you could focus on what you’re seeing. There’s not too much pressure on the conversation.

What do you think about plastic surgery?
Scary. Though the older I get, the more tempted I am.

Do you play any instruments?
No, I wish I did. I grew up dancing. Back in South Memphis, you made a choice — you either took dance or played piano.

Morning beauty regimen?
I wash my face with Dial soap and use my Oil of Olay Regenerist. Then wash my hair, dry it with a towel, and put my makeup on.

Have you ever been skydiving?
Yes, yes — once — but I did it, by God. I was organizing a group to go skydiving and I thought, I should do this.

Common Saturday afternoon activity?
By Saturday afternoon, I’m either sitting at my desk working or catching up. That’s thrilling, isn’t it?

Favorite food?
Dyer’s french fries. I can’t eat them often, but they’re the best french fries in the world.

Hot Couple

Why do rock stars always get the supermodel girlfriends? Ben Nichols may not quite be a star yet, but he’s definitely on the way. His girlfriend of three years, Mary Cullen Weeden, may not be a supermodel yet, but there’s no doubt she’s hot enough to join their ranks.

Ben Nichols

Occupation: Lead singer/guitarist of Lucero

Availability: Taken

Which celebrity do you most resemble?

I’ve been told Billy Bob Thornton.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done while drunk?
I guess smashing my guitar on stage after a show and then getting kicked out of the club I’d just played.

Deal-breakers?
Overprotectiveness.

Most embarrassing moment?
Passing out on stage after a performance.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
Legalize pot, even though I don’t smoke it.

Mary Cullen Weeden

Occupation: Model

Availability: Taken

Describe yourself in three words.
Messy, shy, a fun drunk.

Which celebrity do you most resemble?
I’ve heard Cameron Diaz, but I don’t agree. Sometimes I hear Uma Thurman. And sometimes Madonna. It depends on my hairstyle.

Best feature?
Ben tells me my eyes or my tits. It’s a toss-up.

Best date you’ve been on?
I don’t like the idea of dates. The word freaks me out. Anywhere with Ben is a good date, even if it’s on top of a dirt pile.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
Separate church from state.

HOT FILMMAKER

Morgan Jon Fox

Occupation: Filmmaker

Availability: Taken (“I’ve found my soulmate.”)

At 24, Morgan Jon Fox has released two full-length films. Last year’s coming-out story Blue Citrus Hearts has been shown at film festivals around the country and has garnered numerous awards. His recently released Away (A)wake opened at the Malco with much local to-do. And he’s got great fashion sense. The guy can put together an outfit with effortless ease. If you put fashion and film together, you get Hot.

Worst job you’ve ever had?
Subway sandwich shop for one day.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
Resign.

Which celebrity do you most resemble?
Everyone says Quentin Tarantino.

Were you ever suspended in high school?
Yes. For fighting. I broke someone’s nose.

Any pets?
A turtle named Aranga.

What makes a person hot?
An open mind and the ability to be serious yet absurd.

Superstar or Superfreak?
Superfreak!

Mary-Kate or Ashley?
Ugh. Neither God.

What was the last movie you saw?
Not counting my own, Tarnation.

Advice for would-be paramours?
Stay away.

Hot Dancer Virginia Pilgrim

Occupation: Professional ballet dancer

Availability: Single

Toe shoes and pirouettes dominate this dancer’s life. But there’s always room for a handsome danseur to complete the pas de deux.

Describe yourself in three words.
Smiling, graceful, and optimistic.

Who would play you in a movie?
Probably the one who just did the boxing movie — Hillary Swank. She seems like kind of a girl-next-door kind of girl. Maybe Jennifer Garner.

Favorite movie?
While You Were Sleeping. My sister and I can quote every single line.

What did you eat for breakfast today?
Quaker instant oatmeal.

Deal-breakers?
If he’s not a gentleman, if he thinks of himself first or his ego gets in the way.

Best place to take a date in Memphis?
I think the Melting Pot is a really romantic place for two people to go.

What makes a person hot?
Confidence is the main thing. Confidence in themselves, in the way they look, and the people they are.

Do you play any instruments?
My mom is a pianist, so I can play a little bit. I know three chords on a guitar.

What’s the best gift you’ve ever been given?
Oh, this guy gave me a diamond necklace. It’s gorgeous. It’s definitely the best thing I’ve ever gotten.

Favorite body part?
I like guys’ arms. Some guys have skinny but cut arms. I think that’s good. On me, I like my eyes.

Hot Rockers Female Rock Unit #1 and Female Rock Unit #2

Occupation: Robot rockers

Availability: Unknown

As members of the robot rock band Automusik, these units know who they are and what they want. Whether anyone else does is unclear. Just don’t ask them to sing any songs by Lindsay Lohan.

Worst job you’ve ever had?
Responding to your inane inquiries.

Are there any causes you would die for?
The eradication of HOOBASTANK and any subsequent use of the word.

Last book you read?
Dr. Phil: How To Become a Pop-Culture Success by Aligning Yourself With Oprah.

What’s in your pocket right now?
Anyone who pays to view us.

What did you eat for breakfast today?
Lucero.

Deal-breakers?
Commonality, improper syntax, Totino’s Pizza Rolls Cheesy Taco, movies that begin with Son of … or end with “The legend continues,” unconventional party favors, unqualified individuals, Tony Danza, and everything else.

Favorite food?
All processed meat and most pre-wrapped cheeses.

Best place to take a date in Memphis?
The concept of “dating” is for pubescent entities and persons who enjoy films featuring Lindsay Lohan.

Playa or long-term relationship type?
‘Playa’ is not a valid word.

What makes a person hot?
Long-sleeved outer garments filled with insulating fibers.

Hot Lawyer Arthur E. Horne III

Occupation: Attorney

Availability: Single

This dapper Dan is a principal in the downtown law firm of Horne, Gilluly, and Wells. He knows his way around a courtroom and how to wear an Armani suit and has enough star quality that he was once considered for ABC’s The Bachelor. Talk about type-casting.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
Make Camp David an adult amusement park.

Describe yourself in three words.

Some assembly required.

Turnoffs?
“Cankles”: when you cannot tell the difference between someone’s calves and ankles.

Favorite movie?
Shaft.

Last book you read?
The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Deal-breakers?
Hammertoes, with “cankles” running a close second.

Playa or long-term relationship type?
Playa looking for a long-term relationship.

What makes a person hot?
How hot they make me.

Recite two lines of your favorite poem.
“If you can walk with kings nor lose the common touch/ If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat these two impostors just the same.” It’s from Rudyard Kipling’s If.

Favorite action-figure/hero?
Catwoman.

Advice for would-be paramours?
Proceed with caution.

Hot Web Columnist Cheri DelBrocco

Occupation: Political activist/part-timer in family financial business

Availability: Married

Cheri DelBrocco is a longtime Democratic activist. She has written a widely read column for the Flyer Web site for the last two years. The title of her column is “Mad as Hell,” and she is — with passion and style.

Describe yourself in three words.
Mad as hell.

Which celebrity do you most resemble?
Some kind of weird hybrid of Kathie Lee Gifford, Toni Tenille, and Anne Archer.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done while drunk?
Talking to a Bush nut. That’s as bad as a D.U.I.

Were you ever suspended in high school?
Yes, because I was wearing a split skirt to school. It violated the dress code.

Most embarrassing moment?
Volunteering to give a baby shower for a coworker, who turned out not to be pregnant.

Deal-breakers?

Smoking. Bush-Cheney bumper stickers.

Worst date?

A blind date in college, with a dude who was already very quiet. My best friend hid under a blanket in the backseat and popped up. That was a real conversation-stopper. Then there was the guy who took me to a Mexican restaurant, ordered the loaded nachos, and proceeded to tell me that Mexican food gave him uncontrollable gas and that he hoped I wouldn’t mind. I minded a lot!

Any pets?

Teacup toy poodle named Chocco Del-Brocco.

Bad habits?

Chocolate. Red wine.

Favorite body part?

Toes. Because you can paint them.

Hot Capitalist Mark Thomas Goodfellow

Occupation: Owner of It’s All Good Auto Sales

Availability: Single

You’ve seen the commercials and the billboards and heard the radio spots. It’s All Good Auto Sales is on South Third, but Goodfellow is everywhere, including the front row at every Grizzlies game.

Worst job you’ve ever had?
Never had a job until It’s All Good. Before that, I was a professional greyhound gambler and was making a half million dollars a year traveling around the country doing that.

Describe yourself in three words.
Sexy, smart, soprano.

Turnoffs?
Dirt on my floors.

Favorite movie?
Goodfellas, Casino, Wild Streak

What’s the last book you read?
The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Were you ever suspended in high school?
Yes, in eighth grade I attended a Catholic school and I was the class clown. I lifted the beanie off a nun’s head and ran around the class with it.

What’s in your pocket right now?
$6,700 cash from the car lot.

Best feature?
My butt or my smile.

Playa or long-term relationship type?
I was a player. Now I think I’m the best catch in the country.

What makes a person hot?
Her clothes, the way she handles herself, the way she sits down, the way she drinks her drink, the way she dances. A girl that everybody hasn’t slept with, who has a good figure. I like women with their nails done and I like classy clothes.

Hot Professional Athlete James Posey

Occupation: Professional basketball player

Availability: Single

This Grizzlies forward may be currently sidelined with a foot injury, but his charm and grace never take a day off. Instead of the usual machismo that accompanies professional athletes, Posey chooses to let his talent speak for itself. The self-professed shy-guy considers himself a homebody.

If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?
Keep it real.

Which celebrity do you wish you could marry?
Nia Long.

Favorite movie?
Scarface.

Last book you read?
The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever by John Feinstein.

Most embarrassing moment?
On my first date I sneezed and farted at the same time.

Best feature?
My teeth.

Best gift you’ve ever given?
I bought my mom a house.

Favorite body part?
The mouth/lip area because it’s what I look at first. I also like girls with a “poodle booty.”

Mary-Kate or Ashley?
You can’t go wrong with either one, because they’re both rich.

Advice for would-be paramours?
Do you (be yourself).

Hot Spokesperson Diane Jalfon

Occupation: PR director at the Brooks Museum of Art

Availability: Single

She knows a lot about art and artists, and she knows a lot about how to coax publicity out of the wariest of editors. It’s not surprising that her biggest turn-on is brains.

Are there any causes you would die for?
Fashion.

Last book you read?
The Master and Margarita.

Were you ever suspended in high school?
No, but I got kicked out of my sorority for throwing an unauthorized party.

What did you eat for breakfast today?
A latte from Otherlands.

Deal-breakers?
No imagination.

Favorite food?
Sushi.

Playa or long-term relationship type?
Why choose?

Best gift you’ve ever given?

Friendship.

What was the last movie you’ve seen?

Forty Shades of Blue, at the Sundance Film Festival.

Time for the mile run?

8:30 a.m., on a good day.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Crimes of Passion

As I try to describe Bad Education, the latest import from Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodóvar, the only other film I can think of that approximates its twists and turns is the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven — a film no canny reviewer would cite as comparison. And yet the masterful Ocean’s Eleven tells a very compelling and tantalizing story before turning sharply on itself, taking the viewer along at every step. It fools the viewer (as well as some of its own characters) by not being quite what it seems, and yet it somehow makes viewers feel smart and cool by including them in the spoils of self-congratulation when the key scheme goes well for the heisters.

Bad Education takes twists and turns too, fools itself and the audience, and while the proceedings are satisfying indeed, viewers are left with a dark, icky feeling that is the opposite of what Danny Ocean’s gang elicits. Both films present an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, baked in a puzzle, and sprinkled with sex. Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean is light and tangy, while Almodóvar’s Education is rich and sinful. Comparisons between the two vastly unrelated movies end there, except that both are hot and sexy in their own right.

Enrique (Fele Martinez) is, like Almodóvar, a successful directorial auteur. Lately, after a string of hits, he has “auteur’s block” (my expression, not his) and sits in his office cutting out extraordinary tabloid stories in the hopes that a good story will leap out at him. One does but it’s not from a tabloid. It is Ignacio (played by newly minted international heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal).

Enrique and Ignacio were childhood friends and were, in fact, as in love with each other as two young boys can be before puberty sets in. Long ago, Ignacio sacrificed his virtue to a lusty priest when the two boys were caught in a compromising position in exchange for Enrique not being punished. The crafty priest molested Ignacio and expelled Enrique anyway. Sixteen years later, when Ignacio walks through Enrique’s office door, a flood of old feelings and images and thoughts rushes back. There is a short story that Ignacio has written about the two that Ignacio thinks should be a film — with him in the lead as the vengeful transvestite Zahara. To Enrique’s surprise, he is as entranced by Ignacio now as he was as a youth, and he wants very much to make this movie and get to know his old love again. But there’s something not quite right about Ignacio. Why does he want to play Zahara so badly? Who is Zahara anyway? What is he hiding? And to what length will he go to play her? I will answer only this last question: a lot.

The remainder of the plot is the unraveling of the film’s ingredients and the reappearance of its unseen players. We see the short story, titled “The Visit,” as acted out by Ignacio and then as a film by Enrique’s team of professional actors. Further still, the events are unfolded by their real-life participants. As Enrique is drawn further in by Ignacio — artistically and sexually — he is more and more disturbed by what has become of his old friend. The revelation of a mysterious younger brother complicates matters, as does the appearance of a character from “The Visit.“ Is it the abusive priest? Zahara? Or is it Ignacio himself?

Pedro Almodóvar is the artiste who brought us Antonio Banderas in a number of sexually charged melodramas beginning with 1982’s Labyrinth of Passion. This new film, one of Almodóvar’s most mischievous, is itself a labyrinth of passion. There is one way in and one way out, but the pleasures and treacheries in between are multitudinous and intertwined. The sex is hot but so infused with guilt and suspicion that it cannot be wholeheartedly enjoyed. There is revenge, but its targets are so pitiable that it too is difficult to relish. The story ends, but for the viewer there is no closure. Sex = pleasure = guilt = deceit = guilt = pleasure. Very Catholic, and yet, very satisfying. Almodóvar’s juggling of these elements is masterful.

Bernal, already a rising star with Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También, certainly delivers the goods in a manner that will solidify his position as one of the most exciting actors of his generation. The range of his portrayal as Ignacio (and, at times, Zahara) is what will make the film world — always hot in the pursuit of the next Marlon Brando or James Dean — take notice. — Bo List

Set amid the working-class neighborhoods of dreary post-WWII London, Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, about a domestic worker who moonlights as an abortionist and is arrested and tried for her alleged crimes, is ostensibly one big downer of a movie. And yet both my wife and I walked away from it in a giddy mood, energized by the stew of images and ideas we’d just witnessed.

Vera Drake is a film of extreme virtuosity, yet it’s a virtuosity that never once calls undue attention to itself. Its effects and flourishes are subtle and inseparable from the story Leigh and his company of actors and technicians are telling. Vera Drake is so subtle and so modest in its brilliance, in fact, that it’s the rare great film that I recommend with some hesitation, because I can easily imagine reasonable, intelligent people seeing it and returning my ardor with a shrug.

This sense is most apparent in an opening stretch some viewers might rightly consider dull. In his measured, almost mundane depiction of the daily rhythms of Drake’s life, Leigh is asking for a good deal of patience — and attention — from his audience. Those well-versed in Leigh’s other films — Topsy-Turvy, Secrets & Lies, and Naked, most notably –will know that they’re in the sure hands of a meticulous craftsman and are likely to follow Leigh through to a payoff that rewards their dedication 10 times over. But those unfamiliar with Leigh’s work might start to get a little antsy as they watch Drake (Imelda Staunton), a proud little lady in shabby sensible shoes and a drab olive coat, go through her day-to-day rituals: polishing the furniture at the extravagant homes she works in, tending to her bedridden mother, helping out neighbors, and taking care of her family, a mechanic husband, tailor son, and sheepish factory-worker daughter.

Drake tackles these mundane tasks with a cheerful diligence that can only be described as pluck, and it’s ingenious how Leigh casually slips yet another activity — secretly helping women get rid of their pregnancies — into this depiction of daily ritual.

Leigh is equally casual about the potentially volatile content of Drake’s services (for which she asks no payment), the way the array of women Drake serves present a panorama of the kind of women — i.e., every woman — who might need her services and the range of emotions (anxiety, desperation, nonchalance, regret) they might have about their decisions.

Like so many of Leigh’s films, which tend to be solid, actorly, and traditional, Vera Drake has the depth and straightforward storytelling principles of a thick 19th-century novel, yet this scope is conveyed with flawless cinematic pacing. Patient scenes of lingering mid-range shots and painstakingly gradual zooms alternate with quick static shots framed like an old master; the film’s final shot is silent, lasts only a couple of second, and says volumes about the familial pain that Drake’s predicament causes.

But just because Leigh seems to be an old-fashioned storyteller, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t vary from conventional narratives in rewarding ways. Structural play in commercial movies, whether twisted chronologies or twist endings, have become so common as to be gimmicky. When Leigh varies from straight-line plotting, he has a reason and rarely calls attention to his strategies.

For instance, Vera Drake at first seems to contain two separate but equal plot lines set on a collision course, only to have them end up being parallel and for the second strand to disappear halfway through the film. But Leigh isn’t losing track of a plot strand here. The seemingly aborted story line informs everything else that happens in the film and pops back up in a devastatingly understated way near the end of the film.

Leigh earns the best director Oscar he was nominated for and won’t get, just as Staunton earns the best actress nod she has an actual shot at: An endless, silent close-up when the police show up at Drake’s door, interrupting a family celebration, is perhaps the finest movie acting to be seen over the past year.

But Staunton is far from alone here. Leigh’s trademark production method, in which characters are developed and a script is written through months-long workshops with his actors, typically results in a richness among supporting players (and supporting performances) unrivaled in contemporary cinema.

Leigh made this element of his films explicit with his brave ending for the Gilbert and Sullivan biopic Topsy-Turvy, where he turned the film over to seemingly minor supporting players for a trio of graceful concluding scenes. But Vera Drake is similarly a film where one senses that any supporting character (and the actor who plays him or her) could step up to carry a movie of his or her own.

Leigh can be prickly, as Career Girls and, especially, Naked attest. But here these supporting parts tend to bring a generosity to the film that balances out the darkness of its central story. Not every character takes the high road, but many do, under trying circumstances and in situations where the viewer truly feels that things can go any which way. This results in some unforgettable moments: The first hesitant then radiant smile of daughter Ethel (Alex Kelly) as she and suitor Reg (Eddie Marsan) announce their engagement is a small moment that can crack your heart wide open. Similar are a couple of matter-of-fact moments from Reg, the first a simple little speech about his own mother’s difficulty raising six children, the other a modest Christmas toast under the toughest of circumstances.

There may not be another working filmmaker who makes such ostensibly conventional films of such consistent quality as Leigh, and Vera Drake may well be his finest film. This outwardly bleak drama probably doesn’t fit the typical filmgoer’s notion of entertaining, but there are more elevated “e” words it inspires: engrossing, edifying, enthralling. n –C

Categories
Book Features Books

The Awkward Age

Alternative Atlanta

By Marshall Boswell

Delacorte Press, 324 pp., $22

The first we see of Gerald Brinkman, age 30, he’s standing outside a church in Atlanta, he’s pulling out a cigarette, and he’s searching a clear-blue sky. Inside the church, his grad school sweetheart is about to marry a computer whiz, somewhere up above a plane is about to touch down carrying Gerald’s father, and on busy Peachtree “chaos is the rule.” This is, after all, July 1996, and the Olympic Games start in less than a week. What won’t start, however, is Gerald’s lighter, and just when he finally gets it going, he hears that the wedding is about to begin. Time, then, for Gerald to toss that unlit cigarette, and, over the course of the next two weeks in Marshall Boswell’s entertaining debut novel, Alternative Atlanta, time for Gerald to get things right and toss what he keeps getting all wrong.

Gerald’s grad school sweetheart, for example: Gerald does or doesn’t love Nora, and Nora does or doesn’t love him. Which is it? Neither knows. For another thing, Gerald’s “antiself” and “dialectical partner in confusion”: his dad in Memphis. Is this dear-old oddball set or not set to die of kidney disease and is Gerald willing or unwilling to do without a kidney? Time (two weeks, to be exact) will tell.

Beyond question, however, is man-on-the-brink Gerald Brinkman, “officially all alone in the Singlehood, a sloppy rent-cheap section of life littered with unused condoms and empty fast-food cartons and haunted everywhere by the hollow promise of pure possibility.” The possibility of what? Freedom from workaday drudgery and, on the off-chance, a smidgen of happiness? Escape from family responsibilities and untidy love interests? Or is the greater possibility that Gerald’s never graduated into adulthood at all? Even he’s not so sure, because he’s either too stoned to think about it or too hungover to care.

It’s a rotten life, he’ll grant you that, what with lighters that don’t light and a messy backyard apartment in Atlanta’s otherwise upscale, happening neighborhood, Virginia Highlands. It’s a halfway-decent rock critic’s life, though, working for Alternative Atlanta, the city’s free newsweekly. You know the type: a weekly that runs “Tom Tomorrow cartoons, ‘News of the Weird,’ exhaustive nightclub listings, and men-seeking-men personal ads.” But it beats the life of a graduate student in English literature inside a department that’s high on theory (and a lot like Emory), a life that Gerald barely tolerated for exactly one year. And it sure beats selling ads after grad school for Alternative Atlanta, a real job, for once, making real money, a job Gerald hated big-time and quit in no time.

Music, in the words of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy: It’s been Gerald’s “savior”? Or was he “maimed by rock-and-roll”? He can recall, after five years of high school and college French that c’est la vie forms the title of a song by Emerson Lake and Palmer, but that’s about all he knows of the language. He can recall as a teenager being dragged to his father’s alma mater, Harvard, for a look-see, but what Gerald remembers is buying New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies in a Harvard Square record shop (and opting instead to attend Rhodes). But chiefly he recalls what rock’s taught him: “Don’t sell out, don’t overstay your welcome, don’t grow up.” Plus this: “[T]urn it up and keep it short.”

What rock won’t, because it can’t, teach is what to do with a dying dad who may or may not have killed Gerald’s mother in a car accident. What to do with a family friend who may or may not be Gerald’s biological father. What to do with Gerald’s feelings for Nora, who may or not may be pregnant by her new husband, Brent. Or Gerald’s feelings for Sasha, whose husband, Aaron, did know what to do with his feelings for Nora.

On the joys of coupledom and fatherhood a year after a bombing rocks the Olympics and Gerald’s world: That’s for Gerald to finally find out and for Marshall Boswell, native Memphian and English professor at Rhodes College, in Alternative Atlanta to touchingly describe — a sound ending to a solid novel that strikes all the right sad to comic chords.

Marshall Boswell reads from and signs copies of Alternative Atlanta at Burke’s Book Store on Thursday, February 10th, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Going with the Flow

After garnering the biggest buy in festival history, Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow led all the stories coming out of Park City, Utah, for most of the Sundance Film Festival. But a funny thing happened on the way to Brewer’s film-fest coronation: Though Brewer’s crunked-out allegory took home the festival’s Audience Award for best feature, it was beaten out for the big prize, the grand jury selection for best feature, by the other Memphis movie at Sundance this year: Ira Sachs’ Forty Shades of Blue.

Speaking by phone from his office in Manhattan’s Little Italy as he worked on finalizing a distribution deal for his film and prepared for its European premiere this week at the Berlin Film Festival, the Memphis-bred, New York-based Sachs looked back at a whirlwind week.

“It was an amazing night,” Sachs says. “It was a film I’ve been working on for seven years, and to arrive at a moment at which it had this very strong and very passionate affirmation was truly sweet.”

Sachs, whose previous feature, the made-in-Memphis The Delta, screened in competition at Sundance in 1997, knew through anecdotal evidence that his film — a love triangle of sorts between a father, a son, and the father’s younger wife — was having an impact.

“I had been in Park City for eight or nine days and had had a number of people speak to me very personally about the film and the emotions it left them with,” Sachs says. “So I had a sense that the film was leaving a mark on part of the audience. But winning was another thing. I was just really glad the jury responded to what I was trying to do.”

The film, which stars Rip Torn as a celebrated music producer married to a young Russian woman (Dina Korzun), may not be typical for a festival that Sachs has said has gotten more chaotic and commerce-centered.

“It’s a quiet film for Sundance. It’s a film about the details of emotions and passion and love and disappointment, which are things that people don’t tend to go to the cinema for today,” says Sachs, who cites the European art cinema of directors such as Federico Fellini and Francois Truffaut and American indie pioneer John Cassavetes as prime influences.

As one of only 16 films to screen in competition at Sundance, Forty Shades of Blue was sure to garner some interest regardless of its reception. But by winning the big prize, Sachs could be looking at a much larger audience for his film.

Sachs describes current negotiations to distribute the film as “full-on” and expects that a deal could be finalized by the time this article is published. But Memphis audiences shouldn’t have to wait until Forty Shades of Blue‘s theatrical release to see the big winner made in their own backyard. Sachs and local producer Adam Hohenberg both suggest that a local premiere is in the works, though the date and venue are yet to be determined. Sachs says he hopes to have something set up by spring.

“So many people and so many organizations have been supportive of the film, so we’re trying to figure out the best way to launch the film in Memphis and to also have a screening where the people who were a part of the film can see it and enjoy it,” Sachs says. “But we definitely want to have a premiere in Memphis that highlights our relationship to the city.”

If Forty Shades of Blue doesn’t exactly seem to have the box-office potential of its local companion piece, Sachs still expects it will find its audience.

“I was trying to tell a very particular kind of story, and if you tell it well, people will be there to see it,” Sachs says. “The film is full of music and it’s full of life and it’s full of a certain kind of emotion that I think makes it accessible for an audience. My expectations are actually being realized. You make a film and you do the best you can and you hope everything else follows.” n

E-mail: herrington@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

the Cheat Sheet

1. New England defeats Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX. We estimate that 94% of Memphians have the same thought at some point during the game: “Damn. We were this close to having our own team.”

2. Former medical examiner O.C. Smith goes on trial. He is accused of staging a bizarre incident that left him with a bomb strapped to his neck. Out of all the cases that Smith has been involved in, his own may be the most mysterious.

3. President Bush unveils a new budget that will slash funding for local police departments and the EPA. Hey, as long as we keep our tax cuts, who cares about crime or pollution?

4. A fellow known (inexplicably) as “Car Wash Pete” tries to burglarize a home but gets caught by two neighbors, who beat him up. The “good samaritans” are subsequently arrested for assault and friends raise money for their bail. For us, it’s just another day in “The City of Good Abode.”

5. Memphis Marriage Week begins. Event organizers stress the benefits of marriage, such as longer life spans and federal tax breaks. n

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Naturally

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

(Daptone)

Pairing a journeyman singer with a band full of young soul fans, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings is the kind of band easily overrated, their intentionally vintage sound and record-collector album art suggesting the kind of soul band aiming for indie-rock record stores and college radio.

But where the band’s 2002 debut Dap-Dappin’ was the kind of spirited re-creation you felt comfortable filing under “Squirrel Nut Zippers for soul freaks,” Naturally is something far more graceful and powerful. As vintage soul in a modern world, not only does it tower above recent comebacks by Solomon Burke and Ike Turner; it even bests Al Green.

Jones has a voice that isn’t quite Aretha-worthy but can battle any other female soul star of the ’60s and ’70s to a dead draw. Her band may not be quite on a par with the rhythm sections of Stax, Motown, or Muscle Shoals, but they’re a lot hotter — and more inventive — than any band of suit-wearing retro-fetishists have any right to be. And bandleader Bosco Mann writes songs you assume must be lost of-the-era classics with the same loving skill as the Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright.

The moldy, figgish “terrible wrong turn” rhetoric in the album’s liner notes is a real drag (Granddad, please tell us ’bout the good ol’ days!). But listen to the way the horn section punches the gaps of the galloping drum and bass interplay on “Natural Born Lover,” to the deep soul duet (with Lee Fields) “Stranded in Your Love,” the slow-burn balladeering of “You’re Gonna Get It,” and the unmistakable Stax-like grooves of “Fish in My Dish,” and even the most retro-skeptical new-music devotee will be happy to take a trip in this time machine. All defenses dissolve in the face of “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You?,” the best song I’ve heard so far this year, a subtle rhythmic chaos floating smooth under a blissed-out pop-soul vocal, with horn grace notes and guitar squiggles biding time until those instruments are granted their own little spotlights. — Chris Herrington

Grade: A-

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings play the Hi-Tone Café Saturday, February 5th.

Crimes

Blood Brothers

(V2)

The noise genre has been around forever, and it used to be alternately scary, stupid, and awe-inspiring. The first Throbbing Gristle album still creeps me out, and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is still a record-label-enraging farce of little use. In the ’80s and ’90s, tiny labels and individuals pressed up countless LPs of completely free-form, discordant sonic wash made by unsexed sociopathic outsiders that drew an average of five people to any live performance. And then there were bands like New Zealand’s Dead C, who were sensuous, wonderful, and hair-raising and fall into that “awe-inspiring” category.

The noisy fringe, over the past few years, has developed a fashion sense and is attracting a large audience that, a decade back, would have been attending your standard hardcore shows. This is especially true for Blood Brothers. A month or two back, Spin “broke the story” on something they call “noisecore.” The prominent bands in the feature were Wolf Eyes, Lightning Bolt, the Locust, Black Dice, Hair Police, and Blood Brothers. While all are very atonal and stridently uncommercial, only Wolf Eyes and Hair Police toil in pure noise, but a healthy spread in Spin means something.

Blood Brothers are structured, maybe too structured. The improvisation of some “noisecore” is not present here. Technically, this is A.D.D. prog-rock. Most musical thoughts on Crimes last around 30 seconds, only to drop away and reappear in another form later. Furious hardcore opens up to weird merry-go-round pop, and there’s feedback and noise and squeals and screaming and unbridled energy to spare at every turn. It’s impossible to stress the degree of energy on Crimes. Dual vocals bounce between one quasi-standard singer/yeller and a second guy who just goes bonkers with a Rick James/tortured-housecat hybrid. It’s a triumph of our times and taste that a big label gets behind a record like this. But popularity is relative. Trust me, I just came off of a cruise ship, and I wasn’t tempted to regale other guests with my review copy of Crimes. n — Andrew Earles

Grade: B+