Author: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue began his career in 1975 at the now-defunct Memphis Press-Scimitar and moved to The Commercial Appeal in 1984, where he wrote about food and dining, music, and covered social events until early 2017, when he joined Contemporary Media.

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

Margarita Fest, Seth Walker, LGBT Legend Awards and Le Youth

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Dylan Anderson, Mayce Moore, Britney Hassel, Tom Moore and Trisha Cason at Margarita Fest

Overton Park – at least part of it – was transformed into Margaritaville June 17 at Memphis Flyer’s Margarita Fest.

About 800 attended the annual event. This year’s festival featured 12 restaurants and three food trucks.

And lots and lots of that famous frozen concoction.

“Man, we have a cucumber margarita,” said Michael Illenberger, who mixed margaritas at the Bonefish Grill station. “It’s garnished with a sugar Jalapeno rim. It’s the best one here in Memphis, man. You’ll love it.”

Asked how many he served so far, Illenberger said. “It’s gotta be over 250, 500 margaritas, man. We’ve given away so many margaritas.”

Janique Byrd attended the event with Venicellon Williams, Desiree Lyles Wallace and Elaina Norman. “This is our third year supporting the Memphis Flyer’s margarita festival,” Janique said. “It’s a great event. We’re having a great time. Keep it up. Keep it up.”

Michael Donahue

Seth Walker and his band and, on right, Justin Rimer at Seth Walker concert at The Bluff.

….

For their last song at their June 16th show at The Bluff, Seth Walker and his band and the opening artists gathered on stage to perform Hank Williams Jr.’s  “All My Rowdy Friends are Coming Over Tonight.”

A throng of friends and fans showed up at The Bluff, Walker’s second show at the Highland Strip venue.

“This basically was his follow-up to his first sell out at The Bluff,” said Walker’s producer Justin Rimer. “They stopped letting people in the door. They cut it off. We hit their cap, that’s for sure.”

People still were standing in line outside after the show began. “I thought it was great,” Rimer said. “I thought the turnout was phenomenal. The crowd was really into it. All the opening acts were great. All in all I thought the vibe was cool.”

Audience members sang along to Walker’s originals.

“I think we sounded pretty good,” Walker said. “We played a lot of tough songs. I’m really proud the way the people came out and were loud during the show. They were loud and energetic.”

And, he said, “I’m honored to put a smile on somebody’s face.”

Opening for Seth Walker and his band were Seth Austin, Brad Walker, Emily Sheets and Ethan Willis and the Long Goners.

Michael Donahue

Larry Clark, LGBT Legend Awards co-chair

…..

Guests gathered for the LGBT Legend Awards presentation June 18 at The Guest House at Graceland.

“The purpose of the event was to bring the LGBT community together to recognize the hard work some of the people have actually put into the community on a day-to-day basis,” said Larry Clark, event co-chair with Carl Norvell. “We’re acknowledging those individuals who put so much hard work into the art form of female impersonation and different avenues of the community.”

Retired club owner Harold Buckner, who owned Club 901 and Club Lipstick, was honored. He provided “an avenue to female impersonators to go out and have fun,” Clark said. “He was the reason why people had a place to go and enjoy themselves.”

Minister DeVante Hill opened the ceremony with a prayer. “The LGBT community reached out to me to make sure the Black Lives Matter fight included the transgender community because of the recent violence against transgender individuals that has sparked across the country,” he said.

Michael Donahue

Courtney Boyd and Cole Jeanes at Le Youth

….

Chef Cole Jeanes and food blogger Jonathan Cooper hosted their first Le Youth Supper Club dinner June 17 at Jeanes’s apartment.

Jeanes is owner of Amelia Mae caterers and Cooper owns the “Memphis Food and Drink Culture” blog.

Le Youth is designed to bring “young minds my age group – up to early 30s – together,” said Jeanes, 27.

The young people “are moving toward owning their own business or already own their own business.”

He and Cooper also want artists, photographers and other creative types to take part. “We want all the young people who are making a name for themselves and passionate about what they do to come together and talk.”

Food and fellowship is encouraged, Jeanes said. Each month, they will invite 20 people to dinner.

For the June dinner, Jeanes prepared a four-course dinner that included braised boar’s belly tamales, hickory smoked trout and butter pecan creme brulee.

The show-stopper was “The Southern Garden” salad made of watermelon, strawberry, tomato, chamomile ricotta, watermelon rind mostarda, basil-lemon-Jalapeno vinaigrette, cornbread pana gratta, turkey crackllngs and opal basil.

[slideshow-1]

Margarita Fest from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Margarita Fest, Seth Walker, LGBT Legend Awards and Le Youth

Categories
Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Seth Walker

CREDIT: MIchael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Seth Walker, center, with, from left, Stephen Crump, Tim Van Eaton, Vinnie Longoria and Devin Matthews

Michael Donahue

Justin Rimer

Seth Walker constantly moved when he played centerfield in a pair of cleats on the baseball field.

He never dreamed he’d one day be performing his original country songs in a pair of cowboy boots on stage.

A lot of things Walker, 28, never thought about five years ago now are realities.

“I never thought my album would go to No. 20 on the iTunes chart,” he said. “It’s kind of been almost too fast. We’ve opened up for seven people who are on national radio.”

Walker and his band’s show sold out the last time they played at The Bluff. The line stretched down the block, he said. “I had no idea it was going to lead to something so big.”

Growing up in Memphis, baseball was Walker’s passion. “I played in high school at Christian Brothers. Then I went and played at Northwest Mississippi in college and Lee University.”

He picked up the guitar in high school, but he wasn’t serious about it. “I got like two chords down. I tried, but I just wasn’t dedicated enough to learn it. And then playing baseball all the time – that pretty much took over my whole life.”

Walker’s dream of a baseball career suddenly came to an end. “Right before the draft my senior year I decided to go play basketball with some friends. I tore my patella tendon in my knee. I was going up for a layup and somebody undercut me. I just remember my kneecap being up there. And I had to have surgery the next day. They told me that I probably wouldn’t play baseball again for a long time. I was 22.”



Baseball was his life. “I went into a really bad depression after that ‘cause I thought I was going to do that for the rest of my life. I just got real down. I couldn’t move for a month and a half or two months. I was just watching ‘Criminal Minds’ on the couch for a while. Scared the hell out of me and depressed me even more. It probably wasn’t a good show to watch.”

He picked up a copy of Tim Tebow’s “Through My Eyes.” “It really inspired me to get up off the couch and go to physical therapy. Just the fact that the guy is a winner. His passion for everything that he does. His mental strength. Nobody’s better than him. And he’s going to outwork you no matter what. It just got me off my butt.”

Walker’s brother, Brad, invited him to play in the youth choir at church. Walker showed Brad how to play a couple of chords back in high school.

Walker began selling insurance and was successful at it. “I started coaching at Southwest (Community College). I did that for a year, but it was interfering with my insurance job, so I had to stop.”

In addition to the church group, Walker played guitar and sang “just with friends. Actually, it took me quite a while to sing in front of that many people. It’d just be a bunch of our friends drinking at the pool. Just messing around on the guitar.”

Walker made an insurance call at Coffee in the Attic, a Covington coffee shop. “I went in there to get their business and asked the guy, ‘Do you all have live music?’ My buddy’s like, ‘Man, you should play here.’”

He played one Saturday night. “And that’s how it all started.”

Walker played in front of about 20 people at church, but performing at the coffee shop was a different story. “There were like over 100. I couldn’t even put the capo on my guitar I was so nervous. And I was singing every song so fast. I sang the first song in a minute and a half and it’s a three and a half minute song. Thomas Rhett’s ‘Take You Home.’ It probably sounded like a rap song when I was singing it.”

The crowd reaction was phenomenal.. “I broke the fire code. That was pretty cool. People standing on the bar. There was just too many people in that one place.’

Walker was hooked. “I just wanted to do it again, so I played at the old Dan McGuinness (Pub) on Spottswood. And I just kept playing. Kept developing that following.”

He decided to record a single. “I’d always wanted to put out a song. It was like a dream. Nobody else had done it around here. None of my friends had.”

Walker thought, “I don’t care if it sucks or not, I still want to do it.”

A buddy introduced him to Justin Rimer, co-owner of Crosstrax Studio and a veteran member of bands, including 12 Stones and Breaking Point. Walker recorded “Whiskey and a Dirt Road,” which he and his brother wrote, at Crosstrax. “I spent all my birthday money – 1,400 bucks.”

The song is about “seeing a girl at the bar,” Walker said. “ It could be anywhere. And just not having the nerve to talk to her. Then downing a couple of drinks and talking to her. And just riding backroads. Something we do in Covington.”

Rimer was impressed the first time he heard Walker. “I was like, ‘Man, there’s something going on with this guy,’” he said. “His voice is unique in a world where the country voices are very cliche. And I could see he was very eager. He was humble to a world he didn’t know anything about.

“We did this one song, ‘Whiskey and a Dirt Road,’ and we put it out on social media. And, literally, the next show he played sold out. In any town it’s hard, but it’s especially hard in Memphis. Especially when there’s no air play. There was nothing but a social media presence. And the show sold out.

“When you see something like that it’s like, ‘Wait a second. Something’s going on. People are attracted to this guy. They’re attracted to his music and they want to come out and see him.’ And that’s a rarity these days.”

He and Rimer began hanging out, Walker said. ““He actually became one of my really good friends after ‘Whiskey and a Dirt Road,’” he said. “We would go to (TJ) Mulligan’s on Trinity and hang out. One day he invited me: ‘Hey, I want to talk to you about some things.’”

“I was like, ‘Man, I’m going to start a record label for you and I’m going to sign you,’” Rimer said. “So, I literally started Crosstrax Records for him. And he’s my only artist.”

“I told him, ‘Man, I’m not scared to perform. If you want to do this, it’s on you,’” Walker said. “And we did.”

Said Rimer: “We recorded over the last year, working on different songs. And a month and a half ago we released the EP, ‘Seth Walker: Volume 1.’ With no radio airplay within 15 hours we were No. 20 on the iTunes country chart.

“Memphis doesn’t have a country guy like this that all of a sudden people are reacting to. You can’t make up sales numbers. And you can’t make up when you’re selling out concerts. It’s a real reaction, man. People are flocking to this guy.”

Walker hand selected the musicians for his band.

He met guitarist/backup vocalist Devin Matthews, 25, on Instagram. They played their first gig together as a duo at the old Double J Smokehouse and Saloon off South Main.

“Somebody taught me to read tabs,” Matthews said. “I never could read music. From then on I’d just figure it out. I played rock music for a really long time. I went through a really bad breakup and I was really depressed. Country. That’s what I fell in love with.”

Walker invited bass player Tim Van Eaton, 24, to play in his band after he heard him play in another band.

Van Eaton, grandson of J. M. Van Eaton, who played drums with Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, acquired the nickname “Three Finger Timmy” after he accidentally stuck his pocketknife into one of his fingers three hours before their first show with a full band and an audience of 800 people. He got 12 stitches in his finger and was back before soundcheck. “I ended up playing the whole gig,” Van Eaton said.

Guitarist Vinnie Longoria, 20, began playing drums before he switched to guitar. His father David Longoria, a touring drummer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, played in several bands, including Roxy Blue, L. A. Guns and Slaughter.

Country wasn’t Vinnie’s first music choice. “I was a metal guitar player and rock guitar player,” he said.

His metal guitar style works in a country band, Vinnie said. “It makes it really full and colorful.”

Drummer Stephen Crump, 26, also comes from a musical family. “My cousin is Larry McCoy and he writes with Thomas Rhett in Nashville,” he said.

“I grew up in church, so most of the guys that I play with are gospel musicians,” Crump said. “My style is not rock and country. I have a very fast right foot. I don’t double bass pedal it. All my feels are very tasty. It’s not rock music at all. When most of these guys around here hear me play, they’re like, ‘I haven’t heard that in a country band. That’s different.’”

For now, Walker and his band are concentrating on performing. The band wants to eventually put out a full-length album.

Asked whether he’d pick baseball over music as a career, Walker said, “I’ve gotten to play baseball in front of 10,000 people and that’s amazing. But there’s no high like what we’ve done. Just played in front of huge crowds. Singing. I mean, it’s pretty cool. When they’re singing a song that we’ve done on the album.”

Seth Walker and his band will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday June 17 at The Bluff at 535 South Highland. Tickets: $10. Call: (901) 454-7771.

Seth Walker 'Nope' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Seth Walker

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

He was Batman!

CREDIT: MIchael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Shamefinger paid homage to Adam West at 901 Comics Anniversary Celebration.

Adam West, who played Batman in the 1960s TV series, was remembered June 10 at the 901 Comics Anniversary Celebration. West died June 9 at age 88.

The week-long celebration of events, which commemorated the first year anniversary of the store at 2162 Young Avenue, included performances by Shamefinger, Gloryholes and The Turn It Offs June 10 in the gazebo at the corner of Cooper and Young. The event coincided with the Blythe & Young Block Party, which included Goner Records and other participating businesses.

The members of Shamefinger wore DC Comics superhero masks in honor of West.

“We’d already planned to dress up as superheroes in some form, but we decided to go with DC superheroes for Adam West,” said bass player Farmer Zanath.

Their costume was “a little $5 cardboard mask pack that we bought at Party City. It was a pack of Justice League superheroes.”

Who wore the Batman mask? “That would be me,” Farmer said. “I wanted it, but I left it up to the band.”

Asked why he was selected to be Batman, Farmer said. “I tend to write the darker, faster songs for the band, I guess.”

The band members didn’t wear the masks during the entire set, which opened with Nerf Herder’s theme for TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” “We found out the masks muffled our voices for the mike. (We) took off the masks and played the rest of the set.”

The 901 Comics store owners Shannon Merritt and Jaime Wright learned about West’s death from a customer. “I just thought how big of an impact he was on my life,” Shannon said. “I used to come home from school and watch Batman. And my friend across the street and I would grab towels from the linen closet and run around and play Batman. We didn’t have capes, so we would take towels and we’d safety pin a blue towel and a yellow towel on our shirts so we’re like Batman and Robin.”

One of the 901 Comics events was a show featuring art work by Memphis artist Dean Zachary, who drew Batman in “Batman: Day of Judgement” in 1999 for DC Comics. “I’d been working toward drawing Batman ‘cause that’s always been my favorite character,” said Dean, 54. “I’d done work for DC along the lines of Green Lantern and Superboy. Various showcase pieces.”

Asked why he liked the Batman character, Dean said, “The fact that individual was self disciplined and focused. And sort of that idea of someone who was not a superpower like a lot of the other heroes in the Spandex universe.”

Batman was “a good guy who trains constantly and stays on that level of excellence as far as training physically and mentally and keeping on the edge of technology. What attracted me was he was just a human being trying to make a difference. Protecting the innocent, putting the bad guys away.”

Dean was a fan of the Batman TV show. “I loved it. I was a little kid then. And that was my first introduction to superheroes. I would watch it on a black-and-white TV in my room. And when you would see that flame come out of the back of the batmobile and they slid down the bat pole, jumped in and drove off – I knew it was campy and silly then, but when you’re 5, you don’t really care.

“I thought Adam west brought a charm to the role. A playful, suave, lighthearted charm not unlike Roger Moore did in the Bond films. He was lighter and more playful, but he managed to ground the character enough to where, as a grade schooler, I was impressed and excited and entertained, but I thought it was the right look for Bruce Wayne and Batman.”

And, he said, West “had this unforgettable voice. You always knew when Adam West was talking. A singular voice very much like William Shatner. Not question who it its. For the time and for the stylization of that particular incarnation of the character, he was perfect.”

MIchael Donahue

Rodney McDowell was at Fourth Bluff Fridays

Rodney McDowell kicked back in a red plastic Adirondack chair at the Fourth Bluff Beer Garden, part of the Fourth Bluff Fridays weekly gathering. The Sheiks band was about to play at Memphis Park, formerly-named Confederate Park.. Other people staked out chairs or lolled on the grass under shade trees.

Fourth Bluff Fridays wasn’t the first time Rodney had been to the park. “I used to come down here before they ever had it when I was a little boy,” he said. “We’d ride down here on a bicycle.”

Fourth Bluff Fridays, which began last year, started the 2017 season in May and will conclude June 30.

“Fourth Bluff Fridays is part of the national initiative Reimagining the Civic Commons,” said Fourth Bluff Project programming curator Andria Lisle. “In Memphis, the project scope is four blocks of Downtown, including Cossitt Library, Memphis Park, Mississippi River Park and the promenade behind the University of Memphis Law School.”

The event includes games, food trucks, the TapBox beer trailer and bands. “All local bands and all local vendors,” said Blake Lichterman, who is managing Fourth Bluff Fridays.

Fourth Bluff Fridays is sponsored by Downtown Memphis Commission, Riverfront Development Commission, Innovate Memphis and the Mayor’s office.

Fourth Bluff Fridays is for people to “just just join for a common, peaceful event,” Blake said. “Essentially, this is just a party.”

Back row: Bill Mard, Seth Moody, Daniel McKee, Jacob Church.

Graham Winchester brought 200 little bits of paper to his band’s album release party May 26 at Young Avenue Deli. The paper included the download code for Until the End, the new album by Graham’s band, Winchester and the Ammunition.

“Each one had a picture of the album cover and it had just a little code written on it that you punched in on line to get a free album,” Graham said.

By the end of the concert, 180 of the little sheets of paper were gone, he said.

Graham, who said he had a blast at the concert, was impressed with the audience’s reaction. “Three out of the 10 songs on the album were kind of slower or more medium paced. To be able to play those kind of songs in a rowdy Friday-night bar and have everybody listen and absorb the music was really refreshing. I felt like people were listening closely.”

Graham described the band as “very sort of late ‘60s early ‘70s style with multiple layers of instruments. We’re definitely influenced by the latter era Beatles album and Beach Boys albums and Harry Nilsson. Stuff like that. Solo George Harrison. Stuff that’s got a big production going on. Even sometimes strings and horns.”

Graham has been in “about 40 bands” since he began playing drum at age 12. “It was just the instrument that matched my energy levels,” he said.

[slideshow-1]

Categories
Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Terry Prince & the Principles

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Terry Prince & the Principles: Kent Stratton, Ian Younkin, Jesse Davis and Jeff Drzycimski

If you think Terry Prince is the lead singer of Terry Prince & the Principles, think again.

“There is no ‘Terry Prince,’” said Jesse Davis, 30, singer/guitarist/songwriter in the band that includes guitarist Jeff Drzycimski, 25; bass player Ian Younkin, 25; and drummer Kent Stratton, 34.

“Terry Prince” was character that showed up in a series of stories Davis wrote in his creative writing class as an undergraduate at University of Memphis. Prince was “this down-on-his-luck musician who was almost always having to pawn his guitar and have his band mates buy it back for him.”

“I liked the idea of a character who was a little bit like me and showed up in some of the stories, but who was more of a loser. He was always down on his luck, which I sometimes am. Kurt Vonnegut has his ‘Kilgore Trout’ and James Joyce has ‘Stephen Dedalus. I’m not putting myself in the same stable as Vonnegut and Joyce, but he’s just kind of like an author doppelganger who gets to live in the fiction.”

Once he and Stratton started the band, Davis said, “What if we were Terry Prince & the Principles, guys?’ I’ve just like the way it sounds. Kind of like a ‘50s band.”

Davis was born in Memphis and later moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona and Henderson, Tenn. before returning to Memphis to attend U of M.

He grew up in a family that sang in church and loved to listen to music, but Davis didn’t pick up the guitar until he was a teenager. “I got to be 15 and 16 and was like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll try the guitar.’ I, honestly, just thought I could do it. I was like, ‘That’s do-able. THere are six strings. It can’t be that hard.

“I got a Danelectro 56 u2. The lipstick pickups. Thin, plastic guitar. I hated it. I eventually turned that into a Stratocaster and then turned that into a J-45 knock off and a couple of other guitars. I just kept on wheeling and dealing with the musical instruments.’”

Davis’s first band was one he and his girlfriend at the time formed. “I think we were called ‘Yard Sale’ or something. We played a video store and a coffee house.”

He joined a soul cover band, “Riverside Yard Sale,” after he moved to Memphis. He began writing music in

 “Smokey Mountain Yard Sale,” a standard rock band.

Davis met Stratton when they were in Time, a rock band they eventually were kicked out of. “They told me that my heart wasn’t in it, which was true,” Davis said.

He got a call from Stratton, who asked him if he wanted to play an impromptu show opening for a Canadian band at The Lamplighter Lounge. “We did and the Canadian guys came up afterwards and were like, ‘You guys are awesome,’” Davis said. “‘How long have you been playing together?’ We’re like, ‘I don’t know. A week?’”

That was two years ago. Terry Prince & the Principles was born.

Davis asked Drzycimski, who worked with him at one time at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, to play guitar.

Younkin, who was Drzycimski’s roommate, became the bass player after the original bass player left. He’d seen them play before he joined the band. “I thought they were great, playing unique music,” Younkin said. “No other band was playing music like them.”

Asked what kind of band they originally wanted Terry Prince & the Principles to be, Stratton said, “Weird. I initially saw it as more of a rock and roll soul band that had these weird elements that sounded very current, but with older song structures,” Davis said. “Now I try not to bring any preconceived notions as to how the song should when I bring a new song to the band.”

When they say “weird,” they mean “eclectic,” Stratton said. “What I love about it there’s so much variety in the songs, There’s an overarching aesthetic to it, but there’s a lot of different things going on.”

Davis writes the music and lyrics, but everyone contributes to the songs. “Mostly he (Davis) leaves it up to us to add whatever we want,” Stratton said. “And I think that’s one of the most interesting things about this band.”

“We all have pretty different backgrounds as far as what we listen to and what we like,” Drzycimski. “And I think we wear our influences on our sleeve pretty well. And the fact that all these things come together and they work – it sounds cool. It’s very weird and very interesting.”

Davis often uses the same themes in his lyrics. “I have certain things I definitely return to. I wrote a lot about distance. Whether it’s physical distance or time.

“When I moved to Phoenix I had a Southern accent and said, ‘Ma’am’ and ‘Sir.’ They were too cool for that. I felt really weird. And then we moved and I lived out in the woods in Henderson in this little two stoplight town and had long hair and wore a leather jacket and a jean jacket. They’re not about that there.”

He got some grief about his long hair in Henderson. “I was told that it’s shameful for a man to have long hair.”

The “lunch lady” made that comment, he said.

Then Davis moved to Memphis, where his look was accepted. His lyrics now include “that feeling of being apart” as well as “that feeling of ‘Alright. Cool. Now we’re all together.’”

Terry Prince & the Principles released two EPs – Here Comes Yesterday and You Are Here – and currently are recording a double single at Junior’s Sweatshop. The band is going to tour in Nashville and Jackson,
Tennessee this summer. “Further down the line I’d like to do a longer tour and then, eventually, a full-length album,” Davis said. “We’ve got enough songs now. Maybe write three or four more and pick the 10 or 12 best.”

All the band members are involved in other projects. Davis, who is a copy editor and occasionally writes music articles at The Memphis Flyer, also is in The Conspiracy Theory and in a duo, Richard and Jesse. Stratton is in an instrumental post rock/jazz rock band, “Breaking the Cage;” Drzycimski plays solo performances under his own name; and Younkin is in metal bands “Shards of Humanity” and “Autolith.”

Does Davis have any future literary plans for his “Terry Prince” character? “I’ve worked on a comic script that I haven’t gotten illustrated yet, but it’s about the character having to go to the future to fight dubstep because it’s the only music they have anymore. And they all have the key of complacency. So, it makes people obedient consumers. And he has to go show them the spirit of rock and roll.”

Terry Prince & the Principles will perform at 7:30 p.m. June 10 at “Time Warp Drive-In” at Malco Summer Quartet Drive In at 5310 Summer. Tickets are $10 per person.


'Time Zones' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Terry Prince & the Principles

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Best Bets: Brisket

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Barbecued brisket at Stanley Bar B Que

I watched David Scott Walker prepare a brisket at the recent Memphis in May World Championship
Barbecue Cooking Contest. I wasn’t able to return 13 hours later to taste the finished product, but Walker told me the preparation and the cooking process was about the same as the way it’s done at his restaurant, Stanley Bar B Que in Overton Square.



Well, the restaurant version brought back memories of that smoky-meaty aroma and all the fun on the banks of the Mississippi River about a month ago. Except this time, I could linger over my meal at one of the long wooden tables inside Walker’s air-conditioned restaurant.

His brisket is cooked in the “hill country” style, Walker said. Ninety percent of his family lives in Texas, so they visited several cities there on summer vacations when he was growing up. “For the most part it’s salt and pepper and then you rely on A – having real good meat. And B – having real good wood. Those are the two flavor components. You really don’t want to add too much in your rub. A little paprika, whatever, that’s fine. But it’s mainly salt and pepper. And you let the meat and the wood shine through. That’s what we do on the river.”

You almost could cut Walker’s brisket with a feather. I asked him how he cooked it.

“We do it the right way,” he said. “We’ll start off in the morning with a charcoal chimney and let the creosote of the charcoal burn off. And then the rest of the day it’s nothing but wood. Depending on what meats we’re cooking depends on what kind of wood we’re using.”


With brisket, they start with cherry wood, Walker said. “That helps get a good smoke ring around it. Then we move to a fruitwood. We love peach. We love apple. Really love pear, but pear’s tough to get. Then after a few hours of that we switch over to hickory.”



Final cooking stage is to wrap the meat in parchment and plastic wrap and let it cook for 12 to 16 hours depending on the size of the brisket.

Walker learned how to grill growing up in Raleigh-Bartlett. “It was a really close-knit neighborhood. We had block parties all the time. We’d do Fourth of July parties. All kinds of things. Fireworks. But we were always grilling, whether it be barbecue or just straight-up grill – hot dogs, hamburgers. We built a pool so we were the house that everyone came to. So, I think that’s where it all started.”

I asked how popular his brisket was at the restaurant. “The pork is, obviously, king of Memphis, but there are a lot of people who really do love brisket. And you can’t really find it in a lot of places. And if you do find it, hopefully, it’s done right.

“If you’ve never had really good smoked beef, I think you’re missing out. A lot of people – especially around this area – when they visit Texas they’ll diss the barbecue. It’s mainly because they’ll try some pork barbecue in Texas. Which is their first mistake. Get what they do right. Go to Texas. Try some beef barbecue. Get their beef ribs. Get their brisket. And I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

Walker originally opened his restaurant as a German restaurant, Schweinehaus, but switched to the barbecue format last April. People constantly told him they wanted a barbecue restaurant in Overton Square, he said. “They missed the Public Eye. They missed that something they’re familiar with. This town loves barbecue and we grew up doing it. So, we said, ‘Let’s follow our passion.’”

And, he said, “My father passed away at Christmastime. And he was a big barbecue guy.”

His dad was the one who did most of that grilling when they were growing up. “His name was ‘Stanley.’ Hence the name. I hope he’s smiling down on us. I hope he’s proud.”

Stanley Bar B Que is at 2110 Madison in Overton Square; (901) 347-3060

Brisket – Walker style from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Best Bets: Brisket

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

The Cottage Becoming Thai Cottage

CREDIT: The Cottage, Facebook

The Cottage, Facebook

The Cottage restaurant soon will be known as “Thai Cottage.” Owner Lisa Prewett sold the restaurant at 4085 Summer to Tom and Tanatip Tongumpun of Collierville.

The restaurant, which opened 60 years ago, will continue to serve home cooking at breakfast and lunch. At night, the menu will change to Thai and Chinese food. Karaoke also will be featured.

In 2014, The Cottage moved from its long-time former location at 3297 Summer to the present location. “ I’ve had it since 2012,” Prewett said. “My dad, Billy Franks, had it from 2009 to 2012. I just wanted a boutique for a couple of years. I was trying to get out of the restaurant and, finally, someone wanted it.”

The Tongumpuns are excited about their new restaurant venture. “We’re going to switch over on June 15,” Tom said. “Then I’m going to start opening in the evening on July 1st.”

Tom will do the cooking at night. “This is my first restaurant, but I used to work in the food business in Johnson City, Tenn. I’ve been wanting to get The Cottage for the longest. That’s what I wanted. I don’t know why. But I’ve been wanting to own it. It took 10 years.”

Tom, who retired from teaching three years ago after working 25 years, taught math in the Shelby County School system. He taught at Humes Middle School and Cordova Middle School.

His wife is going to bring some appetizers to the restaurant before the change-over, Tom said. “She wants the customers to have some of the taste of Thai.”

Prewett and her daughter are opening the boutique, “Lisa Morgan,” which will feature women’s and some men’s clothing as well as accessories. Opening date is slated for July 28, but Prewett said they’ll probably open sooner.

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

From Punk Fest to Italian Fest

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Scotty Theunissen, Daniel Felts, Logan Dickerson, Kristen Marchese and John Kelton at Memphis Punk Fest 5.

More than 50 bands and five venues took part in Memphis Punk Fest 5, which began June 1 at the Hi-Tone and ended June 4 at Growlers.

“It’s more like a gift I do for the Memphis community,” said founder Tyler Miller. “Just bring people together to see what we can accomplish when we work together.”

Tyler is the one-man band who keeps everything running smoothly. “The entire festival is done by myself except for friends who give me rides and let me borrow stuff here and there.”

He credits Bristerfest founder Jack Simon for giving him the idea for the festival. They were hanging out at Jack’s house listening to punk rock when Simon said, “Man, you should have your own festival like Bristerfest and call it ‘Punk Fest,’” Tyler said.

About 20 bands were featured at the first festival, which was held over two days at the old Memphis Rehearsal Complex.

Tyler made up “Memphis Punk Promotions” as the “organization” putting on the festival. It later became a reality. “It just became an underground DIY booking company,” Tyler said.

This year will be the last Punk Fest – at least with Tyler at the helm. “I’m a musician at heart and I never get to work on my own craft. I play in a couple of bands here and there, but I never get to do my own songwriting or go on the road much at all.

“After this, I’m trying to chase the dream. I’m going to sign myself up to to play with a bunch of bands in a bunch of cities as a fill-in musician and travel the country in the next couple of years.”

He’s putting a team together to continue Memphis Punk Promotions to keep doing year-round booking.

,,,,

Michael Donahue

Barrett Folk at Memphis Italian Festival

“Penne Hardaway” was a Memphis Italian Festival team that obviously included basketball fans.

“It was either ‘Penne Hardaway’ or ‘Rigatoni Allen,’” said team member Barret Folk.

“We were one of two new teams,” Barret said. “We got a bunch of buddies that live in the neighborhood. It’s walking distance. We wouldn’t have to drive anywhere.”

Former Tiger Penny Hardaway and Memphis Grizzlies player Tony Allen probably would be honored to be part of one of the newest teams at the three-day festival, which ended June 3 at Marquette Park. Guests, including singer Lil Wyte, stopped by, DJ dudecalledrob (Rob Graham) kept the music going at night and chef Cole Jeanes, chef/owner of Preacher & Hunter caterers, cooked the spaghetti.

A graduate of L’Ecole Culinaire who worked at Porcellino’s Craft Butcher and Acre, Cole made a “classic Bolognese” spaghetti gravy. “But instead of white wine I used red wine and I used venison – local deer meat,” Cole said.

Red wine? “I like the richness it gives to the venison gravy. Then I added a sachet of rosemary and sage.”

Cole wished he had time to let the sauce sit for a day. “Something that simmers – a sauce or a gravy or short ribs – when you have the mirepoix – the carrot, celery and onions – with all that juice and herbs, if they sit for a day in the cooler temperature I feel like everything comes together and it’s a whole different experience.”

Penne Hardaway team members Joel Moss and Deven Onarheim – won first place in the grape stomping contest.

Joel credits their win to Deven, a University of Memphis graduate and former Tiger football player who played five years. Deven wears a size 15 shoe. “So, he pretty much cleared that bucket for me,” Joel said. “He’s six-foot seven. We each had to stomp for one minute and they measured how much juice was produced. He went first and made it very easy for me to win.”

“That was the first time I’ve ever done a grape stomp,” Deven said. “It felt good. I liked it. It was super hot outside. The grapes were nice and cold so it cooled me off a little bit.”

Asked how long it took him to stomp the grapes, Deven said, “It didn’t take me long. It’s almost like I’m cheating with these size 15 feet I’ve got.”

Michael Donahue

Sarah and Zach Nicholson at Lucky Cat Ramen

…..

Zach Nicholson is one lucky cat. His Lucky Cat Ramen, which opened to the public June 2, was a hit. Including the soft opening on June 1, the restaurant at Cooper at Peabody drew “in the neighborhood of 500, 600 people,” Zach said.

“Honestly, I was surprised. I knew that we had a strong following, but I did not expect us to have such a strong opening weekend. There are such popular competitors in the area. I thought we would do OK, but I think we surpassed our expectations.”

Actually, it’s not really luck; Zach has worked for chefs, including Erling Jensen, and at restaurants in Austin as well as Memphis during his almost 10-year career. He and his wife, Sarah, served ramen at their pop-up restaurant for several months at The Cove.

Their brick-and-mortar restaurant is Lucky Cat Ramen’s temporary location until the permanent Lucky Cat Ramen restaurant opens around November or December in Crosstown Complex.

The present location is open 5:30 to 10 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays and 5:30 until 11 p.m. or later on Fridays and Saturdays. The current menu includes pork bowls: spicy tan-tan, bacon shio, shoyu and miso, and the yuzu- veggie bowl. They also served steamed buns: grilled eggplant with nori yogurt and Memphis barbecue with sesame slaw.

So, how much ramen did Zach serve last weekend? “The ramen noodles are 5 ounces per serving. So, doing that math, we served about 150 pounds of noodles.”

MIchael Donahue

Jordan Tubbs at Trashion Show

….

Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure. That was evident at the 2017 Trashion Show, held June 4 at – appropriately – ER2 – Electronic Responsible Recyclers. Clothing modeled at the Memphis City Beautiful Commission event was made from bottle caps, rubber tires, soft drink cans and plastic shopping bags.

About 40 artists, including students and professional designers, created clothing for the show, which drew more than 300 people.

“I thought it was better than ever,” said Memphis City Beautiful Commission executive director Eldra White. “Better than any of the shows we’ve had so far. It’s continued to grow.

“I think folks loved the venue once they got there. And the designers and the participants continue to wow the folks that attend. It’s amazing how much creativity we have in the city. And the willingness of the designers to to go to the extent they do to make things for us is amazing. They aren’t just paper doll creations; they are elaborate outfits that are made from all sorts of materials.”

Trashion Show did a great job of getting folks “to think about what they throw away, which is the main goal.”

“When they asked us to host this, we couldn’t say, ‘Yes,’ fast enough,” said ER2 CEO/co-owner Chris Ko. “It fit very well with us.”

His company is “focused on making a positive impact in the community.”

Memphis City Beautiful is “a light in the community we can highlight and support.”


[slideshow-1]

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Super Bowl

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

As a child, Zach Nicholson built elaborate structures with paper and tape.

“I think I tried to attempt a cathedral, but I don’t remember which one it was,” said Nicholson, 31 “It was impossible, essentially. Two, three feet tall. Which seemed to be incredible. I was probably seven or eight years old.”

When he turned 11, paper and tape gave way to flour, milk, sugar and eggs. Nicholson looked for the “most incredible” cake in his mother’s Good Housekeeping cookbook. “I would always try to make this Black Forest cherry thing. It’s a chocolate cake with multiple layers and with cream, cherries and stuff. My sisters helped me a little bit. We would curve the cake layers and make sure it was all aligned perfectly. That probably set the foundation for future technical skills.”

As chef/owner of Lucky Cat Ramen restaurant, Nicholson still is assembling. His creations may not be tall, but they’re complex and flavorful. He often uses several ingredients, but all the dishes use ramen noodles as the base.

Nicholson and his wife, Sarah, who began making and selling ramen dishes last December at Lucky Cat Ramen pop-up restaurants around town, will move into their first – but temporary – brick and mortar restaurant Friday June 2nd at 247 Cooper. Dinner will be served four nights a week until November when the restaurant moves to its permanent location in the Crosstown Complex.

“The lights are repurposed from my wedding,” said Nicholson as he sat on one of the metal IKEA stools in the restaurant on the corner of Cooper and Peabody. ”I wish you could come back here in about four hours when it’s dark because the lighting in here is so spectacular.”

Nicholson and his wife were the interior designers of the restaurant, which includes furnishings made from materials bought at The Home Depot. “We wanted a minimal Japanese inviting feel to it, but also we want it to feel casual. We want it to feel back yardy.”

For now, the menu will not be extensive, Nicholson said. “Unfortunately, our kitchen here is very small and very limited equipment wise in what we can do. It will not be anywhere close to the menu available at Crosstown.”

But, he said, “It will be double the size of our pop ups. We normally had three bowls at a pop up – two pork or two meat and one vegetable bowl. We’ll probably do five or six ramen bowls.”

The pop up restaurants, which were featured on Sundays for several months at The Cove, weren’t easy to operate, Nicholson said. “Every time we’d go out it was loading up equipment, unloading. You’re talking about a full day. Two cars full. It was just physically demanding. Plus, the limitations of our menu.”

A native of Biloxi, Mississippi, Nicholson was intrigued by the physical demands of the chefs on TV’s “Iron Chef America” cooking show.. “I thought it was pretty incredible. I really thrive under high pressure situations.”

He loved “this kind of tension and make-or-break atmosphere, where, literally, these guys have an hour to make something happen and there was no surrender. It was just ‘You can’t give up. Can’t quit. You’ve’ got to get it done.’ That kind of energy, I think, is what sparked my curiosity toward cooking.”

A culinary career wasn’t Nicholson’s first choice. “I was going to the University of Memphis (majoring in) political science. And at the same time I was enrolled in Army ROTC. I was training to be a military officer in the Army. I conceived a child in the middle of all that. And then it became apparent that I should not pursue the military path if I was bringing a young person into the world. I should be around. That set in motion the sort of frantic look for a new direction.

“Through that soul searching is where i realized that maybe I needed to find something that was more satisfying to my soul. Something I really enjoyed. Not just doing something because it felt like it was the right thing to do. Which was what I was doing with the Army.”

Cooking, he said, “was what I appreciated most when I was a kid and loved doing.”

He made a list of the best chefs in Memphis. Erling Jensen, chef/owner of Erling Jensen: The Restaurant, was No. 1 on his list. “I walked in his back door and I asked to see him. And there he was. He invited me out to his dining room to talk to him and I explained, ‘I’ve never really been in the kitchen before in my life. I want to be a chef. And I hear you’re the best.’ As cliche as it sounds I said, ‘I’ll wash your dishes for free if you let me in your kitchen.’ He said, ‘OK. Come in tomorrow.’”

Nicholson’s first job at the restaurant was making salads. “ Not for free. He was paying me. He put me on the garde manger station immediately. Just threw me in there. Here I am sitting in front of the salad station on a busy night and he’s got this guy teaching me how to peel an asparagus. He’s like, ‘You don’t know how to do this? You don’t know how to hold a peeler right?’”

Nicholson stuck with it. “They don’t have time to baby people. It’s like you’re either going to figure it out or someone else will want your spot.”

After a few months, Nicholson got in the swing of working in a kitchen. Jensen was pleased, he said. “I think he liked my attitude. Just the desire to learn.”

Nicholson worked for Jensen on and off for the next nine years. “I’d go off, work for someone else, come back a little more knowledgeable, a little more experienced. He encourages that. He knows if you go and work for someone else you’re going to gain more experience. You’re going to touch different ingredients and different techniques and come back stronger.”

One of Nicholson’s stops was Austin. “I hopped on a bus with literally $50 in my pocket and a backpack full of clothes. I just got on a bus to Austin with no plan. Within two days I had a job working at one of the best restaurants in Austin.”

He met Sarah at a restaurant in Syracuse. ”She was the executive pastry chef and I was hired as a sous chef.”
They moved to Austin because they got tired of the depressing, cold Syracuse winters. “It was there that I took a second job working at a ramen restaurant.”

The couple fell in love with ramen the first time they tried it. It was affordable and satisfying. “Ramen was originally brought over by the Chinese to Japan. And the Japanese adopted it as their national dish. Ramen noodles are springy and chewy because of their high alkalinity. They’re unlike any other noodle.”

The ramen flavors they tried were “more the traditional flavors. Sort of the core basic flavors you’ll find in any ramen shop.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” Sarah said. “And I find it kind of difficult to find complex vegetarian options that have bright flavors, deep flavors, good textures. The whole savory sweet esthetic. Everything about ramen was extremely balanced. It’s very umami. It’s a complete meal in one bowl.”

Nicholson proposed to Sarah beneath the waterfall in the Japanese garden at the Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin. They decided to make Memphis their home. “Memphis right now is a hot bed for so many things that are new and perceived as experimental,” Nicholson said.

They were married in the backyard at his parents’ home. “We did our own food. We roasted a whole pig. We made our cake.”

Last August, the Nicholsons, who now have two sons, decided to open a ramen restaurant. They chose the name “Lucky Cat Ramen.” “In Japanese culture, you see the ‘lucky cat’ a lot of times. The little statues in shop windows. That’s supposed to be a good luck charm.”

Nicholson didn’t want their restaurant to be the typical ramen restaurant. ““Basically, what I wanted to do was take whatever we had already learned and bring that level of ramen, which was absent here, to the city. We were taking techniques and then sort of building on those with other techniques we’ve learned cooking in other restaurants. Taking sort of the best of everything that we experienced and find a way to make it affordable food.”

Said Jensen: “He’s a good guy. He’s come a long way. He’s an excellent chef. He’s married to a strong little girl. They know exactly where they’re going.”

When Lucky Cat opens its doors open to the public Friday, diners will discover ramen dishes that could be a mixture of Japanese, French, Thai or other influences. “There are so many rules and we don’t want to be bound by any of them,” Nicholson said. “We just try to pick the best of what we’ve learned and just make the best food possible. Once you’re really set free from the rules, then you can really get creative and do what you want.”

‘Mazeman,’ a dish they’ve made in the past, is a “dry ramen dish. It’s a brothless ramen. It’s basically a ramen with sauce that coats it. It’s almost like a normal pasta dish in a way.”

Many of their ramen ideas “come from just sort of reminiscing about our most profound food experiences,” Nicholson said. “We think about, ‘What were the best things we’ve ever eaten? And can we replicate those textures and flavors through the lens of ramen?’”

Categories
Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Swedish Gun Factory

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Swedish Gun Factory: Isaac Middleton and Thomas Bergstig

The performing careers of Thomas Bergstig and Isaac Middleton went from head to toe – literally.

Before they knew each other, Bergstig, 42, and Middleton, 25, sang in their first musical – “Hair” – in separate productions in different countries.

Now they are tap dancing – while playing musical instruments – in Swedish Gun Factory.

The duo recently released a promotional video, which features examples of their tap dancing and music, on youtube.  

Bergstig, who is from Stockholm, Sweden, began playing piano when he was 10, but he sang on stage for the first time in “Hair” when he was 21 after meeting a woman involved in theater. “Musical theater was totally my thing after that,” he said. “I guess it’s a combination of that wholeness of acting, singing, dancing. The whole production.”

A few years later, Bergstig and some friends formed a tap dancing group called JEERK, which stood for the last names of members Jansson, Eriksson, Erixzon, Regnell and Karlsson. “My name didn’t make it,” Bergstig said.

Like Swedish Gun Factory, the members of the group, which still performs around the country, play musical instruments while they dance.

In 2009, JEERK got a gig in Branson, Mo. Bergstig stayed after he met Memphis singer Alexis Grace at the Andy Williams Theater. He eventually moved to Memphis and he and Grace were married.


Bergstig taught tap dancing and, later, became music director at Bolton High School before landing the music director position at Playhouse on the Square.

A native of Harlan, Ky, Middleton grew up in Chihuahua, Mexico, where his parents were missionaries. “I just grew up in a different world, which gave me a different perspective of things,” Middleton said.

He played bass and later keyboards before venturing onto other instruments in “El Cordero” (The Lamb), a praise and worship band at his church.

Middleton became fascinated with tap dancing when he was 15. “I saw ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ for the first time. And it just blew me away. I loved it. So, I went on line and tried to learn the different steps on YouTube and stuff. I was terrible.”

His first theatrical venture was performing in the ensemble in a 30-minute repertory version of “Hair” at Western Kentucky University.

He took his first tap dance class in college. “I didn’t have tap shoes ‘cause I ordered the wrong pair. And then they wouldn’t come in for two months. So, my first dance class I spent just wearing jazz shoes. It’s just a soft shoe. I think it helped, honestly, ‘cause I wasn’t making too many loud noises and I got to think how it felt rather how it sounded.”

Middleton moved to Memphis last year to appear in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Kiss Me Kate.”

He met Bergstig on a friend’s porch. “He seemed like the coolest dude. And he tap danced. I messaged him after I met him and I was like, ‘Dude, if you ever want to tapdance let me know.’”

Bergstig called him soon after. “He had all the choreography ready,” Middleton said. “We would try certain things, but it was him showing me the moves. And me hoping I would get it. And I usually got it.”

They began writing music and developing tap dance routines. They occasionally sing during a number.  “When we write something it, literally, can turn out to be anything,” Bergstig said. “And the tap dance helps, too, ‘cause we view it as an instrument more than the dance.”

“The main reason we got together and started working in the first place is he wanted to audition on ‘America’s Got Talent,’” Middleton said. “That was his main thing.”

They didn’t get on the TV show, but Swedish Gun Factory was born.

Bergstig and Middleton wanted a name people would strongly react to. “Swedish Gun Factory,” was “like a thing that shouldn’t exist,” Bergstig said. “A Swedish gun factory? No such thing.”

He and Middleton play several instruments, including guitar, piano, banjo and mandolin, and employ a range of musical styles from classical to punk rock while they’re tapping. “It can be almost a symphonic piece to emo to Death Cab for Cutie,” Bergstig said.

They dance in special tap shoes, which were created for JEERK. “We built these tap shoes out of sneakers because we were ruining all the other shoes so fast,” Bergstig said.

The shoes originally were built by a cobbler in Sweden. He added a metal plate on the inside so the taps could be screwed into the bottom. He then built up the inner sole with leather.

“It’s very comfortable,” said Middleton. “It’s heavier, so you feel a lot more grounded when you tap. So, you can do a lot more powerful things without doing much damage to your feet.”

“The only thing is it’s difficult to be really fast because they’re so heavy,” Bergstig said.

Their first gig was at the Hi-Tone. “It went really well,” Middleton said. “We had a guitar tap number that we did. ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia.’”

Bergstig and Middleton recently appeared in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Million Dollar Quartet.” Bergstig played “Fluke” the drummer and Middleton played “Carl Perkins.”

In about a month, Swedish Gun Factory is going to regroup, but not go out of business. Bergstig and Grace are moving to Los Angeles. “I’m going to set up camp and really try to promote this thing,” Bergstig said. “There’s so much fun commercial art happening there.”

Middleton plans to eventually join them. “I’m kind of letting him set up camp before I plop myself down there.”

Except for the shoes, the Swedish Gun Factory members haven’t adopted an on-stage look. “He’s not a fan of skinny jeans,” Middleton said. “I enjoy the skinny jean look. But that’s just my emo self.”

For now, they wear blue jeans or sweats and button downs or T-shirts. “We’ll figure it out,” Middleton said. “We’ll start with the art.”

'Uncalled For' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Swedish Gun Factory

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

Summer Symphony and album release parties

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Colleen Radish, Beth Wilson, Liza Rauth, Locke Isaacson and Kristin Smith at Summer Symphony at the Live Garden at Memphis Botanic Garden.

Transformers began exploding over an hour after the last firework exploded May 28 at “Summer Symphony at the Live Garden.”


The fireworks display and Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” the final selection performed by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, were finished at 9 p.m. The storm hit around 10:30 p.m.


A total of 2,310 attended the event, said the garden’s executive director Mike Allen. “With the support of the Symphony we decided prior to the show to eliminate the intermission, which was 22 minutes, and one number, which was nine minutes, so we could get people out early and home safely,” Mike said. “Which was wise.”


The audience didn’t get to hear that one selection, which Mike thinks was the “Vienna Waltz,” but they left with their coolers, blankets and chairs before the strong winds arrived.


“There was no damage in what’s called the ‘Live Garden.’ There was one large tree along the eastern edge by Audubon Lake that we lost. The Live Garden, the stage, all that was unaffected. Thankfully.”

….

Michael Donahue

Chris Milam and Elen Wroten at Chris Milam’s album release concert.

Toward the end of his outdoor concert, Chris Milam said listeners to his songs probably were thinking, “Maybe this has a happy ending,” and “Maybe this relationship will work out.”


Chris on guitar and Elen Wroten on cello performed songs from Chris’s new album,”Kids These Days,” May 27 on the front porch of the record store on Madison.


“The album itself comes from basically one year of my life that was an especially trying time,” Chris said. “While there are moments of hard won optimism, a lot of the songs are about a dark time. And so, yeah, sometimes if people haven’t heard the songs before or are new to my music, I can see over the course of a concert maybe they’re looking for some comic relief or a bit of levity. I’ll provide it if I can.”

Michael Donahue

Kyle Bors-Koefoed at The Warehouse.

….

Kyle Bors-Koefoed paid homage to Memphis at his album release party May 27 at The Warehouse near South Main.


A native Memphian now living in Nashville, Kyle said the event was the “official album release” for “Becca’s Mix Tape.” “I wanted to launch it in Memphis because Memphis is where I have my roots for music,” he said. “That’s where I started in music.”


He described the album as “a range of singer-songwriter style music that is blues heavy. It’s got a bit of Pink Floyd, John Mayer-ish-type stuff. Very modern sounding.”


Blues artist Blind Mississippi Morris was among the guests. “He’s the one that I followed,” Kyle said. “I shadowed him for about five years. He’s the one that really taught me how to play the blues harp the way I play it. He’s like family now. We love Morris.”


Asked if he planned to move back to Memphis some day, Kyle said, “There’s possibly not more exposure, but a different kind of exposure here in Nashville for my singer-songwriter stuff. So, that’s why I’m still staying out here.”


But, he said, “If it wasn’t for Memphis, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have learned to play the 

music that I play the same way. Memphis has that soul that I haven’t been able to find in Nashville.”

[slideshow-1]