Elliott Ives in the new Studio B at Young Avenue Sound (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Young Avenue Sound will hold its grand re-opening party from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, September 25th at 2258 Young Avenue.
The public is invited to tour the studio, view the short-term rentals that are on the order of Airbnbs, listen to live music, eat, and drink.
They also can view the new 96X FM studio, which is operated by John Michael, who recently moved from Santa Monica, California to Memphis.
John Michael in the new 96X FM radio station at Young Avenue Sound (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Taylor Berger and Elliott Ives bought Young Avenue Sound on Valentine’s Day 2022. Berger’s Two Broke Bartenders team manages the seven rental units. Ives, a songwriter/co-producer and a longtime studio and touring guitarist with Justin Timberlake, will be over the studio side of the building.
Ives describes the open house as “a grand reception, which will include anybody who has seen the building before, worked there, and wants to see a new studio in Memphis.”
Club owners, who need to find places for touring band members to play, can look at the short-term rentals, which are equipped with kitchens, Ives says. “This is a better way. A cheaper way.”
Young Avenue Sound is now “a one stop shop for musicians, bands.”
The studios include the original “high tracking room. All we did to that room was move the piano from low tracking onto the stage in there.”
And, he adds, “The room sounds so good we didn’t want to change anything. We want to keep it the same esthetic.”
That was the “original intention” of former owner, the late Don Mann. “Just when they built that studio. It’s there in its original form.”
Young Avenue Sound’s original high tracking room (Credit: Michael Donahue)
The new Studio B, which was newly built within the low tracking room, is now the production suite for Ives and chief engineer Scott Hardin.
The remainder of low tracking is fully remodeled and has an editing suite and serves as “an homage to the late Leo Goff III. He’s a mentor. He worked at Young Avenue Sound on and off for years. He, basically, taught me everything I know about music engineering. He was a huge influence on me. He was Yo Gotti’s engineer for 19 years.”
Goff’s equipment, which includes his vintage analog collection, fills the room.
Ryan Peel in the homage to Leo Goff (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Studio A’s new control room has been completely remodeled “to upgrade the monitoring experience that Young Avenue Sound had not had before.”
Ives wanted “a completely different working configuration.”
Blair Davis in Studio A control room (Credit: Michael Donahue)
They put in new speakers and built a wall to house the JBL monitors, which Goff gave to Ives. “I’m going a little bit more modern, but staying hybrid as far as vintage outboard gear goes.”
For instance, their console is “a classic NEVE VR32,” he says. A lot of studios are “getting rid of their consoles and going straight digital in the box, which is all digital on the computer. And we’re making it hybrid, so if somebody wants to mix in a classic way all spread out on a console, he can do that.”
Young Avenue Sound includes Ethan Hunt, Blair Davis, Elliott Ives,Taylor Berger, Ryan Peel, and Dane Giordano (Credit: Michael Donahue)Listening room at Young Avenue Sound (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Musicians also can work out of some of the short-term living spaces, which used to be Ives’ studio. “They can bring their laptops and still have studio functionality.”
A short term rental living space at Young Avenue Sound (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Ives, who began working at Young Avenue Sound about 20 years ago, had no idea he would one day own the studio. He decided to make it a “world class studio.”
Music for the open house will be provided by Ava Carrington and Dylan Dunn. Music broadcast by 96X also will be playing. Light appetizers will be provided by Mulan Asian Bistro. Memphis Made Brewing Company will provide the beer. Wine also will be available.
“My ultimate goal is to eventually make Memphis better than a C-plus market by bringing a viable music business infrastructure back to where we can provide our home-grown talent with the power and global reach that it deserves.”
There was a lot to cover for last week’s Memphis Flyer story on Gonerfest 19, and some oft-neglected corners of the festival experience got short shrift. For beyond the wall-to-wall bands featured at Railgarten this coming weekend, the music will roll on, thanks to the festival’s featured Railgarten DJs and the bands and DJs at the many after parties.
As for the former, they’ll guarantee that the vibes and beats keep flowing even as bands tear down and set up, and they’ll include DJ Modern Girl (Thursday), DJ Byron Coley and DJ Timmy Vulgar (Friday), DJ Michael Bateman and DJ Annaliese Replica (Saturday), and DJ Big Bizzle Bluebland (Sunday).
But the DJs really take center stage at the after parties. That’s especially true on Friday and Saturday night, once Railgarten goes dark, when Central Station’s Eight & Sand Bar will host New York’s DJ Edan, who’s garnered considerable buzz recently. Both of these official Gonerfest after parties are free.
Meanwhile, more after parties will sprout up around Midtown all weekend, starting with Bar DKDC’s Thursday, September 22 event featuring bands Optic Sink, Il Gruppo FR, and Selma Oxor. At the same hour on the next night, they’ll feature Jack Oblivian & the Sheiks, Model Zero, Hartle Road, and DJ JB (from Aquarian Blood). Finally, on Sunday, September 25, DKDC will host an earlier “come down” party, starting at 5 p.m., with a mystery DJ.
The Lamplighter Lounge also enters the after party game, with Thursday’s band roster of Fortezza, Kids Born Wrong, Little Baby Tendencies, and Mystic Light Casino, starting after 10 p.m. Down the street, there are B-Side Memphis’ after shows, with The Kool 100s, Wayne Pain & the Shit Stains, Ace of Spit, and Shitstorm featured late Thursday, and Easy Action (featuring members of Negative Approach) and Fat Savage on Friday.
And while the Hi-Tone’s Friday lineup of Spacer, The Heavy Pour, and Rushadicus is not billed as an after party, it will likely still be raging once Gonerfest proper closes for the night. And the following night at the Hi-Tone should rage even harder, as the True Sons of Thunder, featuring Richard Martin of Richard & the Not Shits, hold court in the post-fest hours.
Booker T. Jones is such an iconic Memphian that he’s still identified with his hometown a half century after moving to California. And, that relocation notwithstanding, he’s an enthusiastic advocate of all things Memphis, including the Memphis of his youth, and the supportive community he continues to find here today.
So, it’s wholly appropriate that Jones will be inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame (MMHOF) on Thursday, September 15th. While Booker T. & the MG’s were inducted as a group in 2012, this year’s honor will serve as a recognition of Jones’ accomplishments as an individual, outside of that seminal band, including the many songs he’s penned, recorded, arranged or produced since leaving Stax Records. As such, it’s as much a recognition of the California Jones as the Memphis Jones.
Jones will be performing at Thursday night’s ceremony. In addition to Jones, the 2022 inductees include the late blues and jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator Fred Ford, Grammy-winning producer and engineer Jim Gaines, American Sound Studios keyboardist, singer, and Grammy winner Ronnie Milsap, former chair of Elvis Presley Enterprises Priscilla Presley, Sun Records artist, songwriter, and producer Billy Lee Riley, Stax artist and Grammy-winning soul giant Mavis Staples, and the iconic drummer for Jerry Lee Lewis and other Sun artists (as well as singer and producer) J.M. Van Eaton. Gaines, Jones, Milsap, Presley, and Van Eaton are all scheduled to attend, while local favorites Reba Russell and John Paul Keith will also perform.
All in all, very good company for Booker T. Jones. Anticipating his imminent homecoming, Jones recently spoke at length with the Memphis Flyer from his home in northern California. Only one day after a mass shooter terrorized the city, our hearts were heavy, yet Jones helped put the day’s events in perspective.
Memphis Flyer:How strange that Memphis is in the headlines for its crime, just when you’ll be coming here to celebrate its positive, musical side.
Booker T. Jones: My condolences to the families. And I hope everybody does something positive in the wake of that. Do something nice for somebody, or for yourself. Try to do something that’s the opposite of that negative energy. Something positive. It’s a huge tragedy.
I was just thinking how appropriate your song, “Representing Memphis,” featuring Sharon Jones and Matt Berninger, is at this moment. It really celebrates the neighborhoods, sights, and sounds of the city.
Well, it’s good to mention Sharon’s name. She was one of the most positive people I’ve known. It was wonderful meeting Sharon. She’s from Brooklyn, I think. She was a very neighborhood-friendly type of person.
“Representing Memphis” also featured Matt Berninger on vocals.
Yeah, he’s another good friend of mine. He’s in a band called The National.
Since you moved to California 50 years ago, it seems you’ve done one collaboration after another.
Yeah. Of course, I miss Memphis. I wouldn’t have been able to go to California if Memphis hadn’t been so good to me. I have a lot of friends there. I’m coming there in a few days, and it’s going to be great to see my family. My family’s from Red Banks, Mississippi and Holly Springs, Mississippi, and they’re all coming. So, it’s going to be great.
How does it feel to return to the Stax building?
I tell you what, Alex: That is hallowed ground. It just is. I remember when I went back a few years after they had torn down the building, and I picked up some bricks and brought them back to California. Because when you walk in the area of 926 East McLemore Avenue, it’s just great. That’s an indication of the spirit of Memphis. It’s all over that town.
It seems you’ve become more appreciative of Memphis in recent years, more so than in the ’70s and ’80s.
That’s true. I have embraced it more, emotionally. Intellectually, I’m maturing. I’m 77 years old. Hopefully I’m maturing somewhat. And just realizing and recognizing who I am and where I come from.
You even named your new record label after the street you grew up on… Edith Street.
Yeah, that’s where it started. That’s another place that’s emotional for me to go back to.
Being inducted into MMHOF apart from the MG’s must be very meaningful to you, after your struggle to get more recognition as an individual before you left Stax.
It is, it’s a really big deal to me. I owe so much to so many people in Memphis who gave me so much at such a young age. And I had so many mentors. And there was such a spirit of giving in my community. In the music community at school, at church, in the neighborhood. So I’m a result of that giving. And it’s a lesson to me. I’m just very fortunate.
It’s ironic, maybe that spirit of giving and support also gave you the strength to break away from Stax.
Yeah, it definitely was a positive/negative, yin/yang type of thing, and of course as soon as I got to California, I had other mentors. Namely Quincy Jones, who was right there, introducing me to this kind of music, that kind of music. And I was immediately surrounded by other mentors. Herb Alpert and so many others. But a lot of kids don’t get a chance to do that. They don’t have a recording studio around the corner from their house. They have to go to Nashville or New York or Los Angeles if they want to be in music. So, I was fortunate that I was born right there in Memphis with a studio three blocks away.
Booker T. Jones (Credit: Piper Ferguson)
It’s interesting that you mention Quincy Jones. I saw a documentary where you spoke about one particular moment, hearing Ray Charles’ “One Mint Julep” on the radio, which led you to pursue the Hammond organ.
That was the moment. I was on McLemore Avenue, listening to the radio, and I was thinking ‘Oh, what great horns!’ And then I heard the organ and thought, ‘Wow, that’s such a cool sound!’ It wasn’t a sound you heard very much. And I thought if I could just do that, I’d be happy. And I am happy. And it was Quincy’s band on that record. Quincy wrote the arrangements, and Ray was actually a saxophone and organ player in Quincy’s band. Quincy was the man who put all that together.
It was kind of coming full circle, when you connected with him personally later in life. That must have meant a lot.
Yeah. He was a mentor. And he was one of those guys like Willie Mitchell. Willie would take young guys like me and put them up on stage and just try them out. That’s what he did with Mabon ‘Teenie’ Hodges, who was a good friend of mine. Willie did that with me, on the bass. Willie is a really good example of that Memphis spirit I’m talking about. And of the mentors I had there.
People often think of Stax Recrods and Hi Records as competitors, but there was a whole local scene that transcended the labels.
Oh yeah, directly. Well, Willie let me play baritone sax in his band, and baritone sax is the instrument that got me into Stax. David Porter took me into Stax to play baritone sax on “Cause I Love You.”
One thing you mention in your autobiography was a friend from Egypt, Mina E. Mina, and the female singer whose work he introduced you to.
Uma Kalthoum. My Egyptian friend in Malibu was a disciple of hers, and we would sit and just be moved by her voice.
California was really a world destination, wasn’t it? So many of these cultures were converging and influencing pop music.
Exactly.
Are there recordings of yours that show more of a world music influence?
Definitely so. So many different kinds of influences were right there, close together. Bill Withers came to California, Leon Russell, and the Brothers Johnson. Quincy was crazy about them. He had a special spot in Hollywood — a room at 1416 North La Brea, right at the corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard. And that was sort of a nexus. It was A&M studios, where his office was. So, if you were an arranger — and that’s what I was, an arranger/producer; I played a lot of sessions — his place became a go-to place for a lot of people.
Are you at work on a new album now?
Yeah. It’s the 60th Anniversary of “Green Onions,” and that was the song — I wouldn’t be talking to you if I hadn’t stumbled onto recording that song. That was 60 years ago, so I’m going to do a tribute to that. It was June, 1962 when we recorded it, and I was supposed to be in church. It was a Sunday, I remember. Memphis changes on Sunday morning. Or, at least it did back then. Everyone was in church by [10 a.m. or 11 a.m.]. If you weren’t there, you were doing something kind of strange. I think we were supposed to play on a session. Steve remembers more about it. It was a session that got called off or finished early, and then we had free studio time.
And “Green Onions” was kind of an afterthought, the B side?
Exactly. And “Behave Yourself” was me trying to imitate Ray Charles. I had a little band at a club on South Parkway, and Errol Thomas was playing bass, and Devon Miller on drums. And I would always start with that, because of Quincy and Ray and that B3 sound; and I was trying to imitate Ray, so I came up with that blues, “Behave Yourself.” Why would they just have an M1 organ sitting there that day? It was my dream. It was amazing! I had actually used it once before, because I played on William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” and also I had played for Prince Conley in that room when I was a young kid. Charlie Musselwhite reminded me of that. He was a friend of mine from Mississippi.
Was it the track, “Going Home”?
That was it! I remember that day because I played on that song, but the room was so big, I never did get to meet Prince Conley the whole time.
You write about Maurice White, founder of Earth, Winde & Fire, in your book. Did you guys ever connect in later years? Did you play together once you were established artists?
Oh yeah! He loved to play tennis and when I moved out to the San Fernando Valley, he would come out there and play tennis with me, and ridicule me [laughs]. We were good friends in high school. I think I met him in 8th grade at Porter [Junior] High. And I was the only student with a key to the band room at Porter. So, he walked in and said, ‘Hi, I’m Maurice White.’ His destination after school was my house. And we would play tunes by the Jazz Messengers, or whatever, because I had a record player.
Maurice didn’t really have a family. His grandmother was all he had. And I never did even see his mother until he graduated from high school. That was a good, tight friendship between me, and David Porter, and Maurice. That’s how it all started. Maurice on drums and Richard Shann, who played piano, and I had a bass.
Did you dabble on saxophone in that trio?
I probably did, because I always tried to play reeds: oboe, clarinet. I played clarinet in the band, and the school had a baritone sax.
It sounds like Richard Shann was a great jazz player.
Oh, yeah. He was the true musician of the three of us, the most dedicated. He lived way out in South Memphis, and he would walk to my house to jam with us.
Whatever became of him?
He passed years ago.
It makes me wonder if you and Maurice had ever played music together after you left Memphis. But it sounds like you mainly played tennis?
You know, he was like a brother to me. My dad brought his drums home from AMRO Music, his first drum set. But Maurice was missing his family so, as soon as he graduated from high school, he moved to Chicago. And then Ramsey Lewis heard him play somewhere, and Maurice was gone, basically. He was unavailable. Of course, you know I wanted him to be a drummer in my band, and that would never happen. He started Earth, Wind & Fire and they were instant stars, and he got such a good position in Chicago, and I don’t remember him ever coming back to Memphis.
A lot of people don’t realize he was from Memphis.
That’s amazing, because he was. LeMoyne Gardens. I doubt if I would have been able to make it to Stax if I hadn’t known Maurice. My dad used to drive me, Maurice, and Shann to the middle of Arkansas, nowhere, til 10:00 at night, to play a little gig, playing for four/five people, then drive us back at 2 in the morning. That’s what we did. The bass, the drums, the whole thing in the car, it was a sight! In my dad’s ’49 Ford.
Your dad sounds like a prince of a man.
Yeah, he was the sponsor. He was the reason it all happened. He drove my friends around. He was the guy. I was lucky there. Maurice didn’t have any of that, no mother or father. So, he came to my house.
He’s already been inducted into the MMHOF, so you guys will be side by side now.
That’s good to hear!
The 2022 Memphis Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony takes place Thursday, September 15, 7 p.m., at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are on sale now for only $30, and are available at www.ticketmaster.com or the Cannon Center box office.
As #901Day becomes more and more established as a Mid-South tradition, it’s increasingly clear that music plays a central role in celebrating what Memphis is about. This year, September 1st falls on a Thursday, making it the perfect kickoff to an entire weekend of touting the Bluff City’s greatness. And if you’re hip to the unique sounds of our local musicians, this weekend is for you.
The most obvious starting point is the proudly Memphis-centric weekend at Railgarten, aka 901 Fest. The second annual staging of the festival, which runs from the 1st to the 4th of September, brings back a few familiar faces from last year, along with some newcomers. Lord T & Eloise, the Dead Soldiers, and the Lucky 7 Brass Band were featured last year. Now, the first two headline again, along with Star & Micey and North Mississippi’s recent Grammy-winner, Cedric Burnside. The Lucky 7 Brass Band, Marcella & Her Lovers, Neighborhood Texture Jam, Devil Train, and the Wilkins Sisters fill out the festival’s lineup.
It’s a powerful reminder of the diversity and eclecticism of the talent that thrives in this region. And the same could be said for the music and beats that will emanate from the Overton Park Shell as it begins its fall seasons of the Orion Free Music Series and the Shell Yeah! Benefit Concerts. While not technically starting on September 1st, the Don Ramon show kicking off the season on the 2nd dovetails neatly with other music reverberating through the weekend. And on Saturday, September 3rd, the past, present, and future vibes of Memphis soul will be in full effect with the WLOK Stone Soul Picnic, created in partnership with the Gilliam Foundation.
The picnic’s lineup highlights groups that often don’t get the attention they deserve: O’Livya Walker, The Spiritual Soldiers, Vincent Tharp & Kenosis, Charisse’, Stevenson Clark, The Mellowtones, MBMC, Annie & the Caldwell Singers, Melodic Truth, Uncle Richard’s Puppets, Roney Strong & the Strong Family, Josh Bracy & Power Anointed, the Sensational Wells Brothers, and Zacardi Cortez.
Finally, with September 4th’s Occupy The Shell event, a festival celebrating Black Memphis artists and creatives, local heroes Al Kapone & Don Trip will headline at the Shell. Of course, there’s no one more “901” than Kapone, whose “Whoop That Trick” is practically the Memphis city anthem, at least during Grizzlies games.
And perhaps Bar DKDC‘s September 3rd birthday bash for Frank McLellan, seen in the Sheiks, the Tennessee Screamers, and Model Zero, will be the most Memphis event of all, bringing that big family vibe to the fore in honor of one of the city’s most prolific musicians. The Obruni Dance Band, specializing in West African highlife music, further ramps up the diversity ante the night before.
And if recorded music is your bag, Memphis has you covered. Shangri-La Records and River City Records will both offer discounts on records by Memphis artists past and present this Thursday. And the Memphis Listening Lab will partner with WYXR 91.7 FM on a record swap and zine fest on September 3rd and 4th. While not necessarily Memphis-focused, there are sure to be some local gems buried in those stacks.
September 1st will clearly be a time to get out there and start vibrating to the local grooves. The sound waves will reverberate throughout the 901 all weekend.
“You’ve got to live the life you sing about in your song,” goes the old gospel tune, and Talibah Safiya is doing just that. When the Mama’s Sundry crew she helped assemble appears at the Frayser Connect Center as a part of the Frayser Summer Concert Series this Friday, August 19th, there will be more than a performance by one of the city’s most inventive neo-soul singer/songwriters.
Well before the band counts off, Safiya and her cohort will be launching their new podcast, Mama’s Sundry Presents: Kitchen Talk. The podcast aims to be a conversational series discussing the cultural nuances of wellness, and its basis in “relationships with self, people, food, and the environment.” Tonight’s conversation on “Food Apartheid” will be recorded live at the Frayser Connect Center, beginning at 6 p.m. And to take things beyond mere kitchen talk, they’ll walk the walk with a vegetarian meal served to all attendees.
For the singer, it’s part of her new efforts to embrace all of her creative impulses at once, from her musical, to her political, spiritual, and gastronomic creativity. The Memphis Flyer got in touch with her to hear more about Mama’s Sundry and tonight’s performance.
Memphis Flyer:What’s Mama’s Sundry, exactly?
Talibah Safiya: It’s a company that includes my husband Bertram [Williams Jr.], myself, my mother, who goes by Mama Sadio, and our good friend Niki Boyd, who is a sustainable wardrobe stylist and blogger. We all came together in 2020. I make oils and skin care products, and we have other friends who make things we love. We wanted to offer their stuff to folks too. But we wanted to reimagine how we could offer people great, non-toxic products, but not necessarily always trying to sell them. From there, we started to not only offer products locally, but organize local events.
What kinds of events?
One event was called Pot Liquor, that we organized with our friends at Everbloom Farm in Millington. We made soups with their crops and fed the people. That was last year, and this year we’re going to be doing it for a second time. We’re also did a swap meet, where people swap their used clothes with other people in the community. We’re really just trying to get creative about not over-consuming, with things that can be reused again and again and again. Another campaign we did was a tote bag made with the Neighborhood Print Company, and we called it the “BYODB tote,” the Bring Your Own Damn Bag tote. That campaign was about getting people to take their own bags to the grocery store. So, those are the types of things we’re focused on.
Mama Sadio, Talibah Safiya, and Niki Boyd (Credit: KeaShundrea Donald)
And Friday’s event focuses more on cooking and food?
We are going to be collaborating with the folks at the Frayser Connect Center. Our company Mama’s Sundry is releasing a podcast where we’ll be talking about food, wellness, sustainability, and just how to stay mentally and physically well here. We’re going to be having a community conversation about that starting at 6 p.m. Friday. And we’ll be trying to get everyone in on this conversation. Everyone is welcome. We can all be empowered and learn how to grow food for ourselves, make products for ourselves, and things like that. And then afterwards we’ll be doing some music, of course. They have a little sanctuary in the space and it is really cute. So I’m really looking forward to playing some music.
So urban farming is big part of Mama Sundry’s mission, too?
This Frayser Connect Center is a former church that’s associated with the Frayser CDC, and they have a community garden started by our good friend, Camille James of Halls of Ivy. She works with folks in the neighborhood, gives crops away to folks. She started pickling and making tomato sauces and stuff, and she always provides really delicious juices at our events.
We do similar work in South Memphis with our home garden. We share food with folks in our neighborhood and we’ve been working on pickling and canning as well. We’re new to it so we’re just seeking to learn, share what we’re learning, and learn with folks. I think it’s a great thing to be having this conversation while we’re learning, so people don’t feel like it’s inaccessible. We’ve only been doing it for a couple years. It’s the type of work that’s easy to tap into, and you continue to grow every season, so we wanted to share that journey with people.
Is your South Memphis garden a community garden as well?
We’re just growing stuff in our front and back yard, which is not huge, but we had a really big cucumber crop, a big tomato crop, a bunch of peppers, and we’ll be able to use the peppers from our garden in the meal we’re sharing with folks Friday. We’re going to feed the people a vegetarian meal during our community conversation.
It sounds like you got more into gardening and canning when the pandemic started, like a lot of people.
Yeah, that highly influenced us being a part of that work. You know, people started fear mongering at that time, but sometimes that inspires you to get empowered, get knowledgeable and get active. And that’s what we did. My husband, Bertram, got his hands in the soil and started learning things. And I do my thing from the kitchen, learning how to use what he’s growing. I’ve always loved cooking, so it’s really cool to be able to share that part of my creativity, and for him and me to share that part of his creativity. Since we both spend so much time in the stage space, performing space, it’s a different aspect of our creative expression, and we love it.
Is Bertram in the arts as well?
He’s an actor. He’s on the show, P-Valley, on Starz.
You started out in theater as well, didn’t you?
I started out in theater, yes. We actually first connected in high school theater classes.
You all seem to have a very collaborative approach to your Mama’s Sundry work.
We’ve been able to collaborate with a lot of friends who are also gardening in the city. Black Seeds Farm in North Memphis, and Everbloom in Millington, and our friend Camille in Frayser. All of them are going to be there on Friday. We’re just building a really intentional community.
There’s a way your music reflects all of these things, isn’t there?
Definitely. For me, one of the focuses in my own heart and mind has been realizing that I had been compartmentalizing the different aspects of my creativity. The music is talking about healing, whether it’s “Healing Creek” or “Ten Toes Down,” I’m often talking about healing from an emotional and spiritual standpoint. The consumption of food that is alive also positively influences your emotional and spiritual health. So if I’m going to be having that conversation, I can’t have it holistically without talking about food. To me it has made sense to put those things together. Because in my own personal wellness journey, food has been in the forefront of how I stay well. I just want to share what I’ve been learning with people. And I have people around me who understand that, luckily. We’re all using our talents to push forward what we believe in as it relates to food. And health and autonomy. And holistic wellness.
Talibah Safiya (Credit: KeaShundrea Donald)
Mama’s Sundry Presents: Kitchen Talk, with a performance by Talibah Safiya and band, will be presented at the Frayser Connection Center, 1635 Georgian Drive, on Friday, Aug. 19th, 5:30-9 p.m. $10 Advance, $20 Door.Tickets
Midnight Sirens features Maggie and Robert Anthony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Midnight Sirens is a new music duo featuring Robert and Maggie Anthony. They’re releasing their singles U. V. Rays and The Admiral today, August 19th.
You might know Robert.
But then again you might not know Robert.
He won’t say whether or not he is in Lord T & Eloise, a Memphis band featuring performers who go incognito.
“I wrote some guitar riffs for a group called ‘Lord T & Eloise,’” Robert says. “And worked with them a little bit.”
And you might know Maggie, who is Robert’s wife. She was in a popular quartet, The Owens Sisters. They were on America’s Got Talent.
But she’d rather you don’t know that she was on America’s Got Talent.
“I was 16,” Maggie says. “And I was so nervous. It was awful. I literally am so embarrassed.”
Robert and Maggie, who have been married three and a half years and are the parents of a daughter, Pearl, joined forces for Midnight Sirens during the pandemic.
Maggie and Robert Anthony of Midnight Sirens (Credit: Michael Donahue)
As for the name, Robert says every time they tried to put their child to bed or tried to record, they heard ambulance and fire sirens blaring down North Parkway. They had to change their recording location because there were so many sirens, Robert says. “We moved to our shower stall.”
Consequently, he says, “There are a lot of sirens in the actual recording.”
Robert and Maggie are a match made in music heaven. “I have three older sisters,” Maggie says. “When I was 15, we started doing four-part harmonies together. We would play at bars and stuff. It was really interesting because I was 15 playing in these bars. We would do covers of popular country songs. That was kind of our niche.”
As The Owens Sisters, they performed songs, including Wagon Wheel and Down to the River To Pray, with their dad, Andrew Owens, on guitar. “We actually did Free Falling. We made it a country song.”
When she was 16, Maggie and her sisters moved to Nashville to pursue their careers. Maggie did a lot of songwriting while she was there, but, she says, “We were very young. It didn’t turn out how we anticipated it would.”
That also was the same year they made their ill-fated appearance on America’s Got Talent. She and her two sisters appeared on the show at Madison Square Garden, but none of them were prepared, she says. “I was so scared. Thank God, you can’t find it on line. I’m truly blessed.”
When they returned from Nashville, Maggie had to get “back in the rhythm of a normal life. I continued doing home schooling and graduation. I put music on the back burner. But when I was 17, me and my sister, Andie, started a group together. We called it ‘Zuster.’”
Describing “Zuster,” which is a Dutch word meaning “sister,” Maggie says, “It wasn’t Southern or country or anything. It was like electronic folk. ‘Electronic’ is kind of the wrong word. It had elements of electronics like a synth keyboard. It had guitar. It was very based in harmonies.”
Zuster released two singles, including Do You Want Me with a video, on the Blue Tom label at the University of Memphis. “I think that one is still up. But I don’t think they ever put out the actual album we were working on.”
The song, which she and Andie wrote, is “just about really loving somebody and wanting them to feel the same way.”
Maggie then decided to take a break to figure out what she wanted to do. “I never really thought I would do something on my own. Singing harmony live with myself is almost impossible. So, I took a little break. And then I met Robert.”
Robert recalls the first time he heard Maggie sing: “It was this huge, crazy party and I thought, ‘What is that sound?’ And I followed it and she was out there singing.”
Robert and Maggie Anthony of Midnight Sirens (Credit: Michael Donahue)
He saw her again about three years later at a friend’s house. “She whipped out her guitar and started playing these original songs. And I was just really blown away by her songwriting, her lyrics.”
He told Maggie, “Wow. You’re deeper than your age.’ We started talking. We were friends for a while and then we started dating.”
Robert found “a lack of pretense” in Maggie’s lyrics.
In addition to playing country songs for him, Maggie also played songs by Melanie. “I was like ‘Where did you hear this?’”
He discovered Maggie “had the ability to come up with an original song with a catchy hook. Original catchy choruses. Songs that have a complete melody. “
Her lyrics were “way beyond her years, as well. She was singing powerful lyrics about deep subjects.”
Maggie already was familiar with Robert’s work. “I had heard about his bands through the grapevine,” she says.
But, she adds, “I didn’t listen to any of his music or anything, like Lord T & Eloise.”
“Never met them,” Robert interjects.
She liked Robert. “He’s very witty and clever. He’s a great conversationalist. He’s just good at making people feel at ease and comfortable. He made me laugh. We’re just very kindred spirits. A lot of people in my life think we’re very, very similar. Other people might disagree.”
Maggie finally saw a Lord T & Eloise show. “I liked it,” she says. “I thought that it was unique. And it’s just something you have to see to believe. When I first saw his live show, I was floored. It was just an extremely well-orchestrated performance.”
And, she says, “Robert is the creative direction of each show.”
But Robert won’t admit he’s the “Lord T” in the group. “I’ve never been in the room with those guys,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to shake their hands.”
Maggie and Robert Anthony of Midnight Sirens (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Midnight Sirens began during the pandemic and so did his piano playing, Robert says. Their daughter wanted him to teach her how to play a child’s Yamaha keyboard, but Robert, who plays guitar, didn’t know how to play the piano. “I started to play it, much to Maggie’s annoyance.”
He played it all the time, Maggie says.
In addition to learning how to play the piano, Robert thought there was “an ‘80s vibe” to the sound of the Yamaha.
Midnight Sirens “started on a cheesy Yamaha,” but, Maggie says, “It really shaped the songwriting aspect of it. I’m used to writing deep, not sad, but maybe, songs. And this Yamaha keyboard was so silly, it really kind of lightened up my songwriting in a very healthy way.”
“I was writing songs with the intent for Maggie to sing them,” Robert says, adding, “I wanted to record an album with her since I met her.”
Maggie recalls when she became captivated by Robert’s songs. He was playing The Admiral, which he describes as similar to “an epic folk song,” on the Yamaha. “I was sitting in the bathtub, just a normal day” she says. “I heard him playing this song on this cheesy Yamaha keyboard. I thought, ‘That song makes me feel so happy.’ And it turned from a normal bath into the most magical bath I’ve ever had in my life. That’s when I realized I want to live in his music.”
“Literally, it was after six months of me annoying her she started writing these songs,” Robert says.
Maggie originally thought, “I have nothing to write.” But “something clicked” when she heard that song. Maggie took his lyrics and made them “singable,” Robert says. “I have a tendency to overwrite.”
“He writes these epic novels,” Maggie says. “When I sing, I like to use less words to create kind of a picture, more descriptive words that are slightly vague, but you understand.”
She shortened Robert’s lyrics and “put a girly spin on them. There’s a different perspective when a man’s writing it. He wrote the basis of the ‘novel.’ And I took it and chopped it up and whittled it down.”
Maggie “popped out 12 songs start to finish,” Robert says. “She would go in our shower stall where our microphone is and she would come back out with these songs totally written with all the parts.’
Robert and Maggie Anthony of Midnight Sirens (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Writing the songs was “kind of an escape from Covid. You’re locked up in your house. So, we created this happy little cymatic universe.”
They later reproduced those silly and fun rhythm and beats on a Roland Juno-60 vintage keyboard from 1982. “I said, ‘We can record that vibe with a good keyboard,” Robert says.
Elliott Ives, a songwriter/co-producer and a longtime studio and touring guitarist with Justin Timberlake, heard UV Ray, one of the songs written on the Yamaha, at Young Avenue Sound, which he co-owns. “He thought it had some potential,” Maggie says. “And so did some other people.”
They played some of the songs for Blair Davis at Young Avenue. “He got really interested in it when he heard it,” Robert says. “He agreed to mix the whole record for us.
“We did the method for this super old school. Meaning there are no punches, no loops, no pre-set sounds, no auto tune on any of the vocals. And everything was done in a single performance. Including the vocals. Which is how they used to do it back in the tape days. A kind of throwback approach that makes for a more dynamic vibe. I hope.”
And, he says, “Ryan Peel is playing drums on these alongside my digital beats, which helped a lot.”
Describing U. V. Rays, which has a “bossanova beat,” Maggie, who wrote the song, says, “I was kind of imagining myself in an dreamworld of being on a sailboat with this man who happens to be my husband. And kind of playing on the Ra sun god kind of concept. Honestly, just a moment in time with my husband in a dreamworld escape.”
She’s never been on a sailboat, but, Maggie says, “After writing this song, I feel like I lived that song.”
Footage in the U. V. Rays video was taken at his sister’s house, Cielito Lindo, in Palm Beach, Florida, Robert says. “We were just kicking it,” he says, adding, “That video, honestly, was vacation footage.”
He wanted to shoot a music video, but nobody wanted to. They were “just having fun sitting in the sun. I thought, ‘OK. I’m going to shoot that.’ We were in my sister’s magical backyard with this giant beehive, iguanas everywhere.”
As for their writing styles, Robert says, “Maggie has more of a tendency to sing traditional old music where I’m coming at it from an outer-space angle. I want to vibrate you. And adding a lot of disco elements to it.”
He describes his music style as “if Abba/ELO had a baby in the South.”
“I grew up writing all these country songs with these four-part harmonies,” Maggie says. “Consequently, I wound up writing songs with the same method. A lot of the structure of the melodies with harmonies remind me of the Southern kind of music background that I have. But it’s not country.”
Robert and Maggie are going to do a full-length Midnight Sirens album. It will feature their songs, which Robert describes as “a weird fusion of retro and new school.”
“With a little Southern twang to it,” Maggie says.
Blueshift Ensemble (Photo courtesy of Blueshift Ensemble).
Blueshift Ensemble has been at the cutting edge of New Music in Memphis for years now, often collaborating with jazz, hip hop, and alternative artists, but one of its most fruitful partnerships could have easily fizzled out when Covid brought everything to a halt. From 2017-2019, the ensemble of local classical players favoring music a bit left of center had an impressive run with New York’s ICEBERG New Music Collective, presenting works by the collective’s 10 composers at the Crosstown Concourse for three summers in a row. Then 2020 arrived, and lock-downs put the future of the collaboration in doubt.
But next week, ICEBERG will be back in Memphis for the first time in three years, as Blueshift Ensemble performs a collaboration between the composers — Drake Andersen, Victor Baez, Stephanie Ann Boyd, Alex Burtzos, Yu-Chun Chien, Derek Cooper, Jack Frerer, Max Grafe, Jessica Mays, and Harry Stafylakis — and poet Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz in a suite of new works, The Peace Chronicles, Parts 1 & 2. Recently, the Memphis Flyer reached out to ICEBERG’s composer and board member Alex Burtzos to learn more about what he calls “the best thing we’ve ever done.”
Memphis Flyer:It seems ICEBERG New Music is based in New York, yet I see that some of the composers work elsewhere. Would you still call it a New York collective?
Alex Burtzos: That’s a good question. When we first started in 2016, we were all based in New York City. But since then, as our careers have gone in different directions, I would say we’re now a global organization, because we have members that live in four different states and three different countries. But we’re incorporated in New York, and we always have two concerts every spring in New York City. So we’re still based in New York as an organization. But our members are based all over the place. Only three ICEBERG members are based in the city now. The rest of us are in and out. And we do meet in New York. For example, almost all of us were together for our two concerts with the Decoda Ensemble in April and May of this year. The pandemic continues to complicate things, but we do convene as much as possible. I’m looking forward to much more of that as the pandemic relaxes.
Alex Burtzos (Photo: Stephanie Ann Boyd)
Do you work together as you create compositions, playing each other works in progress and that sort of thing?
Yeah. I would say that for the most part, the craft of composition is not collaborative. So we’re still on our own a lot of the time, staring at dots. But to have a collaborative atmosphere that you can participate in is really valuable. So I’m constantly sending scores to the other members of ICEBERG and asking for feedback, and they do the same with me. Both artistically and professionally, it’s a really valuable thing to have that collaboration. And it’s kind of rare for a composer to have that sort of network.
The Peace Chronicles represents a whole new type of collaboration for us, because it was the first time we’d collaborated with someone from outside the music world — an artist from another discipline. Yolanda is an incredible poet, so we all read her most recent book, The Peace Chronicles, and selected poems from that book to act as the catalyst or inspiration for our pieces. And each one of us chose a different text, sometimes several texts. Then, having composed the pieces, we worked together to put them into a program that really led the listener on a journey from beginning to end.
Of course, Yolanda physically being a part of the show and reading her poems as part of the performance was an enormous part of that. To my mind, this is the best thing we’ve ever done. We are really, really proud of this program because it brings together so many artists. We have the artists from Decoda who are the ones who performed at the premier; and now Blueshift Ensemble’s stepping in. And then we have the composers, and Yolanda working with us. So it’s a really special show.
I gather all the pieces were written with her recitation of her poetry in mind, from the outset?
Yes, we always knew that she would be reading as part of the show, and it was up to the composers whether they would incorporate that spoken word into the piece, or whether that spoken word would precede the piece, and composers took different approaches. We also had members take very different tacks to how the words inspired them. Sometimes Yolanda’s words provided a sort of program for the piece; sometimes the words provided an image; sometimes the words were decoded, and individual patterns of letters became the basis of the composition’s form. And everything in between. So it was a nice demonstration of the diverse perspectives that the ten composers bring, and the ability of the collective to take those diverse perspectives and combine them into something that feels very unified and organic.
Does it flow like a single piece, with transitions from one piece to another?
There are no transitions; they are discrete pieces in the program. But of course we were in constant communication about the flow of the music in the concert, and the way each piece would prepare the listener for the next. There were a lot of conversations discussing that question.
Did Yolanda have input into how her words were woven into the music?
Yes. She was a fantastic collaborator. She immediately grasped what we had been talking about from a musical perspective, even though she’s not a musician. She was fantastic to work with as we plotted the trajectory of the show. Yolanda’s previous book was called Love from the Vortex, and her latest one is called The Peace Chronicles. And when I was reading these collections, I saw them as sort of a yin and yang, where they were meant to be complementary. Love from the Vortex is very concerned with feelings of hurt and regret, and The Peace Chronicles is very focused on healing. That’s a generalization. Not every poem fits into that mold, but taken together, that’s how I interpreted them.
Because we were primarily concentrating on the second of those two books, that translated into two programs that are very optimistic overall. It’s not always happy music, but it’s a program that trends towards a healing feeling. And getting the opportunity to produce this show in the spring of 2022, when we’re still coming out of two years of complete isolation, was very meaningful for us. We had people in the audience who were in tears, and who came up to talk to us afterwards about how much it meant to be out, listening to music, and getting to experience that show. So it meant a lot to us, and I’m sure it meant a lot to Yolanda, and it seemed to mean a lot to the listeners as well.
The book was written before Russia invaded Ukraine. So it’s not a topical book, exactly.
It is not a specifically topical book. It pre-dated the war in the Ukraine.
Yet what a perfect way to give voice to what we’re all preoccupied with these days.
Because we premiered it in New York, and because the war in Ukraine was somewhat young at that point, people that I spoke to tended to associate the program more with their own lived experience during the pandemic. But the more I’ve thought about the poems, the more it seems like their message is applicable [to the war]. So that would be a perfectly valid reading of the program, even though it wasn’t specifically created thinking about that.
The mark of a good ICEBERG concert is that it has a little bit of everything. These shows are no exception to that. There are moments that will feel very abstract, and moments that will feel very direct, and everything in between. There are some pieces that use extended techniques and more noise-based compositions, and pieces that utilize triads and chords you would recognize in any pop song. And we always encourage audience members to come and talk with the composers. If you liked the piece, or if you didn’t, come and say so. We’re always happy to engage with listeners in that way. That’s what we want as composers.
What kinds of instrumentation will be involved?
The two concerts both feature a quintet. The first will feature four string players with piano, and the second concert will feature four wind players with a piano. So the instrumentation is traditional, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to hear anything unexpected. For example, my piece utilizes two e-bows, and electromagnet that’s used mainly with guitar, but I’ve placed those on the piano strings to create a drone effect. So there are touches here and there that will be something you don’t expect.
I want to add a personal note of thanks to Crosstown Arts, to Blueshift Ensemble and specifically to Jenny Davis. This will be our fourth visit to Memphis. We feel like we know Blueshift very well, both personally and artistically. We’re frequently working with the same performers every time we come back, and they always do an amazing job. Memphis is our home away from home.
You know, it would have been easy for this collaboration to fall by the wayside during Covid, and it never did. So that’s a testament to everyone on both sides being committed to doing this. So, a huge thank you to those organizations and to Jenny in particular. We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone in Memphis. We’ve missed you!
The Peace Chronicles, Part 1 will be performed on Thursday, August 18, 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m., at the Crosstown Concourse East Atrium. The Peace Chronicles, Part 2 will be performed on Friday, August 19, 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m., at the Crosstown Theater. Visit crosstownarts.org for more information.
This week’s cover story, The Vinyl Countdown, came out just as the city was reeling from the news of John King’s death at the age of 78. Sherman Willmott, who knew King well and helped create the Memphis Listening Lab last year on the strength of King’s thousands of records, CDs, and music-themed books, wrote on Facebook at the time:
Not going to lie. This one hurts. I’ve met so many great people in the music biz, but John King is Tops of the Pops. Huge loss for Memphis and a big loss personally. One of a kind person, always funny and so anti-cool, he’s too cool. Truly the Spirit of Memphis like Bowlegs Miller or Jim Spake — guys who get stuff done behind the scenes in a quality way and aren’t superstars but make things shake, rattle, & roll … defining exactly what people actually love about Memphis. Godspeed to the King of Memphis!
Indeed, King was a pivotal player in the city during its musical zenith, as a promoter, program director, and studio owner, having initially co-founded Ardent Studios with fellow teens John Fry and Fred Smith in 1959. I reached out to Willmott to hear more of his thoughts on the King of Memphis, the man who collected it all, John King.
John Fry and John King, experimenting with studio design as teens (Photo courtesy Memphis Listening Lab).
Memphis Flyer:John’s career was multi-faceted. He saw the Memphis music business from a lot of sides, wouldn’t you say?
Sherman Willmott: Oh definitely. From the little stories he would tell, his whole life was fascinating from the beginning, when they were kids, getting into rock and roll just as it was starting. He grew up with rock and roll, chasing the records. Whether it was him taking the bus downtown to Home of the Blues record shop on Beale, or later with Terry Manning and their buddies getting on the phone to call in mail orders of Beatles records from England. He was very aggressive and determined to get whatever it was he was searching for. And that paid off with his incredible collection.
His work as a record promoter also fed into that.
To me, some of the most interesting tales he would tell were from when he went on the road with the Stax PR people, or the radio people, and they’d go into mostly African American stations. John of course was the token white guy, pushing the rock and roll stuff, but he loved all the music. He particularly loved the hustle and working with the DJs and A&R guys and promo men. That to me is fascinating. It’s like that book, Hit Men. About how you actually got records played. John lived that life. And he lived a life of no regrets.
And one reason he did it was that [Stax president] Al Bell really took him under his wing. So he had an entrée into that world, because of Stax and their muscle. The Stax promotional team was great, with Deanie Parker and those folks. John may have not had an office at Stax, but he certainly knew everyone there. They were friends. There was a lot of overlap between John, Stax, and Ardent.
And he was like a kid in a candy shop. They had worked in radio as teenagers, but to visit stations in a city like Philadelphia was a whole other level. He was pushing records, but I’m sure it wasn’t “pushing” to him; he was just talking passionately about some record they were promoting. Of course, he also would have a tip sheet, and that was another way he had a reciprocal relationship. He would promote other people’s records, and that was a way for him to stay on top of things and get more records for himself, which was a perk.
His collecting covered a lot of genres, didn’t it?
He liked everything, and he had really good taste. So he was getting other people’s new releases, at a time when there was so much great music coming out in every genre. His timing in life couldn’t have been better, I think.
What had he been doing in more recent years?
He always had his hand in the music business. But once the Ardent label went on the shelf for a while (because it never really shut down completely), and Stax went out of business, people in the music business here either went to L.A. or Nashville, generally. Or they fought over the scraps that were left, in the “Disco Duck” era, when studios weren’t as busy. From 1967 to the early ’70s, when American and Stax were going, and Elvis was recording in town, and everyone from Paul Revere and the Raiders to Ronny Milsap to Dan Penn was here, Memphis was on top of its game. If you were there for that, and the rug got pulled out from under you around 1975, it’s like being at the club at three in the morning when the lights come on. It’s time to go somewhere else. I think there was a lot of that in general. And I think John moved around a bit, but he never completely got out of music promoting. It was his passion. He never stopped collecting.
In his collection, there’s a lot of stuff from the ’80s on 12″, when hip hop and dance music was starting to take off. And you wouldn’t think he’d be a big dance music guy, so that was a weird part of the collection. But I think he took whatever was happening in the music business.
I think the big turn for him was in 2000, or the late ’90s, when he started getting into internet radio. I think at that point he was formulating a game plan for what to do with his collection, and that was to make programs for this station, Tiger Radio. And he collected all these yearbooks and phone books and old radio clips and ads. What he wanted to do was make each internet radio show focus on a specific date. Like, April, 1967. And he wanted to pick out people in the yearbooks and talk about them going to a specific dance to see a band. That’s how into it he was. He would play the ads from that year along with the songs. When I met John, that’s what he was into. He basically had his own massive radio station and library, and all the things you needed to do an old school radio show.
So he’d sit there with selections from his collection and digitally record internet radio shows?
Yep, he was one of the first into broadcasting music online. And he had all formats: records, CDs, cassettes, everything. But when I walked into his office the first time, it was like walking into a 1960s radio station. He had shelves and shelves of ’45s that are now in the listening lab.
Are those shows still archived online?
I don’t think they are. It was tigerradio.net. Obviously named after the University of Memphis. He was a big fan.
How did John end up giving his entire collection to the fledgling Memphis Listening Lab?
We’ll call it the collection, but I call it his life’s work. But it wasn’t about him, it was about placing that collection into the best situation possible. He was searching for the proper place for it to end up, where it would get the most public use. He wanted it to be used in the best possible way. And he and I would talk about various opportunities out there, and how much they were or were not what he was looking for. Inevitably each one was a disappointment.
And that’s why the Crosstown opportunity was so appealing to him. Before that, he had resigned himself to the fact that his collection was going to live somewhere outside of Memphis. And that would have been bad for Memphis, a missed opportunity, but also, he was concerned it would be put in the back of some university collection somewhere. One archive I visited had some amazing records, all stuck behind a cage. There was no interaction with the collection by the public. Everything was done by appointment. It was more like the records were in archival prison. At universities who take in collections, there’s usually a hierarchy. Your stuff gets put in the back because some other dude’s collection comes in. Things get lost in the university shuffle. At least in the Memphis Listening Lab, you can come in and see everything that’s available. Those records and CDs are there to be used.
You can have a ton of stuff, it doesn’t matter what stuff you have, but if no one gets to see it and the passion you put into it, what’s the point? John’s collection is really well curated stuff. It’s in great shape, and it’s also really eclectic. There was a method to his madness, and only people who go really deep into it will see that.
When we opened the MLL, he was very pleased. He took great satisfaction in seeing how it finally got built, how much care was put into the design of the space, just like he put into the design of the collection. One thing he said was, “They’re thanking me — but I’m thanking them!” Seeing him in there and enjoying the space was very positive. The last time I saw him was at the listening lab. We had a ball, sitting around listening to music, and he was at peace. The best thing was, he and his friend Tim Riley, who’d worked in promotions at Stax, went over there about a month ago. Attendance has been picking up more and more since Covid subsided. Saturdays can get pretty busy over there. So John and Tim got to see the full-on appreciation and usage of the collection. That’s the ultimate, from my point of view. That’s what really made him happy. He wanted the collection to be enjoyed by the public, with the radio station nearby and the space and the programming. It’s fulfilling the mission he desired, and he got to see it in action. That’s the payoff.
Sarah Rayne and Andrew Harris of Cobra Man (Credit: Brian Ziff)
The California skateboard scene knows how to party. Exhibit A: The self-described “Los Angeles Power Disco” of Cobra Man, who play Memphis tonight at the Hi-Tone Cafe.
It was sunny sidewalk surfers that birthed the synth-heavy dance group, when Andrew Harris and Sarah Rayne first collaborated for a video, “New Driveway,” by The Worble skateboard company in 2017. That collaboration felt so perfect that they built a band around it — now grown to seven members. And it felt right to Goner Records, who released both that soundtrack and its follow up, Toxic Planet.
And, unlike most soundtracks, the sound is intoxicatingly hedonistic, a heady blend of fat analog synth riffs with soaring choruses that plays like a lexicon of ’80s synth pop, distilled to its throbbing dance core. In memory of the recently departed Alan Hayes, I’d even put them in the company of Memphis’ darkly synthetic dance pioneers of the late ’70s and ’80s, Calculated X. And yet Cobra Man’s perch from the heights of the 21st Century lends them a more brazen take on the genre. As Harris told Thrasher magazine in 2020, “We are definitely being shamelessly grandiose. We’re leaning into all of our guilty pleasures at one time, which some people think is corny but I honestly just don’t give a shit.”
It’s that last sentiment that puts Cobra Man, and thus their commitment to the party vibe, over the top. The blended textures of thick, chorusey keyboards, riff rock guitar, and unrelenting rhythms are true to their “Los Angeles Power Disco” tag, but one is never quite sure where they’ll take it.
Cobra Man, with opener Snooper from Nashville (slated for their own Goner release) play the Hi-Tone Cafe Monday, August 1, also featuring the premiere of a new Worble skate video. Doors 8 p.m.
The 2022 Evolve Bank & Trust Cooper Young Festival, slated for Saturday, September 17th from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., has announced its musical lineup.
The headliner will be Bailey Bigger, backed by a band featuring Mark Stuart (bass guitar), Wyly Bigger (keyboards) and Danny Banks (drums).
Growing up in small town — Marion, Arkansas, just outside of Memphis, Tennessee — Bigger began writing and performing seriously in Memphis at the age of 14. It’s been quite a journey from that to Bigger’s debut full length album, Coyote Red, released by Madjack Records in March and featured in the Memphis Flyer‘s music column at the time.
At the time, we wrote of her strong-yet-delicate singing and evocative songwriting, with echoes of Joan Baez and similar artists. Bigger noted that when producing the album, Mark Stuart told her, “I think this record’s about you showing who you are, in a genuine, down-to-earth way.” It’s not to be missed. Visit baileybigger.com to learn more and find tour dates near you.
Here is the complete music lineup for the 2022 Cooper Young Festival:
Memphis Grizzlies Stage 12:30 pm Joy Dog – Danny & Joyce Green 1:30 pm Rachel Maxann 2:30 pm The Delta Project 3:30 pm Jay Jones 4:30 pm Generation Gap
Evolve Bank & Trust Stage 11:15 am SoundBox 12:15 pm Rodrick Duran 1:15 pm Elevation 2:15 pm The City Fathers 3:15 pm Chinese Connection Dub Embassy 4:15 pm Carlos Guitarlos 5:15 pm Headliner – Bailey Bigger
