Of all the subgenres of rock-and-roll, “songs about playing music” is in my top three. I love the demystification of it all, the lyrics about jet lag and long bus rides and hoping to scrape a few dollars together. And maybe, when it comes down to it, I just love self-referential art.
When Big Star’s Alex Chilton sings, “I can’t get a license/To drive in my car/But I won’t really need it/If I’m a big star,” on “O My Soul,” casually dropping the band’s name into the lyrics, what can I say? I eat that up.
So, against my natural inclinations, I’ve done my best not to talk too much about the inner workings of the Flyer in these weekly columns. Partly to preserve an aura of mystery, which, I hope, our readers will find alluring. Partly because I’ve realized that the minutiae of what I think is interesting might not always make for the most entertaining or enlightening column. (And no, I don’t want to talk about my all-Batman column from a few weeks back. If you didn’t like it, I’m forced to believe that, ideologically speaking, you fall on the side of anarchy, violence, and mayhem — one of the Joker’s cronies for sure.)
When the news is big enough, though, it warrants spilling a little ink. And speaking of big, if you’re reading this issue of the Memphis Flyer in print, you might have noticed we’ve gone back to our previous larger tabloid size.
It took a lot to get here. Some of our readers might not remember that in the dismal days of 2020 we actually, briefly, went to a biweekly printing schedule. Not only that, but due to our longtime printer in Jackson, Tennessee, shutting down in early 2021, we’ve switched printers twice since the beginning of the pandemic, moves that then necessitated the change in layout size.
So, while our stalwart staff adapted to all the other changes the last two years have brought, they were also forced to adapt to different word counts and deadlines and image restrictions. The folks in our art department weren’t only shifting to work with far fewer opportunities for photos from the field, they had to redo (and redo again) our paper’s templates. Of course, each major change kickstarts a cascade of smaller ones, and that’s before we even begin to consider the rising costs of paper and freight, the dozens of other behind-the-scenes adjustments that would bore all but the most avid aficionados of alt-weekly newspaper production.
My point, though, is not only that it’s been an interesting two or three years. Everyone, the world over, has had to make changes, to adjust their expectations and long-held habits. No, my hope is to lay the groundwork for a well-earned celebration of where we are right now, at this precise moment, as you scan these words on your phone or laptop screen or hold the paper in your hands. I’m proud of and thankful for such a hardworking, creative, and unflappable team — the reporters, writers, editors, copy editors, designers, sales staff, and others who make this paper possible.
Thanks are also due to the businesses who choose to advertise with the Flyer, who recognize the worth of the investment and who keep this paper free and the website without a paywall. I offer my most sincere and heartfelt appreciation of you all, and I hope that our readers will patronize these local businesses (I know I do).
It’s fitting, too, that this return to our pre-pandemic paper size falls on the week of our much-beloved and highly anticipated annual “Music Issue,” absent for two years, in which we celebrate the triumphant return of another Memphis institution, Memphis in May’s Beale Street Music Festival. And that this year’s BSMF boasts the most Memphis bands on the bill in the past 20 years? Well, if that’s not a reason to celebrate, I really don’t know what is.
So let this be a reminder that none of the things we love in Memphis should be taken for granted. I know without asking them that the bands playing Music Fest this weekend worked and dreamed and defied the odds to be on those stages. They kept a candle burning, so to speak, through the long night of uncertainty, when no one could predict when we might come together for something as magical and, at one time anyway, commonplace as a concert. And I, for one, am thankful that they did.
When you think about it, it all seems like nothing short of a minor Memphis miracle. Doesn’t it?
