Tag: Amy Lavere

The Music Issue: Music in the Time of Corona

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date May 27, 2020

With shelter-in-place still the most responsible policy for all of us, a lot of people are imagining that the once-thriving music scene in Memphis is withering on the vine. But a lot of people would be wrong.

Casting a wide net for signs of life recently, I’ve reeled in a full haul of ways that local musicians are rising to the challenge of making their art accessible, and, in some cases, even making a little money. Though their income sources have shrunk, musicians are honoring their best impulses to simply get their art out there.

Amy LaVere and Will Sexton

There wouldn’t be a Flyer Music Issue without music. And, without question, the music and musicians are still there, working their craft, helping all of us cope — and with a new sense of connection and hope.

Players and Payers, Now Online!

We all know about live-streamed shows by now, of course. It’s become the new normal, and with our weekly online listings in The Flow, the Flyer has attempted to acknowledge and promote the practice. But it’s tricky to keep up with all the action. In the past week alone, we listed nearly three dozen separate streaming events, and we know we didn’t cover all of them. (Musicians, send us your announcements!) Several of these were virtual festivals with a dozen artists or more, all coordinating their homebound performances through a central hub. All told, these artists’ commitment to both social distancing and social unity (and, let’s face it, self-promotion) has been impressive. Thanks to the internet, perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too?

Nationally, live-streaming has had its ups and downs. The data-crunching company Chartmetric released a study earlier this month stating that: “The U.S. Top 100 YouTube artists surged during lockdown, but as daily infections continued to rise, that demand failed to keep pace, perhaps because consumers turned to other non-music content or other sources of entertainment as the reality of sheltering in place indefinitely started to set in.”

That leaves aside the question of why viewership should correlate in any way with the infection rate. Once you’re in place, either you’re prone to watch live music or you’re not. And of course, national data on “the top 100 artists” has almost nothing to do with the local scene, which celebrates independent artists in all their forms. By all indications, live-streamed music events are on the rise in Memphis. (The first edition of The Flow only listed two dozen events.)

And many are reaping some sorely needed financial rewards for their live-streamed efforts. Mark Edgar Stuart, who has done four such online events, was taken aback at the response. “The first two I did, I was like ‘Wow, I’ve never made that at a gig before!’ There might be something to this web show business, you know? This might carry on once COVID-19 is over.”

Most of Stuart’s events have taken the classic “man with guitar lives here” approach, where he plays for viewers from a chair in his home. But he’s been inspired by others who strive to lend their live events more panache. “I love seeing how people are getting creative with it. Graham Winchester, doing a show in the bathtub! I saw Jesse James Davis do one a few weeks ago. He had his backing beats happening and it looked cool. I was like, ‘Yeah, kudos.'”

A Weirdo From Memphis aka AWFM

Striving for an original approach is on many performers’ minds. A Weirdo From Memphis, aka AWFM, says his plans for live events have been steadily evolving. “I decided to fall back until I can make it special. I don’t know if you’ve just logged on to Instagram on a random Friday night and seen like 12 Live bubbles across the screen? It used to be kinda like an exciting anomaly. ‘Whoa, somebody’s on Live, what are they gonna be doing?’ And now it’s like everybody has their own live TV show. Which is sometimes just them sitting there. People think that what they do is special, and they think that they’re standing out but don’t really zoom out and see the picture and see that you’re really just walking in the same direction as everybody. So I’d rather make sure, when I do pop on Live, it’s a thing to get excited about because I’m doing something different. I’ve really spent some time figuring out what that was supposed to be for me. And I have the answer now, and everything I need to do it is on its way to being in my hands. If you’re not really about the artistic experience, it’s like a microwave. I’m trying to put some food in the oven!”

PreauXX

Fellow Unapologetic rapper PreauXX keeps his IG Live events fresh with the inherent spontaneity of freestyle, at which he excels. “Whenever I want to get some stuff out, I just go on IG Live for 30 to 40 minutes and just freestyle over beats. And whoever joins in my Live will give me a beat or give me a topic, and I just rap for 40 mintues, just for the hell of it.”

Of course, not everyone can rap extemporaneously with such aplomb, especially if your forte is making beats. But Unapologetic producer C Major has taken to the live internet anyway, via the beat battles hosted by a St. Louis-based group called Fresh Produce. As their web page (freshproducestl.com) explains, “Eight beatsmiths compete head to head in a tournament style bracket battle consisting of three rounds. Each producer is given at least one minute per round to impress the five judges, which include former winners from multiple beat battles, DJs, tastemakers from around the area, and the difference maker, The Crowd.”

As C Major points out, “It’s a whole experience, with interviews, clips of videos in between the beats. And the people in on the session can vote on whose beat they rock with the most. They’ve got a championship round on May 27th that I’m gonna be on again.”

Producer C Major of Unapologetic

But C Major also points out another avenue for internet-based music, one he’s only now discovering: online gaming. “I’ve seen some crazy shit. They have whole festivals on Minecraft, which is ridiculous. There are bands, not even playing live, but with pre-recorded stuff they’re doing with their characters in Minecraft, and they’ve got a sea of people watching, just all characters on a computer. It’s crazy! You can be in the world of Minecraft and walk into a building and there will be a flyer and everything. And at a certain time, you go into a venue, and they’re just in there, the little blocks with guitars and shit. A drummer and shit. And your character is there with other characters. I’ve got two little boys, and they’re really into that world. So me and them stayed up one day and watched that. It’s crazy how creative people can be.

“Seeing that level of creativity just got me thinking,” he continues, “I can’t just hop on Live with my phone now. I mean, that’s cool, too. It has a level of personal-ness that you want, but at the same time, these people are out there, like they’ve been waiting for this moment.”

“My technology will shine now!” chimes in AWFM with a mad cackle.

Like so many of us (and like my own interview with them), the Unapologetic crew has also kept up their collaborative momentum with Zoom meetings, as they plan their next moves. “Every Wednesday, we have a big Zoom meeting with 12 to 15 people,” C Major explains. “It used to be a lot of planning and business, and we still do a lot of that. But now, I really cherish the time to just tell people what’s going on with me, and listen to what’s going on with them. It’s almost like therapy.”

PreauXX nods in agreement, adding, “Them kumbaya sessions are so soulfully needed.”

Another, more public version of stoking the creative fires has been pioneered by singer/songwriter Cory Branan, whose response to being a shut-in was to launch a homemade talk show, UMM, with his favorite fellow songsmiths. Episodes go live on Instagram every Wednesday, then remain archived on his YouTube channel. With such guests on the split-screen as Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, Ben Nichols, and Frank Turner, it’s a veritable who’s who of today’s songwriting legends, and Branan’s queries reflect his own poetic approach to the craft: “You said when you finish a song, you’re like a sleepwalker who wakes up holding a bloody knife, surrounded by corpses,” he quips to Frank Turner, who responds, “I can still remember it being on the brain for a good few months, and then one day it’s finished …”

Other musicians are taking live-streamed shows to another level, albeit with careful social distancing in place. After all, many of us wish the drummer was always forced to stay six feet away. (ba-dum-bum!) Amy LaVere and Will Sexton, living together in matrimonial bliss, began their Thursday “Love Stream” shows on Facebook simply enough as a duo, but now have stepped out on their porch for some shows, inviting bandmates to play along from a safe distance.

Mark Edgar Stuart — via virtual remote control

And now, almost as an outgrowth of this internet community, actual live music, in front of real people, is beginning to take form in unpredictable ways. When the Joe Restivo 4 held an impromptu concert on drummer Tom Lonardo’s porch last Wednesday, with social distancing in place, it attracted a small crowd, well-spaced, up and down the street.

But Mark Edgar Stuart may have the best, and strangest, example of this. As he explains, “Three weeks ago, I did a show for a bunch of pontoon boats. I had a superfan out in Eudora, Mississippi, who lives in a lake community, and he was like, ‘Dude, will you do a concert? I’m gonna promote it to the rest of the lake, and we’re gonna have all the pontoons come out to the dock and you can play.’ I was on a dock with a PA, nobody around me. And it was a listening crowd. You could smell the joints being passed around. It was fun! It was about 18 boats, maybe 50 or 60 people watching. They were all six feet apart.”

Venues Hunker Down

Such wacky alternatives do make players and fans alike a bit wistful about actual music venues. But, looking for signs of hope that we’ll one day have music in clubs again, I need turn no further than the sounds of hammers swinging down the street. As all the world shelters in place, B-Side Bar is giving its stage a makeover. “We had to raise it up a few inches to fit these new subwoofers under there,” says co-owner Brad Boswell. And they’re not the only ones making the most of the downtime.

“We’re just trying to get things that we never get done when we’re just blowing and going like we do,” says Jason Ralph of the Blues City Cafe. “When you’re as busy as we are all the time, you don’t have a chance to do a lot of the things that you want. So we’re trying to take advantage of this unfortunate break we’re having. Like redoing the kitchen floor, things like that.”

Owners and managers of music venues throughout the city are nervously pondering the day when people can congregate once more. Yet no one is sure what conditions need to be met for that to happen. Some plan to follow the authorities’ lead. “Everything will be based on CDC and what they put out, and what local government puts out,” says Ralph. “What I really don’t want is to make that happen and then have to close again.”

Yet some feel even an official go-ahead may not be enough. “We’re not gonna open up just because the governor says it’s okay, you know?” says Boswell. “We’re just gonna play it by ear. It’s possible we’ll start out doing live-stream shows first, before we fully open. But we’re not even discussing it yet at this point.”

Brett Batterson, president and CEO of the Orpheum Theatre Group, thinks smaller venues will have an advantage. “I think the smaller venues like Halloran Centre will open first. Gradually we’ll get to a point where the Orpheum will reopen.” Meanwhile, they’re hosting home-recorded performances in their Memphis Songwriters Series, regular live-streamed events on Facebook every Saturday.

Most see reopening as a mirror image of how they shut down. Boswell notes that B-Side was one of the first to shut down, and may be among the last to open again, perhaps starting with only live-streamed shows.

Blues City Cafe first phased out bands, then allowed dining customers at half-capacity for more distancing, then offered only takeout before closing completely. Ralph thinks featuring live bands will be the last phase of reopening, but even that will take some adjustment. “A lot of people don’t realize, it’s gonna look a lot different, regardless,” he says. “Even once we’re going 100 percent, as busy as we are on Beale Street, it’s not gonna be like it was any time soon.”

Laying Down Tracks

While we await such changes, musicians soldier on, and records — the other side of the musical coin — are continuing to be made, by hook or by crook. Since the quarantine era, there’s been a flowering of tracks swapped via the internet. While many producers and engineers have found the explosion of home recording gear to be a mixed blessing (pun intended), in times like these, such home rigs are keeping many of them busy. Since shelter-in-place began, countless players have gone back to finish tracks, often inviting colleagues to add overdubs in their own home studios, to then assemble later into a final mix.

As usual, the Unapologetic collective is ahead of the curve. Nothing as clunky as email is needed. As C Major explains, “We’ve actually got it set up to where the whole ProTools folder is on Dropbox, so whenever you record [in your home studio], I’m getting the updated session immediately. And I’ll go in and tweak stuff. So we’re basically kind of in the same studio, just over the internet. We just adapted that way. Dropbox updates in real time. So if anyone makes any change to the session, it’s gonna show up on mine.”

Others take a hybrid approach, stepping carefully into the city’s professional studios, armed with masks and sterilizer. Calling me from Delta-Sonic Sound, the studio run by Big Legal Mess producer Bruce Watson, Mark Edgar Stuart gives an on-the-scene report. “Will is in the tracking room, wearing a mask. I’ve been wearing a mask all day and am now outside. Bruce has been wiping down the headphones and all that kinda business.”

A similar scene, with even more players, was in place at the famed Royal Studios two weeks ago, when Michael Graber invited his favorite players to record new material — composed during his days and nights as a shut-in — with Boo Mitchell at the helm. “A lot of musicians who are usually busy with gigs or on the road were able to join in on the sessions,” he explains. “So we planned to go in and properly distance and record. And we ended up, in two days, recording 24 original songs. Some of these songs are strange compositions. We’d use traditional bluegrass instrumentation on some, but then we were throwing in dulcimers, harmoniums, bouzoukis, six-part harmonies, that kind of stuff. So it got pretty wild.”

Though everyone wore masks, hosting so many players at once proved challenging, and Graber sounds a cautionary note: “It was really, really hard to sing. I ended up taking my mask off. As did some of the other background singers. We tried to keep distanced. We were very conscious the whole first 12-hour day. But by the end of the second day, we were getting tired, people were rushing to the food when we had it out. The longer we went, the more the challenge it was to hold up those standards. It’s just what it is. It was a microcosm of what’s gonna happen as we re-enter society. First we’re very cognizant, and then we slowly let our guard down.”

AWFM says, “When we create, it’s really on top of each other, kinda like a family vibe, but that’s not the wisest thing to do right now. Especially with everybody going back home to their families. ‘Cause you can be like, ‘I’m good,’ but not realize that you’re a carrier of it and take it to somebody who’s less equipped to deal with it. That would be pretty devastating. I’ve seen people that have accidentally killed their parents or grandparents, just by having a mild case of it. They had already been existing in the house for two weeks, and really messed things up. So we haven’t created face-to-face in a minute. It’s a lot to lose, man.”

Musicians and non-musicians alike struggle with such contradictory impulses these days: to be safe, to protect others, but at the same time, to create, to collaborate, to commune. Perhaps the Unapologetic approach can benefit all of us. Says PreauXX, “For all of us, it’s been a survivor’s mentality. You can either lounge around or you can adapt.”

NIVA

More than two months ago, Growlers hosted metal bands Weedeater and The Goddamn Gallows during what would become the venue’s final show before it was forced to temporarily shut its doors due to stay-at-home orders caused by COVID-19.

Within that period, Growlers has seen a loss of tens of thousands of dollars, and with a definite reopening date unknown at this time, that loss could add up to be much more. Growlers has since begun offering takeout food and has applied for and received loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA). But according to Mike Glenn, managing partner and national talent buyer for the venue, that’s not going to be enough to keep them afloat until they can reopen.

“We have a great landlord in Yong Rhee, so he’s been helping in regards to rent,” he says. “But there’s utilities, certain taxes, etc. We are accruing a debt load, as are all venues.”

Nearly a month ago, Glenn caught wind of independent venues throughout the country joining a group called the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) who have been seeking to rally support from state representatives and from U.S. congressional leaders to provide additional federal aid for venues.

“Dayna Frank, [owner of First Avenue in Minneapolis and president of NIVA], is a friend of mine, and I heard rumblings of her and a few other indies starting this,” says Glenn. “So, being in this business my entire life, this was something important to me. We don’t have billions like Live Nation or AEG. So I’m very passionate about standing for indie venues and promoters.”

NIVA, which comprises more than 1,600 independent venues throughout the country like Minglewood Hall, Exit/In in Nashville, and the Troubadour in Los Angeles, has issued a letter to the U.S. Congress asking legislators for further assistance to help keep overhead charges and taxes paid until they can present shows again.

In the letter addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the collective asked that the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program be revised to increase the program’s loan cap and extend the program until all the affected businesses can resume operations at full capacity. They also asked for other modes of assistance, including establishing a business recovery grant fund, granting various forms of tax relief, and extending unemployment insurance to contract workers and artists who wouldn’t normally receive benefits.

Glenn has worked closely with Chris Cobb, owner of Exit/In, contacting Tennessee Representatives Steve Cohen and Jim Cooper, as well as Senators Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn, to ask for their support.

“The conversations with them have been very promising,” says Glenn. “All have supported the efforts.”

Last week, there was progress on the local level when the Shelby County Commission approved an amendment to the 2021 fiscal year budget that would allot $100,000 to assist local venues like Growlers, Minglewood Hall, and Levitt Shell with rental and employee assistance.

“I’ve only heard of a few other cities in the country doing that,” says Glenn. “So it’s wonderful having great local leadership who support the arts.”

According to Glenn, this is a good starting resource for venues in Memphis to be able to stay on their feet until they are able to put on shows again.

“We just want to get back to what we love, putting on events for people to have a great time,” he says. “But we also want to be safe about it. There’s just something about a room full of people vibing together that can’t be replicated with other options. So, hopefully, we’ll get back to that sooner than later. The people are the reason I’m in the business in the first place.” — Julia Baker

Tags A Weirdo From Memphis, Amy Lavere, C Major, Corona virus effect on musicians in Memphis, Mark Edgar Stuart, Michael Graber, PreauXX, Unapologetic, Will Sexton

Music Music Features

Painting Blue: Amy LaVere’s Latest is Dark and Beautiful

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date August 9, 2019

When speaking with Memphis musical stalwart Amy LaVere about her new album, Painting Blue (Nine Mile Records), I hesitate to pin it down as “dark.” There are plenty of light, lovely moments on it. But there’s no denying that, after tapping into the darker side of hopefulness with album opener, “I Don’t Wanna Know” by John Martyn, she returns to that well again and again. “Waiting for the towns to tumble/Waiting for the planes to fall/Waiting for the cities to crumble/Waiting to see us crawl,” she sings, tweaking the original lyrics subtly, setting a stage where even moments of love are framed by the shadows of a world confronting disaster.

“There’s a real melancholy feeling to the record,” I finally say, and LaVere can’t help but agree. It was born of melancholy, though recording it ultimately helped her find a way out, as she adjusted to the joys of her marriage to guitarist and songwriter Will Sexton.

Jaime Harmon

Amy Lavere

“When Will and I first got together,” she recalls, “there was this euphoria, and I went through this really weird transition period of learning how to be happy. Allowing myself to be happy. I was pretty depressed. It was around the elections in 2016, and I just wasn’t creating or working. Anything I would write just seemed so trite compared to what was going on in the world. It took me a really long time to find my voice. It was working through being 45, I think.”

Still, hopefulness crept into the album in unexpected ways. The song “No Battle Hymn,” for example, seems to despair at the lack of unification among those who know something must be done. “No one’s ready to admit we may be out of time,” she sings, and, put so succinctly, it’s a sobering thought. “That song kind of bummed me out for a while, until I wrote the very last line,” LaVere notes. “When I sing ‘We need a battle hymn in our hearts,’ it’s the last thing I say in that song, and I just happened to do that when we were playing it live. I fell in love with the song after I did that. It’s not just the statement of ‘We don’t have one,’ it closes with ‘We need one,’ like asking for one. It went from being a defeatist song to one with more hope.”

But hope can cut both ways, as profoundly expressed in one of the most ambitious tracks on the album, LaVere’s interpretation of Robert Wyatt’s “Shipbuilding,” with lyrics by Elvis Costello. Portraying the very mixed blessing of a job surge that follows a nation’s return to war (in the Falkland Islands), the song’s hope for decent work in the shipyards is always undercut with ambivalence over what’s creating a demand for ships in the first place.

“I’ve been wanting to do that song since the first time I heard it,” says LaVere. “But it’s not the world’s easiest song to play and sing. I actually gave up playing bass on it. Will had figured it out, and as soon as I stopped playing bass on it and could just focus on singing it, it became a real moment in the live show. I really get out of my head when I sing it. It’s a very emotional song. And Rick Steff playing accordion on there broke my heart.”

Indeed, the threat of a broken heart, whether inspired by lovers or crumbling cities, is a common thread to this collection. The much-needed love song to our city, “You’re Not in Memphis,” is a lilting, wistful paean to our trains and planes, full of soulful guitar hooks and spot-on organ fills, yet couched in a lament over a lover’s absence. Even the record’s most devotional song, “Love I’ve Missed,” which conjures up love’s euphoria, seems to lament the time wasted before romance entered the narrator’s life.

The lament comes to a head with “No Room for Baby,” the singer’s blunt confrontation of the winding down of her biological clock. “I’m only gonna do it live one time at the album release show, and then I’m never gonna do it again,” LaVere notes. And yet, for all that, the deft flourishes of musicality in the ensemble playing and the string and vocal arrangements make for an enchanting journey. “You once had the full color scheme,” she sings on the title track. “Now you’re painting blue on everything.” And yet the result, like the album cover itself, is a thing of blue-tinted beauty.

Amy LaVere and band celebrate the release of Painting Blue Saturday, August 10th, at Crosstown Theater, 8 p.m., $20.

Tags Amy Lavere, Painting Blue, Rick Steff, Will Sexton

Music Music Features

Stephen Chopek Finds His Memphis Groove

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date October 11, 2018

CREDIT: Jamie Harmon

Four years ago, the music scene lit up with news of a fresh face in town, hungry to play gigs. Stephen Chopek was clearly a drummer’s drummer, having cut tracks and toured with Charlie Hunter, John Mayer, and Jesse Malin, among others. Any fears that this Jersey City native wouldn’t get the Memphis groove were quickly laid to rest, and he has become a fixture with some of the great performers around town.

Says Chopek, “New York City was going through a lot of changes. So I was ready for the move, and it worked out great. I’ve worked with some great musicians: John Paul Keith, Amy LaVere, David Cousar. It’s been fantastic as a drummer, and also in having the time and space to do my own thing, too.”

That last comment is something you don’t often hear from drummers. But even before his move south, Chopek was exploring his own thing — as a songwriter. Ultimately, it was part of his larger attitude toward personal growth.

Jamie Harmon

Stephen Chopek

“As a gigging drummer, sometimes you’re creating things with people, and other times you’re just learning somebody else’s parts and playing gigs. Which is great fun, but there was something that was missing. Songwriting has helped me not just as a musician, but as an overall creative person, to have that balance of building something from the ground up, something I could direct on my own. As I go on in my career, and I grow as a human being, I’m seeing the importance of those situations that make you uncomfortable at first.”

Now, with his third full-length album dropping Friday, it would seem Chopek has hit his stride. Begin the Glimmer is not a typical do-it-yourself clutch of demos. It sports one perfectly crafted tune after another. They’re all built on a solid foundation of Chopek’s acoustic guitar strumming, which nestles in with his drum parts so perfectly that each song churns forward with aplomb. The songs were painstakingly constructed, as Chopek layered bass, keyboards, and lead guitar over his basic rhythm tracks. With Chopek’s plainspoken lyrics floating over it all, and everything kept in the kind of perfect sync only a drummer can create, the end result is a shimmering folk-pop gem that leaps from the speakers.

Some listeners may be familiar with two of the album’s tracks, released earlier this year as a seven-inch single. While many of Begin the Glimmer‘s tracks are of a personal nature, the single’s two tracks have a more historical bent. “The Ballad of Cash and Dean” is a kind of fantasia about two icons of the 1950s, Johnny and James. But the real period study is the A-side, “Radio Caroline,” an exuberant celebration of American rock-and-roll hitting the United Kingdom.

“Radio Caroline was a pirate station in the early ’60s in the U.K.,” says Chopek. “It was a time when the BBC saw rock-and-roll as this crass fad. So Radio Caroline was this pirate radio station on a boat off the coast that played all the blues and soul that young people of the time were interested in. I first heard about it in interviews and things, and then I did some additional reading. There was something about it that resonated with me. Something romantic about their DIY ethos, championing this new music.”

As a whole, the album’s sparkle is a refreshing break from “the Memphis Sound,” whatever that may be these days. But Chopek considers it part and parcel of his adopted home. “This is my first real Memphis record,” he notes. “I recorded it with Harry at 5 and Dime; I mixed it with Doug Easley; I mastered the vinyl with Jeff Powell at Sam Phillips. And working with Doug, with his contribution to Memphis music, was really something. I’m glad I didn’t know too much about him when I first started working with him, because I think there would have been an intimidation factor. I just got to know him as a person, and then slowly realized all the things that he had his hand in with Easley-McCain Studios: Sonic Youth, Pavement, Cat Power, the White Stripes, Wilco. All these things that were formidable in my development as a musician. So just getting to know Doug and working with Doug was a great Memphis experience.”

Begin the Glimmer‘s record release show is Saturday, November 10th at Otherlands.

Tags Amy Lavere, Begin the Glimmer, Doug Easley, Easley-McCain Studios, Jeff Powell, John Paul Keith, Memphis drummer, Stephen Chopek

Music Record Reviews

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love.

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date September 27, 2018

Mark Edgar Stuart has been a busy man of late, jumping deeper into the music scene than ever. Expect to see a lot more of this young upstart in the near future, as he winds up to promote his new album on Madjack Records, Mad At Love.

The crack band assembled for the project helps the proceedings along, with Al Gamble on keys, Landon Moore on bass, John Argroves on drums, and John Whittemore on steel guitar. Along the way, you’ll also hear special guests Amy Lavere, Liz Brazer, Will Sexton, Jana Misener, Susan Marshall, Paul Taylor, George Sluppick, and Kait Lawson. And a host of musical movers and shakers in the scene have been praising it, hotly anticipating its eventual release into the world.

Mark Edgar Stuart

For us locals, that time has come today. (The national release is October 12). On Sunday, he’ll lead a band through a record release party at the Railgarten, and today marks the release of the album’s first video (see below).

As cool weather settles in, it’s a good record for autumn, a smorgasbord of musical comfort food, due to the naturalness of Stuart’s songwriting. The changes flow like country water, at times like the river of soul music, all led by Stuart’s trademark “What if Willie Nelson sang baritone?” twang.

It’s familiar territory, yet all done with Stuart’s unique stamp. The lyrics reward deeper listening, gliding over Stuart’s impeccable folk picking. John Prine is the obvious reference point (and Stuart’s lyrics rise to the occassion), but at times he steps up with a stinging solo on electric guitar. And his ventures into country soul territory (“Something New”, “I’ll Be Me”) echo classic Charlie Rich. Indeed, with Gamble’s tasteful work on organ and electric piano, there is a deep current of soul through the whole album. Hear it for yourself, in the video released today:

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love. (2)

But listeners beware: the overarching theme of the album would seem to be the opposite of its title. Far from being “mad at love,” our hero is determined to not give up on it. “Give me one more chance/to prove that I’m not a lush,” he sings in “Stuck in a Rut.” And, given the recurring themes of reconciliation and responsibility, it seems that he got that chance. “Being high ain’t enough,” he sings, and one comes away from this album feeling that he found something better.

Here’s a track from the record, which Stuart says is “Inspired by a friend who’s brother died in the Middle-East, and the attachment we seem to have to the material things loved ones leave behind. This song is about a soldier, his sister and an upright bass.”

Mark Edgar Stuart Finds a Little Peace with Mad At Love.

Tags Amy Lavere, George Sluppick, Jana Misener, Kait Lawson, Liz Brazer, Mad at Love, Mark Edgar Stuart, Mark Edgar Stuart's new album, Paul Taylor, Susan Marshall, Will Sexton

Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Motel Mirrors

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date June 11, 2018

It’s a dreamy Music Video Monday!

Beale Street Caravan’s I Listen To Memphis series rolls on with the first-ever video from Memphis supergroup Motel Mirrors. John Paul Keith and Amy LaVere first teamed up in 2013 to create a perfect stew of elegant songwriting, countryfied harmonies, and twangy picking. For their long gestating second album, they were joined by LaVere’s husband Will Sexton on guitar and Shawn Zorn on drums. This version of “I Wouldn’t Dream Of It” was recorded live at the Galloway House, the former church in Cooper-Young where Johnny Cash played his very first show. The video series was directed by Christian Walker and produced by Waheed AlQawasmi. Take a look and listen!

Music Video Monday: Motel Mirrors

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

Tags Amy Lavere, Beale Street Caravan, Christian Walker, I Listen To Memphis, John Paul Keith, Motel Mirrors, Shawn Zorn, Waheed AlQawasmi, Will Sexton

Music Music Blog

Twin Releases by John Paul Keith and Motel Mirrors Celebrated at Railgarten

Post author By Alex Greene
Post date March 30, 2018

CREDIT: Jamie Harmon

Jamie Harmon

Motel Mirrors

Today marks the long-awaited release of twin records by both John Paul Keith (Heart Shaped Shadow) and Motel Mirrors (In the Meantime), the latter being Keith’s side project with Amy Lavere and Will Sexton. The latter group’s record features the lovely blend of harmonies between Keith and Lavere, tending toward the country side of life, love and loss, though with dips into rock ‘n’ roll, country/folk rock and the New Orleans groove. Keith’s new record is even more eclectic, venturing into all of the above as well as soul and the Bakersfield sound. More than ever, his voice has matured into a nuanced instrument with rich hints of a young Roy Orbison. It’s been ages since we’ve heard new material from either group, so fans of their shared take on classic roots sounds should turn out in force at their dual record release party tonight at Railgarten. I spoke with John Paul Keith a bit about how these records came together and the way they changed his approach to songwriting.

Memphis Flyer: It seems like you’ve had the songs from your new album in your live set for about a year.

John Paul Keith: Yeah, the record’s been in the can for almost a year. It just takes insane amounts of time to get product released. I don’t have management and it’s just moving a boulder uphill by yourself, all the time. And I paid for it all myself, when I had a little bit of extra money where I could afford to go in the studio. We broke it up into two tracking sessions, and then two or three mix sessions, just whenever I had a little money, you know? On the cheap.

Are these self-released?

No, they’re both coming out on Last Chance Records out of Little Rock.

Is there anything new in your approach, compared to your earlier records?

Well, this is the first one I’ve made without the 145’s, Al Gamble, Mark Stuart and John Argroves. My other three records were with those guys. So this one I wanted to do a little differently. At that point, none of those guys were in my live rotation anymore. Just by circumstance. And at that point, Shawn Zorn was playing in my live band most of the time. He started out as the Mirrors’ drummer, and ended up being my drummer, too. So I thought since I had a bunch of different guys I was playing live with, I would just shake it up and do it differently. And just do different guys for different songs. So it was different that way.

And the Mirrors record was kind of a creative breakthrough with me. I hadn’t had a record in five years, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I started making the Mirrors record with Amy & Will, and it’s the first time I’d really worked with Will, or written songs with Will, or been in the studio with him. And that was kind of a creative breakthrough for me, where it broke this creative logjam I had. I had written a batch of songs that weren’t very good, and that had delayed my next record. I just didn’t know where I was going, musically. And then we did the Mirrors record and I felt like I knew what to do next.

So I asked Will to produce my record and we just kinda kept going. We did both in Scott Bomar’s studio, and it’s a very similar group of people. Will is on most of it, Shawn is on most of it, Amy plays bass on a couple songs on my record. One of the songs on my record was going to be on the Mirrors record. We cut it on those sessions, and then ended up shuffling it to my record. So it was kinda like one long session in a way, broken up over a two year period.

I take it that you wrote all the stuff on your record. Is the Mirrors record very collaborative?

Basically, because Amy & Will had a really busy tour schedule, we only had a week to get material together and a week to track it. We’d already booked the time. So when they got off the road we realized we only had a short time to get the material together. So I would just go over to their house every evening, and we’d sit in their kitchen. They had two or three that they had been writing, and I had two or three that I had been writing, but we didn’t have enough. So we wrote a few things together and just pulled it together. I’d say it’s about half separate compositions and then half collaborations of some kind. And then there’s one cover on there, “The Man Who Comes Around,” an old Western Swing tune.

Oh, I wondered about the reference to the Fuller Brush man, who “comes around to sell a brush.”

Yeah, and the ice! The ice delivery is mentioned in that song. Pre-refrigeration, that song!

So one of those nights while we were writing, we got the text that our friend Josh Benton had died. That’s where the song “Funerals in New Orleans” came from. And we ended up dedicating the record to him. He and I were born two days apart. My birthday’s July 1st, his is July 3rd, and we both turned 40 that year. He was having a birthday party on the 1st at Bar DKDC, which happened to be my birthday, and he asked me if I’d play, and that’s where that line, “You’re party spilled into my show” came from. I wasn’t going play on my birthday, but he asked me to, and we said, “Okay, we’ll make it into a double birthday party for us both.” So we did it, and then he was dead about two weeks later. I ended up playing his wake in the same bar, about three weeks after I played our fortieth birthday party.

So it kinda did a number on my psyche.
Matt White

John Paul Keith

It was that whole period…I got divorced in the middle of making my last record, Memphis Circa 3 am, and one of the reasons I haven’t been able to get a record out in all this time is that I was going through a personal crisis during all that time. And with Josh dying right in the middle of making the Mirrors record, that was kind of the lowest point, honestly. And so once we got through the Mirrors record, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I knew what kind of songs I should be writing and how to express things more fearlessly and to trust in the stuff that’s hard to say sometimes. Sometimes the stuff you don’t really wanna reveal is the stuff that, as an artist, you need to be revealing.

Now, time’s have changed in the time it’s taken me to get this record out, you know? From the writing to the release of this record, there have been these big cultural changes. I thought Hillary Clinton was gonna be president when we started these records. Trump won after all of it was written and a lot of it was recorded. The Mirrors was completely in the can. So I have no topical songs or anything. And I don’t really write topical songs either. That’s just not my forte. That’s never something I’ve been successful at. But I’d like to be better at it. I think we’re all gonna have to be better at it if we wanna be artists who create work of worth.

But that vulnerability is timeless. Reaching into yourself more… “Blue on Blue,” from the Motel Mirrors record, for instance.

That was a song Will and I wrote together. And that song was a total surprise. I remember very clearly writing in the van with Amy, years ago. I remember having this conversation about how I try not to use the word “love” in songs. It’s just something I try not to do. I try to say it another way, or veil it in metaphor, or whatever. It’s because I was coming from a place where I was afraid to reveal things. I had been in an unhappy marriage for a long time, and it’s kinda like the John Lennon “Norwegian Wood” thing: you don’t wanna write things that upset your spouse or that cause problems in your personal life. Or I’d try to be clever, and witty, and it’s kinda cynical to do that.

And the thing I got out of the Motel Mirrors record was that Will and Amy put a stop to that. With the songs they were bringing, they were expressing stuff that was very vulnerable. And deeply personal, like the title track, and everything Will writes is that way. So when we were sitting down to write, I’d bring certain things in that I felt strong about, and they were like, “Nah!” And eventually I’d show ’em something I wasn’t very confident about and they’d go, “That’s the best thing you brought!” Like “Let Me be Sweet to You,” where I didn’t even know if that was good enough to be on a record, and now that we’ve done it it’s one of my favorite ones on there. But I was afraid to reveal that. I was afraid to express that and for people to see that side of me. Working with Will and Amy made me understand, that’s what I’m supposed to do as a writer. Like the old tune says, “You’ve Got to Live the Life You Sing About in Your Song.”

So that gave me the clarity and the direction and the confidence I needed for the next record. Making the Mirrors record was what got me through the dark period I was going through, but it also got my writing to where I feel like it needed to be. Now I already have enough material for another record, written from that time. And I’m always writing, and I feel good about the future and how writing songs is what I do, it’s how I get through life.

And now I don’t plan on ever taking that long between records again. I want to put out a record every year, every 18 months, as much as I can. That’s just what I wanna do with my life, period.

To circle back, now I use “love” all the time. I was totally wrong when we had that conversation in the van. Now I’m writing all love songs and not hiding anything, just laying it all out there. I also really took to heart this Ernest Hemingway quote about writing. He said, “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” And I have that on a Post-it above my desk, I see it all the time, and I always keep it in mind when I’m writing now.

Tags Amy Lavere, John Paul Keith, Motel Mirrors, Shawn Zorn, Will Sexton

Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 2: Triumph, Tragedy, and Restaurants

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date November 1, 2017

The countdown of our Best Of Indie Memphis poll results rolls on! In case you missed it, here’s part 1.

“Above God” (2005)

Brett Hanover is one of the best talents to emerge from the Media Co-Op scene. He was still in high school when he made a big splash at Indie Memphis. From the beginning, it was clear he has a knack for finding exactly the right subject for his documentaries. In 2005, he fielded two short docs: “Shaivo”, an experimental treatment of the line between life and death, inspired by the conservative cause celeb Terri Shaivo case, and the now classic “Above God”. One of the crazier sites that went viral in the early days of the internet was Time Cube, which presented an unbelievably extensive theory of the universe that made flat earthers look like pikers. Hanover managed to track down and get an interview with Time Cube guru Gene Ray, who described his mental powers as being “above God”. Hanover didn’t take the easy way out and just point and laugh at Ray—he tried to understand him. And that’s what made the first short film on our list something really special.

“Brett Hanover made this in high school and it featured one of the best scenes in a documentary ever. When the main subject falls asleep on camera. And being 15 or however young he was at the time, Brett was already smart (and ruthless) enough to keep that epic shot in his final cut rather than view it as a misstep. Brett’s style was both antiquated, yet somehow very fresh, and when I first saw this strange film I instantly knew Brett was one of the most promising filmmakers around, and I couldn’t wait to see what he would create in the future.” -Morgan Jon Fox

What Goes Around… (2006)

2006 was a banner year for local filmmakers at Indie Memphis. After Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow made a big splash at the box office in 2005 and at the Oscars in 2006, it seemed that anything was possible. The first generation of digital rebels were making their second features, and a whole new crop emerged as both the technology and know-how got better. In 2006, there were seven Hometowner features (“And all of them good!” said Les Edwards in my Memphis Magazine history of Indie Memphis.) Since the very beginning, the Indie Memphis crowd had been diverse in terms of sexuality and gender, but it was overwhelmingly white until Rod Pitts and his crew stormed into Indie Memphis 2006. PItts was a University of Memphis film student when he followed the Poor & Hungry blueprint and got his friends together for What Goes Around… The film is a sex comedy with a big heart featuring outstanding performances by soon-to-be local indie film legend Markus Seaberry, Christina Brown, Arnita Williams, and Domino Maximillian. Pitts also contributed heavily to that year’s Hometowner winner Just The Two Of Us by Keenan Nikkita.

Rod Pitts on the set of What Goes Around…

Pitts threw himself into helping others with their projects, most notably DeAara Lewis’ 2007 film Tricks. But he never directed another film himself. He faced a series of escalating health problems, including a stroke, and was diagnosed with lupus. He died in May, 2012; that fall, he was awarded Indie Memphis’ first ever Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Rod Pitts was a brilliant filmmaker, and What Goes Around was an interesting love story.”- Markus Seaberry

“Rod Pitts, man! Damnit it breaks my heart when I think about what a beautiful soul he was and how much he had left to offer the world with his incredible talent. He knew how to capture real humanity on screen, something that it seems you either have in your arsenal or you don’t. He had it, and he was just getting started.” -Morgan Jon Fox

Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island (2006)

The biggest box office hit of 2017 so far is It, which finally brought Stephen King’s Pennywise to the big screen. But eleven years ago, Memphis producer/director Mark Jones was way ahead of the game. Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island, Jones’ first feature, was a slasher movie parody whose villain was, you guessed it, a knife-wielding clown. To add a little social satire edge to the comedy, Jones’ lead character decided to confess his love for another fraternity brother at the same time they’re being stalked. Which one is scarier to toxic masculinity, Jones asks: Serial killers or coming out of the closet?

“The only film I’ve ever known of to be shot almost entirely on Mud Island. Killer clowns, adventure, hilarious and a great cast.” -Anonymous

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 2: Triumph, Tragedy, and Restaurants

Eat (2006)

Here’s a pro tip for you: If you’re a low-budget filmmaker, don’t write a film with 54 speaking parts. Still, if I could go back in time and tell my 2006 self what a logistical nightmare it would be to keep track of all those actors on a production that cost less than most used cars, I would have probably done it anyway. Heady from the success of Automusik, my then-girlfriend Laura Jean Hocking and I wanted to do something more ambitious. We had met while working in restaurants together, and we collected funny waiter stories for years. It’s the perfect venue for comedy, so we decided to write a screenplay mashing up our story file. Our setting was three restaurants—a fine dining establishment, a corporate fast casual, and a dive bar—each with a girl named Wendy on the floor. I would direct and Laura, who had been working as crew on Memphis productions for years, would use the opportunity to learn to edit. We held auditions and got together a huge cast to simulate the crush of people you meet working in the service industry. Among our Memphis a-list acting crew were two then-unknown musicians named Amy LaVere and Valerie June. The shoot was an extraordinarily difficult two weeks—especially considering we were all working full time day jobs. We made many lasting friends on that shoot, and soon after our sold-out premiere at Indie Memphis, Laura and I decided to get married.

“A generation from now, Eat will be the film people look to for a Who’s Who of the mid-’00s Memphis film scene.” – Adam Remsen

clip from EAT (2006) from oddly buoyant productions on Vimeo.

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 2: Triumph, Tragedy, and Restaurants (2)

The Book of Noah (2007)

Hardcore punk musician Patrick Cox made his debut in Eat before becoming the breakout star of Drew Smith’s first directorial feature, The Book of Noah, and he capitalized on it in a big way. He soon left Memphis behind for the wilds of Los Angeles, where he was cast in a series of bit parts and heavy roles (including Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Rising) until landing a major role in Two Broke Girls. Now he’s got 48 IMDB credits under his belt and will be appearing in the new DC movie Aquaman.

“There were a lot of “firsts” in that movie for all of us,” says Smith. “It was the first time I wrote a feature, the first time I directed, the first film Ryan Earl Parker shot, and the first that Pat Cox starred in. It was intimidating, not only for the amount of work we had to do, but more so for the amount of people that believed we could do it. We spent just about every weekend together for two years shooting it. I was terrified I’d let them down, but I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to help get the film done.

“We had no budget, so everything you see in the film was donated: actors, locations, gear, crew, editing. That is with the exception of Noah’s van. It had been abandoned, and I paid a tow truck company $300 for it. It was a piece of junk, but it ran, and we used it to haul gear to the locations. It finally died with about five scenes to shoot, so we shot those scenes by towing in with a rope to the location, or Ryan shooting while I bounced on the back bumper to simulate the motion. When we were finished, we left it in front of Ryan’s house until someone reported it as abandoned and the city towed it away.

“Because I wanted the dialogue to be as natural as possible, I told the actors to reword the script to fit their speech patterns. Apparently for me, that meant cursing a lot more. When we screened at Indie Memphis, my family came along with a lot of folks from my church. I must have counted myself saying the F-word about 40,000 times. At the end of the movie, I was embarrassed and already trying to figure out how to cut out some of my cursing. My priest came up and shook my hand, and he leaned into my ear and whispered “Great F-ing Movie.” It was kinda my proudest moment. Indie Memphis gave me that moment, and that’s why I still try to help with the festival as much as I can. It’s a great F-ing Festival.”

The Book of Noah from Drew Smith on Vimeo.

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 2: Triumph, Tragedy, and Restaurants (3)

The American Astronaut (2007)

Filmmaker Corey McAbee created The American Astronaut in 2001, and it slowly spread through the festival circuit for the next decade. Festival director Erik Jambor brought it to Indie Memphis as one of his first acts, and its mix of sci fi and musical comedy made it a cult favorite. In the years that followed, McAbee returned to Indie Memphis with Stingray Sam and Crazy and Thief.

The American Astronaut / Trailer from Cory McAbee on Vimeo.

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 2: Triumph, Tragedy, and Restaurants (4)

Tags Amy Lavere, Best Of, Brett Hanover, Drew Smith, Indie Memphis, Laura Jean Hocking, Mark Jones, Patrick Cox, Ryan Earl Parker

Music Music Blog

Beale Street Music Festival 2017: A Perfect Saturday

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date May 7, 2017

I can understand why some people don’t like to go to large, outdoor music festivals. They can be hot and dusty as the Sahara, or as rainy and muddy as the Western Front. Like any situation with a huge crowd, you can run into annoying people. And worst of all for music fans, the sound can be hit or miss: Either it’s so muddy you can’t hear the performances, or there’s so much bass bleed from the giant EDM party on the next stage, the band you came to hear gets drown out.

But Saturday at Beale Street Music Festival 2017 was an example of everything that can go right with an outdoor music festival. First and foremost, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The temperature topped out at 79 degrees, with brilliant sun only occasionally eclipsed by puffy clouds. Humidity was non-existent, and the steady breeze off the river drove away mosquitos and kept everybody cool. The sound was perfect, the acts were high quality, and the crowd, while enormous, was mellow and happy. Even the mud from last week’s rains had mostly dried by the time the first bands took the stage after 2 PM.

Amy LaVere at BSMF 2017

Memphian Amy LaVere was the first up on the FedEx stage at the southernmost end of Tom Lee Park. Backed by her husband Will Sexton and ace Memphis guitar slinger David Cousar, she won over the gathering crowd with an atmospheric take on her song ‘Killing Him”.

I watched about half of Amy’s near flawless set before hoofing it all the way to the other end of the park to catch another one of Memphis’ great live acts, Dead Soldiers (whom I interviewed for this week’s Memphis Flyer cover story). By the time I got to the River Stage, the band was going full throttle through songs from their new album The Great Emptiness. At one point, singer Michael Jasud realized he had a wireless mic and decided to take advantage of it. He leapt into the crowd and sang a couple of verses surrounded by the cheering audience. After returning to the stage for the climax of the song, the winded singer said “I just want y’all to know the level athleticism it takes to do that. It’s a level I do not possess.”

The Dead Soldiers’ Michael Jasud sings in the crowd during BSMF ’17.

A couple of songs later, drummer Paul Gilliam grabbed a tambourine and made his own crowd excursion.

Dead Soldiers drummer Paul Gilliam leads the BSMF crowd in a sing a long.

After the set, I ran into trombonist Victor Sawyer. The Dead Soldiers set was the third one he had played at Beale Street Music Festival, twice with the Soldiers and once with Victor Wainwright and the Wild Roots. “It’s always incredible!” he said. “It so cool to see a big crowd out there, with old faces and lots of new faces.”

Victor Sawyer (left) and Nashon Bedford play with Dead Soldiers at BSMF ’17.

I spent the rest of the day crisscrossing Tom Lee Park, trying to catch as many acts as I could. KONGOS from South Africa battled high winds as they meandered through a jammy cover of The Beatles’ “Get Back”, with singer Daniel Kongos pausing in the middle to deliver a rap. The crowd, which by mid-afternoon had swelled into the tens of thousands, went nuts for their ubiquitous hit “Come With Me Now”.

The Beale Street Music Festival lineups favor music performed by actual humans, but festival EDM was well represented by GriZ on the Bud Light stage. The Michigan producer had a major dance party going with his beats, to which he occasionally added saxophone solos. MUTEMATH was next, and judging by the ecstatic reception they got, the death of alt rock has been greatly exaggerated.

I always try to drop by the Blues Shack, and his year I caught Terry “Harmonica” Bean keeping a couple hundred festival goers entranced with his strong Hill Country blues groove, tapped out with a strong booted foot. For Memphians, this kind of thing can seem old hat, but for at least some of the people gathered in front of the Blues Shack, Bean’s performance was a revelation.

Terry ‘Harmonica’ Bean at the Blues Tent.

Speaking of revelations, the Drive-By Truckers‘ sunset set proved to the best performance of a day filled with strong musicianship. It started off a little rough, and a few minutes late, but once the Athenians built up some momentum, they were incredible. As the sun went down, singer Mike Cooley commented on the beauty of the backdrop. This is the first year the I-55 bridge has been lit up during Memphis in May, and combined with the spectacular sunset, it made for a beautiful tableau against which the band played a muscular, searing set. In a heartfelt monologue recalling his own youthful days of partying, Cooley dedicated a song to Jordan Edwards, an African American teenager who was shot in April by Texas police as he left a party.

The view from the Memphis Flyer tent as the Drive-By Truckers’s sunset performance.

The big draw of the River Stage was the one-two punch of hip hop superstars. Dressed in black with his dreadlocks tied behind, the Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz played with his DJ E Sudd to an adoring, overflow audience, introducing songs from his upcoming album Pretty Girls Like Trap Music, and tearing the proverbial roof off with a triumphant reading of his hit “I”m Different”. I watched about half of the set before wandering over the the River Stage to catch some of Death Cab For Cutie, who were playing in front of an equally large, if somewhat more subdued, crowd. Death Cab made their reputation with small, intricately structured rock songs, but at Tom Lee Park, they traded their twee for a stadium pounding rendition of “The New Year” that was all feedback smears and power chords. Singer Ben Gibbard looked like he was having the time of his life.

When I returned to the River Stage, Wiz Khalifa was holding court with a blunt in one hand and a microphone in the other. I only was able to get within about a quarter mile of the stage area, which was packed to the gills with dancing humanity. By this time, the audience had swelled to a size that was as big as I’ve ever seen at BSMF. Maybe it was the idyllic weather, or maybe it was the clouds of pot smoke rising from Khalifa’s adoring fans, but everyone seemed very chill, happy, and friendly. In times past, it has not been unusual for me to see a fight or two over the course of the weekend. One memorable BSMF in the 1990s, I saw a full on brawl by the porta potties that resulted in overturned outhouses and a couple of very unhappy festival goers covered in blue sewage. This year, there was not even a hint of that. A couple of times, people bumped into me and actually apologized! As confetti rained down on the Wiz Khalifa crowd, I found myself thinking that this Memphis In May Saturday shows what’s great about Memphis, and what a great music festival can be.

Confetti rains on Wiz Khalifa.

Will Sexton plays with Amy LaVere at BSMF 2017.

David Cousar backs Amy LaVere at BSMF 2017

Michael Jasud, Paul Gilliam, and Krista Wroten Combest of Dead Soldiers.

Tags 2 Chainz, Amy Lavere, Beale Street Music Festival, Ben Gibbard, David Cousar, Dead Soldiers, Death Cab for Cutie, Drive-By Truckers, Krista Wroten Combest, Memphis In May, Michael Jasud, Paul Gilliam, Victor Sawyer, Will Sexton, Wiz Khalifa

Cover Feature News

Worst Gig Ever! Memphis musicians share the worst nights of their career.

Post author By Chris Shaw & Chris McCoy
Post date September 22, 2016

Music is Memphis’ greatest export. But for the musicians, taking it on the road means long drives, long nights, and a lot of weirdness. It can be a hard life, full of ups and downs, but it sure makes for good stories. So we asked some of Memphis’ finest musicians to tell us about their Worst Gigs Ever.

Amy LaVere

I think it was the Memphis Queen. It was this new concept for a river voyage: A group of cyclists boarded for what was supposed to be a three-day cycling/boating adventure down to New Orleans. They were to port in Memphis in the early mid-morning, then they would depart the boat to go on a 40-mile bike ride. Then they would get back on the boat and have dinner, and we would be the after-dinner entertainment for their cruise.

Then they were going to stop in Tunica, where we would disembark with our gear and get ourselves back to Memphis. So the gig required us driving our van to Tunica with someone following us to bring us back to Memphis.

We get on the boat and waited around for everyone to finish a Cajun buffet dinner that had beignets and etouffee and French bread and alcohol, after they’d finished a 40-mile bike ride. They’re pretty much done. So about two-thirds of the audience goes to bed.

So right before we play, the promoter wants to introduce the band. We’re all on stage, and he gets up there in front of us and proceeds to give a speech to the audience that takes 15 minutes. It included such things as how to operate the toilets in their cabins. And we’re just standing there, wondering what the hell is going on. And then we play, and we put everyone to sleep, and it’s so sad. There were literally people with their arms folded, dozing.

When we get to Tunica to disembark, they had not reserved a docking spot for the riverboat, and the dock was full. There’s no place to dock. There’s a rocky cliff that goes up to a sidewalk/boardwalk along the Mississippi. I’m in a dress and heels, mind you. So what they did was, they basically reversed the boat, trying to stay stationary. But it was still moving down the river! It was going, like, five MPH. They lowered a plank, and I get handed down to a deck hand onto a rocky cliff that I then have to climb up barefoot with my dress up to the top. They were helping us get our gear off, but they were still moving, so by the time they got it all off, we were like a quarter mile strung out down the sidewalk.

By this point, we have a more interested audience watching us disembark than were interested at all in hearing us play. Then we had to walk our gear, piece by piece, all the way back up to the parking place at the dock. I think we made $400 on that gig, in total. Certainly the most comical and worst gig of my life.

Eric Oblivian,
True Sons of Thunder

I’ve played in bands around the world. I’ve played in squats in Slovenia. I’ve played in Croatia where they had no money to give us. But the worst show I’ve ever done was right here in Memphis with True Sons of Thunder. At one point, we had a goal of playing every club in town, which included the Rally Point. We booked a show with some emo band from somewhere. We show up, and the place is dimly lit — no microphones. It was so dark, we couldn’t tell if the turd that was on stage was human or canine. The show went on, and we did the show without vocals. We just sang into the air. We did our set, got out of there, and to my knowledge, the turd was still there while the other band played.

Alicja Trout, Rich Crook, and
John Garland, the Lost Sounds/Sweet Knives

AT: There was one that was just an epic night of bad things happening. The Vibrators wanted to get on our show in Detroit at the Old Miami club. We were playing with the Piranhas and Guilty Pleasures. The Vibrators were playing down the street, and they had this promoter named Lacy, and he says, “We’re playing down the street, and there’s nobody at our show. Can we come down and play with you guys?” And we said, “No, we’ve already got three bands . . .”

RC: We eventually said yes, but we weren’t going to share any money. And the Vibrators were HORRIBLE that night.

AT: I had this Peavy amp that had a phaser built in. I asked the guy if he wanted me to show him how to use the amp, because he was borrowing my stuff, rudely enough.

RC: … and he was like, “I think I’ve played enough amps!”

AT: So the phaser was turned all the way up, because we had ended the set with this big noise thing. And he played the whole show going “wheew … wheew . . . wheew…” He never figured it out. Then, one of the funniest things Jay [Reatard] ever said in his life…

RC: Dude said a lot of funny things.

AT: He said the dude from the Vibrators looked like Jimmy Page’s nutsack. He was balding and like had really wiry, black hair.

RC: Phil Spector-ish.

AT: It ended with this giant bar fight. The promoter walks in with a giant block of concrete. The cops come, and I kept saying, “Yeah, the puff-mullet. You know those guys with the puff mullets?” And everyone was like, what is she talking about?

RC: Turned out the guy had a goiter on his neck with hair growing out of it.

AT: I thought it was a mullet.

RC: I was outside the whole time. I walked in, it was like a saloon piano was playing. John got slid across the bar.

JG: I saw Alicja get punched, so I went in.

AT: Oh yeah. I got punched right in the face. The bartender came up to me, and this dude’s fist was coming right at me. He grabbed me. ‘You gotta get out of here! You’re gonna get killed!” He was carrying me out, and I was like, “Where the hell am I going?” Jay comes out of the bathroom. He’s been doing coke with this guy from the other band. They looked around and realized, “Gahh! We’re enemies!” They started going at it.

Chris Davis, Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround

This would have been sometime in the late 1990s. We had just played a gig at Kudzu’s, and we had a little liquor in us. The only piece of parental advice (guitarist) John Stiver’s father ever gave him was, “Stay away from Harpo’s Lounge. You’ll get killed.” So we decided we would see if they would let us play for beer. This is a self-inflicted gig. It was our own fault.

Let me first say that Harpo’s has reopened, and it’s nice. They’ve gentrified it. Back then, they self-described it as the most redneck place on Earth. It was infamous for finding dead hookers out behind it.

The minute we walked in, we could see that there were more people than teeth here. It was all rebel flags and unfinished plywood. There was a lot of drug dealing, a lot of meth. So there were a lot of working ladies. They made it clear we were different and unwelcome.

I had on a sequined, knock-off Nudie suit jacket. There was a guy following me around saying, “I’m gonna go home with that jacket!” There was a working girl who looked like Grandma from the Addams Family. She was saying I looked like Elvis, and she was going home with me.

John Whittemore was playing pedal steel, and he had a woman who was reaching around him with one hand on the hand he was picking with, and the other hand he’s barring with. Grandma would walk around behind me, and when I would be singing, and my hands occupied with the guitar, she would reach up between my legs and start squeezing my business. It got a lot easier to hit those high notes.

Was this a bad gig? I guess it depends on how you define gig. We just sort of showed up. They didn’t want us. But by the time it was over, there were people calling out requests. We did our usual set, and played Elvis’ “Little Sister.” That was when the guy who was going to knock me in the head and steal my jacket decided we were okay. He wasn’t going to knock me in the head, but he was still probably going to take my jacket.

Marcella Simien,
Marcella and Her Lovers

We were playing this outdoor festival, and I was handed a note in the middle of a song asking me to announce that a 6-year-old boy was missing and had been for over an hour. They made it sound like this kid just took off — a little renegade. I smiled to myself at first, thinking “Okay, the kid is probably off doing things 6-year-olds do.” Then it started to sink in.

I’ve gotten notes on stage with song requests, marriage proposals, birthday requests. But a missing persons report? This was a first, real “Stop the presses!” kind of stuff. So I made the announcement, and the stage manager motioned for us to continue, to keep playing. So we did. But the whole time there was this feeling, this undertone of … missing kid … impossible to ignore. I mean, how can you not be concerned?

Several songs later the kid still hadn’t shown up, and no one was any the wiser as to where he might have been. Someone from the sheriff’s department got onstage and made another announcement as the band and I helplessly looked at each other, eyes all big. This person makes the announcement sounding like the conductor of a train and then hands the mic back to me. Somehow we finished the set, packed up, and headed out. But not before leaving behind a suitcase full of our merchandise. Thankfully we got word on the drive home that the child had been found. He pedaled his Big Wheel back on up to the house like nothing had happened.

Steve Selvidge

Big Ass Truck was playing at a fraternity down in Oxford. They paid well. That show would finance a whole tour. And people usually had a good time. It was in our contract that you were hiring us to be us. We weren’t going to play Dave Matthews or Phish. We’re playing outside at this crawfish boil. It’s an all-day thing. People were getting drunk. Some kid thought it would be funny while we’re playing to flip the breakers. So we’re playing, and the power cuts. That happened all the time — it’s no big deal — you just have to sit there and wait for it to come back on. So we start playing again, and the kid flips the breakers again. Power goes off. It keeps happening!

Finally, the sound guy figures what’s going on. “There’s a kid flipping the breaker. We dealt with it.” But it messed up the P.A. The monitors went out, and we couldn’t play. With a DJ, we needed the monitors, because we’re playing to him.

People didn’t understand why we wouldn’t play, and they were getting restless. This entitled little fuck frat kid hops up on stage, grabs the mic, and says “Big Ass Truck sucks!” I was livid. I got up and I was just like, “Get the fuck off my stage you little shit.” Then the monitors come back on, and I’m like, “Hey, sorry about that! Let me tell you what was going on. We’re here to play and have fun. It’s gonna be a good time. But that little fuck who was flipping the breaker on and off, your mother [string of shocking expletives deleted].” Should have taken the high road. But I didn’t. Then we just light into the set. We were furious. It was fun. Next thing you know, there’s a bunch of people who want to kick my ass. I’m looking at guys in the crowd mouthing, “I’m going to kill you!”

Joseph Higgins, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy

The worst gig was one of the first gigs we played out of town. It was just a trip to Nashville. Everything was going great, then 30 minutes out of Nashville, our front tire pops off and drags the car a quarter mile down the expressway.
So we get the tow truck to come and get us, and then we find out we have to go to the nearest place to get it fixed before we can do anything. So our bass player, Omar, and Paul, our guitarist at the time, and my brother David head to the Walmart to change the tire out. This is in the middle of summer, and it’s got to be 105 degrees. Two of us are in the tow truck, and the other three are in the car.

We finally get to Walmart after driving around everywhere looking for it. We’re desperate to get to Nashville to play the gig. This was on a Saturday, and all of the places to get a tire fixed are closed. Then we find out we need over $800 worth of work on the car before we can do anything. We had to call some friends and family to see if we can find anyone to take us to the gig. The guitarist called his family to come and get us. He was so angry at the whole thing, he just wanted to go home. We were like, “No man, we should at least go to Nashville, play the gig, and make some money to pay for the car!” But he was all flustered. “We can’t do this. Let’s just go.”

After we come back to Memphis, we find out later that night that the venue we were playing — it was called Nash Bash — had over a thousand people at the show. We did know it at the time, but we were one of the headliners. We find out there was a big crowd waiting to see us, because there was no reggae on the bill. Then we find out the promoter for the show lives in Franklin. He could have picked us up and taken us to the show and brought us back. It literally could have all been fixed if we had had the promoter’s number on hand. Since then we have a backup plan for everything.

Jonathan Kiersky, Club Owner
Without naming names, this was the worst: It was a Brooklyn four-piece — three synthesizers and a drummer. They had a bunch of press and a strong booking agent, so I booked them. Not sure how they had so much professional support, except it was the heyday of the indie pop scene in Brooklyn. One of them may have been a model.

Early on, we realized this show would be a mess, since it was their first tour, and set up and soundcheck were a disaster. Show starts, and the vibe on stage is complete fear. Finally during the third song, the lead singer/synth player just yells “Stop, stop, stop!” and starts weeping on stage. We hoped she would pull it together and the show would go on but that was not the case. They just walked off stage, packed their shit up, and left. My jaw had never been closer to the floor.

Chris Milam
Friday night in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The bar was packed, the crowd homogenous: male, bearded, titanically drunk. Picture the cast of Perfect Storm meets the cast of Jersey Shore. And I was scheduled to play for two hours, solo acoustic.

Somehow, they liked me — too much. A mosh pit formed — onstage. One guy insisted on “freestyling to his lady.” Another swiped at my guitar mid-song, “helping” me play. The night got later, the crowd drunker, would-be fights started popping up around me. It was a farce; a mostly-improvised, slightly-violent farce.
When I finished, I hustled my gear out to my car. I came back to find a waitress literally stiff-arming a man away from my night’s pay. Come to think of it: I made it out in one piece, my guitar made it out in one piece, and I got paid in full. I’ve had worse gigs.

Brennan Villines
I was playing with my trio years ago at my uncle’s house for a pool party in Arlington, which is as amazing as it sounds. My music doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a backyard full of Gen X white people who have musical tastes spanning from George Strait to Kenny Chesney. We were asked — yelled at — to play a certain song, the name of which I cannot recall at the moment. I remember being disgusted at the request coming from the drunkest person at the party.

I said I didn’t know the song and continued with my set. He called me a queer and threw a wet towel at my face from about 25 feet away. The towel smacked me surprisingly hard … in mid song. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with his throwing ability, given the distance factored with his blood alcohol content. But, this was definitely a low point in my career. Just as I was feeling defeated, my uncle pushed him in the pool, and we all had a good laugh.

Andria Lisle, Music Journalist
The worst gig I ever attended was one I knew would be awful going in. I expected, and got, the worst on November 16, 1991, when I walked through the doors of Antenna to see G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies.
It was the pre-internet age, so what I knew of G.G. Allin was gleaned from the pages of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL and via first-hand stories from friends who had caught Allin on the road in other cities. Self-billed as “the last true rock and roller,” Allin would take Ex-Lax before his gig, then defecate on stage. When the Memphis stop on his fall 1991 tour was announced, I should’ve wondered “Who on Earth would want to attend something like this?” Instead, I thought, “Who would want to miss it?”

I paid my $5 and cautiously took a post in the back of the room, close enough to the door that I could escape if necessary. I can’t remember who opened or what songs were on the Murder Junkies’ setlist. Allin wore a black hoodie, his pale ass gleaming under the lights. He paced the stage, drinking beers and throwing the bottles into the audience. He had the frightening intensity of Charles Manson — I recall being too afraid to meet his gaze. At some point, the microphone he ranted into went up his ass. Later, Allin leapt off the stage and began antagonizing the audience at close range. Most of us ran out of the door of the club.

He’d chase us outside, then stop at the corner of Madison and Avalon while we raced to the relative safety of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. For some reason, that happened more than once. I have no idea why I didn’t just leave at that point, but I kept going back in for more. Finally, Allin chased us out again, and one audience member ran to Murphy’s and came back with a knife. She began chasing G.G., and that was too much for me. I went home, took a long shower, and questioned every decision I’d made in life.

Chris Shaw, Ex-Cult, Goggs
Every time a band goes on tour there are shows that inevitably get highlighted for various reasons — you’re playing with friends, you like the venue, the gig pays well, or there’s promise that someone who “needs to see your band” will be there. Ex-Cult had just released a new record, and so we were working with a new publicist who had promised to gather all her industry friends for a show at Mercury Lounge, the Manhattan venue that is known for being a “music industry hotspot,” whatever that means.

This show was on my radar from the beginning of the tour. We performed in Baltimore the night before, but because of a sound ordinance, we had to soundcheck at some ridiculous time, like 2 p.m. the day of the Mercury Lounge show.

We left Baltimore on time, but to make sure all goes according to plan, I decided to drive into Manhattan. I was driving like a bat out of hell, impressed with my band mates that we are all up and moving, hangover-free and ready to hit New York City. Then my phone starts going off. Repeatedly. I’m driving so I can’t look at my texts. Then our booking agent called, annoyed I haven’t been answering the phone.

What comes next is something I’ve never heard happen to any other band: A pipe burst in front of the venue, and a rather large sinkhole formed outside of Katz Deli, literally next door to the Mercury Lounge. The show was cancelled. Best of all, the publicist with all her industry contacts has gone AWOL. I don’t hear from her again for the duration of our time in New York City. Maybe she fell in the sinkhole?

Do you remember the scene in Ferris Buellers Day Off when Bueller’s buddy Cameron screams as the camera pulls out to show all of Chicago? That’s how I felt. The show eventually got removed to a lovely little club called Fontanas, but as you have probably guessed, no one came. What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, so when this exact same scenario happened to us a year later in San Diego, all we could do was laugh.

Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis 2015 Day 5: Indian Rhythms and Memphis Blues

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date November 7, 2015

Indie Memphis’ Saturday is packed with goodness, including strong entries from Memphis filmmakers.

Rhythms Of The Baul

Anupam Lahiri is an Indian-American director who has been active in Indie Memphis circles for several years. His new film “Rhythms Of The Baul” is the highlight of the 10:30 Culture Documentaries block. Lahiri traveled to India to trace the culture and music of the ancient ethno-religious group whose music is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. The immaculately edited doc is a taste of a longer work to come, and features a whirlwind of great musical moments. As singer Bonnie Chakraborty says, “It should not be read as a musical form. It is a way of life,”

Grace Zabriske and Amy LaVere in Only Child

Another Memphis film veteran, Brian Pera, figures into two features today. The first is Only Child, the director’s sequel to Women’s Picture, in which he takes up the story of Loretta, the delusional hotel maid played by the Memphis Flyer’s 2015 Best Singer Amy LaVere. Twin Peaks’ Grace Zabriskie plays opposite LaVere as Delores, who is desperately searching for the mysterious beauty. Also in the cast is Lindsay Roberts as Lana, who strikes up a curiously co-dependent relationship with Loretta.

Pera also appears in and will present The Cult Of JT LeRoy, Marjorie Sturm’s documentary about a popular writer whose bestselling memoir turned out to be full of holes, and the online sleuths who broke the story.

Feral

The other big Memphis event at the festival is Morgan Jon Fox’s Feral, the Memphis director’s brilliant web series about growing up and hooking up in Memphis. You can read my August cover story about Feral here.

Tags 2015, Amy Lavere, Anupam Lahiri, Brian Pera, Feral, Grace Zabriskie, Indie Memphis, Morgan Jon Fox, Only Child, Rhythms of the Baul