Tag: Crosstown Concourse

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Zine Fest 6 and Record Swap at Crosstown This Weekend

Photo: Courtesy Crosstown Concourse

This year’s Zine Fest has a new component — the Memphis Listening Lab/WYXR inaugural Record Swap. According to Zine Fest curator Erica Qualy, this is such a perfect pairing because the birth of zines as we know them today was started as a response to the punk music culture in the 1970s, when copiers were made available commercially. People started creating fanzines and raising awareness in a way they hadn’t been able to before.

Qualy remembers hopping on the zine scene more than a few years later. “My friend and I first found out about zines in high school while browsing at the local library. We came across the book Zine Scene: The Do It Yourself Guide to Zines by Francesca Lia Block. We were entranced.”

She says they immediately went home and started brainstorming. They pulled an all-nighter until their first zine was born. Nearly 20 years later, Qualy is curating Zine Fest 6.

“Funny how seemingly small instances in your life can be the building blocks for a future,” says Qualy, inviting the public to join the revolution. “You don’t need to wait for anyone else to publish your stack of poems, your short stories about alien invasions, your comic about the dog and cat duo that saved the world. You can do it yourself. Make a zine today.”

Zine Fest 6 will be held in the upstairs Central Atrium of Crosstown Concourse, with DIY zine-making stations and vendor booth spaces.

The record swap will take place on the bottom floor of the Central Atrium. The Memphis Listening Lab, outside vendors, and the radio station inside Crosstown Concourse, WYXR 91.7 FM, will be selling music and merchandise.

Record Swap & Zine Fest 6, Crosstown Concourse, 1350 Concourse, Saturday, Sept. 4, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 5, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., free.

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Music Music Blog

Crosstown Theater and Green Room are Up and Running

Arlo McKinley plays the Green Room tonight (Photo courtesy Mempho Presents)

Before the pandemic, one of the freshest spots for new, unpredictable music was Crosstown Concourse. Thanks to Crosstown Arts, both the Crosstown Theater and the Green Room set a new standard for world-class, often edgy music in the Bluff City, hosting everything from down home soul by Booker T. Jones to wildly eclectic jazz by Marc Ribot to the avant-garde classical outings of the Continuum Festival.

As of tonight, that spirit is back in force, and Memphis is the better for it. Yet when I hear from Crosstown Arts Music Department Manager Jenny Davis that both Crosstown Theater and the Green Room will be presenting live music again, the first question that springs to mind is, “That’s great! Will the Art Bar be reopening?”

She laughs and says, “I think I hear that question more than any other.” But, she notes, while drinks will be available at tonight’s show in the Green Room, she can’t commit to a set date for the watering hole. “But,” she reassures me, “it will be reopening sooner rather than later.”

The artist set to bring Crosstown Arts’ venues back to life for the first time since the pandemic, singer/songwriter Arlo McKinley, who plays the Green Room tonight at 7:30 p.m., will be presented by Mempho, a familiar name in the Memphis music scene, thanks to the Mempho Music Festival. Later in the fall, Mempho will be presenting another concert, The Wood Brothers, at Crosstown Arts in the Crosstown Theater.

There will be plenty more between those two, however. “Of course we have Reigning Sound on Saturday, July 24th,” she laughs, partly because (full disclosure) I’m playing in that one, but also because she’s just getting used to how much music is already slated for the two venues. The staff has done a sudden hard pivot into the here-and-now. “Up until just a few weeks ago, we were anticipating late 2021, definitely 2022, for shows happening again here. So we were working on 2022 shows and that was all really looking exciting. Then we found out that we can have shows now. And both the Green Room and the Theater will be fully open, at full capacity.”

Elizabeth King (Photo courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

Many films dot the upcoming dates, but the one screening on July 29th is actually a hybrid film and live music event. “This is part of our film series,” she says. “We’ll have a weekly film every Thursday for $5, and this will be our first one: Elizabeth King singing on stage at Crosstown Theater to a silent film from 1930, Hell-Bound Train. It’s a film that presents all these terrible situations, with Elizabeth King singing gospel songs in contrast. It’s going to be a really cool combination. She’ll be singing with Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang and Will McCarley.” Other live-score events may be part of Crosstown Arts’ future, but nothing is settled yet.

“Then we have two shows in the Green Room that same week,” Davis adds. “The film is Thursday, and then on Friday, July 30th, in the Green Room, it’s Rachel Maxann, a Memphis-based musician, with Oakwalker opening. I’m really looking forward to that show. Then Those Pretty Wrongs, with Jody Stephens and Luther Russell, will be at the Green Room on July 31st.”

Davis stresses that what’s being announced on the Crosstown Arts event calendar is far from all the music being planned. “There’s definitely more to come,” she underscores. “We’re still working on details. We should be back to having shows every single week, starting this weekend. Although there will be no Continuum Festival per se, Blueshift Ensemble is still going to perform pieces by the
ICEBERG composers from New York, in two concerts with five pieces each, Friday, August 20th and Saturday, August 21st.” Beyond that iceberg’s tip, she hints, there lurk many other musical delights,
including a special screening of the recent chronicle of female electronic music pioneers, Sisters with Transistors, on September 2nd. As always, keep checking the Crosstown Arts website for the updated schedule.

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Cover Feature News

Sound Traditions: Matt Ross-Spang Builds a Studio in Crosstown Concourse

Photo: Jamie Harmon

Memphis is rightly known as a city of musicians’ musicians. Whether they stay planted here, like MonoNeon, or move to the coasts where the music industry and its stars are based, they bring a feel and a groove that few others can match. But the city also attracts brilliant players from elsewhere, in search of that Memphis sound. More than any formula or ingredient, like our much-touted horn players, there’s an elusive ambience, a holistic character, that emerges when one works in this city. And one element of that is simple: It’s in the rooms.

That doesn’t mean our well-appointed lodgings, but rather the classic studios that have dotted the city for over half a century. But it wasn’t always thus. At the dawn of the 2000s, digital technology led many to retreat into the safety and economy of home studios, to such an extent that many studio owners wondered if they’d go the way of the dinosaurs. Was there any money in the studio business?

In recent years, that question is being answered with a definite maybe. The pendulum has swung back to the advantages that only dedicated studios can offer, especially larger rooms, classic gear, and efficient engineering. As Boo Mitchell, co-owner of Royal Studios, one of the oldest continuously operated spaces of its kind in the world, recently noted, “It’s shifting back to the way it used to be, when we were a recording destination.”

All such history is new again, as many artists and producers clamor for a sound that some call retro and others call classic. One indication came in 2019, when what was once unthinkable came to be: A new studio opened in town. And the classic sound was crucial to it. As Memphis Magnetic Recording Co. co-owner Bob Suffolk reflected, “Our studio is brand-spanking new, although it’s done in what I call a purpose-built vintage style.”

Matt Ross-Spang (Photo: Jamie Harmon)

Memphis Sounds, Southern Grooves

Now, a new “purpose-built vintage” recording space is opening with an even more local provenance. Matt Ross-Spang, who distinguished himself first at Sun Studio and then as a Grammy-winning engineer and producer based at the renowned Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio and elsewhere, is custom-designing a new room, to be called Southern Grooves, in what was once the Sears cafeteria on the second floor of Crosstown Concourse. As he puts on the finishing touches, it’s clear that this one project embodies all Ross-Spang has learned from multiple studios around Memphis for over a decade, a distillation of the city’s legendary history of recorded music.

“On these walls, we used a polyurethane paint. And that doubled the length of the room,” Ross-Spang says. When you get a tour of a studio, you hear such absurdities regularly. Wait a minute, I think, the paint alone can double the length of the room? That’s when I realize he’s talking about the length of the room’s echo. In a studio, what matters is how your ears measure a room, not your eyes or your yardstick.

In this instance, the room is basically a closet, but it’s a closet designed to always remain empty: another absurdity. “This is what I’m most proud of, our echo chamber. Steve [Durr] designed it. Here’s what it sounds like,” says Ross-Spang as he claps a single time. “It’s about four seconds. Of course, our bodies are soaking up some of the sound.” When in use, the room will have only speakers, playing audio from the control room, and microphones to record how those sounds bounce off the walls. To build such a room, Ross-Spang and Durr studied Phillips Recording intensely. “Phillips has three chambers. The one behind the pink door at the end of the hall there is the greatest echo chamber I’ve ever heard. It’s about six seconds. I didn’t have that much space, but we had height.”

Ross-Spang is one of the few to have seen the Phillips chambers in detail. As Jerry Phillips, son of the late Sam Phillips, says, “We’ve got some of the greatest echo chambers in the world in that building. And we keep them kind of a secret. We don’t let anybody take pictures in there. It’s proprietary. We have three different sizes. And the combination can really give you a great sound. You cannot duplicate it in any kind of digital process.”

That’s true of all such physical spaces, be they echo chambers or the large rooms in which bands record. Stepping into the tracking room at Southern Grooves is like stepping back in time, both sonically and visually. Wood panels alternate with orange fabric on the walls; a wooden chair rail runs along the room’s perimeter; linoleum floor tiles sport geometric patterns here and there; perforated light fixtures, reminiscent of the Summer Drive-In, hang from a ceiling with similarly perforated panels, arranged in an uneven sawtooth pattern. All of it seems to invite a band to set up and record in the old-school way, all together, playing live in the room that time forgot.

A session at Phillips Recording, with (l-r) Rev. Charles Hodges, Matt Ross-Spang,
William Bell (behind piano), Leroy Hodges, Ken Coomer, and David Cousar (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Southern Grooves, the new recording studio in Crosstown Concourse (Photo: Jamie Harmon)

Memphis Soul Stew, or Ingredients of a Sound Studio

“I kinda stole from all my Memphis heroes. At Sun, the V-shapes on the ceiling went long ways, and at Phillips they go like this. And then Chips Moman’s thing was latticework,” Ross-Spang explains, referring to the producer/engineer who helped found both Stax and American Sound Studio. “So the ceilings here are about 15 feet high; the panels drop down and are angled, but the sound goes through the perforated metal, and then there’s insulation so it stops before it comes back down. So you still get the big room, but you don’t have the parallel surfaces. You never want parallel surfaces.” Such surfaces cause sounds to bounce around too much. “That was another big Sam [Phillips] thing. The angles throw off the flatness of the floor.”

And yet some bounce is desirable. Take the linoleum floor, also a design element from Sun (actually known as the Memphis Recording Service in its heyday). Those floors have often been celebrated as being critical to the roomy sound of early Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis, and Jerry Lee Lewis recordings. As musician Mark Edgar Stuart notes, one story among his fellow tour guides at Sun Studio is that once Bob Dylan himself walked in on a tour, looked at the floor, said, “Ahh, tile,” then walked back out.

As Jerry Phillips says of his father, “Memphis Recording Service was his baby, of course. And Marion Keisker helped him a lot. They laid the floor tiles. He would clap his hands and hear how the echo sounded in the room. How alive or dead it was. He wanted a combination of live sound and controllable sound. And he just built the acoustics in that studio by experimenting.”

Jerry Phillips at the bar in Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio (Photo:Jamie Harmon)

As Ross-Spang envisioned it, having such a “live” tracking room, with some echo (as opposed to a “dead,” echoless room) was critical. “In the ’60s, all the rooms were really reverberant,” he explains. “And then in the late ’60s, early ’70s, when they got 16 track machines and could put mics closer on stuff, they started to deaden stuff with burlap. And then they went so far, they would just really deaden it. So I wanted to have a ’60s room that just started putting up burlap. I always thought that was the coolest balance. ’Cause you can always deaden something more. I can always put more shag rugs down; I can put in baffles. But it’s hard to make stuff livelier. And I just love the old tile floor. Ever since Sun, I’ve always loved that sound.”

The wood and burlap on the walls, on the other hand, are inspired by the second location of Ardent Studios, built in 1972, where Big Star (and many others) made legendary albums. Once again, Ross-Spang leaned on his design collaborator for much of those details. “Steve Durr was really good friends with Welton Jetton, who built all the equipment for Stax and Ardent and helped John Fry [and Terry Manning and Rick Ireland] design the original acoustics at Ardent. So Ardent Studio A had these kinds of reflectors and absorbers. That was a Welton Jetton design. I brought that back because I always thought that was a great look, and they sound amazing.”

Yet there are some elements of Southern Groove’s acoustics that are completely unique, unrelated to the studios of yore. “You always want limitations, and I had the limitations of the columns,” Ross-Spang explains. He’s speaking of the huge concrete columns that pepper the entire Crosstown Concourse structure. There was no possibility of removing or moving them, but Ross-Spang was okay with that. “Acoustically, the columns are interesting because they’re three-foot-thick concrete, they’re smooth, and sound will bounce off that randomly every time. There’s no way to mathematically account for that, acoustically. You play guitar from here, you move and inch, and it’ll bounce differently. I think it’ll be interesting when we get mics in here because it will randomize the room a lot.”

For Ross-Spang, the randomness was a bonus. “A lot of acousticians have one design that they go for every time, but Steve [Durr]knows I wanted something weird and not necessarily correct. Because all the Memphis studios aren’t correct, but they’re cool. I didn’t want a perfect studio; I wanted a weird studio.”

As we move into the control room, where two electricians are painstakingly working, it becomes clear that weirdness is literally wired into the entire space, thanks in part to Ross-Spang’s forethought. Pointing to the electricians, he says, “They’re pulling 30,000 feet of cable, and we’ve got conduits and troughs running to all the rooms. I wanted to wire every room for sound ’cause sometimes you want something to sound perfect, and sometimes you want it to sound like it’s in a garage. The hallways and every other little room are wired. Sometimes a guitar in the main tracking room sounds too good. So you put it in the hallway and it sounds like Tom Waits, and that’s what you need, you know? I do that a lot. At both Sun and Phillips, I would use that front lobby all the time. So I wanted to keep that here. All the wiring is running through the floor in troughs, and the cables will come up into these old school ’60s one-fourth-inch patchbays.”

Ultimately, the wires will converge on a mixing board that, among all the design features, will make Ross-Spang’s commitment to classic Memphis studios more apparent than ever. “I actually have John Fry’s original board from the original Ardent on National Street, where they did the first Big Star stuff. It’s getting fixed up, and it’ll be the main board. It was built in Memphis by Welton Jetton. And I also have a later board that Welton built for Stax, when they upgraded to the bigger boards. We’re putting the Ardent console in the original Stax frame, this cool white Formica top thing.”

The influence of Jetton on the studios of Memphis is hard to overstate. As Terry Manning, the first engineer at Ardent and now a distinguished producer, says, “Welton was a genius. He was the chief engineer at Pepper [Sound] Studios, which at the time was the biggest jingle recording company in the world and had several studios that Welton had put in. Pepper was huge, and Welton was a prime part of that. And later he started his own company making consoles, which became the Spectrasonics consoles that Stax and Ardent had. Later he changed that to Auditronics, and they were used all over the world. It was all Welton and his crew — acoustic design, electronic design, building the consoles. ‘Hey, we need a direct box! What’s a direct box? I don’t know, but Welton will build it!’ It was an amazing time, where you made your own gear and recorded your way.”

Finally, aside from the collection of other vintage gear that Ross-Spang has amassed in his current home base at Phillips, there will be vintage amps and instruments, including a Hammond A-100 organ and one thing most home studios and even many professional ones simply do not have these days: a grand piano.

For that, Ross-Spang received some sage advice from one of the pillars of Memphis’ golden era of recording. “I brought one of my heroes, Dan Penn, over here, and out of nowhere he said, ‘What kind of piano are you gonna get?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to get anything too big.’ And he said, ‘You need to get the biggest durned piano you can buy. Them little pianos, the sound don’t wanna come out of them. But them big pianos, they can’t wait to be recorded. They jump out the speakers.’ So I’m going to have a Baldwin from 1965 in here. It’s a 7-footer. It was really cool to get it from Amro Music ’cause it’s their 100th year of serving Memphis.”

James Taylor, Peter Asher, and Terry Manning at Ardent Studio in 1971, using the mixing board Matt Ross-Spang has acquired. (Photo: Courtesy Terry Manning)

I’ll Take You There, or Setting is Everything

And yet, despite all of Ross-Spang’s committment to the designs and instruments and gear of yesteryear, there’s another element that he may value over all others. As we wrap up the tour, he reflects a bit more on the simple fact of where Southern Grooves will live. The name screams out “Memphis,” of course, but there’s more to it than that. Something unique.

“Never has a studio been in such an ecosystem like Crosstown,” he says. “That was one of the biggest selling points to me. Think about with Ardent and other places with multiple rooms and who you might run into. You might be doing an overdub, but then Jack Oblivian’s in Studio A, and you’re like, ‘Hey, will you come play real quick?’ And that’s kinda gone now with home studios and one-studio facilities.

“But at Crosstown — like, we just ran into Craig Brewer! It’s kinda like having Jerry Phillips come visit Phillips Recording. Here, you can go next door to the Memphis Listening Lab and remember why we’re doing this in the first place. Crosstown is a million-and-a-half-square-foot lounge, essentially, filled with creative people. And I don’t think any other studio has had that opportunity. That’s what I feed off of: other people’s energy. If you put me in here by myself, I couldn’t create anything. But when I have the people here, I’ll go two days without sleeping because I’m so jacked, you know?”

Matt Ross-Spang plans to have Southern Grooves fully operational this August.

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Music Music Blog

Memphis Listening Lab: A Rare Music Collection Made Public

Sherman Willmott, Jim Cole and Matt Ross-Spang of the Memphis Listening Lab (Photo by Alex Greene)

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, John King was already a collector’s collector. Even as he went on to distinguish himself as a promoter, program director, and studio owner (having initially co-founded Ardent Studios with fellow teens John Fry and Fred Smith in 1959), he continued collecting all the while. But for years he pondered the question of where to safeguard that collection for posterity.

Teenagers John Fry (L) and John King (R) shared a fascination with radio, recording and records. (Photo courtesy Memphis Listening Lab).

Enter King’s kindred spirits and fellow music devotees, the folks at the Memphis Listening Lab. The newly minted nonprofit, launched on the strength of King’s donated collection, has taken up residence in a custom-built space on the second floor of Crosstown Concourse, and is set to open on June 15.

Listening room in the Memphis Music Lab. Art exhibits, such as the current display of photography by Pat Rainer, will rotate through the space. (Photo by Jamie Harmon)

“Open” is a good word for it, for the lab is reimagining King’s collection as a vast public archive, complete with listening stations, event rooms with state of the art speakers and turntables, and a podcast-friendly editing studio.

John King’s collection has become legendary in Memphis music circles. A recent talk with producer Terry Manning brought King’s collecting acumen to the fore. As Manning said, “In the very early Ardent days on National Street, and then later on Madison, we loved the Beatles. Not just the Beatles, but all of the British Invasion bands, the Animals and the Kinks, not so much the Stones, but especially the Beatles. The Hollies. I loved it, John Fry loved it, John King loved it.

“John King also loved radio, and he and John Fry went over to Arkansas and were working with a guy that owned a radio station there. John King started sending letters out to record companies in the name of this radio station, saying ‘please send the records to this P.O. Box in Memphis.’ So all the record companies, big and small, would send their records to the P.O. Box. We didn’t put ’em on the radio, we’d just sit and listen to ’em. We got free records!

“And we started ordering the English records from the John Lever Record Shop in Northampton, England. We would get it all before it was even released [in the U.S.].”

All of which underscores that King’s phenomenal collection — roughly 30,000 45s, 12,000 LPs, 20,000 CDs, and 1,000 music books — is not solely focused on Memphis. As board member Sherman Willmott notes, the collection includes “a lot of Beatles. Some really strangely rare Beatles stuff. Because they would mail order. They’d pick up the phone and mail order from shops in England, and have them shipped here, before there were record imports.”

But the collection is also strong on psychedelia. “Probably the most surprising thing he has, that you wouldn’t expect, is psych,” says Willmott. “I don’t know what got him into it. It’s as if Dr. Demento grew up in Memphis and was into soul and psych. It’s very eclectic.”

Individual turntables with headphones grace the largest room, also slated for educational events. (Photo by Jamie Harmon)

Librarian and archivist Jim Cole, adds, “There are a lot of late ’60s, early ’70s promo copies that were probably mailed to him, and some of those are so obscure, they probably never went past the promo stage.”

Nonetheless, the collection’s relevance to Memphis should not be understated, especially regarding one studio in particular. As Willmott points out, “The Ardent archives in this collection are pretty extensive. It’s like John was the curator of the Ardent’s history. Especially the early stuff. There’s enough stuff to do whatever you’d want to do with it. Books, documentaries, or just casual fandom.”

Cole pulls out some boxes of Ardent artifacts: “We’ve got all the early Ardent 45s and other oddball things.”

Early Ardent singles from the Memphis Listening Lab (Photo by Jamie Harmon)

And it goes far beyond Ardent, as Willmott points out. “John’s got so much Memphis stuff in this collection. I mean, he’s deep catalog Memphis, ’cause what he didn’t collect back in the day, he went back and found on eBay or at the store. He’s got all kinds of obscure Memphis 45s, plus all the [CD] box sets that came out. He’s got it covered on so many levels.”

Indeed, the shelves promise hours and days and years of researching and listening to music. Soon there will be ladders as in floor-to-ceiling libraries of yore, not to mention lecture series and listening events where attendees can hear the various media on Memphis’ own high-end audio standard bearer, Egglestonworks.

Egglestonworks Loudspeakers at the Memphis Listening Lab (Photo by Alex Greene)

Amid the towering shelves of musical gems and speakers, it’s easy to miss the small door off to the side. As Cole explains, “We’ve got an editing room here. The public can come in and use it for free. It can be used for podcasting. The computer has Pro Tools and Logic, and we have good microphones. And we’re going to work with WYXR, so people who are trying to get shows can come up here and do a demo show on the podcasting station. Or the WYXR programmers can even pre-record a show, if they’re going be out of town or something.”

The editing room at the Memphis Listening Lab (Photo by Jamie Harmon)

While not all of the audio equipment is yet installed, it will be by July 10, when the lab will host its inaugural event, a tribute to John King. The man who made it all possible will be in attendance. Eventually other collections will be added, but for now, the staff and volunteers at the Memphis Listening Lab have their work cut out for them, as they begin to catalog King’s holdings.

As Cole reflects, “John started collecting in the ’50s, and never got rid of anything. And they started Ardent in ’59, when he was 15, he and John Fry and Fred Smith. And John King went on to work in radio. He wrote a radio programming guide for many years, and got tons of promos. So he got a little bit of everything, and he kept it all. Most people collect one thing. They collect blues or rockabilly. But John collected a little bit of everything. So it’s a great collection. From the most well-known to the most obscure stuff you’ve ever heard of.”

John King (Photo courtesy Memphis Listening Lab)
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Music Music Blog Music Features

Crosstown Resumes Live Music in the Atrium

Ever since its grand opening, one defining quality of the Crosstown Concourse has been its emphasis on live music. From ad hoc performances on the public grand piano in the West Atrium to full-blown music festivals spilling into all manner of open areas, there were always sounds bouncing around the wide open spaces of the old Sears Tower. There were, that is, until last year’s lockdown.

New light wells in the Concourse have increased its natural light. (Courtesy Crosstown Concourse)

Now, with vaccinations and other preventive measures becoming more common, the Crosstown Concourse is taking its first steps back to those pre-COVID days. For the past few weeks, musicians have occasionally been sponsored to play under the covered tables in the front plaza. And this week, they’ll be back in that huge reverb chamber known as the East Atrium.

Actually, the Concourse is taking a hybrid approach, with some performances still being scheduled outside in the plaza, and continuing online events as well, such as Crosstown Arts’ Virtual Resident Artist Talks. Here, then, are the first pop-up live and online events helping the Crosstown Concourse kick off April.

Alice Hasen, Andrew Geraci, & Jordan Occasionally
(Courtesy Crosstown Arts)

Alice Hasen
Thursday, April 1st, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. | Central Atrium
Born in Vermont and based in Memphis, Alice Hasen is a professional violinist, recording artist, and songwriter. She leads Alice Hasen & the Blaze and is part of the Blackwater Trio, an acoustic rock band. 

Andrew Geraci with Jeff Hulett and Chris Davenport
Friday, April 2nd, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. | Plaza
Memphis-based Andrew Geraci is a Mississippi Delta-bred electric and upright bass player who picks up a guitar every blue moon. He is currently working with Alice Hasen and the Blaze, Alicjapop, Crockett Hall, Great Lakes, Eleven Point (Oxford), James and the Ultrasounds, Los Psychosis, Pistol and the Queen, and San Salida. 

Jordan Occasionally and inoahcreation
Saturday, April 3, 11:30-1:30 p.m. | Central Atrium
Jordan Occasionally, or JD, is a neo soul and R&B artist, born and raised in the capital of soul music, Memphis, Tennessee. She was an Emerging Star with David Porter’s Consortium MMT in 2019 and has performed her original music on stages ranging from the Levitt Shell in Memphis and City Winery in Nashville, to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Virtual Resident Artist Talks
Thursday, April 8th at 6 pm.
Presenting artists include Sepideh Dashti (6 p.m.), Joann Self Selvidge (6:30 pm), and Sarah Elizabeth Cornejo (7 p.m.). Click here to register.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Give Memphis! Great Local Gift Ideas for the Holidays

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

If 2020 has proven anything, it’s that we need to come together to support our community — the health, happiness, and longevity of our fellow Memphians count on it now more than ever. While we may not be able to gather with friends and family for gift exchanges like we have in the past, we can still lift their spirits with thoughtful presents that help our local restaurants, retail outlets, and entrepreneurs keep doing what they do. Think local this season!

A Box of Magic

Have a giftee in your life who seeks to better understand their own power, to look within and outside for growth and restoration? Give them a box of magic, or as Sami Harvey, owner of Foxglove Pharm, calls it: a Coven Box.

“I’ve always been amazed by Mother Nature’s ability to heal, and I love finding new ways to use her ingredients to solve my problems,” Harvey says. “I started Foxglove Pharm in 2017 because I wanted to share some of those solutions with my community.”

Each subscription box ($40/month) includes a rotating variety of handcrafted herbal “remeteas” (About Last Night: Hangover Tea, Out of the Blue: Third Eye Tea, and others), scented oils, Resting Witch Face skincare products, rituals, and more special items that “honor the moon, the current astrological phase, and a featured plant.”

Sami Harvey

Each month, she partners with another local maker or small business to spotlight their wares. For her Foxglove offerings, Harvey is “the only witch in the kitchen,” so the products are small-batch and made with “ethically sourced, organic, sustainable ingredients.”

Regarding the rituals included in a box (or separately on the website), Harvey says, “These aren’t like supernatural spells that will destroy all your enemies and turn Michelle Obama into your BFF. But they’re ways to meditate and channel your energy into manifesting a better reality for yourself. The real magic ingredient is you and your intention.”

Visit foxglovepharm.com to order a Coven Box and shop products. — Shara Clark

Feed an Artist

The old cliché about “starving artists” has seldom been more true. Buying art is often the last thing folks are thinking about during tough times like these, but our Memphis painters and sculptors and photographers — and their galleries — have bills to pay, just like the rest of us. That’s why this might be a great year to put a new painting on your wall, or gift someone a work of art so they’ll be reminded of you every day.

Courtesy Jay Etkin Gallery

Untitled by John Ryan

There are many fine galleries in Memphis. Here are just a few: L Ross, David Lusk, Jay Etkin, Crosstown Arts, Orange Mound Gallery, Art Village, Cooper-Young Gallery, and B. Collective. Artists featured include Matthew Hasty, Jeanne Seagle, John Ryan, Mary Long, Roy Tamboli, Eunika Rogers, Cat Pena, Yancy Villa-Calvo, Hamlett Dobbins, Anne Siems, Tim Craddock, and many, many more. In addition, many galleries are featuring special holiday shows.

End what has been a nightmarish year on an upbeat note: Buy a piece of art. It’s good for your heart. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Let Them Eat Cake

I’d be happy to receive a Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cake from Sugar Avenue Bakery, either in or out of my stocking. This is the Sugar Avenue collaboration with Old Dominick Distillery.

Just listening to Sugar Avenue owner Ed Crenshaw describe the six-inch cake makes me crave a slice or three: “The cake is four layers. Each layer is literally soaked in a bourbon caramel sauce. And then our caramel icing, which we make from scratch.”

Courtesy Ben Fant

Sugar Avenue cake

Sugar Avenue worked with Old Dominick’s master distiller/senior vice president Alex Castle to come up with the perfect blend of cake and bourbon. Old Dominick’s Huling Station Straight Bourbon Whiskey was chosen for the cake, which has “a great hint of bourbon flavor,” Crenshaw says. “We add bourbon to the icing and ice the cake with it.”

To help you get even more into the holiday spirit, Sugar Avenue Bakery recently began adding two-ounce jars of extra caramel sauce with every bourbon-flavored cake.

Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cakes are $55 each, and they’re available at sugaravenue.com. — Michael Donahue

Accessorize in Style

When Memphians need to give the gift of stylish living, they turn to Cheryl Pesce, the jewelry and lifestyle store in Crosstown Concourse. The store takes its name from its owner, Cheryl Pesce, a jewelry maker, entrepreneur, and all-around style guru.

This month, Pesce opened a second store in the Laurelwood Shopping Center, giving Bluff City-area shoppers double the chances to find — and give — stylish accoutrements. “I’m banking on Memphis,” Pesce explains. And Memphis seems ready to support Pesce. “We had a grand open house, social distancing into the parking lot, and it went well.”

Courtesy Cheryl Pesce

Handmade jewelry from Cheryl Pesce

The store opening story is just the tip of the breaking-news iceberg, though. Pesce tells me excitedly that she’s been in touch with fashion designer Patrick Henry, aka Richfresh, about his newly designed Henry Mask. “I spoke with him today and — drumroll — we will now be carrying his masks in my Laurelwood store.”

But wait! That’s still not all. The ink is still fresh on a deal for Pesce to carry Germantown-produced Leovard skincare products. “I will be his only brick-and-mortar store in the country,” Pesce says. “So there are a lot of cool things happening, most of them local.”

In the smaller store in Crosstown, Pesce sells hand-sewn baby items, masks, Christmas ornaments, and anything with the Crosstown logo — she’s the official source for Crosstown-brand goods. Laurelwood is larger and a little more deluxe. “One of the focuses for that store is local and regional artisans,” Pesce says. She carries Mo’s Bows, Paul Edelstein paintings, and, of course, hand-crafted jewelry. “That’s really my wheelhouse.

“My studio is at Laurelwood,” Pesce says, “so not only is it made in Memphis, made by me, but it’s all under one roof now. The store, the studio. You can literally come pick out your own pearls — ‘I want this pearl on that earring’ — and then I craft it for you right there.”

Cheryl Pesce is located at 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 125, and at 374 Grove Park Road South, Suite 104. Find out more at (901) 308-6017 or at cherylpesce.com. — Jesse Davis

Good Reads

There’s something that comes from holding the edges of a book and being taken to a distant land or wondrous world. Whether it’s due to happenstance or the crazy and confusing world in which we find ourselves now, I have been reading more and more as the months drag on. To fuel my ever-growing hunger for words and phrases completed on the page, Novel has been my go-to place.

Novel is proof that when you are doing something you love, the results will follow. The bookstore, founded in 2017, is the go-to for other local book enthusiasts, too — and with good reason. Their staff will go to the moon and back to help you find the book that fits you just right, and if you’re looking for something specific, chances are they will be just as excited about it as you are.

Matthew J. Harris

of what gift to give this season.

Many of their aisles have felt like a second home to me the past few months. And with books in every genre, it is often easier to ask them what they don’t have, rather than what they do. Personally, I love their new-this-year home delivery option, which offers a safe way to give the gift of literature this holiday season. — Matthew J. Harris

Hit the Boards

This year has given us plenty of time to learn new skills. And what better way to get your mind pumping in both a constructive and competitive fashion than with a game of chess?

The Memphis Chess Club recently opened its new café/headquarters Downtown at 195 Madison Avenue, and the three levels of annual memberships make for a great gift, whether someone is looking to seriously pursue an interest in the game or just learn a few tips and tricks.

Samuel X. Cicci

A Memphis Chess Club membership isn’t as risky a move as the Queen’s Gambit.

The social membership ($50) allows members to play chess in the café area at any time, with tables, pieces, and clocks all provided. The full membership ($100), meanwhile, affords all of the social perks but provides unlimited and free access to all classes and tournaments, which are held at the club weekly. It also offers discounts on merchandise, and members are able to check out materials from the club’s chess library, which contains old magazines and strategy books.

For whole families looking to kickstart an interest in the game? The family membership ($150) contains all full membership benefits and includes two adults and all the children in a household.

And, hey, if chess isn’t your thing, the spacious café is a great space to just hang out or study while sipping on some brewed-in-house coffee or munching on one of chef Grier Cosby’s specialty pizzas.

Visit memphischessclub.com/join for more information. — Samuel X. Cicci

The Gift of Grub

Food is fun and helps define Memphis culture. Those who make that food and fun are in trouble.

Restaurants have maybe suffered more than any small business during this pandemic. Restrictions on them have come and gone and may come again soon. Memphis restaurateurs have shown amazing resilience in these ups and downs. They’ve shifted business models, adapted to the latest health directives, and adjusted staff levels (laying off workers and hiring them back) to match it all.

Memphis Restaurant Association/Facebook

Support local restaurants — so they can stick around.

However, we forever lost some Memphis favorites, like Lucky Cat and Grove Grill. The National Restaurant Association said nearly 100,000 restaurants across the country closed either permanently or for the long-term six months into the pandemic. Nearly 3 million employees have lost their jobs. Help restaurants out and have food fun, too. This holiday season, buy gift cards from our local restaurants.

At the pandemic’s beginning in March, we told you about a national push to buy “dining bonds” or “restaurant bonds.” Many Memphis restaurants jumped in — many selling gift cards at deep discounts. For restaurants, gift cards are quick infusions of cash, helpful in tough times.

So instead of that scarf you’re kind of on the fence about, spend the same amount on a restaurant they love. It’ll be unexpected and, yes, come with some delayed gratification — delicious delayed gratification. Present it not as a gift card but as that dish they love from that place they love.

Sing it with me: “Everybody knows, a burger and some mistletoe help to make the season bright. Memphis foodies, with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight.”

Gift cards are available at almost every restaurant and for almost any amount. Check websites and socials for details. — Toby Sells

Music to Their Ears

Remember when giving music was a thing? Physical things like LPs, CDs, and cassettes could be wrapped. But now that everything’s ethereal, there’s still a way to give the gift that keeps on giving: Patreon. Musicians are embracing this platform more and more, and it’s working for them. A subscription to their accounts may just be the perfect gift for the superfan in your life who already has everything.

Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing, Ghost of Vroom) relies on his Patreon subscribers for both income and inspiration. As he told the Detroit Metro Times, “Doing a song a week is amazing, and that is really what, if I had my druthers, I’d do for the rest of my life.” Patrons can subscribe at different levels, each with premiums like CDs and T-shirts, but everyone paying at least $5 a month can access Doughty’s song-a-week and more.

Greg Cravens

Other Memphis-affiliated singer/songwriters like Eric Lewis, J.D. Reager, and (coming in December) Marcella and Her Lovers also have accounts. And last month, label and music retailer Goner Records began offering Patreon subscriptions that include access to the Goner archives and exclusive music and videos.

Patreon’s site notes that “there isn’t currently a way to gift patronage,” but if you get creative, you can search for an artist on patreon.com and buy a subscription in a friend’s or family member’s name — and they can thank you all through the year. — Alex Greene

Support Arts and Culture

“A plague on both your houses!” cried the dying Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and it seems the COVID-19 pandemic took that sentiment to heart, emptying out our theaters and concert halls and thinning out attendance at museums. But still they persisted. The organizations behind the arts we love are still at work online, virtually, distancing, and striving to keep the arts alive — especially in programs aimed at young people.

You can help the old-fashioned way by getting season subscriptions and memberships for whenever the lights come back on — and they could use that support right now. Or make a simple donation. Help keep Memphis culture alive by giving gifts on behalf of the following, but don’t be limited by this partial list — if you have other favorites, give them a cup o’ kindness as well.

Jon W. Sparks

Spring, Summer, Fall at the Brooks Museum by Wheeler Williams

Performing arts organizations:

• Playhouse on the Square (playhouseonthesquare.org)

• Theatre Memphis (theatrememphis.org)

• Opera Memphis (operamemphis.org)

• Ballet Memphis (balletmemphis.org)

• New Ballet Ensemble (newballet.org)

• Cazateatro (cazateatro.org)

• New Moon Theatre (newmoontheatre.org)

• Hattiloo Theatre (hattiloo.org)

• Tennessee Shakespeare Company (tnshakespeare.org)

• Memphis Black Arts Alliance (memphisblackarts.org)

• Emerald Theatre Company (etcmemphistheater.com)

Museums and galleries:

• Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (brooksmuseum.org)

• Dixon Gallery and Gardens (dixon.org)

• National Civil Rights Museum (civilrightsmuseum.org)

• Metal Museum (metalmuseum.org)

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music (staxmuseum.com)

• Pink Palace Museum (memphismuseums.org)

• Children’s Museum of Memphis (cmom.com)

• Fire Museum of Memphis (firemuseum.org) — Jon W. Sparks

Basket or Box It for a Gift That Rocks It

Need something sweet for your honey this holiday season? Thistle & Bee has the gift that gives twice. A relaxing gift box contains raw Memphis honey, a milk and honey soap bar, and a pure beeswax candle ($20). Every item is handcrafted and directly supports women survivors to thrive through a journey of healing and hope.

Social enterprise director at Thistle & Bee, Ali Pap Chesney, drops a stinger: “We partner with other businesses, too. Feast & Graze uses our honey.”

Feast & Graze/Facebook

Feast & Graze

The cheese and charcuterie company Feast & Grace is co-owned by Cristina McCarter, who happens to co-own City Tasting Box. Boxes are filled with goodies promoting local Black-owned businesses like Pop’s Kernel and The Waffle Iron. An exclusive limited-quantity holiday gift box, Sugar and Spice, just rolled out for the season in two sizes — regular ($74.99) and ultimate ($124.99).

Memphis Gift Basket is owned by Jesse James, who says he is rolling out a new logo this week. Along with the new logo are new products for baskets ($55-$100) that focus on diversity by including more women- and minority-owned businesses, in addition to local items with iconic names like The Rendezvous and Memphis magazine. Guess what else you might find in a Memphis Gift Basket? Thistle & Bee honey.

Now that we’ve come full circle, check out these gift box and basket businesses, as well as partnering companies, for errbody on your holiday list — including that corporate gift list.

Visit thistleandbee.org, citytastingbox.com (use code SHIP100 for free shipping on orders over $100), and memphisgiftbasket.com for more. — Julie Ray

Lights, Camera, Action

A lot of businesses have been hard-hit during the pandemic, and movie theaters have been near the top of the list. With social distancing-limited theater capacity and Hollywood studios delaying major releases into next year in the hopes a vaccine will rekindle attendance, theater chains like Memphis-based Malco have been in dire straits. The exception has been drive-in theaters, like the Malco Summer Drive-In, which have seen a renaissance in 2020.

If you want to support this local institution and give a treat to the movie-lover in your life, you can buy them a Malco gift card. Available in any denomination from $10 to $500, the gift cards can be used for movie tickets and concessions for any film now or in the future. You can also enroll in the Malco Marquee Rewards program, which allows frequent moviegoers to earn points toward free tickets and concessions.

Greg Cravens

Malco has taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of its patrons, including mandatory masks, improved air filters, and non-contact payment options. And if you’re not comfortable sharing a theater with strangers right now, there’s a great option: The Malco Select program allows you to rent an entire theater for a screening of any film on the marquee — and that includes screenings in the massive IMAX theaters at the Paradiso. Prices start at $100, which works out pretty well if you want to watch Wonder Woman 1984 with your pod this holiday season. And if the person you’re buying for is a gamer, Malco has a brand-new option. With Malco Select Gaming, you can bring your system to the theater and play Call of Duty or The Last of Us on the biggest possible screen. — Chris McCoy

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We Recommend We Recommend

Resin Ability

CREDIT: Courtesy of Mathew Joseph Zachariah

Mathew Joseph Zachariah was told as a child that he had an allergy to plastic. As an adult, Zachariah learned his mom was allergic to plastic. Wanting to spare her son the adverse allergic reaction she experienced, an overabundance of caution was exercised. Zachariah is not allergic to plastic.

“How ironic that now I own a plastics recycling company and create art with post-industrial plastics,” he says.

Zachariah is a scientist who one day took notice of the colors in his product. After 28 years in the recycling business, for the first time, he saw the processed orange safety cones, red auto tail lights, green city trash bins, and clear blue water cooler bottles in the form of shavings, pellets, and re-grinds as a tool and not a product. Maybe it was the result of moving from Flint, Michigan, to Memphis and living among creatives in Crosstown Concourse for the past two years.

Courtesy of Mathew Joseph Zachariah

Mathew J. Zachariah’s plastics become art.

However it happened, Zachariah has been creating mosaics with his product. He talks about his art in industrial terms — HTPE and nylon 66. Then, he suddenly stops.

“I’ve realized that art is emotional,” concedes Zachariah, who says he’s learned to speak differently about his art. “And not just for the observer. It’s therapeutic for me. My hand has been on every piece, placed with love on the canvas giving my product a second life.”

Meet Zachariah online or in person for an artist talk on Friday. Be sure to ask about the hidden images in his art.

Artist talk for Mathew Joseph Zachariah, Jay Etkin Gallery, 942 Cooper, and online from Jay Etkin Gallery Facebook Live, Friday, November 6, 5-7 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Blog

WYXR 91.7 FM Goes Live Today, Radio Flyer to Air Every Friday at Noon

CREDIT: WYXR

WYXR

New radio station WYXR’s initial staff includes (from left) Shelby McCall, Robby Grant, and Jared Boyd.

As Toby Sells reported in July, there’s a new kid on the block, and its name is WYXR. It’s the latest activity stirring in Crosstown Concourse, which has partnered with The Daily Memphian and the University of Memphis to make the station a reality. Today, paper covering the station’s broadcast room windows, which face out onto the Concourse atrium, will come down before the station begins broadcasting at 5 p.m.

Program director Jared Boyd spoke to the significance of the station’s location in July: “When you walk into Crosstown Concourse, it won’t be hidden. The nuts and bolts of the operation will be showcased behind glass right in the lobby of the Central Atrium. By design, this community-minded radio station will not just broadcast to its audience, but live and breathe alongside it.”

The frequency 91.7 FM was formerly used by U of M’s WUMR, the city’s premiere jazz station. Re-imagining the university station last fall led to the partnerships that helped create WYXR. And from the beginning, the new non-commercial station has kept community service at the heart of its mission. Also at the center of that vision is cultivating a sense of freedom.

As executive director Robby Grant said this summer, “By taking a free form approach, we want to begin finding personalities and DJs who have their own tastes and things they’ve grown up loving and sharing with people.” Since then, the station has indeed recruited a diverse stable of DJs, covering a multitude of genres and aesthetics.

For those who relied on WUMR’s jazz programming, never fear: the new station will feature plenty of jazz of all stripes, including DJ Jim Duckworth’s return to spinning rare pre-World War II jazz platters. Much indie rock, blues, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, hip hop, avant garde, and even “unpopular pop” will be highlighted as well, with DJs running the gamut from Goner’s Zac Ives to Juan Shipp, former pastor at the Greater Abyssinia M. B. Church for over forty years and founder of the Memphis-based D-Vine Spirituals record label.

Every Friday at noon, tune in to Radio Flyer, an hour’s worth of news and music from The Memphis Flyer, hosted by associate editor Toby Sells and music editor Alex Greene. In the first half hour of every show, Sells will interview guests and other Flyer reporters about their beat for the week. The second half will be devoted to music, with Greene spinning cuts reflecting that week’s reporting and the Flyer‘s entire history of arts coverage, including exclusive excerpts from interviews.

In today’s Daily Memphian, Boyd summed up the experience of preparing for launch in the age of quarantine, and the payoff of manifesting community bonds today, now that it’s all going live. “Every exhausting step up a U-Haul ramp with a box of records; every trip to a large, whirring transmitter in a suburban shed; and every angry email from a jazz-lover devoted to the station’s old format,” he writes, “was manageable once I saw the eager eyes peering back at me over the cloth face-coverings of Memphians, many of whom I’ve admired in my own comings and goings, but never imagined I’d see in a room together, working toward a common goal.”

WYXR 91.7 FM goes live today at 5 p.m. with a special on-air party hosted by Robby Grant and Jared Boyd.
Special Inaugural Broadcast Schedule:
• 5-9 p.m. – Robby Grant & Jared “Jay B.” Boyd Kickoff Party
• 9 p.m. 11 p.m. – Time Passage w/ Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT
• 11p.m. 12a.m. – The Mado Experience / Mado
• 12 a.m.- until … – *SPECIAL GUEST DJ*

Categories
News News Blog

Crosstown Calls for Your Memories for Third Anniversary

CREDIT: Crosstown Concourse/Facebook


Crosstown Concourse opened to much fanfare in 2017 with tours and live music events dominating the day and night. The same was true for 2018 and 2019.

But this year, thanks to COVID-19, Crosstown is calling for a more muted celebration.

With the Concourse unable to safely host a celebration, they have asked for the community to share their favorite Crosstown photos on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with the hashtags #yourconcourse and #bettertogether for a chance to win a $50 Concourse gift card.

“Three years ago, when Concourse welcomed thousands of Memphians from all walks of life at the opening celebration, we were finally able to experience the vertical urban village dream of ‘better together’ in action,” said Todd Richardson, president of the Crosstown Redevelopment Cooperative. “If absence makes the heart grow fonder, Crosstown Concourse’s third anniversary this week has given us the opportunity to reminisce about our favorite memories and events over the last three years, and, as a result, cherish more than ever all the people and arts programming we miss so much.”

Memphians have until 5 p.m. on Friday, August 21st to make posts. Three winners will be randomly selected and announced on Concourse social media channels on Monday, August 24th.

Crosstown Concourse/Facebook

Crosstown Concourse’s opening day in 2017.

Categories
News News Blog

New WYXR Station to Air From Crosstown

CREDIT: WYXR

WYXR

New radio station WYXR’s initial staff includes (from left) Shelby McCall, Robby Grant, and Jared Boyd.

WYXR, a new, non-commercial radio station will hit the air (and digital devices) here this fall in a partnership between Crosstown Concourse, The Daily Memphian, and the University of Memphis.

The station’s radio home is at 91.7 FM and its call letters stand for “Your Crosstown Radio.” That’s where the station’s staff will produce and air its daily broadcasts. The station partners came together to reimagine the U of M’s WUMR station back in November.

The station will be led by executive director Robby Grant, who spent 15 years at advertising firm Archer Malmo after first starting his own online marketing company. Grant is also a staple on the Memphis music scene, touring widely and also as a member of Mellotron Variations.

“I’ve been wanting to help make a change with Memphis radio, specifically community radio, for a long time,” Grant said in a statement. “The fact that it has organically become real is exciting.
[pullquote-1] “We are going to amplify voices in Memphis and the Mid-South. By taking a freeform approach, we want to begin finding personalities and DJs who have their own tastes and things they’ve grown up loving and sharing with people.

“A freeform station allows those DJs to turn people onto music, whether it’s the music they’ve loved their whole lives or what they’ve heard this past week.”

Jared “Jay B.” Boyd will serve as WYXR’s program director. Boyd is a DJ, reporter with The Daily Memphian, and host of NPR-syndicated radio program “Beale Street Caravan.”

“Aside from the opportunity to be hands-on in cultivating new and emerging broadcast talent in the Mid-South, I’m most gratified by this radio partnership’s potential to truly reach people in the Mid-South area by virtue of being open and welcoming in nature,” Boyd said in a statement. “When you walk into Crosstown Concourse, it won’t be hidden. The nuts and bolts of the operation will be showcased behind glass right in the lobby of the Central Atrium. By design, this community-minded radio station will not just broadcast to its audience but live and breathe alongside it.”

WYXR

Former WUMR staffer Shelby McCall, who works now with Entercom Memphis, has signed on as WYXR’s operations coordinator. The University of Memphis is also searching for an instructor for student radio. This position will facilitate student involvement with the station and also program and plan a second university-focused internet stream, on which students will broadcast news, sports, and music.

The station’s programming will be made up of volunteer contributions from regular content producers and special guests to achieve a freeform format, providing room for a rotating cast of local personalities and an educational ground for university students.

WYXR

From left: Grant, Boyd, and McCall

The WYXR studio is now being built in the space once held by The OAM network, an independent podcast company. The new space will have a redesigned control room, production room, and live audio connections from Crosstown Theater, the Green Room at Crosstown Arts, and plans to simulcast event’s from the U of M’s new, $40 million Scheidt Family Music Center.

For more information or to volunteer, go to wyxr.org. Initial programming will be posted on the site in the coming weeks.