Tag: Detroit

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George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic: Keeping the Funk Alive

George Clinton

Tonight will be a watershed moment for lovers of the funk, as the Mothership descends once again on the Bluff City. I well recall when George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic played the old Ellis Auditorium in 1991: the floorboards were literally bowing and bouncing to the beat. And that was just from the audience jumping to the band, who by now need no introduction, as pillars of American music history. The other day I had a chat with Danny Bedrosian, piano prodigy, synthesizer wizard, and fifteen year veteran of the band, about various new projects from the P-Funk collective and what funksters can expect from tonight’s show.

Memphis Flyer: So your first big work with the P Funk group and George Clinton was 2014’s First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate?

Danny Bedrosian: That’s the third P Funk album I was on. But I was much more involved with it than I was in the prior efforts. I came into the group as a studio musician first, which is kind of ironic. After being a studio musician with George for a few years, on and off while I was finishing college, I moved down to Florida where I live now, and where his studio is, and started working even more for George. And upon them liking what I did further and trusting me, they hired me into the group to go out on the road in 2003. Prior to that I was doing mostly just sessions. And being a session musician, you never really know how much of your stuff’s gonna end up on release. You also don’t know where things are gonna end up going. And I ended up doing a lot of work for a bunch of different associated acts all through those years as well, even while I was in the band. I played on George’s 2005 album, How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent?, and I played on one song on his 2008 album, Gangsters of Love. And then I was very instrumental in the new Funkadelic album, Shake the Gate. I played on about 17 songs on that album. He also has a new Parliament album coming out called Medicaid Fraud Dog, which he’s really excited about. That’s coming out this year, the first Parliament album since 1980. We’re gonna have lots of horns, lots of that classic Parliament sound, and I’m also very conspicuous on that offering as well. I definitely contributed to more songs than there probably will be on the album, so…it’s another one that I’m really proud of, that’s gonna be coming soon from the P Funk camp.

You also contribute quite a bit to the new album Detroit Rising [released March 30 on Down Jazz Records], which features many P Funk players on it. Was that all recorded in Detroit?

No, the conceptual framework behind the project is the idea of the Detroit sound, being both the Motown sound and also United Sound, which was the studio where P Funk did a lot of its recordings back in the day. It’s the idea of the rising of that sound back into the forefront of American music and not just in these locales where it comes from. Although the title is a bit of a misnomer, because probably a greater portion of it was recorded in NYC. And probably an equal portion to the Detroit stuff was recorded in Florida as well. So it’s really a multinational offering, if you will. It was equal parts New York, Detroit, L.A. and Florida. So sorta all corners of the country. But the Detroit sound is really an important part of the P Funk sound, you know Motown and R&B and funk and all that stuff.

The idea of the concept was bringing back that sort of sound to the forefront and then adding something new to it as well. Because it’s definitely got a heavy East coast influence as well, with the jazz fusion thing. So it’s a pretty cool project.

A few tracks were done at United Sound, which is the longest running studio in the country. And it’s where P Funk did all of their big big albums back in the 70s, and also where a lot of the great R&B artists did their music. And so, the project started there and it evolved from there. I’m really proud of the music, I think it’s really dynamic and exciting musically.

What’s it like creating and recording tracks for a George Clinton album?

Working for George, he will have a complete concept in mind before coming in. So if it’s something we’re doing with George for a particular album or effort, he’s gonna be very specific about the concept and what it is that we’re doing and why we’re doing it. He’s still very much the producer in that way. For instance, we just did a session in Atlanta last night with the rhythm section, and we recorded a song that we’d been doing live that already exists in a track form; but he liked the way we did it live with the track so much that he’s having us recreate sort of a live version for the studio of this track. And so this was his vision for this, capturing that energy from a live version of a song that we never really put out live. We just played it live. We never put it out on an album. So he’s looking to create the live version of that as the studio version, if you will. And that was his vision last night.

It is collaborative, but he’s very focused, and it takes a long time. He cares about his product and how it’s crafted and how it’s made. He’s very on hand in the studio, always on point, very, very focused in the studio. You just get in there and take directions and see what happens. And then, he is also very collaborative in a way, where if we’re at his home studio in Tallahassee at the P Funk studio, we might be coming up with something sort of leisurely, and it’ll become something. That happens too in a very organic way. Or it could be something where one of us wrote a song and it doesn’t necessarily have a place yet, and he may fall in love with it and do some post production, add a bunch of stuff, take away some stuff, mix some stuff, do some things with it, and create something new with that. That happens very often too.

And then oftentimes he’ll put groups of us together to create something. So he’ll have a vision for a few of us from the group or from the organization to work together or create together in some way in a way that maybe we never would have thought of before because maybe it wouldn’t be someone you even knew before you came into this organization. He’s really connected a lot of people in that way. So the spirit of his production is just so more alive than maybe it has been in the past 20 or so years, ‘cos he’s just so focused now. And it’s really great to see.

It reminds me of Duke Ellington, who would craft compositions around the sounds and personalities of particular players in his group.

Yes, he’s very conscious about who it is that starts a particular song, and how it has that color because that person started it. And he’s equally conscious of how a track needs the color of this person, so we’ll get so and so to overdub on it. He’s very conscious about who starts it, who dubs in, how he wants it to be structured, how he wants the flavor of it to be.

Will Memphis get a taste of the new Parliament album?

Yes, we have released one single from the upcoming album already. It’s called “I’m Gonna Make You Sick.” And it is really really just a banger. It’s really a great funk song, the classic Parliament sound. It also features the rapper Scarface. and I played on it a little bit as well. We’ve been doing it live about four months. And it’s one of those songs that really gets the crowd going, which is great because it’s a new song. So, such a great continuum to see how it continues to thrive. So yeah, you will get a little bit of new Parliament album.

And of course some of the new Funkadelic.

Yep we’re gonna do probably five songs from that as well.

And dip into the hits?

Oh yeah. There’s always a strong inclination from the fans to do this song or that song. And the P Funk canon being so vast, you can never expect to get all the hits. It’s something like forty charted hits, six number ones, three platinum albums and additional maybe eight gold albums. Just so much of the stuff from that period that you can’t expect to hear all of them, but there are definitely ones that we can’t do a show without doing. And also, which makes me happy, is we tend to dig through the crates and go through a lot of lesser known album cuts as well from back in the day. Which I really like ‘cos I was such an album guy growing up when I was a fan of this band. I always liked a lot of the album cuts the best, even more so than some of the singles. So it’s really exciting to be able to do those as well.

I saw P Funk in 1991 and there was a descending Mothership…

Oh yeah! We probably won’t see the spaceship in this show. It is something that’s been talked about lately, about bringing the Mothership back, and you never know, it could happen. Right now the original Mothership is currently in the Smithsonian in Washington, which we’re really proud of.

How many of the current players go back to the early days of Parliament or Funkadelic?

We have Blackbyrd McKnight on guitar, he joined the group in about ’78. He’s with us. He’s also an original member of the Headhunters [backing Herbie Hancock], and played with Miles Davis. He’s a 30-plus year veteran of P Funk. Mister Lige Curry on bass, who’s the longest tenured bass player in the band’s history. He’s been playing for this group for 30 some odd years as well, joined in ’79. The horn section, Benny Cowan and Greg Thomas on trumpet and saxophone respectively. They both have been in the group some 40 years now, they came in the ’70s. Gary “Mudbone” Cooper, who has been with the group since ’73 and was also an original member of Bootsy’s Rubber Band, also is with the group. Tracey Lewis, who is George’s son, did a lot of work with them starting in the early to late ’80s. Steve Boyd, who started in the late ’80s, is also with us as well. So there’s quite a few people from that era. And it’s such a great thing to see how George has people from every decade of this group. I came in the 2000’s, and it’s interesting that I’m the only one left from that era. So it’s a kind of a microcosm where you see the different generations and how they impact the thing. I think we have maybe 3 people here from the ’90s. And then we have a slew of new people who’ve come in the 2010’s. Some of George’s grandchildren, they’re the new generation that’s coming up. So it’s really great to see it self-perpetuating.

It’s quite an American institution. Anything else we should know about P Funk projects?

I would like to say I have a new album that just came out as well, my solo album with my little trio called Secret Army. And the album is called 8finity. It’s our eighth album, and it’s myself and the bass player and the drummer from P Funk. So it’s basically the backbone of P Funk, we just put out this new album as well. George is on it too, and bunch of other members of the band. It’s a really nice effort.

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Opinion

Praise for Elmore Leonard

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Elmore Leonard wrote so many great lines that would work on his tombstone if he has such a thing.

Leonard, who died Tuesday, made the hard job of writing dialogue look easy. Memphis and Mississippi figure in a few of his books, including “Tishomingo Blues” which features a high diver, casinos, Civil War reenactors, and naughty-child pie. His adopted home town was Detroit, which a writer for the Detroit News called “the gift that keeps on giving” to him.

“I like it,” Leonard said in 2012 of the Detroit area. “Great music … lot of poverty. I wouldn’t move anywhere else. Now, it’s too late. I’d never be able to drive in San Francisco or Los Angeles.”

The friend who introduced me to his books 30 years ago said Leonard was a writer of Westerns like “Hombre” and “Three Ten to Yuma” who shifted to urban Westerns in a modern setting. The heroes were iron workers and such and the bad guys were sadistic but often amusing whackos. There was always a showdown at the end. As the saying goes, his books, all 45 of them, were hard to put down.

A few of those tombstone worthy lines:

(to aspiring writers) “Leave out the parts readers skip.” (This applied to chapters, sentences, and even phrases such as WTF which he usually wrote as simply “The fuck?”)

“We all die, just a question of when.” (the 1967 movie version of “Hombre”)

“Mister, you got a lot of hard bark on you.” (Bad guy Richard Boone to Paul Newman in “Hombre”)

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Opinion

Wharton Says Memphis Is No Detroit

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Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said Friday it is not a time to “pile on” Detroit in the wake of its bankruptcy, but took pains to make a case that Memphis is a much healthier city.

Wharton called reporters to City Hall for a comparison-making session that he admitted was not unlike the athletic director who calls a press conference to announce support for the football coach — which is often the kiss of death. He said his first reaction was that the comparison “is so inept that I am not going to dignify it by responding,” but respond he did.

“They need to hear that we do recognize our challenges and are going to meet them head on,” he said. “They need to hear that from me.”

He produced a chart showing that the Memphis city pension plan is nearly 75 percent funded, with more than $2 billion in the bank. Memphis, he said, has roughly half as many city employees for close to the same population, and a budget approximately one fifth as large. Memphis has a more diverse economy. The “key difference” he said is “there is no denial in this city” that there are financial challenges even during the heat of council debate over the budget. As for the state comptroller’s letter, “we had started down that path even before that without any warning or threats that said we have to change some things in the pension situation.”

Wharton opened the session with some comments about Trayvon Martin.

“I have six sons and four grandsons and have been in courtrooms a good part of my life, so for me it wasn’t just can you comment on something on a tv screen,” he said.

He said he is “glad folks are going to rally” for a “noble cause, that is to ask for some redress.”

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Opinion

The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

  • Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

The frustrated mayor who hoped to save the city decided this week to call it quits later this year in the face of overwhelming problems.

He listed them in an interview with a writer for The Daily Beast: Blight, corruption and crime. Historic financial issues. Declining population and low density. A City Council resistant to his plans for change. A Republican governor appointing someone to take over failing systems. The city’s midtown and downtown pocked with abandoned structures, some in the shadows of hotels and stadiums of pro sports teams. Low voter turnout in local elections. Media trashing the city.

The city is Detroit, and the mayor is Dave Bing. Detroit is the national standard for failing cities, as we have been told by Time magazine, a couple of recent documentaries including “Detropia” which was shown in Memphis last year, some books by Detroiters such as Charlie LeDuff’s “Detroit: An American Autopsy,” and about a million newspaper articles, blogs, and reader comments.

Other than that, my view of Detroit is based on nothing more than occasional visits to a small slice of the city. The parallels to Memphis are irresistible, or at least they are to me, a Michigan native, fan of Detroit novelists Loren Estleman and Elmore Leonard, and regular reader of the Detroit newspapers for more than 50 years, back before Bing was the star of the Detroit Pistons.

Finally, I thought four years ago when he was elected mayor, Detroit gets the right person for the job. But when I read the stories about him calling it quits this week, I couldn’t help thinking “Is this what’s in store for Memphis?”

Taking the indictment one count at a time, I would say Memphis is better off. For now.

Corruption: Detroit’s former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, is in prison after being convicted in March. Memphis had Tennessee Waltz and Main Street Sweeper, which netted more convictions of public officials. But Kilpatrick’s influence was greater. A close call, but Detroit gets the edge as “worst.”

Backgrounds of Bing and Wharton: Both men are 69 years old. Bing was a successful Detroit businessman after his NBA career. He was elected in 2009 and served one term. Wharton, an attorney, has held public offices since 2002, including county and city mayor since 2002. The lesson: a “business approach to government” does not necessarily translate to success with unions, other politicians, and loss of population and tax base. Nor do political experience, charm, and personal decency.

Crime: In one recent survey of “most dangerous U.S. cities” Detroit ranked first and Memphis tenth. In another survey, Detroit was fifth and Memphis sixth. On Wednesday, Bing and the emergency manager announced the appointment of a new police chief. As in Memphis, his job will be reducing violent crime on a budget.

Declining population and vast footprint. Detroit’s population has fallen from nearly two million in the 1950s to about 700,000 in a city of 142 square miles. The population of Memphis, boosted by annexation of 35,000 residents, declined 0.5 percent between 2000 and 2010 to 647,000 in more than 300 square miles.

Low voter turnout: 17 percent in Detroit, and about the same in the 2011 Memphis mayoral and City Council election. Low turnout has been a given in Memphis for decades and the inflated number of “eligible voters” due to the reluctance of the Election Commission to purge the rolls, makes it look worse.

Blight near stadiums: As we’re seeing with the Grizzlies, pro sports can boost community morale and have a big economic impact, but championships (Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons in last ten years) and new side-by-side stadiums (Tigers and Lions) couldn’t avert Detroit’s population loss, financial crisis, or blighted condition. Downtown Memphis has empty office buildings and blighted sections, but the redevelopment of the Chisca Hotel, South Main Street, and public housing projects will make for a better-looking and more vibrant downtown.

Bad publicity: A Los Angeles sportswriter took some shots at Memphis, as did Forbes and other publications that purport to rank cities. But Memphis gets some good national attention too, for its music, food, and mystique. Our toughest critics are in the suburbs and in Nashville. Wharton, except for complaining that local television news programs over-emphasize violent crime, is not a media critic in the manner of his predecessor, Willie Herenton. Bing was apparently unloading on national more than local media depictions of Detroit.

State oversight: Detroit has an emergency manager. Worst case scenario is biggest-ever city bankruptcy. Memphis has the state-run Achievement School District which has taken over some public schools, and a federal judge and special master overseeing the merger of the school districts. Worst case scenario is failure of the biggest school system merger in U.S. history, but exactly what that would mean in dollars and cents remains to be seen.

City Council opposition: Mayors get things done by cultivating council allies. It is hard to identify anyone currently carrying water for Wharton. On one side is Jim Strickland, pledging to vote against tax increases. On the other is Joe Brown, saying tax the rich because they can afford it and don’t care. There will be bad feelings, but also a balanced budget and probably a tax increase next month. That’s more than Detroit can say.

On May 30th, Memphis magazine is bringing New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in for a luncheon called “A Summons to Memphis.” If he’ll come, Bing would be a good choice for a follow-up. He’s a truth-teller, with no worries about being reelected, and he has a story to tell.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Hypothetical Question: Would a Whole Foods Make It in Midtown?

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

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That hypothetical question — Would a Whole Foods make it in Midtown? — is just that. I have not heard even the tiniest peep about this actually happening.

In Flyerland, we talk a lot about grocery stores, so this question has come up before. What brought it up most recently was the Wall Street Journal story (warning: paywall) about Whole Foods opening a store in Detroit, Michigan.

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Opinion

Another Way Memphis Could Buy Business

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First comes the party. Then comes the price.

That’s how it works in economic development. Like other cities, Memphis has to pay to play to attract companies like Mitsubishi, Electrolux, and Bass Pro Shops. The price is millions of dollars in tax breaks plus public improvements in exchange for jobs, investment, spinoff businesses, and a positive story to tell.

Electrolux and Mitsubishi are good catches. The total number of jobs will be around 1,500, and the combined investment will be more than $600 million. Big deals, but not quite as big as the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga (2,000 jobs), the Toyota plant near Tupelo ((1,350 jobs), the Amazon distribution facility in Chattanooga (1,400 jobs), the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi (3,300 jobs) or the Nissan plants in Smyrna (6,700 jobs since 1983) and Decherd (1,300 jobs since production started in 1997) in Middle Tennessee. But certainly preferable to the loss of 1,900 in Union City in West Tennessee when Goodyear pulls out.

A lot of people in Memphis are probably thinking either, “I hope I get one of those jobs” or else “I hope the people who get those jobs buy a house in my part of Memphis.”

We have a bad housing market. Memphis is certainly not alone in that regard, but our problem is compounded by low density — a population of 670,000 and a city of more than 320 square miles.

Two things are slowly killing Memphis. One is the “For Sale” signs all over town, indicating the outmigration of our population and the difficulty of selling a house when there is a glut of housing. The other is the tax imbalance between Memphis and its suburbs in Shelby County, where property taxes are as much as 40 percent lower and signs in front of subdivisions near annexation boundaries proclaim “No City Taxes.”

The city of Detroit is taking an aggressive approach to its glut of housing and scarcity of residents, as described this week in a story in The Detroit News. In addition to giving incentives to businesses to move to Detroit, the city gives incentives to young people and police officers to move into neighborhoods such as Midtown, an older part of the city.

The program is called “15 by 15,” and aims to attract 15,000 new residents by 2015. It has the backing of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.

I live in Midtown Memphis. I confess to a little envy when I read about corporate welfare, and I suspect I am not the only one. No, we’re not job creators, but we’re taxpayers of several years, owners and customers of local businesses and public services, and our small businesses pay full freight. Houses aren’t selling, and the only “incentive” anyone is offering is the lower price accepted by the homeowners who do sell. No homeowner gets a PILOT.

So, welcome employees of Electrolux and Mitsubishi and, possibly, Bass Pro Shops. Live up to the bargain. Live in Memphis, not DeSoto County, Mississippi or Fayette County or Tipton County Tennessee. Remember who is giving you the incentives to be here. And tell your friends to come too.

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News

Detroit Ranked “Most Dangerous” City in Controversial Report; Memphis 8th

AP – In another blow to the Motor City’s tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation’s most dangerous city, according to a private research group’s controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.

The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data.

The 14th annual “City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America” was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI’s Sept. 24 crime statistics report.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said.

Last year’s crime leader, St. Louis, fell to No. 2. Another Michigan city, Flint, ranked third, followed by Oakland Calif.; Camden, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; and Cleveland.

The study ranked Mission Viejo, Calif., as the safest U.S. city, followed by Clarkstown, N.Y.; Brick Township, N.J.; Amherst, N.Y.; and Sugar Land, Texas.

CQ Press spokesman Ben Krasney said details of the weighting system were proprietary. It was compiled by Kathleen O’Leary Morgan and Scott Morgan, whose Morgan Quitno Press published it until its acquisition by CQ Press.

The study assigns a crime score to each city, with zero representing the national average. Detroit got a score of 407, while St. Louis followed at 406. The score for Mission Viejo, in affluent Orange County, was minus 82.

Detroit was pegged the nation’s murder capital in the 1980s and has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950, according to the Census Bureau. Downtown sports stadiums and corporate headquarters – along with the redevelopment of the riverfront of this city of 919,000 – have slowed but not reversed the decline. Officials have said crime reports don’t help.

Detroit Deputy Police Chief James Tate had no immediate comment on the report. But the mayor of 30th-ranked Rochester, N.Y. – an ex-police chief himself – said the study’s authors should consider the harm that the report causes.

“What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities,” said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The rankings “do groundless harm to many communities,” said Michael Tonry, president of the American Society of Criminology.

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Music Music Features

Three’s Company

Jem Cohen, the ascot-sporting bassist for the Ettes, has got it made. He gets to play energetic ’60s beat rock, and, as the only male in the band, he gets to spend a lot of time with two beautiful ladies and travel around in a psychedelic van solving mysteries. Okay, I made up the last part. Nonetheless, the L.A.-based trio with a vintage look and sound seems to be having a blast and getting along as they head into the final weeks of a two-month tour through Canada and the U.S. Drummer Poni Silver quips, “Ask us how well we’re getting along in another three weeks.”

All three members, including guitarist and frontwoman Coco Hames, are from the East Coast but didn’t meet until they were in Los Angeles. They are finding that La-la Land isn’t the easiest place for a retro-rocking, non-trendy group to survive.

“It’s hard because you’re competing against the sons and daughters of famous people who have all of these connections in the music business,” Cohen says. “Though the place is big enough for different styles, the scene is so fragmented.” Hames half-jokingly adds, “We tour all the time because everyone in Los Angeles is so industry.”

In 2004, Hames and Silver decided to form a band. Where the girl group in Dreamgirls drops the “-ettes” from their name, Hames wanted to embrace the feminine aspect of the name and “be the suffix.” After trying out a couple of girlfriends on bass, the two decided on Cohen, sacrificing the gender purity of the group for band chemistry. Cohen says, “One of the reasons we do get along so well is that we love the same music — Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, the Beatles.”

After months of rehearsal and songwriting, the Ettes decided to cut their first proper record. They aimed high and far away. They contacted Liam Watson, who had produced Billy Childish, Holly Golightly, and the White Stripes, and arranged to record at his Toe Rag Studios in London. The Ettes financed the trip themselves.

“We wanted to do it and didn’t think about what would happen next,” Hames remembers. In London, the group got to meet their musical idols, Childish and Golightly.

Soon after, the Ettes were able to convince the Sympathy for the Record Industry label to release their debut, Shake the Dust. Though the label is based in SoCal, many of its acts hail from Detroit or, in the case of Jack Yarber’s multiple projects, Memphis. In fact, Falling James Moreland, Courtney Love’s first husband and noted transvestite punk rocker/critic, recently wrote, “Let’s hope we don’t lose this ever-touring group to Detroit or Memphis. The Ettes fit in better with rootsy revisionists like the Detroit Cobras and the Oblivians than they do with most L.A. bands.” He might have good reason to be fearful. The Ettes are indeed looking for a nice place to relocate. According to Hames, the phrase “shake the dust” is about moving on from the past.

One place the Ettes are considering is Asheville, North Carolina. Hames’ folks live there, and it’s also the home of former Memphian Greg Cartwright and his band the Reigning Sound. The Ettes aren’t ashamed to admit their admiration for Cartwright’s music, both the Oblivians (which Cartwright was a member of along with Yarber and Goner Records’ Eric Friedl) and the Reigning Sound. The Ettes have even recorded a cover of the Reigning Sound’s “We Repel Each Other.” Their streamlined, poppier version lacks the raw power and emotional urgency of the original, but it does have a charm of its own.

Hames’ voice, equal parts Ye-Ye girl sweetness and party-gal rasp, is much better suited to Shake the Dust‘s low-key, melancholy closer, “I Wanna Go Home.” It would also seem to be a perfect match for “My Baby Cried All Night Long,” a Nancy Sinatra cover that the Ettes have been working into their live repertoire. Hames, in a stylish baby-doll dress, could easily be Nancy Sinatra’s understudy. The band’s impeccably mod fashion sense is evident not only in their publicity shots but offstage as well. Hames says, “I dress the part every day. People need to understand that it comes from my history as a debutante.”

To give you an idea of how many shows they have played on the recent tour, the Ettes’ upcoming show will be their second in Memphis this year. Even with the relentless touring schedule, Cohen seems more than content in his role as the Jack Tripper of the garage-rock set.

“We are excited about coming back to play,” Cohen says. “Everyone was very energetic in the audience, and we even attended a late-night dance party after the show.”