Sara Moseley designed the Gonerfest 19 posters and logo, seen here on a lollipop on Saturday of the of 4-day underground music festival. (photo by Laura Jean Hocking)
The annual gathering of the punk tribes known as Gonerfest climaxed on Saturday with a 12-act bill that stretched a full eleven hours. After two nights of pleasant, early fall temperatures, the weather became a factor at Railgarten’s outdoor stage.
Meredith Lones of Ibex Clone plays Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
The afternoon heat was starting to take a bite when first Memphis band on the agenda took the stage at 3 PM. Ibex Clone — Alec McIntyre, Meredith Lones, and George Williford — delivered one of many sweaty sets of the day.
Andie Luman of Crimes of Passing sings at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
Even though their music is better suited to the dark, the sun was really bearing down when Cincinnati, Ohio’s Crimes of Passing fired up. Vocalist Andie Luman channeled Siouxie Sioux’s banshee wail, while the band spun out vivid sonic textures.
Msr. Jeffrey Evans plays at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
Msr. Jeffrey Evans is no stranger to the Gonerfest stage. The singer/songwriter made a string of legendarily shambolic shockabilly records with ’68 Comeback in the 1990s, and his later partnership with Panther Burns drummer Ross Johnson was a comedy rock highlight of the festival for years. His solo appearance was a slightly more serious affair, with the reverent crowd eating up his renditions of his songs and some classics.
A member of New Buck Biloxi at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
New Buck Biloxi (formerly Buck Biloxi and the Fucks) toned down their name, but not the confrontational nature of their rock. They laid down the first of many big screams as the afternoon’s music got progressively harder and louder.
Only the latest technology is good enough for the Gonerfest Stream Team! Pictured: Camera 3. (photo by Chris McCoy)
I have filmed Gonerfest many times, first with Live From Memphis, then with Rocket Science Audio, and now for the official Gonerfest Stream Team. Since live streaming has really come into its own in the last few years, partially fueled by the pandemic, now you can see what we do in real time, rather than waiting for somebody to get the time to edit it all together. The good news (or maybe the bad news, depending on your perspective) is that we’ve gone to the lo-fi roots of Goner music by filming with 20-year-old Sony Handicams. (Don’t laugh, they’re free!) The stream was devoured by Goners from all over the world who couldn’t make it to Memphis. It’s hard work, but I hope the folks watching at home could tell how much fun we were having.
Michael Beach at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com}
The first artist I’m stationed on stage left to film is Michael Beach, an Aussie with a new album out on Goner. He’s an excellent songwriter, who can both grasp pounding rockers and the occasional more quiet, heartfelt piano song.
Sick Thoughts at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
Sick Thoughts are another Gonerfest veteran. The New Orleans combo, fronted by Drew Owens and including most of the Trampoline Team, threw down a searing, spitting set that brought the moshers out and sent beer cans flying.
John Brannon of Negative Approach at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
Here’s a safety tip: Don’t bean Negative Approach’s John Brannon in the head with a water bottle during the first song. You’re just going to piss him off more. The ’80s Detroit hardcore legends have long, grey beards now, but their breakneck tempos and punishing sonic assaults haven’t missed a step.
Ron Sakowski of Negative Approach at Gonerfest 19.(Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
As they were taking the stage, lightning was crackling in the middle distance. In the streaming control booth, we nervously tracked the thunderstorms that roared through the area Saturday night. But luckily, the cells went north and south of Central and Cooper, and the crowd got only a few sprinkles and a refreshing cool breeze from thunderstorm outflow. (A couple of miles away, the Memphis Power Pop fest at the Overton Park Shell wasn’t so lucky.) In the end, mother nature provided the light show, and Negative Approach provided the thunder.
Kevin Boyer of Tyvek kicking up a storm at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
Fellow Detroiters Tyvek, a fan favorite of past Gonerfests, returned with a refreshed lineup and new energy. The crowd, many of whom had been baking in the sun for hours, somehow kept up with bandleader Kevin Boyer’s breakneck pace.
Jack Oblivian sings with the Compulsive Gamblers at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
The headliners brought the night to a close with a stunning display of Memphis talent. The first band Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber formed together in the 1990s was called Compulsive Gamblers. The pair of Antenna punks from Mississippi and Frayser went back to the well of pre-Beatles r&b 45s that had inspired rock in the beginning, and wrote their own songs from that template. With The Reigning Sound on indefinite hiatus, the Gamblers did a recent swing through the Midwest and arrived at Gonerfest as a tight unit— or at least as tight as you want punk-infused covers of The Bar-Kays to be.
Alex Greene plays with the Compulsive Gamblers at Gonerfest 19. (Photo By Christopher Reyes – Live From Memphis.com)
With Memphis Flyer music editor Alex Greene on keys, Graham Winchester on drums, and John Whittemore providing sonic assistance with a Flying V and EBow, they kept the capacity crowd on its feet all night with songs like the Cartwright-penned Oblivians’ classic “Bad Man” and Yarber’s pounding “Pepper Spray Boogie.” The highlight of the set was a swaying rendition of Cartwright’s doom waltz “Sour and Vicious Man.” As the crowd dispersed to the afterparties, it was clear Gonerfest 19 was one for the ages.
PreauXX (R) joins AWFM (L) onstage at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
“One thing about Gonerfest,” remarked an old friend who’s seen many of them in his day, “it always brings great drummers to town.” We were bobbing our heads to Nashville’s Snooper at the time, and their drummer was indeed distinctive, helping to elevate the crowd’s dancing to a climax last night.
That could be said of the whole band, of course. Imagine the Flying Lizards with Keith Moon guesting on drums, all buzzed on caffeine, and you’ll get close to the feel of Snooper. Pigtailed lead singer Blair Tramel hit the stage bouncing and leaping from the start, inspiring the audience to surge toward the stage as the mosh pit reached a boil.
Snooper (Photo courtesy Goner Records)
Yet the band was anything but standard-issue hardcore, instead combining that genre’s breakneck tempos and shouted choruses with an eerie sonic onslaught of two noise-weaving guitars, undergirded by a rhythm section akin to rolling thunder, topped by the warble of Tramel’s slightly processed voice and her occasional synth blasts. It was a sound at once trippy and energizing, as the band, largely dressed in workout windbreakers, matched Tramel’s energy leap for leap.
Snooper was a blur of movement at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
The tweaked reality of the band’s sound was augmented by the unheralded appearance of larger than life papier-mâché figures shuffling through the crowd. While not quite feeling theatrical, it was a subtle bit of world-building by the band, as they knocked our conventional world askew and replaced it with a more inspired reality of giant human flies and much more leaping.
Snooper’s larger-than-life puppets (Credit: Chris McCoy)
And yet Snooper weren’t even the closers. Instead, the final band was a beautiful puzzle that inspired swaying, twisting, and head tilting more than any mosh pit. Fred Lane and His Disheveled Monkeybiters brought a bold new approach to the classic Gonerfest closing set, bringing swing rhythms and alt-jazz chops to the festival for the first time. Ultimately, the bizarre left turn the evening took at the hands of Lane et al. was refreshingly unpredictable.
While the crowd eased up from the front of the stage a bit, the Disheveled Monkeybiters turned heads around the grounds of Railgarten, and got many up front moving, as the band alternated from tightly arranged swing stompers with riffs by the three horns, to the honks and growls of freakish free jazz. Presiding over it all with a kind of anti-charisma was Fred Lane, whose Dada-ist mutterings, non sequiturs, and scat singing ranged from the fiercely animated to the awkwardly reserved.
“In my ineptitude/I don’t really deserve to be alive,” crooned Lane, neatly summing up the dark self loathing lurking in his absurdist rants. It did not make for the classic barn-burning show closer that so many festivals offer. As if to extinguish such expectations, the tenor sax player stepped up to the mic and announced, “This is art!” And those of us who listened deeply to the chaos knew what he meant.
It was a set of extreme dynamics, most apparent in the closing moments of the show, when each band member mimicked their own death as they played shrieks of noise and rhythmic fusillades. How to follow that with an encore? Have Lane perform the a capella “Oatmeal,” of course. “I sailed the China seas/In my pajamas on a raft,” he sang whimsically. “I drift into the sewers/In a miner’s hat,” and then a few perfunctory squawks and honks from the band broke the quiet.
“Oh, what a glorious feeling/Oh, what a marvelous plight/To be numb beyond feeling/Senseless, without sight,” Lane’s voice returned, almost sotto voce, echoing in the glorious emptiness. It put a fine point on the group’s darkly humorous ethos, still oddly compelling over four decades after it was cooked up by Surrealist-friendly proto-punks in Tuscaloosa’s fringe art scene.
Incredibly, those two closing set weren’t even the highlight of the day for some Goner-goers. Many were still reeling from on-point afternoon performances by local favorites like Aquarian Blood or Sweet Knives. But the day’s local hero trophy must surely go to A Weirdo From Memphis (AWFM), whose set offered one surprise after another, always topping itself. Starting with the very diggable surprise of AWFM’s live backing band, showcasing the deep ranks of musical talent in the Unapologetic collective, the set accelerated when colleague PreauXX jumped onstage. It all culminated in AWFM’s use of a series of ladders to scale the box car-based stage structure, as he sang and spit rhymes from atop the venue’s giant retro sign, Roller SKATE For Health, towering over the ecstatic crowd.
A Weirdo From Memphis on the roof of the Railgarten stage at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
After that, Sydney, Australia’s Gee Tee gave the fans a rush of amped-up, old school punk with a tweaked edge, as if the young Clash had found a Casio in the dumpster. Their catchy set caused a dramatic upsurge in Gee Tee T-shirts as the night progressed. Then, seeming to go through the history of alternative music, Austin/Melbourne/New York-based Spray Paint took us into post-punk territory, as their twin guitars seemed to redefine harmony and dissonance, matched by the urgent shouts and wails of the singer. And, throughout the day, an added perk of a Railgarten-based Gonerfest became apparent. Through all the textures of guitar riffs, synths, and impassioned vocals, another sonic element was occasionally woven: the blare of the train horn, and the visceral rumble of heavy steel wheels on the rails. That screeching guitar feedback, those gut-rattling beats, all were coming home to the urban wall of noise from which they were born. Memphis AF, y’all.
Perhaps nothing has been more indicative of how Gonerfest has grown than the moment last year during Gonerfest 18 when Abe White jumped onstage with Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks to sing Alice Cooper’s ode to adolescent confusion, “I’m Eighteen.” It was the perfect moment to celebrate Gonerfest’s coming of age, bigger than ever and still kicking.
This year, the alternative music festival celebrates its last year as a teen, though few expect it to ever outgrow its adolescent angst and experimental bent. And though milestone years are generally reckoned in even numbers, this year’s iteration feels like a true turning point, coming full circle to its earliest touchstones. The King Khan & BBQ Show, who played the first Gonerfest in January 2005, is back for its first Gonerfest since then. The Compulsive Gamblers, who set the tone for a new gonzo rock-and-roll culture in this city back in 1990, are back again as well. And ticket sales indicate that this will be the most popular Gonerfest ever.
Aquarian Blood (Photo: Courtesy Goner)
Fans and Bands
When Eric Friedl started the Goner label back in 1993, it was an act of fandom. He saw the Japanese turbo-charged punks Guitar Wolf and knew he had to get their demos out to a wider audience by any means necessary. And it shaded into his work in a band as well. The Oblivians, where Compulsive Gamblers front men Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber joined forces with Friedl as a trio, were just taking off, and their recordings were also among Goner’s earliest releases.
That unique mix of fandom and band-dom has colored Goner’s aesthetic ever since, especially when Friedl teamed up with Zac Ives, front man for the Final Solutions, to make Goner Records a brick-and-mortar store in 2004. Gonerfest was conceived that same year, exuding the same blurred line between players and their audience. As Friedl says today, “There’s not a whole lot of separation between fans and bands and everything else in Gonerfest. It gives it a different feel, rather than seeing someone up on stage that isn’t interacting with the people at all.”
Bennett (Photo: Tommy Kha)
Friedl recalls the small scale of the festival when it began. “It was amazing that people wanted to come to Memphis to see this music. The first time I realized we were doing something more than just putting on a show at the Buccaneer was when we saw this guy with a label in Italy, walking down Cleveland in the middle of the day. I was like, ‘Okay, if people are willing to come from Italy to watch these bands over a weekend in Memphis, we might be doing something interesting here.’ That was at Gonerfest 1. We had The King Khan & BBQ Show, and they may have been the only band from out of the country for that one. And then it kind of exploded from there. People wanted to come to the festival, and they had bands as well, so it was like, ‘I’ve got a band, why not just try to play?’”
Since then, the festival’s international reach has only grown, with the notable exception of last year, when Covid-related travel complications kept the band roster all-American. Now, the entire world is returning to Memphis once more. “This year,” says Friedl, “we’ve got the Australians, a band from Switzerland, and The King Khan & BBQ Show from Berlin and Canada. We’ve got people coming from all over the place.”
Snooper (Photo: Courtesy Goner)
The Great Outdoors: Not Going Viral
In other words, back to normal for Gonerfest. Of course, last year also marked the advent of a more cautious approach. Proof of vaccination was required of all attendees. This year, Friedl says, “I’m sure it’ll be a lot looser than last year, when people really didn’t know how things would go. But obviously, if you get a bunch of people together, there’s a chance for spreading Covid. We are strongly encouraging people to be vaccinated, and we’re keeping everything outside. And Railgarten gives everyone enough space that you aren’t forced to cram into any kind of small, restricted area. So we’re hoping that is sufficient and people can stay safe on their own.”
Last year’s move to Railgarten as the sole venue, as opposed to spreading the festival across several stages in the past, was indeed a game-changer, both in terms of Covid safety and in the camaraderie of the festival-goers. For the first time, everyone was in one place. “Railgarten has worked out great,” says Friedl. “It’s a big enough stage for everybody, and there are enough sight-lines that you can be in different places and still see everything and get away from it a little bit without feeling you’re not at the festival anymore.”
Michael Beach (Photo: Courtesy Goner)
And, he adds, the venue change has dramatically increased the capacity of Gonerfest. “We had our biggest attendance ever last year,” reflects Friedl. “We just had more space to put everybody, and everybody wanted to come. So we’re right on the same pace as last year now, and we’re not close to maxing out Railgarten. Last year, we limited it a bit more than we had to, probably; this year we’ve increased the capacity a little bit, but not enough that anybody would notice. It’s going to feel the same as last year, which I thought was pretty comfortable.”
One consequence of the outdoor venue is an earlier noise curfew, but the festival carries on informally after the outdoor stage goes dark, with after-parties featuring bands at the Hi Tone Cafe, the Lamplighter Lounge, and Bar DKDC, with DJ sets at the Eight & Sand bar in Downtown’s Central Station Hotel.
Another Covid-induced innovation that will remain in place this year is the live streaming of every performance. “We constantly question the sanity of trying to live stream every performance, but it’s fun,” says Friedl. “I hope people take advantage of it. It’s a full-on video shoot over four days of long hours, with more than just one static camera. Technically, it’s challenging, but we do it in our DIY style. I really like how it turned out last year. We learned a lot. It’s its own kind of animal. And we do have a big community of people that want to be here and participate that way.”
The King Khan & BBQ Show (Photo: Courtesy Goner)
The King Khan & BBQ Show
As it turns out, the idea of community is at the heart of both Gonerfest and the many bands it brings to Memphis. This is especially true of one of the opening night’s headliners, The King Khan & BBQ Show, but the theme runs through all the performers we spoke with: Music, be it punk or simply innovative, is a kind of haven for those who can’t quite find a niche elsewhere, and Gonerfest is just such a haven, writ large.
That’s how King Khan sees it, going back to his earliest days in Montreal. “I joined the Spaceshits when I was 17, and it changed my life,” he says. “Me being Brown, with Indian parents, I always felt like an outsider in Canada. Just being someone with Indian genetics, growing up in the ice and snow was a shock. And I think I took that sense of shock to the Spaceshits. Now shock rock is such a ridiculous thing, but I think we were trying to shock the audience. I used to love getting naked and stuff. We loved to incite chaos. And having Mark Sultan and the rest of the Spaceshits, we were just a disaster!”
But that shock just built stronger bonds with the audiences, all seeking some meaning through music. “Music was my secret world,” Khan says. “But I also found my greatest friends, who were like my chosen family. And that led me also to the Spaceshits. We had this common love of being freaks and accepting freakdom. And worshipping it. We literally worshipped it.”
That was a time, in the early-mid ’90s, when Khan and Sultan first met the Oblivians, even coming to Memphis for a memorable show at Barristers. “People were throwing snowballs at each other on stage,” recalls Friedl. It was a fortuitous encounter, for when Khan and Sultan formed their duo, The King Khan & BBQ Show, featuring Khan on guitar and vocals and Sultan (BBQ) playing drums and guitar simultaneously, they had a receptive fanbase in Memphis, open to their unhinged hybrid of punk and doo-wop sensibilities. Indeed, two of those fans ran Goner Records, leading to the duo’s first commercial release on the label, and ultimately their appearance at Gonerfest 1.
And while the duo is decidedly unconcerned with traditional commercial potential, apropos of most Gonerfest bands, a funny thing happened during the social media revolution. “The elephant in the room,” says Khan, “is obviously what happened with TikTok, with me and Mark. We had no idea what TikTok even was. We just got weird messages from people, saying, ‘Hey look, this Italian astronaut posted about making a taco in space and used your song!’ I was like, ‘What?’ And it was our song ‘Love You So,’ from our Goner debut! With this taco floating in space! And other weird stuff. You know when Drew Barrymore posts it, there’s something fucked up going on. But a lot times, these posts wouldn’t say the name of the song, so a lot of people don’t even know what song it is. They just grab it because it’s popular.
“It’s funny because we released that song almost 20 years ago, we never even made a video for it. And now it’s up to almost 20 million streams. But because of the pandemic, we haven’t toured since that happened. So I’m curious to see what the effect will be in America.”
The duo will find out Thursday, when they and garage-pop masters Shannon and the Clams will headline the festival’s opening night. And while the latter band has been put through the ringer, with front person Shannon Shaw still grieving the loss of her fiancé, Joe Haener, in a car crash, they too will soldier on for the community, closing Gonerfest’s first night.
The Rev. Fred Lane
If, as King Khan quips, “the quality I love most about rock-and-roll is when it’s a secret,” then Fred Lane and his band are the perfect expression of that, for they have purposefully aimed for obscurity since their first recordings. But they aren’t really rock-and-roll.
“Since the ’80s, when Shimmy Disc put out the Fred Lane records,” says Friedl, “I’ve been fascinated with the idea of this group of people in Alabama, putting out this crazy, twisted big band lounge jazz. And learning more about the people in Tuscaloosa in the ’70s that did this, and all the wild music and art that came out of there at the time.” Yet even learning that much was not easy. “Before the internet, especially, nobody knew anything about who Fred Lane really was.”
Indeed, the group’s two releases from the ’80s seemed to come out of nowhere. The covers sported disturbing images of the Reverend himself, looking greasy with a waxed goatee and a demonic grin, his face covered in band-aids, and a list of many imaginary albums on the back cover that created an entire universe.
Lane and his cohort turn out to have been the product of yet another community, this one centered around the University of Alabama, which eerily echoed other alternative communities springing up across the U.S. (Gonerfest has brought in other bands with roots in this era, such as Akron’s X__X.) Even Memphis had a similar avant-garde, giving rise to Tav Falco’s Panther Burns and others.
One of the musicians in Tuscaloosa was the visual artist and flautist Tim Reed, who describes how the scene expressed an impatience with consumer-oriented music. “By the mid ’70s, I was getting sick of rock and counterculture music. It sounded manufactured. There was no heart in it. So I just said, ‘I’m gonna go out there and pretend I’m a really bad Frank Sinatra, and just insult people in the audience. If Don Rickles can do it, I can do it.’”
He was already helping to mount art exhibits mixed with vaudeville-like revues, and ended up writing a whole show built around his persona, the Rev. Fred Lane. “In 1976, I wrote a show called From the One Who Cut You,” he recalls. “There were different band names, but they were basically different versions of a group of us musicians who had been calling ourselves Raudelunas. We were influenced by Dada, Alfred Jarry, and the Ubu plays.” With an aesthetic somewhere between Andy Kaufman, Bill Murray’s early lounge act skits, and the Joker, he recruited musicians well-versed in free improvisation and got them to learn tunes, over which he recited and sang his surreal lyrics, often in a blazer and boxer shorts.
“I always tried to make it hard to know when everything was recorded,” Reed says today. “I’m a contrarian. If people thought the tracks were from the ’50s or ’60s, we agreed with them. That was back when nobody knew who we were. We were kind of a secret society.”
But lately, with the documentary Icepick to the Moon, and an album by the same name, the Rev. Fred Lane has resurfaced. Superfan Friedl is pinching himself about it. “I never thought I’d have the chance to see them live, much less reissue the records. And I never thought they’d have a chance to play Gonerfest. And it’s definitely in the Gonerfest spirit of things, and at the same time diametrically opposed to it. Just in terms of music. So I think it’s going to be really fun. The first jazz group at Gonerfest! With a great feeling of anarchy at all times.”
Freezing Hands (Photo: Courtesy Goner)
The Compulsive Gamblers
If Fred Lane is an outlier in the usual Gonerfest musical milieu, the Compulsive Gamblers practically defined it. For many Memphians, the band needs no introduction. Though their heyday was nearly 30 years ago, co-founders Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber (aka Jack Oblivian) have maintained a strong presence here. When they play their 2000 album, Crystal Gazing Luck Amazing, front to back on Saturday night (full disclosure, with myself on keyboards), they’ll be evoking the kind of quality songwriting that both singers have exemplified ever since.
“The Gamblers were my favorite band in Memphis. Everything was an event. They had the horn section that was never in tune, and a violin player, and nobody was really doing that. Even in the garage kind of scene, it was too weird. A lot of those bands, once they’re in a genre, they use those genres to define who they are. But Greg and Jack had this big, expansive idea of all the music they wanted to make, ranging from Tom Waits kind of stuff to punkier stuff to more R&B stuff. It was fantastic, and the shows were just a mess. But at the same time, the songs they were writing were so good.”
Indeed, the songs hold up impressively. Garage rock aficionados can hear the nascent echoes of Reigning Sound and Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks in nearly every riff and chorus. And it will be all the more powerful in combination with Gonerfest coming full circle, back to its roots, and back to the future.
Gonerfest takes place at Railgarten, Thursday-Sunday, September 22nd-September 25th, and at various venues for after-hours shows.
Cooper-Young
Festival (Photo: Courtesy Cooper-Young Festival)
As you flip your wall calendars to the fresh, crisp September page, after Memphis’ humid, boiling August, you can exhale: It’s almost fall. And that means it’s time for more fairs and festivals, so crack open your planners, pull up your calendar app, tape a sticky note to your head, do whatever you gotta do to make sure you have these fairs and festivals tapped into your autumn plans.
SEPTEMBER
Southern Heritage Classic Cultural Celebration
Can I tell you what a yellow card is or what a running back does? No, but I can tell you that the Southern Heritage Classic, a premier sports and entertainment event, will be a good time. And if you don’t believe me, just take a look at the agenda: The O’Jays are putting on a concert, Landers Center is hosting a Classic Funk Fest, the Classic Parade will roll through Park Avenue, and so much more, including, of course, the Southern Heritage Classic football game featuring Jackson State vs. Tennessee State at the Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.
Various locations, September 8-10
Germantown Festival (Photo: Courtesy Germantown Festival)
Germantown Festival
Some might say weenies aren’t cool by definition, but at this festival, the weenies will prove you otherwise as they gear up for the annual Running of the Weenies at 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 10th. So don’t be a weenie! Go show your support at this festival of arts that, in addition to the famed race, offers children’s activities, rides and games, entertainment, a car exhibit, community displays, and more.
Germantown Civic Club Complex, September 10-11
Goat Days Festival
Bah-bah-bah, Bah-Barbara Ann, you got me rockin’ and a-rollin’, rockin’ and a-reelin’ from too long without goats. But take my hand and bring me to the Goats Days Festival and I’m yours. Starting at 7 a.m. with the much-beloved pancake breakfast, the day features goat yoga, live music all day, local vendors, food galore, a car show, an antique tractor show, a barbecue contest, an all-day kids zone, and so much more.
Millington Sports Complex, September 10
Memphis Rox Yoga Festival
This festival is yogalicious, definition makes yogis go crazy. (It’s hot, hot.) With more than 15 yoga classes, from acro yoga to handstand workshops, this festival also boasts a kids’ zone, live music, and lectures, including topics ranging from nutrition to personalizing yoga through astrology.
Memphis Botanic Garden, September 10
Collierville Balloon Festival (Photo: Courtesy Collierville Balloon Festival)
Collierville Balloon Festival
Enjoy the Wizard of Oz’s preferred mode of transportation at this festival all about the whimsical hot air balloon. Each morning will begin with a breathtaking release of the balloons into the sky, which the family can witness for free before the festival’s activities commence in the afternoon. The day will include a kids’ zone, food trucks, vendors, carnival rides and games, and of course some hot air ballooning. Once the sun goes down, the balloons will light up the sky with an evening balloon glow.
Maynard Way, Collierville, September 17-18
Cooper-Young Festival
Whether you’re young or young at heart, when you’re in Cooper-Young, you’re in for some fun with this festival all about celebrating the arts, people, culture, and heritage of Memphis. Bailey Bigger will headline a lineup of great local, original music, and a slew of artisans from Memphis and across the U.S. will be selling handmade, unique, and quirky art.
Cooper-Young, September 17
Mint Cream Market: Fall Fest
Shop from vintage collectors, craft goods, and unique art at this fest with live entertainment and food trucks.
Arrow Creative, September 17
Orion Free Concert Series
If you press your ear to a shell, you’ll hear the ocean for free. If you press your ear to the Shell, you might be too close to the stage, but you might also hear some country blues or powerpop, depending on the weekend, also for free.
Overton Park Shell, Country Blues Festival, September 17
Memphis Powerpop Festival, September 24
Gonerfest 19
Going, going, gone off to Gonerfest 19 for four days of rocking music, courtesy of Goner Records. The caliber of these artists is too hard to describe in a mere few sentences, which is why I urge you to read our cover story next week because it’s going to be all about Gonerfest.
Railgarten, September 22-25
Mid-South Fair (Photo: Courtesy Mid-South Fair)
Mid-South Fair
If you fancy yourself an old soul, perhaps reincarnated from bygone times, you’ll feel at home at this festival which has been a must-do event since 1856. Fair-goers can enjoy more than 50 rides, a wide array of ground acts, and of course favorite fair fare — funnel cakes, turkey legs, candied apples — you name it, they’ve perfected it.
Lots of things are celebrating their 50th this year. I mean, 50 years ago, The Godfather premiered its first installment in theaters, Watergate began to unfold, Jennifer Garner was born, and right here in Memphis, the Pink Palace Crafts Fair took place for the first time. And now, 150 artists in various mediums are coming from around the country to celebrate the fair’s big 5-0. Attendees can marvel at craft demonstrations, enjoy live music, and entertain the kiddos at the petting zoo and with a ride on the choo-choo train, some rock climbing, and pony rides.
Audubon Park, September 23-25
Mighty Roots Music Festival
We root for music, the mighty, mighty roots music. No longer a rookie, this music fest is back for year two, taking place at the same spot the famous blues singer-songwriter Muddy Waters began his love of blues music.
Stovall, MS, September 23-24
Aquatseli Bluegrass Festival
“Aquatseli” is Cherokee for “our,” so make this bluegrass extravaganza yours and check out the instrument workshops, open jams, square dancing, clogging, vendors, and more.
Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, September 24
Latin Fest
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at Cazateatro Bilingual Theatre Group’s Latin Fest, where friends and families can listen to and dance to live Latin music, taste Latin food and drinks, enjoy activities for kids, and shop from vendors.
Overton Square, September 24
Memphis Comic Expo
The Mid-South’s largest comic-creator con has answered the Bat-Signal and is back in Memphis to celebrate your favorite creators, with over 100 artists and writers, a cosplay contest, more than 50 vendors, panels, and more. It’s going to be a marvel.
Agricenter International, September 24-25
Wiseacre Oktoberfest
Zicke zacke, zicke zacke, hoi hoi hoi! Oktoberfest is back, boy oh boy. So dust off your steins and snap on your lederhosen for a day with food trucks, Mighty Souls Brass Band, the Grizzline, and more.
Wiseacre Brewing Company, September 24
Soulful Food Truck Festival
Saddle up your picnic blankets and lawn chairs for this journey to the center of your stomach and your soul as you enjoy food from food trucks and vendors, shop from local artisans, and take in music by Carmen Hicks, Angie P. Holmes, and Courtney Little, plus DJs Zoom and Swagg.
Tiger Lane, September 25
Bartlett Festival
With the Judge Freeman Marr Panther Pride 5K to kick things off, this festival boasts local music, arts and crafts, a car show, children’s activities, a barbecue cooking contest, concessions, and so much more.
W.J. Freeman Park, September 30-October 1
Mempho Music Festival
Mempho Music Festival (Photo: Courtesy Mempho Music Festival/Joshua Timmermans)
You know it, I know, the music at Mempho always hits the right note. I mean, how could it not with The Black Keys, Portugal. The Man, Bobby Rush, Amy LaVere, Elizabeth King, and so many more on the lineup?
Radians Amphitheater, Memphis Botanic Garden, September 30-October 2
OCTOBER
Wine on the River Memphis
You don’t have to be Carmen Sandiego and glide around the globe and flimflam every nation just to get a taste of the world. Instead, take your taste buds on a global journey as you sample wine from national and international vineyards along with bites of food from each cultural region.
Riverside Drive, October 1
King Biscuit Blues Festival (Photo: Courtesy King Biscuit Blues Festival)
King Biscuit Blues Festival
Hear ye, hear ye, King Biscuit Blues Festival is back for its annual three-day event, complete with the Flour Power 5K, the Tour da Delta bicycle race, and a Kansas City-sanctioned barbecue contest, all in historic Downtown Helena. Oh, and of course, there’ll be blues music — lots of blues music — on five stages.
Helena, AR, October 5-8
Soul of the City
Rock around the clock as Elmwood Cemetery’s residents take you through Memphis music history. You’ll meet Sister Thea Bowman, Grammy Award-winners, rock-and-roll stars, blues crooners, and more.
Bacon? Good. Bourbon? Good. Memphis Bacon & Bourbon Festival? Good. That’s all you need to know.
Metal Museum, October 7
Big River Fit Fest
Let’s get physical in an HR-approved way. For the love of all things good and pure, this fitness fest is designed to expose (again in an HR-approved way) and educate the Mid-South community of all ages and skill levels on fitness, wellness, and health.
Mud Island Park, October 8
Edge Motorfest
If Cars taught me anything, it’s that life is a highway, and I wanna ride it all night long, and if you’re goin’ my way, well, we’re driving to the Edge, for a day to check out over 150 cool cars, food trucks, vendor booths, and more. Ka-chow, am I right?
Edge Motor Museum, October 8
Shell Daze Fall Music Festival
The music doesn’t stop when it comes to the folks at Mempho. Hardly a week after the big shebang, they are putting on a two-day mini fest, with a lineup featuring Moon Taxi, Tab Benoit, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Daniel Donato, Star & Micey, and Garrison Starr.
Overton Park Shell, October 8-9
Southern Soul Music Festival
Jam to your favorite soulful hits and songs by Tucka, Calvin Richardson, Sir Charles Jones, Ronnie Bell, Theodis Ealey, Karen Wolfe, and FatDaddy.
The Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, October 8
Deep Blues Festival
Of all the shades of blue, deep blues are my favorite, and you can bet the Deep Blues Festival will be just the right shade of fun as it celebrates traditional and alternative blues with musicians from all over the world.
Clarksdale, MS, October 13-16
Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival
Are you a streetcar? ’Cause you look like your name should be Desire. Oh, is your name Tennessee? ’Cause you’re the only 10 I see. I promise I’m not a player, just a play-lover, and if you are too, meet me at the Tennessee Williams Festival, where we can enjoy screenings, lectures, and performances.
Clarksdale, MS, October 13-15
Fall Fest at the Nest
Soar like an eagle right over to Fall Fest at the Nest and enjoy food, fun, family, music and free admission. Shop vendors, enjoy a car show, chili cook-off, cornhole tournament, rides, food trucks, music fest, $10,000 cash raffle, and more.
St. Benedict at Auburndale, October 14-15
Memphis Brewfest
Fifty-something bottles of beer on the wall, 50-something bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, and you’ll still have 50-something breweries and cideries to sample from. That’s right, at the Memphis Brewfest, you can get unlimited samples from more than 50 breweries and cideries from around the world.
Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, October 15
Memphis Food & Wine Festival
It’s wine o’clock somewhere. Sorry. I know what you’re thinking — that’s so cheesy, borderline offensive. If you’re of a certain age, you might even invoke the word cheugy. But I bet you’ll quit your whining when you get to wining and dining at this festival which not only benefits the FedExFamilyHouse but also showcases local chefs alongside acclaimed national chefs and top global vineyards.
Memphis Botanic Garden, October 15
Shop Black Fest
Support more than 50 local Black-owned businesses of all types at this festival of fun vibes, music, and food.
Downtown Memphis, October 15
Soulsville USA Festival
Treat your soul to a day of music, food, educational activities, games for kids, and free admission to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, all to honor the city’s rich spiritual heritage and its roots in soul music.
Soulsville USA District at College and McLemore, October 15
Indie Memphis Film Festival
Why Netflix and chill when you could be less run-of-the-mill at an independent film festival? The Indie Memphis Film Festival will screen a range of features, documentaries, and short films from all over the world. Plus, festival-goers can enjoy live music, parties, free panels, meet-and-greets with special guests, and the Black Creators Forum. For more information, be sure to check out our Flyer cover story on October 19th.
Various locations, October 19-24
Cooper-Young Beerfest
I don’t know if you’ve heard but Taylor Swift is releasing a new album on October 21st, which is worth raising a beer mug to and downing a couple more after. And there’s no better place than the Cooper-Young Beerfest the next day.
Midtown Autowerks, October 22
RiverArtsFest
The Mid-South runneth over with art, and the Mississippi River floweth with inspiration — two phenomena that merge only once a year to create RiverArtsFest, where more than 180 artists from around the country can show off and sell their fine arts. As an added bonus, the festival features artist demonstrations, hands-on art activities for all ages, and local music.
Downtown Memphis, October 22-23
World Championship Hot Wing Fest
Wing wing wing! Sorry the old chicken can’t come to the phone right now. Why? ’Cause she’s dead. But that’s okay. She died a winner — a winner, winner chicken dinner — well, depending on how things shake up at the World Championship Hot Wing Fest. So don’t let the old chicken’s death be in vain and head on over to sample the competing wings, all while supporting The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis. As always, the contest will kick off with the Memphis Second Line Jazz Band leading a flock of chickens in a parade through Tiger Lane and across the main stage to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, October 22
Dia de Los Muertos Parade and Festival (Photo: Courtesy Dia de Los Muertos Parade and Festival)
Dia de Los Muertos Parade and Festival
Dia de Los Muertos is deadicated to celebrating and honoring ancestors who lived before us. On this day, enjoy a parade beginning in Overton Square with floats and performers making their way to the plaza at the Brooks Museum, where you can enjoy art-making activities, face painting, music, costumed performers, dance performances, and more.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, October 29
Hambone Festival
Presented by artist and musician Stan Street, this music festival features a stellar lineup, a jam night, street parties, and Cruisin’ the Crossroads Car & Truck Show.
Hambone Art Gallery & the Shack Up Inn, Clarksdale, MS, October 29-November 1
NOVEMBER
Fieldaze Memphis
Unlike other fields during autumn harvests, Fieldaze doesn’t have any crop circles (or fields for that matter), but it will have UFOs — Unadulterated Fun Outside — with fitness classes, music, food, entertainment, a half marathon, a bike race, a kayak race, and more.
Call me a 6- to 12-month-old baby ’cause I’m gonna be crawling down Beale for this artcrawl that welcomes artists of all mediums and styles from Memphis, Nashville, and surrounding areas.
Beale Street, Downtown Memphis, November 5
Memphis Japan Festival
Celebrate the history, culture, and people of Japan at this festival featuring food, entertainment, games, crafts, vendors, exhibitors, and more.
Draft your friends and family to the only sporting event that matters — holiday shopping. There are no fantasy leagues, only the real deal, and if you can get it done before Thanksgiving, the glory is legendary. So get a head start and do it all in one stop at the Memphis Crafts & Drafts Festival where local vendors will show off their goods, and local craft beers will make the experience all the more enjoyable.
Crosstown Concourse, November 12-13
DECEMBER
Holiday Spirits: A Christmas Cocktail Festival
This holly, jolly cocktail festival is sure to get you in the Christmas spirit, with its festive … er … spirits, plus the big man in red himself.
