Tag: Harlan T Bobo

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018

Memphis music was vibrant as ever in 2018. Every week, the Memphis Flyer brings you the latest and best video collaborations between Bluff City filmmakers and musicians in our Music Video Monday series. To assemble this list, I rewatched all 34 videos that qualified for 2018’s best video and scored them according to song, concept, cinematography, direction and acting, and editing. Then I untangled as many ties as I could and made some arbitrary decisions. Everyone who made the list is #1 in my book!

10. Louise Page “Blue Romance”

Flowers cover everything in this drag-tastic pop gem, directed by Sam Leathers.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (13)


9. Harlan T. Bobo “Nadine” / Fuck “Facehole”

Our first tie of the list comes early. First is Harlan T. Bobo’s sizzling, intense “Nadine” clip, directed by James Sposto.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (11)

I used science to determine that Fuck’s Memphis Flyer name drop is equal to “Nadine”.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (12)

8. Aaron James “Kauri Woods”

The smokey climax of this video by Graham Uhelski is one of the more visually stunning things you’ll see this year.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (10)


7. Daz Rinko “New Whip, Who Dis?”

Whaddup to rapper Daz Rinko who dropped three videos on MVM this year. This was the best one, thanks to an absolute banger of a track.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (9)


6. (tie) McKenna Bray “The Way I Loved You” / Lisa Mac “Change Your Mind”

I couldn’t make up my mind between this balletic video from co-directors Kim Lloyd and Susan Marshall…

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (7)

…and this dark, twisted soundstage fantasy from director Morgan Jon Fox.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (8)

5. Brennan Villines “Better Than We’ve Ever Been”

Andrew Trent Fleming got a great performance out of Brennan Villines in this bloody excellent clip.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (6)


4. (tie) Nick Black “One Night Love” / Summer Avenue “Cut It Close”

Nick Black is many things, but as this video by Gabriel DeCarlo proves, a hooper ain’t one of ’em.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (4)

The kids in Summer Avenue enlisted Laura Jean Hocking for their debut video.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (5)

3. Cedric Burnside “Wash My Hands”

Beale Street Caravan’s I Listen To Memphis series produced a whole flood of great music videos from director Christian Walker and producer Waheed Al Qawasmi. I could have filled out the top ten with these videos alone, but consider this smoking clip of Cedric Burnside laying down the law representative of them all.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (3)

2. Don Lifted “Poplar Pike”

I could have filled out the top five with work from Memphis video auteur Don Lifted, aka Lawrence Matthews, who put three videos on MVM this year. To give everybody else a chance, I picked the transcendent clip for “Poplar Pike” created by Mattews, Kevin Brooks, and Nubia Yasin.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018

1. Lucero “Long Way Back Home”

Sorry, everybody, but you already knew who was going to be number one this year. It’s this mini-movie created by director Jeff Nichols, brother of Lucero frontman Ben Nichols. Starring genuine movie star (and guy who has played Elvis) Michael Shannon, “Long Way Back Home” is the best Memphis music video of 2018 by a country mile.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (2)

Thanks to everyone who submitted videos to Music Video Monday in 2018. If you’d like to see your music video appear on Music Video Monday in 2019, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Harlan T. Bobo

It’s a crazy clown time world premiere on Music Video Monday!

Well, not so crazy, but still clowny. Harlan T. Bobo has been responsible for some of the best Memphis music of the 21st century. And yet, he still remains an elusive figure. In 2009, I interviewed Craig Brewer about his pioneering web series $5 Cover, which featured a classic performance of “Too Much Love” delivered by Harlan while on stilts and wearing full clown makeup. Brewer said capturing Harlan’s act felt like “getting Bigfoot on tape.” You don’t believe it’s possible, but here it is, staring at you.

In the last few years, Harlan has decamped to France. But he returned earlier in 2018 to record his album A History of Violence for Goner Records. Music Video Monday is proud to bring you the world premiere of the great looking video for “Nadine”, directed by James Sposto. Spend a few glorious minutes in Harlan’s brain, and thank us later.

Music Video Monday: Harlan T. Bobo

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

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Music Music Blog

Gonerfest 15: Friday

CREDIT: Jesse Davis

Day two of Gonerfest 15, the annual celebration of punk, garage, and other off-kilter forms of rock, took place in two locations: at Memphis Made Brewing, during the afternoon hours, and Hi Tone on Cleveland late into the night. The daylong festivities featured a songwriter session from Harlan T. Bobo, psych-blues-punk from Chicken Snake, the dark and deranged disco extravaganza of Cobra Man, and a breakout performance from indie-pop band En Attendant Anna. 

Gonerbraü by Memphis Made

Memphis Made produced a limited cream ale, the Gonerbraü, to commemorate this year’s festival. The light, fizzy beer seems like the best bet to help get into the Gonerfest spirit, so, Gonerbraü in hand, I weave my way through the crowd to the small stage on the back patio of the Cooper-Young-area brewery and catch Harlan T. Bobo’s acoustic set.

“I wonder if there are many people who get engaged at Gonerfest,” Bobo muses. “Or get divorced at Gonerfest — or at least because of Gonerfest.” The crowd laughs, and Bobo begins playing “I’m Your Man,” a love song from his 2007 album of the same name. Gone is the demented showman who, backed up by a full band, closed out the festivities sometime after 2 a.m. the night before, and in his place is an indulgent father, a humorist, and a day-drinking, guitar-wielding teller of truths.

Bobo jokingly tries to calm a crying child hiding beneath the wooden stairs, tossing a rolled-up T-shirt down to the kid in an attempt to distract him. Then he brings guitarist Jeff “Bunny” Dutton onstage to add commentary to a song Bobo wrote about Dutton, who so ably backed him up on lead guitar the night before. “He don’t drink water and he don’t eat. He lives off alcohol and nicotine,” Bobo sings as Bunny smiles and nods, unable to contest his bandleader’s claims. The crowd laughs, and the kid beneath the stairs is busying himself dragging a plastic chain around. Later, the same little boy will run haphazardly up and down the loading ramp in front of the venue, narrowly avoiding spilling my Gonerbraü.

Out front, New Orleans-based Chicken Snake take the stage, ripping into a swampy, blues-inspired punk set. The drummer sports a goth-glam mane as she attacks the drums with a frenzy. Sneering, strutting guitar licks call to mind the pioneering work of The Sonics or Roky Erickson. “Baby, don’t you give me them walkin’ blues,” the singer implores.

Jesse Davis

Cobra Man

Later, back at the Hi Tone, L.A. synth duo Cobra Man blends seemingly disparate elements of punk and disco, crafting a spooky dance atmosphere. Their sequined jackets flash in the green lights. During the rising energy of the repeated line, “I want it all,” audience members begin crowd surfing. By the time the singer begins chanting, “I’ve been living in hell with you,” Goner fans are taking turns clambering aboard a large wooden plank and riding it like a surf board across the waves of outstretched hands. The lights change to red, and the rhythm shifts into cut time. The Goner fans dance, revelers in a disco of the damned. Cobra Man’s set is wild and dramatic, and I hope the next band can top it.

French indie-rockers En Attendant Ana follow the depraved rave that is Cobra Man, and far from being overshadowed by the L.A. disco duo, the Parisian quintet make their set look easy. Their Gonerfest performance marks the end of a two-and-half-week U.S. tour in support of the band’s debut album Lost and Found, out on Trouble in Mind. Their tour has taken them through Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Boston, landing them on the main stage at the Hi Tone. They begin, and a wave of jangly guitars and trumpet blasts washes over the crowd, prompting an immediate reaction, as the collected bodies begin to move to the beat. The young indie-rockers ride the wave, all clean guitars, synths, and breathy, urgent vocals, before crashing to a halt.  

Jesse Davis

Margaux Bouchaudon of En Attendant Ana

A smile tugs at the corners of singer and guitarist Margoux Bouchaudon’s lips as the crowd cheers their support. Grinning, she ducks her head as lead guitarist Romain Meaulard introduces the next tune in a thick French accent. En Attendant Ana’s music sounds like euphoria feels. It’s bright and optimistic, like the ideal soundtrack to kick off a road trip. The clean guitars, trumpet, and dreamy rhythms call to mind Belle & Sebastian or Camera Obscura, but there’s a punk urgency that adds an edge the Scottish indie-pop legends lack. The Parisian quintet’s set seems to pass in an instant of pop nirvana. “This could be the end, oh, this could be the end,” Bouchadon sings on “This Could Be,” backed up by Meaulard and by vocalist/guitarist/trumpet player Camille Fréchou. The song is insistent and anthemic, and I don’t want the lyrics to be true. I hate for the set to end.

I catch three or four songs by New York-based Surfbort, a pure punk explosion, all alcohol-sweat and frantic guitar wrapped in a revealing bodysuit. They’re Gonerfest gold, but I can’t get En Attendant Ana out of my head, so I make tracks toward the merchandise room to find the band and ask them about their tour. I find Fréchou and Bouchadon, who are game for a quick interview.

“We’ve been [in Memphis] for six or seven hours, but tomorrow we stay all day long,” Bouchaudon says. She’s wearing a flowing red coat she bought on tour, and she and Fréchou lean close and speak into my recorder. “This will be the first town in which we can relax and visit. We want to go to Sun Records,” Bouchaudon says. “I would like to go to Graceland,” Camille Fréchou adds, “But I don’t think we are going to.” “Non,” Bouchaudon interjects emphatically. “I will go to Graceland, and you will come with me.” The nearly three-weeks-long tour marks the band’s first time in the U.S. “Every day was like, ‘I’m going to move here,’” says Fréchou, who assures me that Americans have been “really friendly.”

Jesse Davis

En Attendant Ana

En Attendant Ana recorded an EP to tape two years ago, releasing a limited run on cassette, which caught the attention of Canadian label Nominal Records. “[They] asked us if we were okay to release the EP on vinyl, and we said ‘Yes!’” Bouchaudon says, emphasizing the affirmative. The group then recorded their full-length debut, Lost and Found, which they released on Trouble in Mind. After a successful tour with label-mates (and fellow Gonerfest 15 performers) Ethers and a day and a night spent being “the best tourists ever,” Bouchaudon says the band will “go back to France, [and] go back to work.” She says they will spend some time playing in the West of France before getting down to the business of a follow up to Lost and Found. “And then we’ll have some time to make new songs,” she says. “And a new record. And another, and another,” Fréchou chimes in. Personally, I hope Fréchou is right. After only one concert and a brief conversation in the alley behind the Hi Tone, I’m already looking forward to the band’s next release and U.S. tour. Gonerfest 16, maybe? We can only hope.

Jesse Davis

Oblivians

I make it back inside in time to catch The Oblivians, Gonerfest royalty, who deliver their raunchy garage-rock excellence to a packed mass of sweaty music fans. After two days of nearly nonstop music, I settle in to enjoy the show. The rhythm section is tight and powerful. The guitar tones are crunchy and snarling, as befits a late-night set helmed by Jack Oblivian, star of Memphis filmmaker Mike McCarthy’s psychedelic punk odyssey, The Sore Losers, screening Sunday afternoon at Studio on the Square. With two days of Gonerfest memories fresh in my mind, I relax, thankful for the 15-year-old festival that brings so many diverse and distant musical experimenters to the Bluff City.

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Music Music Blog

Gonerfest 15: Thursday

A week ago, the man in the chainmail and shimmering cape would have been broiling in the Memphis heat, but rain swept in on cooler winds, and the first night of Gonerfest 15 is just cool enough for the assembled punks, rockers, and music fans to break out their denim jackets — or, in some cases, chainmail.

The emcee takes the Hi-Tone stage just after 9 p.m., wearing sunglasses and leather, and says a few kind words about Chris Beck, Goner’s “Muddy Spear,” who recently passed away from brain cancer. Members of the crowd shouted that they wished Beck could be there, displaying a communal spirit central to the festival.

Music fans come from the world over for Gonerfest, and there always seems to be a happy reunion happening in the parking lot or by the bathrooms. Then the emcee kicks off the night’s festivities, introducing the “King of the Gras,” who “tours in a cage on wheels … just take it  — Bênní!” Then the man in the chainmail hood smiles and steps onstage and up to a stack of keyboards and synthesizers. And he conjures magic.

Allison Green

BÊNNÍ, master of analog synths

Bênní’s set is dark and hypnotic, but there’s a touch of humor in his deadpan stage patter delivery as he sets up each synthesized swirl of sound. He speaks (and sings) into a talk box, explaining that the diamond man character was a vision that haunted him until he put it in a song: “This is who I am — a diamond man.”

The New Orleans-based musician plays an instrumental song in 6/8 time. It sounds at once sinister and rising, like an old-school video game theme played on a church organ at the bottom of a well. “I haven’t played that one in a while,” Bênní says casually. His delivery is wry, as if to nudge the audience and say, “You know we’re just getting started, right?”

Between sets, the garage-rock true believers slip outside to smoke cigarettes or scarf down barbecue from a smoker pulled behind an RV. Cincinnati-based Bummer’s Eve take the stage after a quick turnover, summoning the crowds with violently strummed guitar. The band is raucous and bopping, fuzzed-out punk. They crash into a noise breakdown, a wall of feedback and distortion, before plunging seamlessly back into the rhythm of the song. Where Bênní’s set pulsed, Bummer’s Eve shakes and rattles. Their set seemed to end far too soon.

The Hi Tone, already crowded for opening sets on a Thursday night, swells with the addition of late arrivals. There is a constant sense of rising energy throughout the night, a shared knowledge that this is only the first night of the festival. Conversations buzz and grow louder as the ever-growing mounds of beer cans in the trash continue to rise, and people fight to be heard over each other and the ringing in their ears. People dance and bop, and Memphis-based Aquarian Blood and Tampa party-rockers Gino & the Goons continue to escalate the energy. Aquarian Blood wails, frenetically running chromatic scales up their fret boards, urging the party to a wilder pitch.

Aquarian Blood

Aquarian Blood build a bomb, and Gino & the Goons light the fuse. They’re party punk, solid songs punctuated by grunts of “ooh!” and “uh!” The Florida-based band plays on as the singer shouts from onstage, “You’re not dancing, we’re not stopping!” Then the rhythm changes, and the singer rips into a chorus of “hip-hip-hypnotic” before everything crashes to a stop with a squall of feedback. Lydia Lunch Retrovirus is up next.

Lydia Lunch, backed by a band so tight they seem telepathic, is the penultimate performer on the opening night of Gonerfest. Dressed in black and laughing, she warns the crowd of her band’s “nasty,” “raunchy” ways. Her guitarist strikes a deft balance between crunchy, palm-muted riffs and wild, dissonant squeals of noise. The rhythm section is locked in, propelling the performance forward through moments of angry, brittle complexity and explosive breakdowns. Red and green lights seem to drip from the Hi Tone sign above the stage. Lunch’s voice floats above it all, singing, screaming, and crooning. Local singer and multi-instrumentalist Luke White leans in to shout in my ear, “She’s pretty badass” before admiring the guitar and bass tones.

Jasmine Hirst

Lydia Lunch

White is waiting to go onstage with Harlan T. Bobo, who is closing out night one of the festival. Lunch’s vocals rise, casting a dark spell, while the band pulses with barely restrained energy and she chants, “There’s something witchy in the air.” The music rises to a final crescendo, and Lunch, a master performer, relinquishes the stage with a shouted, “Start the disco!”

Harlan T. Bobo’s set is magnetic, hypnotic. He looks like a man possessed, his eyes going wide as he sings, his smile like Conrad Veidt’s in The Man Who Laughs. He has the strangely compelling charisma of someone who hears holy voices.

His band crafts a dark atmosphere, making them a perfect bookend to Bênní’s darkly filmic opening set, a complement to the eclectic lineup. Frank McLallen’s bass lines are expert, a framework on which to hang the keyboard swells and whine of a slide guitar.

Bobo’s second song is “Human,” the simmering opening track from his new A History of Violence. The song builds to an electric instrumental ending, setting a fevered energy level that the band maintains for several songs, before Bobo pulls out a harmonica and eases up on the gas slightly, giving the captive audience a moment to catch its breath.

It’s the briefest of moments, though, before Bobo starts up a swinging, country-inflected song. It’s an inspired performance, and a fitting end to the opening day of the festival.

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Music Music Blog

Pure Memphis Music Series Announces Fall Lineup

Harlan T. Bobo

Ask anyone who attended a concert in the last Pure Memphis Music Series at Old Dominick Distillery, and you’ll surely hear what a singular experience it was. The casual vibe and attention to acoustics lends performances a living room-like intimacy, except that this living room has a bar. Seeing Jim Lauderdale there in February was gripping and a little hallucinatory, as when he emerged from behind the curtain in his purple yin/yang jumpsuit. Though he was scant feet away, he so inhabited the songs, and caught the light so perfectly that he glowed like some portal to another dimension.

So it’s good to discover the series’ new lineup for this fall. With the success of the first season, the series is introducing two season ticket options this fall.  A standard season ticket – $100 – gets you into all six shows (discount of $20 off single ticket), while a VIP season ticket – $125 – gets you into all six shows with reserved seating and one cocktail included per show. Single tickets are $20 for every show.

Perhaps the most laudable new development is the introduction of a nonprofit co-host for each show, who’ll receive $5 from every ticket sold and a percentage of cocktail sales for the night.

Harlan T. Bobo

August 23rd – Harlan T. Bobo with co-host Memphis Slim House

 

Alanna Royale

September 13th – Alanna Royale with co-host Memphis Songwriters’ Association

Tia Henderson

September 27th – Tia ‘Songbird’ Henderson with co-host The CLTV 

Liz Brasher

October 11th – Liz Brasher with co-host Soulsville Foundation

  Sarah Wilson

Dale Watson

October 25th – Dale Watson with co-host Beale Street Caravan 

The Wealthy West

November 8th – The Wealthy West with co-host The Consortium MMT  

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Cover Feature News

Stars Under the Stars: The 2018 Levitt Shell Summer Schedule

Memphians may anticipate the onset of summer weather with a dollop of dread, but one institution that makes summer downright glorious here is the Orion Free Concert Series at the Levitt Shell, now in its 10th year. Stretching out on the grass with family and friends under the open sky is a time-honored way to beat the heat, since before the days of air conditioning. And the eclectic approach the Levitt Shell brings to curating acts guarantees that there will be something for everyone. Today we announce the full lineup for the summer season.

I asked Anne Pitts, executive director of the Levitt Shell, a bit about the performers they’ve chosen, and one show in particular sprang to mind. “Paul Thorn has been a staple for us at the Shell,” says Pitts. “We love having him. He is a crowd favorite, and he’s also just a really innovative artist.”

The Tupelo, Mississippi, native mixes rootsy rock-and-roll with story-telling that builds an uncanny intimacy with audiences. And now he’s collaborating with some true icons of the South. “He and the Blind Boys of Alabama teamed up last year, and they’ve done a record together as the Mission Temple Fireworks Revival,” says Pitts. “When I heard about that, I thought that would be an amazing live show. The Levitt Foundation, which is the national foundation that helps guide all the different Levitt pavilions across the country, sponsors a Levitt national tour each year. We all get together and we nominate different groups that we would love to see make the rounds of all the pavilions. So we nominated [Paul Thorn and the Blind Boys] and the Levitt Foundation looked into it and the stars aligned.”

Brian Owens

While Pitts notes that picking out one group is like “choosing your favorite children,” there are a few in the lineup that stand out. “Mindi Abair is an incredibly talented artist, a saxophone player, and her band is just out of this world. It’s one of those huge bands. That’s gonna be an amazing show. War and Treaty, we’re really excited about them. Their career is skyrocketing, and they’re getting in all the major festivals. And then Brian Owens and the Deacons of Soul: We actually had them last year, when a band had to cancel for health reasons and we had to scramble, and we found Brian Owens. He put on just a killer show. It’s a great big soul band, with a great big sound, and he has this tremendous voice. And, because he didn’t get the full headline experience last year, being a last minute addition, we wanted to make sure that we gave him a nice spotlight this year.”

Meta and the Cornerstones

Mike Farris

Liz Vice

“Meta and the Cornerstones is one act that I’m really looking forward to. They’re a reggae band I saw in New York six or seven years ago, and we booked them that next year. But they never get down to this region, so it’s very very rare to be able to pull them in. Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue is a big favorite here. Ray Wylie Hubbard, I’ve been a fan of his for decades. And then Liz Vice is another one. She’s getting a lot harder to book, so we’re thrilled that we were able to make it happen.”

Harlan T. Bobo

The lineup is also sprinkled with some local acts, thanks to the Memphis Music Series, sponsored by Regional One. Though Harlan T. Bobo now resides in France, Memphis still claims him, and he will surely bring some surprises to his Shell performance. “We love Harlan,” notes Pitts. Other local talent will include the Stax Music Academy, which continues to stun audiences with the professionalism of their students. More locals will be featured in the fall season, yet to be announced.

Along with the music, the Levitt Shell will be enriching the summer concert experience with additional features. Amplify Memphis, for example, exposes the large crowds to different nonprofits from around the city. “We have a wonderful partner with it in Volunteer Odyssey, who have created a network for people to discover nonprofit organizations and how to get involved and give back to those organizations through volunteer service,” says Pitts. “So every Thursday during the summer and fall concert series, we’ll be highlighting a different nonprofit. They’ll range from larger organizations like the YMCA or MIFA or St. Jude, who may have under-recognized programs, to smaller organizations like Dorothy Day House, the Urban Bicycle Food Ministry, Room in the Inn, Clean Memphis, Refuge Memphis, and the Memphis Athletic Ministry.”

“Also,” adds Pitts, “we’re trying to reduce traffic in Overton Park. Their pedestrian-friendly campaign makes it easier for people to cross over Poplar or the Parkway into the park.” To that end, the Shell will continue its Bike Valet service. This year, checking your bike will come with extra incentives. “We’ll have giveaways each night, with free bike helmets and bike lights and fun little things that you always need when you ride your bike around the city.”

Finally, food and drink will have a larger presence this year. “We’re gonna be doing food truck rallies on Sundays, where we’ll have three or four food trucks out during the concerts on those nights. And we work with TapBox with our beer sales every year, and now they’ve expanded, so for the first time ever, you can buy wine and mixed drinks at the Shell.”

The Shell has always prided itself on creating a family-friendly experience. “On Sundays, we have our family series, where we provide extra activities for kids,” says Pitts. “We partner with different organizations like the Memphis Public Library and Carpenter Art Gardens and the Memphis Botanic Garden to provide fun art-related activities for kids before the concerts begin.”

With all of that, not to mention great music, why would you ever go home?

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Levitt Shell’s Summer 2018 Schedule

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Thursday, May 31 Mindi Abair

Friday, June 1 Madisen Ward & the Mama Bear

Saturday, June 2 Banditos

Sunday, June 3 Dustbowl Revival

Thursday, June 7 The War and Treaty

Friday, June 8th The Stone Foxes

Saturday, June 9 Nikki Lane

Sunday, June 10 Brian Owens & the Deacons of Soul

Thursday, June 14 The Iguanas

Friday, June 15 La Misa Negra retro-future cumbia,

Saturday, June 16 Meta and the Cornerstones

Sunday, June 17 Harlan T. Bobo

Thursday, June 21 The Steel Wheels

Friday, June 22 Mike Farris & the Roseland Rhythm Revue

Saturday, June 23 Liz Vice

Sunday, June 24 Ray Wylie Hubbard

Thursday, June 28 Patriotic Pops

Friday, June 29 Paul Thorn and the Blind Boys of Alabama

Saturday, June 30 Stax Academy Summer Grand Finale Concert

Sunday, July 1 No Concert (Rain Date for Stax)

Thursday, July 5 Jonny P

Friday, July 6 Rev. Sekou

Saturday, July 7 Seratones

Sunday, July 8 Yemen Blues Band

Thursday, July 12 JD McPherson

Saturday, July 14 Sammy Miller & the Congregation

Sunday, July 15 Peterson Brothers

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Stars at the Shell 2018 – ticketed fund-raising concerts:

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Thursday, May 10 Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real

Friday, July 13 Robert Cray with Cedric Burnside

Saturday, September 29 Lake Street Dive

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Music Music Features

Gonerfest 14: Getting real gone with trailblazers old and new.

Memphians have come to embrace it like a change of season: Every year in the first full week of fall, the Australians appear. And the Kiwis, the Italians, and the Japanese. It’s as reliable as Death Week, which is fitting: These are all Goners, and like Elvis they want to “get real gone for a change,” though not quite in the way intended by the King. There will be screaming, riffs galore, and chants, but the direction of any band in particular is unpredictable. Thanks to the curation of Goner Records’ head honchos Zac Ives and Eric Friedl, unpredictability is guaranteed.

Anyone thinking the Goner worldview can be reduced to a formula need only explore the wildly diverse releases they’ve promoted, from Harlan T. Bobo to the Barbaras to BÊNNÍ. Better yet, check out two of the headliners of this week’s Gonerfest, John D. Morton of X__X and Derv Gordon of the Equals, both in their own way representative of a certain pioneering spirit more than any genre tag.

John D. Morton

Having grown up in a backwater, I can appreciate the bleak feeling of a typical Midwestern existence in the early ’70s. In Cleveland and Akron, artists were beginning to chafe at this zeitgeist, and, perhaps because of their isolation from cultural centers like New York or London, things got very weird. Weirdness, the unheimlich, the unsettling, was really the point. Later, the rising stars of the scene like Devo or Pere Ubu would be considered founding fathers of punk, but, as Morton says, “the whole term ‘proto-punk’ is like — how can there be proto-punk if there isn’t punk? But that’s how it works, it’s a backward appellation. We were just doing the music we wanted to do and what we thought we should do.”

In fact, just as those bigger names were emerging from Cleveland, Morton’s own group, the electric eels (no caps), was no more. But by then the eels had staked out a sonic territory wedding anger to semi-chaotic noise rock. “Agitated,” one of their biggest “hits,” captured the electric eels at their peak in 1975, with rhythmic blasts of noise guitar topped with grunts, a sneering vocal (“the whole world stinks!”), and clanging lead guitar lines, but it wasn’t released on a single until three years after the group’s demise.

By 1978, Morton had moved on to the more conceptual X__X, which took the absurdism to new heights. One song consisted only of the band striking a pose for a few minutes. Another, “Tool Jazz,” involved the musical, rhythmic use of power tools, echoing a similarly inspired use of such tools by the embryonic “art damaged” Tav Falco that same year in Memphis. But after five gigs and a handful of recordings, even that group was kaput, and Morton had moved to New York to explore visual art and more hedonistic pursuits.

The decades flew by, with respect for the nascent Cleveland scene only growing, until a compilation of their ’70s recordings was released in 2014. This prompted the formation of a new X__X configuration, with Morton joined by Craig Willis Bell, an alum of Rocket from the Tombs, the band which spawned both Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. Since then, they’ve recorded new material, and Morton, as an artist using the tools at hand, is running with it. For him, it’s all a continuation of his original impulse to disrupt complacency. “How I ended up a professional musician I’ll never know,” he says. “But, you know, go up and do the work. Everything that’s gone on in my life in the interim, and you know I’ve done some music and art, did a lot of other things, and it’s like, ‘So this is what we’re doing today.’ It’s a continuum.”

Derv Gordon

“We wanted to be a blues band,” says Derv Gordon of his first days as lead singer with 1960s beat boom group the Equals, which also included Eddy Grant. “We were big fans of B.B. King, Albert King, Muddy Waters, and so on. But then we realized that we weren’t going to be a very good blues band. And if I’m gonna stand on stage, I need to be the best at what I’m doing. After that, we wrote all our own stuff. Because the thing is, if you write your own stuff, no one can say that you’re playing it badly. It’s yours. When you write it yourself, you are the original.”

The Equals were never huge in the U.S., charting mainly in the U.K. and continental Europe. With recordings of “Police on My Back” by the Clash, “Baby Come Back” by UB40, and “Rough Rider” by the English Beat (which the Equals released as the Four Gees), it was mainly covers of their distinctive sound that led music fans to dig into their back catalog.

Born in Jamaica, Gordon moved to London at an early age. By chance, his family settled near the famed Finsbury Park Astoria Theatre. “They had some great artists there,” says Gordon. “Stax Revue was there, the Ronettes, the Crystals. As kids we used to sneak in through the side door because we couldn’t afford the entry fee, and we would watch all these great performers. When I saw Chuck Berry, that’s when I decided, this is the life for me. This is what I want.”

Eventually, he and his brother Lincoln fell in with Guyanese expat Grant and London natives Pat Lloyd and John Hall, and the Equals plied the club circuit as one of the only interracial bands of the era. “We performed in a soul club in London. Artists like Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, and Rufus Thomas would perform there, and we would be the resident support band and back them up. So we picked up a lot of stuff from these artists.”

The group didn’t fit easily into any one genre, however. Not wholly soul, rock-and-roll, or the rock steady/ska of Gordon’s homeland, it was a beguiling blend of all that. Nowadays Gordon is honoring that catalog with a new band from San Francisco, So What. “They really do know their stuff. But the idea wasn’t to do it exactly like the records anyway. It’s a different take on the songs. Their style is more modern, but the foundation is there.”

Gonerfest 14 begins with an art exhibition on Wednesday, Sept. 27th at Crosstown Arts, with performances from September 28th-October 1st. X__X performs Saturday, Sept. 30th at Murphy’s, 6:30 p.m. Derv Gordon performs that night at the Hi-Tone, 1 a.m. For a full schedule, go to www.goner-records.com/gonerfest/

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Music Music Features

What the Fuzz?

“We beat him to it,” Hector Bobo shouted, when asked whether his band the Fuzz was named before frequent Goner artist Ty Segall’s Fuzz. It’s a small town, so it’s important that this be set straight.

Hector is the belligerent alleged twin/alter ego of Harlan T. Bobo. Harlan is known for his albums Too Much Love, I’m Your Man, and Sucker, full of beautifully rendered, emotionally raw songs derived from personal crises.

“This album is nothing like that,” Hector avers. And it isn’t.

Recorded with the Fuzzjerk mobile unit at an undisclosed location, the Fuzz’s eponymous debut is fast and dirty. Where Harlan records feature some of the city’s most renowned session players, the Fuzz is made up of more unruly and obscure sorts. The band grew out of the Flamin’ A’s, a band formed by musicians who had been fired from Limes.

“I don’t know what you’d have to do to get kicked out of the Flamin’ A’s. Nobody can get canned from the A’s,” Hector says.

Members of the Fuzz are Tom Jones and Jeff Bunny Dutton. The two last recorded as Action Family almost 20 years ago but play live and add fantastic energy to the record. Jones’ drum sounds and performances add dimension that many garage/lo-fi records don’t have. Dutton’s guitar work is surly and insolent, but his parts are well placed and his tone has a great manic electricity.

Steve Selvidge plays bass and adds background vocals. His presence is heard in other ways: “We started out trying to cut to Pro Tools, but it really wasn’t working. Then we fired up the TEAC, and it was just perfect,” Selvidge says

“We are so happy to have him. He held this mess together,” Hector adds.

“Actually, this band picks bass players based on hair,” Dutton confirms.

It does sound good. Better than many records in the lo-fiosphere. But the performances are real. This isn’t a cut-and-paste-sounding record. It’s an unruly collection of songs that cover a lot of ground in an unpretentious way. There is definitely input from California punkers like the Vandals. But there are also hints of Magical Mystery Tour. There must be something in the Bobo blood that intuitively takes simple forms and tweaks them away from repetitiveness with great chord changes. It’s still not an easy process.

“We were doing industrial stuff for a while,” Bobo says. “The really drunk stuff we did at my house.”

“We fell apart at his house,” Jones says. “We were just writing and throwing things out.”

Eventually, it worked out. With photography by the omnipresent Jamie Harmon and package design by the band, the CD is a fully rendered record that still feels like something dangerous. The cover instructs listeners to play it loud. They should.

Somewhere out there, Ty Segall is on his way to Memphis. His band Fuzz — minus the definite article — represents the latest in a protean march through the lo-fi landscape. Segall has recorded for Memphis’ Goner Records on 2007’s Caesar 7-inch and Ty Rex II in 2013. He also has records out on Drag City, and Fuzz comes from L.A.-based In the Red Records.

Fuzz’s first album debuted on Monday. The self-titled release has similar energy to their nemeses in the Fuzz. But where Bobo’s gang trades on the Californian anger of the 1980s, Segall harkens more toward the 1960s. Citing Blue Cheer as an influence, he certainly lives up to it. But where much of the crunchy psychedelia he channels failed due to long-windedness and hokeyness, Segall imports a Brit-punk sensibility that keeps things from getting to groovy. And it’s not just John Lydon in his sound. There’s more than a bit of Syd Barrett too.

“Loose Sutures” is a Sabbath-derived romp. Segall’s tones have a Link Wray sort of sneer, but the determining factor here is fuzz, papery, static, and electric-sounding guitar. “Earthen Gate” is a Vol. 4-era arrangement with reverb-drenched vocals and guitar-forward heft.

Fuzz plays the Hi-Tone on Sunday, October 6th.

Some say Segall had a single out first. Others say you never mess with Hector Bobo. I’m staying out of it.

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Music Music Features

Harlan T. Bobo and Amy LaVere Highlight the Year in Memphis Music

CREDIT: Memphis Magazine

A lot of the usual suspects in local music were quiet in 2007. Recent headliners Three 6 Mafia, North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero, Snowglobe, the ex-Oblivians (Jack Yarber and Greg Cartwright), and ex-Lost Sounds (Alicja Trout and, to an extent, Jay Reatard) all took the year off as far as releasing new albums. Meanwhile, the past loomed large again in the form of a relaunch of Stax records, which spurred a welcome avalanche of reissue and archival material.

But into this new-music breach, lots of good stuff emerged, including (obviously or arguably) improved sophomore releases from the likes of Tunnel Clones, Harlan T. Bobo, and breakout star Amy LaVere …

Read the rest of the Flyer’s picks for the best in Memphis music for 2007.

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Cover Feature News

Trouble in Paradise

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Singer-songwriter Harlan T. Bobo is the personification of amused self-doubt. “Bobo,” he grumbles, meditating on his own nom de plume. “It’s such a perfect name for me. It translates directly from Spanish as ‘stupid,’ and, if you put my name into a translator, it comes out Harlan T. Stupid.

“My family thinks I’m ashamed of them because I don’t use my real name,” he adds, coughing up a chuckle.

Bobo is currently in a tight spot. This week, the lean, bearded troubadour launches I’m Your Man, his long-awaited sophomore recording as a solo artist, released on the local Goner Records label. But in spite of any brilliance it may contain, the disc is bound to disappoint Bobo’s fans. And worse: Bobo knows it. He’s not sure if he knows how to feel about it.

“It’s like when I come off stage after a show and people want to talk to me,” Bobo mumbles. “Prepare to be let down, I always say.”

It’s not that I’m Your Man isn’t an extraordinary effort, filled with aching, insightful songs about misfit affections, sex, and longing. It is, and in that regard it’s every bit the equal of Bobo’s self-released debut, 2005’s Too Much Love (later reissued on Goner), an unexpected cause célèbre within the local music scene. Too Much Love took listeners by surprise, charming them with the quirky sweetness, eclectic musicianship, and the clownish, hangdog persona of the singer in question.

Too Much Love was built like a high school term paper, with its thesis written boldly in the first lyric. The opening track, “It’s Only Love,” channels the barroom melancholy of Tom Waits, as Bobo croons — over gently strummed guitar chords — that our most celebrated emotion is as harmlessly mysterious as a clear, blue sky. Every other song on Too Much Love tears that theory apart with personal stories chronicling the high and low points of one man’s magnificent obsession, as well as the laugh-till-you-cry quandaries of a modern-day Don Quixote looking for one pure thing to hold onto.

Before Too Much Love, Bobo was a perennial sideman, playing bass with Midtown musician Nick Ray (aka Nick Diablo) in the hard-rocking band Viva L’American Death Ray Music. Not even the best-connected fan of Memphis music could have ever seen Too Much Love coming. And certainly, nobody could have expected that the quietly ubiquitous bassman’s humble, homemade CD would become an instant local classic. The song “Left Your Door Unlocked” was voted song of the week on National Public Radio’s Open Mic. Critics across the country raved.

“Nothing anybody says about my songs changes the way I feel about them,” Bobo says, mildly complaining about the popularity of Too Much Love and “Left Your Door Unlocked” in particular.

“When I listen to those songs [on Too Much Love] it doesn’t sound like me,” he says. “My voice sounds all affected and weird. On I’m Your Man, I wanted to make sure that I was using my natural voice.

“I remember walking into a place and hearing a song playing and thinking, man, the Reigning Sound have really lost their touch,” he says. “And then I realized I was listening to myself.” With this revelation, Bobo crashes his head helplessly into the palm of his hand.

I’m Your Man might be the most anticipated album release on the local music scene in years, and as Bobo has already explained, too much love can be a dangerous and confusing thing.

Hopefully, Bobo’s fans will give I’m Your Man more than one spin, because second and third listens reveal treasures easily lost by an immediate comparison to Bobo’s breakthrough debut. Borrowing a number of tricks from Leonard Cohen’s song bag, Bobo has given himself the impossible task of exploring complex themes in simple, emotionally charged terms. With subtle nods to artists as dissimilar as Nick Cave, Dan Penn, and Hank Williams, I’m Your Man catalogues the comforting self-deceptions of the defeated, even as it toys with larger themes.

If the entire collection could be compared to a single recording, it would be George Jones’ “The Grand Tour.” Even in moments of whimsy, it can be that devastating.

“Pragmatic Woman,” the disc’s most thoughtful and beautifully realized song, toys with the idealization of a love interest while essaying the personal failures that necessitate such idealized visions. In Bobo’s world, one hand on the clock is always waving hello while the other waves goodbye, and clarity only comes in the space between the ticks. Even a bouncy tune about whether or not to have children turns into something murkier.

“Once we learn we are crafty enough to avoid the responsibilities that come with our pleasures — birth control — we create a destructive mind set,” he says. “It’s the same kind of thinking that allows us to deplete our natural resources and blow people up for theirs.”

Justin Fox Burks

Sitting at Otherlands in Midtown and sipping an espresso, Bobo appears to be impossibly tired. His voice is phlegmy and shattered, and his usually bright eyes are dull. His limited success has brought opportunities that weigh on him like a curse. He’s been working what he describes as 40-hour days scoring music for adult reality shows such as Showtime’s Sexual Healing. Listening to him explore conflicted emotions about the TV gig and the roots of his fatigue, it’s hard to imagine that this is the man known for producing energetic, theatrical performances.

“If you come to hear Death Ray, you can be pretty sure that Nick is going to shake your ass,” Bobo says, trying to explain why he’s inclined to wear angel wings on stage and turn every performance into a one-act play. “My songs don’t really get asses shaking, so I want to give people some other reason to get excited.”

Bobo’s theatrics predate his solo career. If the reluctant raconteur can be believed, he once spent time in a California halfway house, where he was occasionally allowed out at night to play pedal steel in a band called Minnie Pearl Necklace, an alt-country extravaganza fronted by a drag queen.

Before coming to Memphis, Bobo also spent time playing with honky-tonk torchbearer Johnny Dilks. In the mid-’90s, Bobo emceed shows for a traditional burlesque troupe called Memphis Confidential, with nothing but a concertina and a world-weary take on some old dirty jokes.

“One time somebody told me that one of my songs saved their marriage,” Bobo says with a shrug, unable to fully understand how his music might accomplish that task. “That made me feel pretty good.”

Bobo recalls a time when a big, black car suddenly cut him off while he was walking, and the driver threw a half-eaten apple at him.

“I was already running away when I heard somebody call, ‘Harlan T. Bobo, I’m a big fan.’ Every time I see that guy now he throws a half-eaten apple at me,” Bobo says. “It makes my day every time.”

Half-eaten apples? Love? Stupidity? Perfection? Perversion? The self-betrayal of a man who throws away his cash and his love on pretty foolish things? Is it any wonder that Bobo is planning to turn the Hi-Tone Café’s stage into a plastic representation of the Garden of Eden for his CD-release party?

“I’ve been going to thrift stores for months buying fake flowers, and now I know why grandmothers’ houses smell that way,” he says, reflecting on the artificial blossoms currently infecting his environment. “It’s really awful.”

Harlan T. Bobo will celebrate the release of I’m Your Man with a performance at the Hi-Tone Café on Saturday, July 21st. The club opens at 9 p.m. Admission is $5.