Local news is what we do here at the Memphis Flyer. Our local news is mostly about fun stuff, with some very unfun stuff thrown in here and there so we can continue to call ourselves “news.”
That’s a joke, of course. News can be good, bad, indifferent, or ambiguous, because it’s just stuff that happens in life. But some folks have to dress it up and spin it in an attempt to attract more clicks or better ratings. Hey, I get it. It’s hard out there for a content pimp. But constantly harping on the bad stuff, while good for attracting those sweet, sweet anxiety clicks, can make for very unpleasant viewing.
Memphis musician and friend of Music Video Monday Jeff Hulett takes on the needy fearmongering with “Local News” from his 2022 album Note To Self. With an assist from Jake Vest, Hulett takes us on a nightmare tour of local happenings, with giant cave dogs and the walking dead. Looks like a slow news day to me.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Snowglobe founding member Jeff Hulett continues his rich solo career with a new EP. “‘Rarely Last’ is about time more than anything else. The slipping away of time, wasting time, longing for simpler times, looking ahead to better times,” Hulett says.
For many, the pandemic gave us a visceral reminder that our time on Earth is limited. Hulett says “Rarely Last” is not about despair, but about the richness of life. “I’ve learned and realized slowly over time (see what I did there) that every year is hard, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Every year is also filled with joy and beautiful moments. People die, careers change, friendships grow, but whatever the case may be — good or bad — the moments rarely last.”
For the “Rarely Last” music video, director Jenny Myers foregrounds Hulett’s lyrics in a unique way. Running human figures transform into the font, and the background becomes more visually complex during the song’s instrumental passages. The resulting synergy between song and image is quite beautiful.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Jeff Hulett’s post-pandemic songwriting bounty continues to produce great songs. His latest, out as a single on Bandcamp, is “This Bird.” The lyrics, reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, describe a plane crash in progress, and the feelings that the passengers go through on the way down. It’s actually more hopeful and fun than it sounds. You can follow along for yourself with the lyric video for the song, which was created by Memphis expat artist Matt Fremstad.
Hulett will be the guest on J.D. Reager’s Back to the Light: Songs and Stories event at Crosstown Arts’ Green Room this Thursday, March 17. You can get your tickets here.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Jeff Hulett is dropping his new album, What I Mean, this week. On Saturday, December 18th, at 4 p.m., Hulett will premiere the new album at his record release party at Memphis Made Brewing Company on Cooper.
The first music video from the new album, “Belong” was created by Jake Vest, the Memphis ex-pat musician and producer. The images reflect the song’s mixture of anxious, spoken-word lyrics and soaring melodies of hope. Take a look!
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Memphis musician and father Jeff Hulett’s been on a roll lately. He’s been rolling out his pandemic output with new music videos. This one is dedicated to all the dads out there. “Scene by Scene” is about what it’s like to watch your kids grow up. Get ready, because the kids in this animated video are absolutely adorbs. Happy Father’s Day, everyone!
Great Memphis music videos are pouring in to MVM World Headquarters, so we’re celebrating the abundance with another double-shot week. Restless Townies is a cross-country collaboration between Jeff Hulett, Melissa Goodwin Shepherd, and Adam Poor. Their 13-track album Miles Away is a collection of 2-minute dream pop gems, featuring Shepherd’s etherial vocals and swirling guitars.
In this video for “Chase the Sun”, Hulett collects some 50’s vintage footage of what looks like an awesome day of rollercoasters and Tilt-A-Whirls to set a bright, yet melancholy, mood.
If you’d like to see your music video on Music Video Monday — which at this rate could also mean Tuesday or Thursday — email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
For many people, online videoconferencing has become the dominant form of human interaction during the pandemic. Jeff Hulett’s new video for “Pints & Quarts” was created by director Noah Glenn. The song is from the album Safe@Home, which Hulett and Jacob Church recorded remotely during the quarantine lockdown of March and April. The video captures the spirit of being alone together, connected by images and voices on the internet.
Music Video Monday: Jeff Hulett
If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Just about everyone is working from home these days — even musicians. Today marks the release of Safe @ Home, an album made by two musicians sheltering in place in separate locations. Multi-instrumentalists Jeff Hulett and Jacob Church recorded the songs — in pieces — from their respective Midtown homes, and all proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit Music Export Memphis (MEM) and their COVID-19 Fund for musicians.
Jacob Edwards
“We made this album all in quarantine over the past six weeks,” Hulett says. He used GarageBand and his smartphone to record acoustic guitar, vocals, drums, and keyboard sounds. Hulett then sent his tracks to Church, who used Pro Tools to record electric guitar, bass, drums and percussion, vocals, and more. Church mixed and mastered the album — with the exception of “N. Belvedere,” which was recorded and mixed by Andrew McCalla.
“This was a great opportunity to get to know Jacob Church more and try something completely different,” Hulett says. “His musicianship is top notch. I’m more of a rough-around-the-edges-type musician, so that pairing worked quite nicely. I’ve known Jacob for several years peripherally as he’s mixed and mastered some solo stuff and Me & Leah stuff. Then in February we did an in the round at DKDC with Graham Winchester. Little did we know then we’d be releasing an album together on May 1st. Strange how things come together sometimes, I guess.”
Samilia Colar
Safe @ Home is suffused with a longing that speaks to the loneliness of life under lockdown. It’s a loneliness cut with sweetness, though — these are songs about friendship and love. Their sweetness and the wonderfully lo-fi pop production call to mind youthful friendships and long summer days when hours stretched, thick as honeysuckle-scented August air. In some ways the album feels like being grounded on a summer day in middle school — it’s the frustration of FOMO mingled with the satisfying certainty that, when this is over, the reunions will be twice as sweet. “Watch Out,” the album closer, is a stand-out track on an album that, except for the immediacy of the emotional content of the songs, does not feel as though it were only six weeks in the making.
Amanda McKnight
Andrew Costen
Further underlining the themes of collaboration and togetherness in spite of separation, each track on the seven-song album has a corresponding piece of art by a Memphis-based or formerly Memphis-based visual artist. “I’m an extrovert by nature so I’m always eager to collaborate and be in community with people,” Hulett says. “The biggest honor for me on this album was bringing as many people together as possible. From artists, to musicians to graphic designers to videographers this thing — all done in isolation — has brought so many people together.”
Between them, Church and Hulett have played with a multitude of noteworthy Memphis bands (think Snowglobe, The Ammunition, Me & Leah, and more), and the Memphis connections show. There are shades of Snowglobe, Chris Bell, and, at least to this listener’s ears, Shannon McNally’s pitch-perfect cover of Jim Dickinson’s “The Outlaw” from The Wandering. In all, Safe @ Home is an album that embraces both the bittersweet sadness of separation and the comfort of connection.
Jeff Hulett and Jacob Church’sSafe @ Homeis available via Bandcamp. All proceeds benefit Music Export Memphis.
Earlier this winter, bushfires devastated much of Australia’s mainland, killing one-third of New South Wales’ koalas and burning 14.6 million acres of land.
“We have a bushfire season pretty much every year,” says Damien Klingberg, an expat of South Australia who now lives in Memphis. “But this is the worst there’s ever been — on record, anyway. And there are fires affecting all areas in all six of the mainland states.”
Klingberg moved to the States in 1994 and has since made a life here in Memphis working as a beertender at Memphis Made Brewing Co. When he heard of the fires in Australia and the devastation that came along with them, including damage to his family’s entire cherry orchard, he and his fellow Australian mate Nick Van De Velde decided they needed to contribute to the relief efforts by organizing a benefit concert at Memphis Made.
Brandon Dill
Memphis Made Brewing Co.
“Nick pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do this,’ and I said, ‘You’re right, we do,'” says Klingberg. “And it kind of started from there. We approached the fantastic management and ownership of Memphis Made and said, ‘Hey, this is what we want to do. Can we do it?’ And they have been super supportive.”
For a suggested $5 donation toward relief funds, guests will enjoy the music of two of Klingberg’s bands, Piper Down and Solar Powered Love, as well as other local acts Jeff Hulett, The Switchblade Kid, and DJ Zach Ives. Memphis Made will also donate $1 from each beer sale to organizations picked out by Klingberg and Van De Velde: WIRES Australian Wildlife Rescue, Wildlife Victoria, Wildlife Rescue Queensland, SA Bushfire Appeal, and Wildlife Recovery Fund.
Beers for Beasts, Memphis Made Brewing Co., 768 S. Cooper, Saturday, February 15th, suggested $5 donation.
Shannon Walton in Sweet Knives video for ‘I Don’t Wanna Die’
You’re going to be hard pressed to see everything great on Indie Memphis Sunday, so some triage is in order. We’re here to help.
First thing in the morning is the Hometowner Rising Filmmaker Shorts bloc (11:00 a.m., Ballet Memphis), where you can see the latest in new Memphis talent, including “Ritual” by Juliet Mace and Maddie Dean, which features perhaps the most brutal audition process ever.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway
The retrospective of producer/director Sara Driver’s work continues with her new documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Micheal Basquiat (1:30 p.m., Studio on the Square). Driver was there in the early 80s when Basquiat was a rising star in the New York art scene, and she’s produced this look at the kid on his way to becoming a legend.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (2)
The companion piece to Driver’s latest is Downtown 81 (4:00 p.m., Hattiloo Theatre). Edo Bertoglio’s documentary gives a real-time look at the art and music scene built from the ashes of 70s New York that would go on to conquer the world. Look for a cameo from Memphis punk legend Tav Falco.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (4)
You can see another Memphis legend in action in William Friedkin’s 1994 Blue Chips (4:00 p.m., Studio on the Square). Penny Hardaway, then a star recruit for the Memphis Tigers, appears as a star recruit for volatile college basketball coach Pete Bell, played by Nick Nolte. It’s the current University of Memphis Tigers basketball coach’s only big screen appearance to date, until someone makes a documentary about this hometown hero’s eventful life.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (5)
The Ballet Memphis venue hosts two selections of Memphis filmmakers screening out of the competition at 1:50 and 7:00 p.m., continuing the unprecedentedly awesome run of Hometowner shorts this year. There are a lot of gems to be found here, such as Clint Till’s nursing home comedy “Hangry” and Garrett Atkinson and Dalton Sides’ “Interview With A Dead Man.” To give you a taste of the good stuff, here’s Munirah Safiyah Jones’ instant classic viral hit “Fuckboy Defense 101.”
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (3)
At 9:00 p.m., the festivities move over to Black Lodge in Crosstown for the Music Video Party. 44 music videos from all over the world will be featured on the Lodge’s three screens, including works by Memphis groups KadyRoxz, A Weirdo From Memphis, Al Kapone, Nick Black, Uriah Mitchell, Louise Page, Joe Restivo, Jana Jana, Javi, NOTS, Mark Edgar Stuart, Jeff Hulett, Stephen Chopek, and Impala. Director and editor Laura Jean Hocking has the most videos in the festival this year, with works for John Kilzer, Bruce Newman, and this one for Sweet Knives.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (6)
If experimental horror and sci fi is more your speed, check out the Hometowner After Dark Shorts (9:30 p.m., Playhouse on the Square), which features Isaac M. Erickson’s paranoid thriller “Home Video 1997.”
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (7)
Jacob Edwards 
Samilia Colar 
Amanda McKnight 
Andrew Costen 
Brandon Dill 