Bukka White and Jimmy Crosthwait onstage at the the Overton Park Shell in The Blues Society. (Photo: Randall Lyon | courtesy of The Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane)
For director Augusta Palmer, The Blues Society is a personal project.
Her father, music writer Robert Palmer, was a member of the group of hippies and weirdos who first brought Black blues artists from Memphis and Mississippi to the Overton Park Shell. They were among the first to acknowledge the deep debt that popular music owed to these artists. Robert Palmer went on to write the bestselling music tome Deep Blues in 1981.
On Friday, May 31, The Blues Society opens in Memphis at Studio on the Square.. The opening weekend will feature a series of Q&A’s with the director and some Memphians involved in the project. On Friday, Grammy-winning author and filmmaker Robert Gordon will moderate a discussion with the director and musicians Jimmy Crosthwait and Chris Wimmer. On Friday, June 1, Indie Memphis executive director Kimel Fryer will moderate a discussion with director Palmer and editor Laura Jean Hocking. On Wednesday, June 5, Robert Gordon will return with Memphis radio legend Henry Nelson.
Misti Rae directed and created all of the imagery in the music video, which was edited by Laura Jean Hocking (who, in the interest of full disclosure, is this columnist’s wife). “Creating my own music video from my art has always been a dream,” says Misti Rae. “Following my dream helped me to survive a nightmare: the pandemic. I hope the song and video help you along in your healing journey as creating and sharing it has helped me in mine.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Wearing a green ribbon can mean a lot of things, or nothing at all. That’s part of the mystery at the heart of Louise Page’s new music video, where the core message is “I want to see you dance the way you dance in your kitchen,” and the stylish art direction assures us that, in that part of the house, green pairs well with pink.
For many, the green ribbon signifies mental health awareness, and there’s a primal call for sanity in the way Page calls out the kitchen boogie as an integral part of mental hygiene. But maybe that’s reading too much into a song that just wants to make you dance.
To that end, Page musters the full power of her band, complete with violin and horns, to make the most danceable track she can. And the video captures that energy perfectly, tacking back and forth between that kitchen and a sweaty, stomping club scene, where drag queens Moth Moth Moth and Baby Mas, plus dancer Felicity Fox, match the singer’s moves strut for strut, and even producer/engineer Boo Mitchell gets down on the dance floor.
As Page says in her artist’s statement, she was “trying to write a song that was both a dance and a celebration, but also acknowledging how absolutely bat shit insanely difficult it has felt to be a functioning human being in a dysfunctional, often dangerous world. Joy can be a revolution. You can dance for the dead. That’s what this song celebrates to me.”
It’s a perfect way to bring out the power of Page’s crack combo. “Huge shoutout to my band — Annalisabeth Craig, Jawaun Crawford, Gunter Gaupp, and Michael Todd — for playing the hell out of this song and for riding with me. Huge shoutout to my friend Calvin Lauber for mastering the song, and Boo Mitchell for recording, producing, and believing in it!”
Director Laura Jean Hocking also hails the group effort that made such a wild party of a video possible. “I am credited as director on this video,” she says, “but so many people were vital in making these visual worlds come to life — the fabulous art direction team of Sallie Sabbatini/Erica Qualy/Annalisabeth Craig, Robbie Eubanks’ beautiful hair & makeup, Chad Barton’s excellent lighting and color timing, Sarah Fleming’s stellar camerawork — the list goes on. Being able to showcase Moth Moth Moth and Baby Mas was important to me, with the government trying to enact laws to ban drag performances. I wanted them to convey the message, ‘You cannot make our art form a crime. We’re not going away.’ And any time Louise calls me to do a music video, the answer is yes. She’s a great collaborator and a joy to work with.”
Bruce Newman is a folkie. By day, he’s an entertainment attorney. Wednesday mornings, he’s the host of Folk Song Fiesta on WEVL, but he’s not just a fan. Newman writes and produces his own music, which we’ve featured before on Music Video Monday.
“Last week, we hosted a breakfast which included Janis Ian and other folk legends at Folk Alliance in Kansas City. Janis told us that her big songs such as ‘At Seventeen’, ‘Jesse’, and ‘Society’s Child’, were very painful to write, and she received death threats and had things thrown at her when she performed them. She told us it was well worth it; those songs and those things needed to be said,” Newman says.
“During the last few years I have been especially sick and tired of the beatings, the mass shootings, and the racism that has now become commonplace, with our leaders doling out much of it. One particular day hit me; when I went to a rally against the oil pipeline in Boxtown (the formerly enslaved community in South Memphis) I saw the abject poverty which stems from years of institutional racism. I’m not ashamed; white privilege sunk in again. I think everyone should put that on their bucket list; go to a rally in Boxtown and see what reality is.”
Newman’s new song “My Brother Is Weary” is a call for empathy and understanding across races, classes, and religions. The song features performances from Eric Lewis, Susan Marshall, Reba Russell, Gerald Stephens, and Shawn Zorn. The video was directed by longtime Newman collaborator Laura Jean Hocking (who, full disclosure, is my wife, and I helped out on set at Black Lodge.)
“My love of folk music starts with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and all who came before and after, including Zimmy [Bob Dylan], and the music they created to champion the exploited workers and the downtrodden. I have come to study the music from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, such as that from the SNCC Freedom Singers, the CORE Freedom Singers, Cordell Reagon and Bernice Johnson, and Phil Ochs, to name just a few. As a young kid growing up in New York, I marched for Soviet Jewry, and now having lived in Memphis for half of my life, I see the issues just have a different name, but intolerance is the common thread. Given the opportunity to speak out for whatever the injustice is, we should, because we are all brothers and sisters.”
If you’d like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Jack Oblivian on stage at the Antenna club circa 1993.
One of my first questions for director Chris McCoy after watching Antenna was what punk rock means to him today. To this, he responded, “I don’t know. What do you think punk rock means today?” Being born in the 2000s, I don’t think I have ever really listened to punk. Not being born in Memphis, I had never even heard of the legends from the Antenna club, until I watched McCoy’s documentary.
The story of the Antenna is told through the many faces of punk rock, including writer and stealth narrator Ross Johnson, director Chris McCoy (who is also the film and TV editor for the Memphis Flyer), editor/producer Laura Jean Hocking, Antenna club owner Steve McGehee, and former Flyer music writer John Floyd. All together, this team took three years to create the documentary. Hocking details the beginning stages of the film where they started “with more than a hundred hours of archival footage. We had 1,100 still images and 88 interviews, some of which were three and four hours long.” Hocking describes her editing process as “a big project that at the time, when I was making it, I had a lot of nervous breakdowns.”
The inspiration behind Antenna was McCoy’s desire to tell “a story about Memphis that needed to be told, that had not yet been told.” This was the story of the Antenna, a punk rock club that stood on Madison Avenue from 1981 to 1995, a forgotten era of Memphis music — specifically Memphis punk rock music. McCoy calls it a “weird mutant strain of music that grabs little bits from a whole bunch of different kinds of music.”
Jimmy Barker at the first Antenna party, 1980.
As such, the Antenna club was “a place where you could be weird,” Hocking says. The club was not your usual Beale Street bar but an eclectic refuge where outsiders, weirdos, gays, and anyone without prejudice could be their authentic selves. Especially in its early days, Antenna’s punk rock spirit made it a place for experimentation, dedicated to the fight against conformity. A specific example McCoy uses is “one of my favorite shots in the movie is the video we found of that dude heckling The Replacements, saying, ‘We don’t care how famous you are!’ That’s the essence of the entire club right there in one moment.”
Between the crime, the poverty, and the political turmoil, Memphis can sometimes seem cursed and hopeless. This is even mentioned with Johnson’s opening line of the film: “Memphis is cursed.” McCoy comments on this idea saying, “I always call Memphis your drunk uncle. I can complain about him and what a deadbeat he is, but nobody else can say something about it.” This spirit is encapsulated in the Antenna’s story, in “the story of those musicians who are still here and who didn’t get the recognition that they deserved,” McCoy says. Indeed, the Antenna club hosted various artists like R.E.M., Big Ass Truck, The Panther Burns, and The Modifiers, but these are just some of the artists that defined the era of punk rock and the resistance against conformity.
Outcasts like Milford Thompson, Melody Danielsen, Alex Chilton, and The Klitz were able to express their true selves to the world. When daytime talk show host Marge Thrasher told The Panther Burns they were “the worst thing that ever came out on television,” bandleader Tav Falco just smiled. The Modifiers took pride in being “the most hated band in Memphis.” They were simply just, being themselves, and any hate or fear simply fell at their feet as they performed. “The attitude was, we dare you to like this music,” says McCoy.
Tav Falco and the Panther Burns on Marge Thrasher’s talk show.
This film is truly a labor of love and takes the audience back to the time where music not only united a community but also created a place to escape from the prejudices of society. McCoy remembers “hanging out at the Antenna from ’89 to ’95, when it closed.” Watching the film, I understood what it might feel like to be transported back to the ’80s, with a front row seat at the Antenna. Hocking says this was intentional. “We wanted you to feel like you’re at the club or hanging out with these people or in a round table discussion with them.”
Framing the film this way makes for a very intimate connection with something that to me, previously seemed foreign. Throughout the film, I found myself identifying with the Antenna crowd and their love for a place that shielded them from the rest of society. Seeing the many faces of punk rock and former Antenna attendees profess their love for the Antenna club, made me wonder if there was anything similar to the Antenna club today. When the film ended, I felt like I had just been to my first and favorite rock concert in my life.
Lisa Alridge singing with The Klitz.
Antenna speaks for itself with its continued and growing popularity even after its premiere 10 years ago in 2012 at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. The film has been awarded the Audience Award, Special Jury Prize, and other various awards at the Oxford Film Festival, and it is recognized as one of the most popular films in the 25 year history of the Indie Memphis Film Festival. Although the film has an immense love among its audience, it cannot currently be released commercially because of issues with obtaining music rights for the 50 different songs present in the film. McCoy and the film’s producers have spent the last 10 years trying to raise money to pay the artists for their songs and give them the recognition they deserve. Despite several investors’ and distributors’ interest in the film, fundraising efforts have always come to a halt and been unsuccessful. Thus, the film can only be caught at film festivals and on rare occasions.
The next screening of this film will be on Friday, October 21st, 8:45 p.m., at Playhouse on the Square during the Indie Memphis Film Festival to celebrate the film’s 10-year anniversary. Tickets ($12/individual screening) can be purchased online or at the door if not sold out already.
1000 Lights’ “666 Miles to Memphis” by Laura Jean Hocking at the Hometowner Music Video Showcase.
Day 4 of Indie Memphis is packed with life. It begins at 11:30 a.m at Playhouse on the Square with the world premiere of Ferny & Luca by director Andrew Infante. “The film is really interesting,” says Indie Memphis Artistic Director Miriam Bale. “It’s basically a rewriting of Saturday Night Fever, or a really diverse look at a rom-com. It really captures being in your twenties, and it’s a great New York movie.”
At 2 p.m. is one of the biggest gets for this year’s festival. C’mon C’mon is by writer/director Mike Mills, who got an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay for his 2016 film 20th Century Women. C’mon C’mon is a road picture starring Joaquin Phoenix as an introverted artist who has to take his precocious nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) on a cross-country trip. The film also stars indie darling Gaby Hoffmann, perhaps best known for the series Transparent. The A24 release has been a hot ticket for this year’s festival.
At 5 p.m. is another world premiere at Circuit, this time for a Hometowner feature. Life Ain’t Like the Movies is by Memphis director Robert Butler. It’s a coming of age drama about an awkward 16 year old who can’t escape bullying at school or conflict with his father at home.
At 9 p.m., an Indie Memphis tradition that has been the source of a lot of great nights at Playhouse on the Square over the years: The Secret Screening. Probably the most talked-about secret screening in festival history was 2019’s Uncut Gems, which wowed Memphis audiences before its smash-hit debut later that year. Bale wouldn’t divulge to me what film she has lined up this year (I even said “please”), but she would say this: “I definitely think everyone watching it will really love it, even if they’re surprised, and even if it’s something they wouldn’t have realized they would love.”
Across town at the Malco Summer Drive-In, after the revival of 1989’s Chameleon Street, is the Hometowner Music Video Showcase. As the curator of the Memphis Flyer’s Music Video Monday series, and a connoisseur of the form myself, I can say that Memphis punches way above its weight in the music video ring. We’ve got “Warzone” by Chinese Connection Dub Embassy; director Jordan Danielz and Sharrika Evans taking on Idi X Teco’s “Buzzsaw Kick”; Talibah Safiya’s “Animal Kingdom” by Zaire Love; Kim Bledsoe Lloyd’s clip for “My Mind Comes From a High Place” by Robert Allen Parker; two by Don Lifted and Josh Cannon; “Slide” by PreauXX, 35Miles, and AWFM; Laura Jean Hocking’s video for the London industrial band Dead Anyway; and many more. It’s gonna be a rocking night.
Bryce Christian Thompson stars as Shah in "The Devil Will Run."
For a person who’s never been a film critic in any real capacity (okay, I thoroughly bashed a couple films while on my college newspaper staff a lifetime ago), I was both eager and anxious to take on the task of covering a snippet of what’s on offer in the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
The selection of eight short films in the Hometowner Narrative Shorts Competition — clocking in around an hour and half total —will close out the festival on Monday, October 25th, at Crosstown Theater. They run the gamut from weird and whimsical to thought-provoking and heart-tugging.
Kayla Myers, Indie Memphis Film Festival programmer, says, “One of the first things that struck Brighid [Wheeler] and I in programming is that almost all of the filmmakers in this bloc are filmmakers whose work we’ve seen before, but it showcases an incredible amount of growth and daring choices.
“I think people will be excited to see this work, especially with them being able to screen in person, since so many of our local filmmakers have only really been screening virtually. The pandemic has been such a trying time for all of us, but there are some bright spots in the fact that this work was created, a lot of it, during the pandemic, and we get to showcase it.”
Here’s a rundown of what to expect.
Director Laura Jean Hocking received the first-ever Indie Memphis Women’s Short Film grant for “Hot Singles.” The film opens with Daisy (Shannon Walton) seeking shelter from an apocalyptic event in a flower shop basement. Alone and unable to get cell service, she begins to unravel as days pass. A glimmer of hope arrives as she sees a flickering bar of signal strength — but there’s just one person she’s able to get through to, and unfortunately it’s not her father.
Jean Jackson directs “The Nest,” a Beats by Dre Black Creators short film, and a five-minute glimpse into the cyclical and mundane life of Byrdie (played at various ages by Chelsea Dargba, Autumn Whetstone, and Sallay Fofanah), who’s trapped in a repetitive loop of daily routines, alone in her room — until one day she chooses to venture outside, ready to embrace all that lies beyond the door.
2019’s Best Hometowner Narrative Short winner Kyle Taubken is back with “In a Bad Way.” The film introduces us to Mike (Keith Johnson) after he’s lost big at the casino. The money was meant for his kids’ Christmas presents, and he has a chance to make it right. Will the gambling addict save Christmas?
In “Beale Street Blues,” director Daniel R. Ferrell explores a world of crooked cops on the streets of Memphis. As an FBI investigation is underway, officer Arthur Breedan (Keith Johnson) enlists his cousin Floyd (Edward Fields) to assist in his ongoing scheme of robbing drug dealers. Though Floyd is hesitant, Breedan pushes, and things go a little too far — potentially bringing the rogue cop one step closer to justice. “Beale Street Blues” was funded by the 2020 Indie Grant for Proof of Concept, which means Ferrell intends to expand it into a feature film.
Joshua Woodcock directs “Main Street,” starring JS Tate, who is homeless and living along Main Street after losing his wife. His lonesome days are spent reading through her old journal pages, collecting change from passersby, and having solo lunches in the park. Until he meets an unexpected friend who, for a time, brings much-needed companionship.
“Chocolate Galaxy” is a futuristic musical journey.
Noah Glenn’s “The Devil Will Run” is a standout among this hometowner selection. Bryce Christian Thompson stars as 7-year-old Shah, who is convinced a hole in his backyard is a portal to hell, and whose brother teases him for it. After a precious and pivotal backyard scene with his best friend Nella (Posie Steinmetz), Shah confronts his fears. “The Devil Will Run” was a 2019 Indie Grant recipient and was co-written by Glenn and IMAKEMADBEATS.
“Chocolate Galaxy” (directed by Blake Heimbach, Ryan Peel, and David Parks) is — and I’m pulling this directly from the Indie Memphis site — “an Afrofuturistic Space Opera.” That’s an apt description for the Black Mirror-esque musical journey that takes Fuzzy Slippers (David Parks) to Sector 9 for a night out, where he meets — and falls for — The Goddess (Taylor Williams). Set design, costumes, and interspersed animation transport the viewer — moonrocks or not.
In “Watch,” directed by Mars Lee McKay, Sarah (Adrienne Lamb) finds an old tube TV on the street while she’s taking out the trash. It mysteriously powers on, and through shifting scenes and static, has a message for her.
The Indie Memphis Hometowner Narrative Shorts Competition films are available for online viewing Oct. 20th-25th and will screen at Crosstown Theater Oct. 25th beginning at 9 p.m., $10.
Today on MVM, we have a world premiere video from two of Memphis’ most exciting women artists. Chamber pop chanteuse Louise Page says she has spent most of the last 18 months locked in with her keyboard. “‘Mirage’ was a song that I wrote early in the pandemic. It began as a poem about feeling let down by another person, and turned into a song about feeling let down in general, and about battling with my sense of self in a pandemic-isolated world,” Page says.
“The song can be interpreted both as a scorned lover telling off her ex for lying. Or, alternatively, my true-blue, behind-closed-doors, sad self singing to my performance persona and questioning if she in fact exists at all or is ‘just a mirage.’”
“Mirage” was recorded at Young Avenue Sound with engineer Calvin Lauber for Page’s upcoming “Play Nice” EP. The video was directed by Laura Jean Hocking. “This track along with the rest of the EP are completely solo, featuring just me singing and playing a grand piano, and reflecting on the solitude of 2020. My main goal with this song, video, and upcoming album is to make something beautiful and something honest,” Page says. “I’m so pleased with how Laura Jean interpreted my music into visual art, she is a dream to work with and always understands where I’m trying to take the viewer. This video is all about color — the golden mask and the blue truth.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Bruce Newman is the host of WEVL’s “Folk Song Fiesta,” where he brings you deep cuts from the long history of folk and Americana music every Wednesday from 8 to 10 a.m. He’s also a singer/songwriter in his own right, one who has previously graced Music Video Monday with his music, which can touch on the emotional and the political.
His latest song, “Strange Question,” was inspired by the looks he got when he returned to Memphis from the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada with his hair dyed. “It is usually tinted with some color before I go out to Black Rock City,” the attorney and accountant said. “I began to realize if my skin was brown or if I was blind or if you did not like a feature of mine, would you judge me or just accept me? Would you ‘love me for me being me?’ So, accepting me for ‘me being me’ is the gist. What does it matter? And, especially now, it is about acceptance of our brothers and sisters. Let the obvious be clearly understood, that my choice to color my hair is not to be compared with separation based on race or disability or any other factor, but rather a small, personal realization of how we are sometimes unfairly and unkindly separated by differences.”
After the song debuted at Folk Alliance, he put together a band of his Memphis friends — Eric Lewis, Reba Russell, Susan Marshall, Paul Taylor, Gerald Stephens, Heather Trussell, Carrington Trueheart, Sam Shoup, and Kevin Houston — to record it at Music+ Arts. Director Laura Jean Hocking made the music video, which stars the most accepting people of all — kids. Take a look.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
It’s election day in America, so get out there and vote! While you’re waiting for those results, the Indie Memphis Film Festival has announced the results of their own polls for the best films of the 2020 festival. Everyone who purchased a pass or ticket for the online and outdoor screenings was given a ballot to rate the films on a scale of 1-5.
The big winners were director Emma Seligman’s comedy Shiva Baby, which took home the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, and director Tali Yankelevich’s experimental film My Darling Supermarket, which took home the Audience Award for Best Departures Feature. Both Shiva Baby and My Darling Supermarket had previously won the Jury Awards in their respective categories at the awards ceremony last Wednesday night. Camrus Johnson and Pedro Piccinini’s animated short “Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad” also won both Jury and Audience awards in its category. Director Zaire Love scored a rare split two-fer by winning the Audience Award for Best Hometowner Documentary Short for “The Black Men I Know” after winning the Jury Award for Best Hometowner Short for her film “Road To Step.”
The Audience Award for Best Hometowner Feature went to Anwar Jamison’s bi-continental romantic comedy Coming to Africa. Jamison’s film prevailed despite having its original premiere screening, which was scheduled for the riverfront, postponed due to stormy weather.
The audience ballots chose What Do You Have To Lose? for Best Documentary Feature, directed by Dr. Trimiko Melancon. What Do You Have to Lose? is the Rhodes College professor’s first feature film.
The Audience Award for Best Hometowner Narrative Short went to the “The Little Death,” a personal drama about miscarriage written and directed by husband and wife team Justin and Ariel Harrison.
For the Best Sounds Feature, awarded for the always-crowded category of music films, the audience chose Andy Black’s documentary Shoe: A Memphis Musical Legacy.
The Audience Award for Best Documentary Short went to “Still Processing,” a moving experimental documentary by Sophy Romvari in which she filmed her real-time reaction to finding lost pictures of her two brothers, who had recently passed away. The voters awarded Best Departures Short to Amin Mahe’s “Letter To My Mother.”
For the music video categories, Lewis Del Mar’s song “The Ceiling,” directed by rubberband, won the National Audience award. The Hometowner Audience Award went to Louise Page’s “Paw In The Honey,” directed by Laura Jean Hocking.
The audience voters chose Hisonni Johnson’s “Take Out Girl” for Best Poster Design.
The winners were informed of their awards via a surprise Zoom call. You can watch their reactions, which range from the funny to the tearful, in this video.
Indie Memphis Announces 2020 Audience Award Winners
