Za Fest celebrates its fifth anniversary this Saturday, November 16th, taking over the new Black Lodge location.
“The festival started out as a small kind of DIY,” says Blair Davis, founder and organizer of Za Fest. “And it still is DIY essentially, and that was its core, just for the community purposes and having other people assist. But we kind of raised our little baby, and now it’s 5 years old, and the masses are hungry. They want pizza.”
Brenna Huff
Power to the pizza
Za Fest, dubbed Memphis’ largest pizza party, will offer an assorted menu of pizza from local eateries like Memphis Pizza Cafe, Garibaldi’s, and Midtown Crossing. Beyond presenting a broad ‘za menu, the festival boasts a diverse lineup that includes electronic music producer DJ Chandler Blingg, singer-songwriter Louise Page, hip-hop artist Coldway, and more.
“Ideally, these smaller communities of pocketed musicians can come together and see that there are cool things in the other pocket,” says Davis. “I think musicians and music, especially, are fairly universal. And the more that we can embrace that the better.”
This year, Za Fest has partnered with Merge Memphis, a faith-based nonprofit dedicated to feeding hungry, less fortunate people, by donating food boxes to families and stocking free food pantries throughout the city. Guests are encouraged to bring canned food items in exchange for raffle tickets or simply make a dollar donation.
“When you’re a starving artist, you may not know what it’s like to be a literal starving person,” says Davis.
Za Fest, Black Lodge, 405 N. Cleveland, Saturday, November 16th, 3 p.m.-2 a.m., $10/presale, $15/door.
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)
Louise Page is back with a screamer. “Harpy” swings with big horns, cabaret attitude, and a predatory energy. It finds Weezy at her most self-aware. “Art is only heartbreak.” Preach it, sister.
The animated video is an instant classic by Nathan Parten, remixing imagery from Greek pottery and frieze. Poor Odysseus never stood a chance.
Music Video Monday: Louise Page
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Music Video Monday won’t leave you at the altar — unless you deserve it.
The would-be hubby from Louise Page‘s new video, “Future Runaway Bride,” certainly deserves pre-spousal abandonment. He’s swigging from a pocket flask even while the father of the bride, played by Lucero’s fezzed-out Brian Venable, looks on. The nerve!
The video to accompany yet another banger by Page was co-directed by Joshua Cannon and Barrett Kutas, and shot by Sam Leathers and Nate Packard.
If you need more Weezy in your life, you can either pop the question — which, in the light of this video, seems like an iffy proposition — or can check out her NPR Tiny Desk Concert, which gives you more short-term reward with less long-term commitment.
Now get to the church on time!
Music Video Monday: Louise Page
If you’d like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
It was so like a dream. “We were in the old house. You were there, and you, and you…And we saw this door we’d never seen, so we opened it — and found a whole other room, that had been there under our noses all these years!”
Except it wasn’t a dream. It was only yesterday and I was getting a tour from Laurel Cannito, who, along with Chuck ‘Vicious’ Wenzler, took over the Lamplighter Lounge last year after longtime owner Ann Bradley decided to retire. Looking a little mischievous, Cannito motioned me to a door I’d never seen and threw it open. And there it was: the Secret Room.
“It’s like Harry Potter, isn’t it?” she said, looking rather proud of her bar and the team that helps her run the place. “The room’s always been here, but we haven’t always been connected. This used to be a TV repair shop in the 60s. And then it was a bookstore. And then it was a ball point pen repair place. We’ve always said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t that be neat to turn into a venue space?’ So, we recently acquired it. We have great landlords. They worked with us to help get it attached and everything. Then we did a lot of the construction work after we put it onto our lease.”
Justin Fox Burks
Thomas pours a PBR
The Lamplighter Lounge, of course, is the long-adored dive on Madison Avenue that some say is the the oldest bar in Memphis. Despite the smallish space of the original lounge, the new owners removed the pool table last year and began hosting bands with increasing frequency. The vibe was always great, but it could get a bit cramped.
Now, the Secret Room more than doubles the size of the place. Entering from a door on the south end of the bar, you see an unassuming functional space that (gasp!) even includes a green room for the bands. What’s more, the new room marks the return of the beloved pool table. Cannito is happy to have it back. “Miss Anne sold the pool table before we bought the place, so we didn’t choose to get rid of it,” she says, now visibly relieved at its return.
In addition to some few finishing touches like stringing lights, she’ll outfit the new room with more bar-like amenities soon. “The original jukebox is still here by the bar, and we got that working again. But there on left is a new old jukebox that we are gonna get working for the Secret Room. Yep, double jukebox. You just need a jukebox in every room. That door over there is the customer door. And this door behind the bar is gonna be split in half and have a bar top on it so we can sling drinks from there.”
Aside from such touches, the Secret Room will remain fairly sparse. “It’ll be a little bare bones. It’ll be not so much a raw space, but a malleable space. I like performance art. I would love to have more of that, like performance art and puppetry and dancing, or even the aerial stuff that’s been around. Next month, we’re doing a pop-up boutique every Sunday, because me and some friends have a bunch of clothes that we’re trying to get out into the world. Stuff that’s really nice, but it’s just not our style anymore. And then, I have some friends in Asheville who are part of a professional circus. I could get them here at some point. It just expands our ability to help encourage creativity around town, give it a space,” says Cannito.
And of course there will be music. “We already have music of all kinds, like the old time string band, soul bands, rock bands of all kinds, and rap and DJs and 80s nights. It’s so nice. I want this to be the kind of space where every kind of music can find a place. And having the Secret Room is going to be really good for that. I think it’ll bring even more types of music and even more bands. Because not everybody wants to set up in the small room and just play for people who drink. It’ll help a lot with the intentionality of it.”
To that end, the Secret Room will be having its inaugural show this weekend, Saturday, July 13th, featuring some of Midtown’s favorites: Louise Page, Faux Killas and Rosey. Remarked Cannito of the latter band, “They’re so, so good. When they finish a song, there’s just a silence as the audience tries to process what they’ve just heard.”
Discover the Secret Room this Saturday, to see and hear it for yourself.
The Secret Room at the Lamplighter: Grand Opening On Saturday
Pounding and standing on the piano he calls “Shondra,” Adam Weiner cranks out some serious rock-and-roll with his band Low Cut Connie. A Jerry Lee Lewis-meets-Little Richard-on-Broadway showman, Weiner comes by his brand of distinctly American music naturally.
“When I was 13, I bought a Lead Belly album,” Weiner says. “My music listening has been chronological, almost. I got into country blues, then blues, then Elvis, Jerry Lee, and the Sun stuff, Little Richard, and the New Orleans piano guys, and then Ray Charles. I grew up in New Jersey, so Springsteen in the 1980s is a big touchstone. Then Bob Dylan. What’s the bottom line in all this? American rock-and-roll.”
courtesy Missing Piece
Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie
So what exactly is American rock-and-roll? “Boogie, soulful,” Weiner says. “It should touch your heart, making you want to dance. And it’s about freedom. Free your body, free your mind. What was Prince’s music about? Freedom of spirit, freedom of sexuality. More than being cool, it’s about letting go, being free.”
In other words, something like what’s captured on Dirty Pictures (Part 2), a joyous 10-song ramble Low Cut Connie recorded along with its predecessor — Dirty Pictures (Part 1) — at Memphis’ legendary Ardent Studio.
Adam Hill, who worked at Ardent at the time, recalls, “Adam Weiner worked for Beale Street Caravan years ago, when he was going to U of M. Early on, they played a show at The Buccaneer that was recorded by Beale Street Caravan, and they liked my mix, which led to us making Dirty Pictures (Part 1) and (Part 2). I’ve been engineering for them the past year, working on their next batch of songs in various locations. The band is tight and loose, in all the best ways. We’ve been cutting basic tracks live with everyone in the same room.”
Dirty Pictures (Part 2) starts with the taut, driving “All These Kids Are Way Too High,” which finds Weiner looking out at zombies standing at a show rather than dancing up a storm to the rollicking piano and the big beat. It’s his job, Weiner says, to get the walking dead to put away their phones and get moving. And that’s a different challenge every night.
“Every city has a different culture,” he says. “Every country has a different culture. Daytime versus nighttime, outdoor versus indoor. Do they know our songs, or do they have no idea who we are? Every show should be different. You try and make people free, to put them in the moment. I’ve got to be aware of what’s going on in the moment … what’s going on outside the walls of the club. I’ve got to bring all of that into the moment.
“At the end of the day, I try to give people what they really want,” Weiner says. “They’re in a communal situation, they’re part of the moment. They feel their feeling and release that feeling. It’s not a total escapism, but a tension and release.”
This winter and spring, Weiner will be getting the crowds going with a run of headlining dates in the U.S. that extends into May, before heading to the United Kingdom and Europe. It’s the latest series of shows in what has become a never-ending tour for Low Cut Connie. It’s the kind of work that needs to be done by a band that, little by little, is breaking out.
Formed seven years ago, and named after a waitress who wore low-cut tops, the band released its first recordings as Get Out the Lotion, and followed that album with 2012’s Get Me Sylvia and 2015’s Hi Honey — all critically acclaimed.
The band got its biggest shot of attention in 2015, when President Barack Obama put “Boozophilia” — a 2012 song Rolling Stone described as “like Jerry Lee Lewis if he’d had his first religious experience at a Replacements show” — on his Spotify summer list.
That got Weiner a White House visit. Earlier this year, he had another summit meeting, talking with Springsteen after attending one of his Broadway performances. The Boss, it turns out, is a Low Cut Connie fan — which thrills the New Jersey-born Weiner.
The attention, the recordings, and Low Cut Connie’s never-less-than-great live shows are now paying off, bringing the band an ever-larger audience. “The word is spreading,” Weiner says. “The tent is expanding. We’re a cult band and people are finding us, coming to see us.”
Low Cut Connie plays the 1884 Lounge at Minglewood with the Klitz and Louise Page on Saturday, March 9th, at 9 p.m.
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.
Louise Page is releasing her second album, Simple Sugar, this Friday with a show at 831 S. Cooper. This music video for Page’s song “Blue Romance” was directed by Sam Leathers, and stars Page, Moth Moth Moth, Brenda Newport, Jawaun Crawford, Annalisabeth Craig, Michael Laurenzi, Victor Sawyer, and Michael Todd. It’s a gauzy, flower-filled burst of fabulousness. Take a look:
Music Video Monday: Louise Page
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Memphis-based songwriter and pianist Louise Page has been busy of late. She released her first EP, Salt Mosaic, last September, and, after a winter of steady gigging in support of the EP, she and her band will open the festivities this Saturday at Fool Fest 2, Shangri-La Records’ spring sale and mini-festival, which doubles this year as a 30th anniversary celebration for the store.
“I have deep family roots in Memphis. My mom is from here,” Page says. The singer/songwriter moved to the Bluff City from central Pennsylvania to study creative writing at Rhodes College, where her grandmother matriculated when the college was still called Southwestern. “I got a degree in creative writing, which I now use to write songs,” Page muses. “It’s not what I thought I’d use it for.” Page’s songwriting prowess is on full display on her first EP, which mixes folk-inflected numbers with indie-rock laments of heartbreak.
Salt Mosaic opens with “Little Coast,” a plaintive wish for a new beginning. Piano runs and Page’s haunting vocals come in first. “I want to cut and run away,” she sings, “I want to rewire my disobedient brain.” Then the rest of the band joins in, bringing the energy up to match the fervency of Page’s lyrics with horn squeals and guitar arpeggios. But Page’s lyrics — and her voice — are the star of the show, and they remain so for much of the EP. The band, which includes a horn section, a violin, guitar, upright bass, and drums, adds details at just the right moments, giving Page’s voice textures to work with.
As a song, “Little Coast” stands on its own, but it also works as a thematic starting point for Salt Mosaic, whose songs share themes of endings and beginnings, of stripping away layers to reveal the essential self. “The name Salt Mosaic comes from the fact that the songs I ended up picking to record are all pretty much about broken relationships, be they romantic or friendships,” Page says. “I used to have really bitter, salty feelings about those experiences and those people.” Page elaborates on the cathartic aspect of songwriting, saying part of the process is “taking those bitter, salty feelings and turning them into something beautiful.”
“Simple Sugar is sort of the aftermath of Salt Mosaic,” Page says of her planned sophomore release. “One of the lyrics for one of the newer songs is ‘When you’re used to salt, everything tastes sweet.’” As with Salt Mosaic, Page will track her new, sweeter batch of songs at Young Avenue Sound. Calvin Lauber will reprise his role as engineer for the Simple Sugar sessions. “The first EP was kind of experimental. I was figuring a lot out,” Page says, expounding on the two EPs’ complementary relationship. “In my head they go together; they’re kind of a pair.” But Page says that, while Salt Mosaic collected songs she wrote over a span of six years, from age 18 to just weeks before the recording sessions, the songs on the new EP are “all songs I’ve written since September.” She thinks that will lead to Simple Sugar sounding more streamlined than Salt Mosaic, which, true to it’s name, has a collage-like eccentricity, an eclectic mix of quirky but complementary colors.
“I’m just a classic band kid. That was my group in high school,” Page says. “I was in marching band, and concert band, and choir.” Music has always been a part of her life, Page says. She started playing piano as a child in central Pennsylvania. Her parents bought the piano for her older siblings, but Page, the youngest, was the one to embrace it. Page began taking formal piano lessons, and in the fourth grade, she joined the school band and took up oboe as well. Citing her classical training, she counts Claude Debussy among her influences, which also include contemporary artists St. Vincent and Fiona Apple, who share an experimental streak that appeals to Page. “They both take risks,” Page says, then adds, “I want my music to have a personality.”
The Fool Fest show kicks off a busy spring for Page and her crew. She’s playing Lucero’s annual Block Party at Minglewood Hall on April 14th before she and her band return to the studio to begin tracking Simple Sugar. This summer, they head out on a 10-day east coast tour, to New York and back.
Fool Fest 2 featuring Louise Page, Negro Terror, Model Zero, and Alicja-Pop at Shangri-La Records, Saturday, March 31st at 2 p.m.
Brenna Huff 
Justin Fox Burks 
courtesy Missing Piece 
Kaitlyn Flint