A recent tweet by FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel argues against policy rulings custom built to enable the Sinclair Broadcast group’s $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune media. The move she criticizes would transfer ownership of WREG Memphis and push the overtly Conservative company’s local market reach well past what’s previously been allowed. Rosenworcel’s comments were inspired, in part, by President Donald Trump’s apparent endorsement of Sinclair over “fake news” media like “CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS.”
As I have said before, there is a troubling pattern at the @FCC. The agency’s big media policy decisions all seem custom-built for the business plan of Sinclair Broadcasting.
Will WREG dodge the Sinclair bullet? FCC commissioner criticizes policy decisions.
What makes Trump’s endorsement especially troublesome — even for him — is the fact that Sinclair’s stations operate unbranded and so, by way of affiliation, these Sinclair stations the President endorses often are the same NBC, ABC, CBS stations he also criticizes. And sometimes Fox stations as well.
Sinclair has been collecting network affiliated stations in an environment where cable news gets all the attention even though local TV news has more reach than all four major cable news stations combined
“Critics, including Rosenworcel, are concerned that under Chairman Ajit Pai, who Trump appointed last year, the FCC is moving deliberately to allow the Sinclair-Tribune merger to go through. Known for pushing right-wing viewpoints within the stations it already owns, the broadcaster drew ire this week after a viral video showed how local anchors nationwide are forced to read the same pre-packaged scripts.”
Will WREG dodge the Sinclair bullet? FCC commissioner criticizes policy decisions. (2)
When the FCC cleared a path for Sinclair’s acquisition in May it was widely assumed that the deal would go through quickly, but that hasn’t been the case. Delays have resulted from ongoing wrangling with antitrust officials in the Justice Department and the FCC’s internal investigation into decisions made by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and “whether there had been [FCC] coordination with [Sinclair].”
A new art installation called “Barrier Free” now stands in the Hall of Mayors at Memphis City Hall.
It’s beautiful. It’s big…real big. The main piece has larger-than-life photos of families from across the city.
That part of the piece represents “our beautiful diverse tapestry,” reads the artist’s statement from Yancy Villa-Calvo, hired to create the installation by Latino Memphis.
Graphic shirts at the end caught my eye. What did they say?
The delightful little girl’s shirt reads “Follow Your Heart” and I hope she follows hers.
The man standing behind her followed his heart when it came to choose his wardrobe. His shirt reads “I don’t give a….” Below the words, a cartoon rat leads a cartoon donkey.
Reading between those twisty lines of high comedy, you know this shirt implies: “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
Then, you look up at the man wearing the shirt and you realize he really doesn’t. At. All.
Good for you Rat’s Ass Shirt in a Big Public Art Display Guy. Much respect for you playing by your own rules.
A performing arts camp at Graceland where kids “follow in the footsteps of Elvis”?
Sounds good to me.
The Presley home and museum has been in an expansionist phase, evolving the mission, and reshaping the popular tourist destination’s identity. This July families with kids between the ages of 6 and 15 can be among the first to take part in Graceland’s new, “immersive performing arts experience.”
From the media release:
Participants will learn from local and Broadway professionals as they explore their creativity in workshops at the Graceland Soundstage, on stage at The Guest House at Graceland™ Theater and on actual production sets featured in the acclaimed “Sun Records” TV series. Over the four days of activities, everyone will develop their own showcase, culminating in an evening of performances on stage at The Guest House Theater for family and friends.
The camp experience includes four nights at The Guest House hotel and availability is limited.
An update on the city’s waiver petition for the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue is slated as the Tennessee Historical Commission’s (THC) first agenda item at its meeting this Friday.
As THC chair told city officials late last month, the commission won’t vote on the waiver, but there will be allotted time for public comments concerning the Forrest waiver and consideration by the commission of holding a special session to hear the request.
Mayor Jim Strickland, Memphis City Council attorney Allan Wade, and City of Memphis attorney Bruce McMullen have said they will attend the meeting to make an oral request for the commission to hear the waiver petition.
The mayor also plans to bring along about 50 local faith leaders and businessmen to make their case for the statue’s removal.
Leader of local activist efforts to remove the city’s Confederate statues, Tami Sawyer says she will also attend the meeting and speak on behalf of the #takeemdown901 supporters.
The THC meeting is scheduled for Friday at 9:00 a.m. EST in Athens.
For a second day, the weather gods smiled on the afternoon show. This one, at Memphis Made Brewery, featured a truly international cast, with Magic Factory from New Zealand being the farthest afield.
The Memphis band Model Zero made something of a debut with a groovy, hybrid drum machine and live drummer setup.
Model Zero
The atmosphere was friendly, with some kids running around and old friends reconnecting. Allison Green, a New Orleans photographer, has been covering Gonerfest for four years. “It’s my friend’s bachelorette party, so I’m taking it a little easy. I love shooting candids at the day shows more than anything.”
She says Gonerfest has been one of her favorite events to photograph. “Visually, Ty Segall’s set he did a couple of years ago was brilliant. He knows how to put on a show.” she recalled. “Hank Wood and the Hammerheads blew me away. They had two different drummers, and it was the best I’ve ever seen that done. There were tribal undertones, with traditional drums on top, and it was amazing.”
The highlight of her Gonerfest so far was Thursday night’s Sweet Knives performance. “I love Alicja Trout. I was a huge fan of the Lost Sounds. My buddy Rob and I were working in the darkroom—we went to college together—and he said, ‘You need to come to this show with me!’ That was my introduction to the Memphis scene in Chicago. It was 2004, probably? That’s when I saw the Lost Sounds. Alicja’s just the nicest human being in the world. I adore her. It’s very nostalgic for me.”
Kyle Johnson and Alyssa Moore keep Gonerfest sounding good.
Memphis bassist Jeremy Scott said it’s important to pace yourself during these long day/night show combos. “I love the outdoor shows at Murphy’s. Blood Bags, out of New Zealand, played last night, but they first played last year, and I saw people in the room with their jaws dropped. They were just that freakin’ good. Heavy, no bullshit, straightforward rock.”
He has played Gonerfest four times, but last year’s Reigning Sound reunion was his favorite. I don’t think we knew we were going to do it ever again, so to have that go off as well as it did was a lot of fun.”
I didn’t get pictures of anyone I talked to, so here are a couple of random guys.
Thunderroads, a Japanese band, closed out the after with a spectacularly athletic set that ended with Masahuru, brother of Seiji from Gonerfest favorites Guitar Wolf, leaping from the landscaping.
Masahuru of Thunderroads
Friday night at the Hi Tone started off with Frantic Stuffs from Osaka, Japan playing a charming, English-challenged set. Outside, Goner Records founder Eric Friedl was happy with the way things were going. “The first band is killing it, and it’s as full as it was last night already.”
Finding bands to fill out the weekend is a year-round job, he says. “There are a range of bands you would like to get. Then some people approach us and say, we’ll build a tour to get there, or we’re going to be on tour, it would be great if we could play. Then other people we ask. It’s kind of a random mix. We don’t have enough money to say, ‘We want you. We’re going to fly you in and put you up.’ So it has to be a collaboration between the bands and us. That’s why it works, I think. People really want to be here. People like Mudhoney, Cosmic Psychos—these bands could make more money other places, but they want to be here.”
In the crowded Hi Tone, San Fransciso’s Peacers delivered noisy power pop seeped in Big Star harmonies and Husker Du noise meltdowns.
Gonerfest 14: Friday (3)
Foster Care from New York City blew the roof off with rude, old school hardcore. When the crowd started to throw beer cans onto the stage (a sign that things are going well at Gonerfest) Foster Care’s bassist upped the ante by emptying out the contents of a trash can onto the audience, then wearing the trash can while he played.
Foster Care, with trash can.
The set ended with a punk puppy pile.
Foster Care gets intimate with the fans.
Lindsey, a Memphian attending her fourth Gonerfest, was there for one band. “Nots are my favorite!”
Gonerfest 14: Friday
Nots had their coming out party at Gonerfest a few years ago, and now they’re a staple of the festival. This year, fresh off the road, they did not disappoint, putting forward some new, synthesizer heavy songs, mixed with guitar-led screamers.
Gonerfest 14: Friday (2)
Tyvek, another veteran Gonerfest band, rose to the challenge the Nots laid down. pushed and swayed.
Tyvek
Sydney, Australia punks feedtime’s drummer was rejected for his visa, so the band played their headlining set with Anthony from San Francisco’s Leather Uppers sitting in. At that point, the Hi Tone main room was so packed I couldn’t make it in the door. I paused for a moment to talk to Elise from Salt Lake City, Utah. “I’ve been to Memphis, but this is my first Gonerfest,” she said. “It’s fucking awesome. I like everything about Memphis—the culture, the people, the music.”
After a blisteringly hot Cooper Young Festival, the weather for the Gonerfest opening ceremonies in the Cooper Young gazebo was just about perfect.
King Louis and Abe White rock the crowd at the Cooper Young gazebo for Gonerfest 14’s opening ceremonies.
The talent, however, was less cooperative. Gonerfest staple King Louis was scheduled to open the show with former Manatees and True Sons of Thunder member Abe White on drums, leading into Memphis legend Greg Oblivian Cartwright. Instead, Cartwright—in town from Asheville, North Carolina where he’s raising a brood of kids—opened up with some new songs in a more mellow mode, before being joined by Louis on drums for “Bad Man”, “North Cakalacky Girl”, and ‘Hey Hey Mama”. From there on, White, Cartwright, and King Louis swapped around in various configurations, calling out songs, (Louis’ rendition of “Streets of Iron”, a song he performed with Jay Reatard, has become a memorial tradition at Gonerfest) until the permit ran out. As Goner Records owner Zach Ives said, “There are no schedules in rock and roll”.
Goner Records’ Zach Ives and Greg Cartwright
At 9 PM, the party cranked up at the Hi Tone, where a mixed crowd of Memphians, and international visitors sipped the tasty Memphis Made Brewing Gonerfest beers: a Sessions IPA and the ever popular Gönerbraü. A man named Efe was in town from Toronto, Canada for his second Gonerfest. “One of the things I had to think of before coming was whether or not the political climate would effect it,” he says. “Those kinds of things have far reaching consequences.”
The Canadian wondered if the “Trump effect” had suppressed the number of international travelers coming to the festival. “Maybe people are bummed out,” he said. “But I’m here. There’s a lot of bands from Japan, a lot of bands from New Zealand. Other people have mentioned it, too.”
But after last year’s Gonerfest, Efe says he couldn’t bear missing it this year. “It’s great. I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t like it! I love the aspect of discovery. Gonerfest has a mix of legendary bands—we know you know this, or, look it up—and a bunch of new bands that you look up on Soundcloud and go, holy shit, that’s awesome! That’s the most rewarding part. I hope they keep it that way. In America, you’re saturated with all these big music festivals, but it’s very generic, paint-by-numbers type stuff.”
Benni
The diversity of musical styles was evident from the beginning, with Benni, a new act on the Goner roster. The New Orleans-based keyboardist has played with several Goner-adjacent acts rock acts, but his debut album is all analog synths action.
Gonerfest 14: Thursday
By the time New Zealand screamers Blood Bags’ put a cap on their set, Efe’s turnout worries appeared to be misplaced, as the Hi Tone big room filled up.
Hi Tone crowd
Sweet Knives, the Memphis band made of some former Lost Sounds members, including Alicja Trout and Rich Crook, John Garland, and Jonny Valiant, played a blistering set of mostly new songs. The band was in rare form, and the crowd ate it up. Why doesn’t every 14 year old cool girl in America have Trout’s music in their playlists?
Gonerfest 14: Thursday (3)
Los Angeles’ Die Group kept the party rolling with the kind of chunky, muscular riffs that are Gonerfest specialties.
One of the most anticipated acts of the weekend was A Giant Dog, garage rock powerhouses from Austin. Singer Stephanie Ellis was all flailing limbs and piercing screams, grabbing the crowd from the first notes. The band had been hanging out with some folks from down under, so they climaxed their set with a spirited cover of INXS’ “Don’t Change”.
“This is my first Gonerfest,” she said later. “A Giant Dog has been together for nearly a decade. We’ve attended Gonerfest, and we wanted to play. We played the Hi Tone when there wasn’t anybody here. So this is our first Gonerfest, and it’s a damn fucking good one!”
Gonerfest 14: Thursday (2)
Gonerfester crashing after the first full day of rock.
People the world over associate the Bluff City with the sounds of rock-and-roll, the blues, jazz, Stax-flavored soul, and Goner’s brand of garage-punk. Classical music rarely gets a mention in that list — despite the accomplished Memphis Symphony Orchestra (see Chris McCoy’s cover story below), the PRIZM Ensemble (see Alex Greene’s June 15th column), and others. The Luna Nova Ensemble is another hidden gem for the music lover in search of something a little more refined.
Luna Nova Music is celebrating the 11th annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church June 21st-24th. The festival will include performances of works by Bach, Bartok, Martinů, and Ravel, as well as original compositions by three composers selected from the 189 entrants to the Luna Nova student composition contest.
Patricia Gray, Ph.D., is the executive director of Luna Nova Music. Gray has been a musician her whole life and once taught in the music department at Rhodes College, after which she began working with the music tech division of the Associated Colleges of the South, a consortium of colleges like Rhodes. “That was a springboard,” Gray says. “That’s where Luna Nova came from, because I was working with a lot of composers and performers of new music who were from small colleges, and they didn’t all have the support that they would like to have. So we were able to blend a lot of resources from a number of institutions and build an ensemble and build a concert series and create a lot of wonderful networking between really talented people. That just started with a bang.”
Gray couldn’t help but notice that students, talented though they might be, did not always have access to the funds, technology, or professional performers necessary to lay down a high-quality recording of their compositions. And it’s exactly that kind of recording that a student bound for post-graduate studies or a career in recording or performance would need. Gray and her husband Robert Patterson found a void in the music community, and they set about filling it.
Luna Nova was initially funded by a Mellon Grant, but when the grant ran out, Gray and Patterson kept the ball rolling. They established Luna Nova as a private 501(c)(3), and with the help of Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, they began the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival to showcase the composing talents of students worldwide and the performance abilities of local and national classical musicians. “Since we’ve been independent in Memphis, it’s been worldwide,” Gray says. “We’ve had people from France and Italy and Australia and China.”
This year marks the 11th anniversary of the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival, and once again, Luna Nova has partnered with the Beethoven Club, a group of local musicians dedicated to the promotion and sustenance of classical music, to put on the international student composition contest. The winners of this year’s contest are Alex Burtzos from New York, Brendan McMullen from Seattle, and Jack Frerer from Australia. (Fun fact: Burtzos is the founder and president of ICEBERG New Music collective, a group that has been working with Memphis’ own Blueshift Ensemble during a residency at Crosstown Arts this week, see below.) Each of the three composers boasts a list of impressive bona fides, and each will have a piece performed in this year’s festival.
The performers will be John McMurtery (flute), Gregory Maytan (violin), Nobuko Igarashi (clarinet), Craig Hultgren (cello), Paul Murray (baritone), Perry Mears (piano), Daniel Gilbert (violin), Tomaz Robak (piano), Jonathan Kirkscey (cello), Marisa Polesky (violin), Jenny Davis (flute), Brian Ray (piano), Robert Patterson (horn), Mark Volker (guitar), and Michelle Vigneau (oboe).
The Belvedere Chamber Music Festival will be presented at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on June 21-24, 2017. Evening concerts start at 7:30 and are free and open to the public. Afternoon concerts are Thursday and Friday at 3:00.
On January 20, 2017, Trump took office. The next day, January 21, was the biggest protest march in history.
Memphis filmmaker Joann Self Selvidge was in Washington D.C. for the Women’s March that day. Now, along with her partner from The Keepers documentary Sara Kaye Larson, photojournalist Yolanda M. James, and Amurica photographer Jamie Harmon, Selvidge has created a unique art and film exhibit dedicated to the legacy of the Woman’s March and the urgency of keeping the movement going.
Inaugurate The Resistance will open tomorrow night, Friday, May 5, at Crosstown Arts. People are encouraged to bring their own signs from that or any other march to display on the exhibit’s Community Wall. The centerpiece of the show will be a “visual tunnel”, with video and images from the march projected into the 3D space to simulate the experience of marching with the huge crowds. You can also share your stories of resistance with the filmmakers in short interviews conducted from 5-6 PM on Friday and Monday and 11-2 on Saturday.
Music Video Monday is on a Thursday and its time to PANIC!
On Friday, March 31 at the New Daisy Theatre, Dead Soliders is throwing a record release party for their third release The Great Emptiness. The band’s electrifying live shows and careful song craft have made them one of Memphis’ favorites, landing them on the Memphis Flyer’s Best of Memphis Best Band list. For the new record, guitarist and vocalist Michael Jasud says, third time’s the charm. ““If you make furniture, is the first table you make going to be the best? No! The last table you make is going to be the best one…If you want longevity, then lightening in a bottle is not the way to go about it. If it happens by accident, that might make a great record, but it doesn’t necessarily speak to the artistry behind it.”
“Prophets of Doom” is is the galloping first single from The Great Emptiness. The band indulges in a little media criticism, calling out the Fox News fearmongers and self-serving propagandists with lines like “We’ve got to keep you scared to keep our jobs.” In the video, directed by Jasud and shot and edited by Joey Miller and Sam Shansky, the band hits the streets to get the wrd out about the dangers of Candy Crush invites.
Music Video Monday Special Thursday Edition: Dead Soldiers
For more about Dead Soldiers new record, check out the music feature in next week’s Flyer. Meanwhile, I’ll leave with a little more media criticism from Jasud: “I think the modern comic book movie is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to cinema. They’ve made enough of them, they’re using all the money, Hollywood won’t take chances any more, because they can just spend $300 million on an X-Men movie that has the exact same plot as every other superhero movie. I don’t care about aliens destroying the earth any more. I don’t care about ANYTHING destroying the Earth. In fact, I want something to destroy the Earth for real. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. So I guess that’s why people go to see superhero movies, but I don’t like them, either.”
And now, Music Video Monday brings you a new Weirdo.
I know what you’re saying. “If there’s one thing Memphis has plenty of, it’s weirdos.” But we (and by “we”, I mean “I’, because it’s pretty much just me doing this MVM thing) have a new weirdo for you, and he’s the kind of high quality weirdo you expect from Memphis. His name is A Weirdo From Memphis, and you’ve got to respect the fact that he’s just putting it all out there like that. Not only does he have a smooth, smart flow, but he tops it all off with a floppy pink anime hat.
In “America’s Perverted Gentlemen (Drawls)”, he’s joining bass virtuoso MonoNeon for a towed skateboard trip down Madison Avenue. The crew makes a short stop at venerable Memphis smoke shop Whatever, because this kind of weird doesn’t just make itself. You have to work at it.
Both artists come from the IMAKEMADBEATS Unapologetic crew, and he also directed the snack-sized music video. Peep it:
