Sara Moseley – Memphis Flyer

Frank McLallen is a familiar face to Memphis music fans. He’s been in Ex-Cult, was a founding member of The Sheiks, backed Jack O, wailed with the Tennessee Screamers, and rocked with Model Zero. Now, he’s going solo.

McLallen’s solo album is called Extra Eyes, and he says getting to a place where he could make and release the music he wants has been a journey. “I got chewed up and spit out of a decade of a rock and roll career and lost myself for a few years,” he says. “There were only two ways this was gonna go, north or south … I got my shit together and tried to do this thing all over again. I fell in love with music again.”

McLallen recorded the songs that would become Extra Eyes at Memphis Magnetic, and the album is being released on the studio’s Red Curtain Records. “I’ve spent so much time collaborating with bands, where writing and direction were shaped by group dynamics,” McLallen says. “Being in a band is a wonderful experience, and I still love it, but I’ve enjoyed this whole trip of getting to know myself again. This project has allowed me to write and record ideas with no goal in mind other than to be completely honest in my expression.”

The music video for the lead single “Manic” was directed by Noah Miller, with art direction by Sarah Moseley. “It’s a Southern gothic daydream,” says McLallen. “We filmed it at my uncle’s property in North Mississippi, built before the Civil War. The place has a surreal element to it, and it’s so lush, so green out there in the springtime.”

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

Gotta Catch ’Em All

Some collect baseball cards; others collect Pokemon cards. For Alex Paulus, a kid in the ’90s, it was Marvel trading cards. “That was my favorite thing when I was a kid,” he says. “They were like these fully rendered oil paintings of Marvel characters.” Little did he know that his childhood hobby would inspire him to start a new kind of trading card in Memphis, almost three decades later.

In 2020, when lockdown rolled around and boredom took over, the artist explains, he had an itch to return to those Marvel cards that had once excited him, so he purchased a box of them. “I found out that in one of the packs in the box, you could get an original hand-drawn piece of art on a trading card,” Paulus says. “And I got one of those cards. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is really cool.’ … So that kind of gave me the idea of what if I could buy a pack and it was just filled with all of these handmade cards and how cool that would be.”

Paulus, as it turns out, wasn’t the first to think of creating trading cards with original art. That honor belongs to a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who in 1996 initiated an ongoing and now worldwide performance whereby artists of all backgrounds create, collect, sell, and trade self-made unique works, 2.5-by-3.5 inches in size.

Inspired by this, Paulus became determined to bring the phenomenon to Memphis and started the Artist Trading Cards Memphis group, with local artists creating their own tiny art to sell and trade. In March, the group hosted their first event and are now gearing up for their second, this time at Crosstown Art Bar. The goal, Paulus explains, is to “inspire others to make their own artist trading cards and become part of the performance, too.”

For the event, a few artists will sell their limited-edition 2.5-by-3.5-inch works at affordable prices, some as low as $10. Some will sell them individually, and others will sell them in packs. Some cards you’ll be able to see before purchasing, and others will be a surprise. Some packs will even have golden tickets for full-sized artwork if you’re lucky. Of course, you’ll be able to trade cards with other collectors at the event, and you can even bring in your own 2.5-by-3.5-inch works to trade for the last hour from 8 to 9 p.m.

Participating artists, along with Paulus, include Mary Jo Karimnia, Sara Moseley, Nick Peña, Tad Lauritzen Wright, and Michelle Fair. “These are legit gallery-showing artists who are making these,” Paulus says of the artists. “It’s not just getting our friends who like to doodle on stuff.”

Keep up with the group on Instagram (@artisttradingcardsmemphis).

Artist Trading Card Event, Crosstown Art Bar, Sunday, July 16, 6-9 p.m.