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Music Record Reviews

Tav Falco Rides the Snake to Nashville

Tav Falco is the ultimate rock and roll auteur, having crafted a persona that tossed convention in the dustbin like yesterday’s news, thereby putting the world on notice. Even saying he purveys “rock and roll” is too conventional for this artist, as the songs he’s curated over the years have included tango, country and western, blues, rockabilly, and crime jazz. That alone is indicative of his ambition. He shall never don the straitjacket of the generic.

Memphians of my generation have known this for a long time. Indeed, Falco was an icon of the city’s underground when he lived here, and remains so for many, though he’s moved onto an international stage in this century, living in Europe or Southeast Asia as his muse dictates. One can still imagine him haunting back alleys and botanicas of Memphis like a juke-joint flaneur. For that reason, he’s sometimes taken for granted here. Yet who else in these days of pastiche treads the same ground with such panache?

Case in point: this year’s live album from Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Nashville Sessions: Live at Bridgestone Arena Studios, recorded for Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel as he and his band toured the country last year. It’s an album that stays true to his original vision, even as it also reveals his evolution. “Ride the snake until we meet again,” reads the album’s cover. “Ride the snake until the end.”

For starters, it’s an excellent career retrospective, including songs from nearly every epoch of this artist’s growth, even as the album refashions them through Falco’s crack Italian band. The group features well-known ringer and session guitarist Mario Monterosso, who moved to Memphis from Rome years ago, joined by Giuseppe Sangirardi on bass and Walter Brunetti on drums, and here they achieve a kind of alchemy, streamlining the chaos of older versions of the Panther Burns while preserving the unhinged approach that so complements Falco’s unique vocals.

Part of the Panther Burns’ power has always rested in pairing Falco’s raw vocals and rhythm guitar with a true virtuoso. This began with the band’s co-founder, the late Alex Chilton, whose command of music led him to adopt a contrarian attitude, sometimes playing a half-step out of tune with the band with mischievous glee. Later, others like New Orleans’ George Reinecke filled that role. Today it’s Monterosso, whose youthful obsession with rockabilly and all things Memphis led to his connection with Falco, and his role as the group’s musical director.

His jazz inclinations, like Chilton’s, are a perfect foil to Falco’s preference for drama over perfect pitch. If Falco’s vocals are bent on embodying the character of each song rather than singing scales, they still rely on executing the music with a fidelity to the original flavor. Thus, the mystery of “Master of Chaos,” a co-write by Monterosso and Falco, is only heightened by the former’s knowledge of crime jazz’s dark harmonies. Introducing it as “an homage to the French literary and cinematic figure … the genius of crime, Fantômas,” Falco conjures up a shadow play with his words, savoring every syllable, while Monterosso and band march on.

The band transforms classic songs from Falco’s long career with some creative twists. “Cuban Rebel Girl,” which was originally a four-on-the-floor rocker, now takes on a swing that almost suggests striptease. And that suggestion of dishabille highlights a more erotic side of Falco’s imagined femme rebelle.

All in all, the band sound is heavier than you might expect. They hammer down as the guitars’ volume swells, with a focus and drive that sometimes eluded the more ramshackle sounds of Falco’s earlier bands. This, too, is a welcome evolution, inspiring Falco to sing with more authority than ever. If you’ve never experienced the Panther Burns before, this is the perfect entre into Falco’s world, accomplished with all the immediacy of a live performance. Pick up a copy and allow yourself to be transported to the Delta, New Orleans, Argentina, Rome, and back again to Memphis, where it all was born.

Tav Falco’s Panther Burns perform at Lafayette’s Music Room Wednesday, October 4th, 7 p.m. Click here for tickets.

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We Saw You

We Saw You: Super Cool Musical Birthday Bash

If Stax great Carla Thomas shows up at your birthday party, you know you’ve made it.

Mario Monterosso, a guitarist-singer-songwriter and Memphis transplant, probably said, “Gee whiz,” several times at his 50th birthday party, which was held October 10th at B-SIDE Bar in Minglewood Hall. Actually, he did say that — in so many words. “‘Wow, That’s Carla,’ I said to myself,” Monterosso recalls.

Scott Bomar, Carla Thomas, and Alex Greene at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)

And if having Thomas as one of your party guests wasn’t enough, performing on stage with the legendary Tav Falco was the icing on the birthday cake.

Tav Falco at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Falco was why Monterosso ended up in Memphis in the first place. Monterosso, who is from Catania, Italy, met Falco in Rome in 2014.  Falco was looking for a guitarist for his new album, Command Performance and Monterosso became that guitarist. Falco then asked him to produce the album. And Monterosso also co-wrote two songs  — “Master of Chaos” and “Memphis Ramble” —  with Falco.

Memphis was part of the Command Performance album tour. “When I put my foot in Memphis, immediately I decided, ‘Hey, this is the place,’ says Monterosso. “Sometimes you feel the things on your skin. And immediately I thought that I wanted to live, at least for a little while, in Memphis.” He quit his job in Sicily and moved to Memphis on July 29th, 2016, and he’s become the lead guitarist in Falco’s band, Panther Burns.

The birthday party at B-SIDE, with its collection of Monterosso’s old and new friends, was something special. “Well, that was huge,” he says. “My best friends ever, that I’ve been knowing ever since I was a kid. Then I had my bandmates that are Italians from Rome. So, they are connected to my Roman life. And then I had Tav, of course, who represented the change of my life.

“Then I had all those people, new friends, from Scott Bomar to John Paul Keith to Will Sexton to Jonathan Finder to Dabney Coors to Carla Thomas. So, I had my entire life over there the day of my 50th birthday.”

Recalling when he first moved to Memphis, Monterosso says, “I started out from zero again. So, I went to jam sessions just like when you are a teenager.”

He began meeting and working with Memphis music folks, including Keith, Sexton, Amy LaVere, Dale Watson, and Jason D. Williams.

John Paul Keith and Joanna D’ Gerolamo at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Will Sexton and Amy LaVere at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Monterosso, along with Falco and the Panther Burns, jammed about 75 minutes on stage at B-SIDE. 

Giuseppe Sangirardi and Mia Hillix at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Mario Monterosso, Tav Falco, and Giuseppe Sangirardi on stage at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Velvetina Taylor performed at the Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Jana Finder took care of the birthday cake portion of the party. “Jana asked me if I had a preference. I’m not a great eater of sweets or candy, but I love chocolate cakes and lemon cakes.” Jana baked one of each. “So, I got both,” says Monterosso.

Mario Monterosso with his birthday cakes made by Jana Finder (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Memphis is now home for Monterosso. “Fifty is a moment in which you walk through your entire life. You look behind and see what you built and what you have. And everything was connected, was perfectly blended, that night — my past and my present. So, this is why I was so happy.

“I had people that I love and people that love me. And many times that night I said each one of the people at the party represents a little piece of my music puzzle.”

Tav Falco and Michael Donahue at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Jonathan Finder)
Robbie McDaniel, Geri and Hal Lansky, and Susan Murrmann at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Calvin and Louise Turley and Susan Murrmann at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jacob Church at Mario Monterosso birthday party (Credit: Michael Donahue)
We Saw You

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Music Music Features

Tav Falco Returns to Memphis

Tav Falco will be at his old stomping ground, Lafayette’s Music Room, but he won’t be stomping. He’ll be dancing. And singing.

Indeed, Falco and his band Panther Burns, who appeared in 2018 at Lafayette’s Music Room, will return September 8th to promote their EP, Club Car Zodiac.

“I am going to sing and dance and celebrate like an Aztec sun worshiper,” Falco says.

On previous tours, Falco dealt with “incendiary political issues.” He performed songs, including “Doomsday Baby,” and “lynching ballads,” including “Strange Fruit.”

But now Falco wants to “sing and dance together and join arm in arm in what rock-and-roll is and what ballroom is and what tango is all about. And this is what we’re going to do on stage at Lafayette’s.”

You name it, Falco, who now lives just south of Bangkok on Wong Amat Beach, has done it. He’s also a photographer, filmmaker, actor, and author.

Panther Burns, which he began with the late Alex Chilton, was “named after the legendary plantation off Highway 61 just north of Greenville, Mississippi.” Falco describes Panther Burns music as “flowery, avant/retro, psychedelic ballroom, romance. It crosses genres of blues, rock-and-roll, rhythm and blues, tango, samba, and balladry.”

“While mansions are burning in the background, all of the Southern themes that we extol — brother against brother, unrequited love — we take up where Scarlett O’Hara says as her mansion, Tara, was up in flames. She said, ‘Well, tomorrow is another day.’”

Mario Monterroso, a guitarist/singer/songwriter whom Falco has worked with since 2014, will be the opener at Lafayette’s.

“Mario was so excited about Memphis after the Command Performance tour that had ‘Memphis Ramble’ on it — a song we worked on for quite a while — that he said, ‘Tav, I want to live in Memphis.’”

Monterroso now has “become a real presence on the Memphis music scene.”

Those who follow Falco on social media have seen videos of him dancing the tango. “I’ve been dancing for a while and I’m still learning.” Tango is “a relationship with a partner. It’s something you cultivate.” It’s “about passion. It’s about daggers.”

Falco performed his tango song, “Drop Your Mask,” in Memphis at his first Panther Burns show at a cotton loft at 96 South Front Street. “I was always fascinated with the music that I’d heard. And I sang a tango in 1979 to a recording of a Xavier Cugat tango on my first Panther Burns show.”

But, he says, “I didn’t start dancing tango until I came over to Europe in ’92. That’s when I met tango dancers in Vienna. I started learning with Argentine masters and I’m still learning.”

Tango is also featured on Club Car Zodiac. “I wrote ‘Tango Primavera’ about my experiences performing with pianist Mirkaccio Dettori in the cabaret in Rome. I’ve adopted a dancing cane and a matelot.”

A matelot is the “flat straw hat” popularized by gondoliers and Maurice Chevalier. “I developed this character, ‘L’Ultimo Gigolo.’ I’m doing songs and dancing with that in a cabaret in Rome. After this tour, I’m going back to Rome for another short run of appearances.”

Falco isn’t waiting until tomorrow to think about his next move. “I want to come back to Memphis and collaborate with Mario Monterroso on a theater cabaret performance that, actually, we want to premiere at Theatre Memphis. That is our goal, and the objective is a creation of our album, Cabaret of Daggers. It’s going to be a musical theater production.

This will be something he’s never done before. “I’m going to sing and dance. I’m going to have a shadow dancing partner with me, a female partner. I have some pretty good ideas for this and we have the content and the material.”

Anything else Falco hasn’t done? “I think I’m onto what I want to be doing, other than the diversion of windsurfing that I see windsurfers doing from my balcony. I would like to learn how to windsurf over ocean waves.”

Tav Falco’s Panther Burns at 7 p.m. September 8th at Lafayette’s Music Room at 2119 Madison Avenue. Tickets: $15-$25. (901) 207-5097

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Music Music Features

Mario Monterosso Takes It Away

Mario Monterosso is no stranger to these pages, having moved here nearly six years ago from Rome, quickly becoming a fixture in the local roots-rock scene. He’s often seen accompanying Dale Watson at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way or, more recently, leading his own combo through a mix of originals, Louis Prima, and Chuck Berry. But anyone familiar with these outings may be surprised at Monterosso’s recent solo album, Take It Away (ORG Music), a largely instrumental affair that showcases the guitarist’s eclectic influences. Roaming effortlessly from spaghetti Western soundtracks to surf to blues to Mancini-esque jazz, Monterosso’s originals offer a guided tour through the instrumental sounds of the ’50s and ’60s. And that’s just how he wanted it.

“Early in the 2020 quarantine, Dale Watson recorded an instrumental album, Dale Watson Presents: The Memphians. I co-wrote four of the songs. And I thought, ‘Wow, instrumental albums are really cool.’ It’s a different way to conceive of and write a song, in terms of composition. When you have lyrics, they bring people somewhere through the words. But when you write an instrumental, it has to be the melody that brings people somewhere. And so instrumental songs have to be simple. From bossa nova records to Duane Eddy or Chet Atkins, they use simple melodies. That’s the one thing that remains in people’s heads.”

As the pandemic caused most gigs to dry up, Monterosso did what many of us did during quarantine: He watched TV. But inspiration waited for him there. “One night I was watching this very old edition of Zorro from 1975. I saw it with my parents in the theater when it came out. I was 3! And seeing it again, I thought the soundtrack was so cool. It was written by two Italians, the De Angelis brothers, also known as Oliver Onions. They wrote so many Italian soundtracks! So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to write a tribute,’ and I wrote ‘The Ballad of Zorro.’ After that, I kept writing instrumentals, and at one point I thought, ‘Okay, let’s do an album.’”

By then, with a host of new songs in his bag, the scenery had changed dramatically for Monterosso. “I went to Italy because my mother was dying. And it seems that some of my songs had been written for that event. It seems that way, but they weren’t. It was weird, writing a song entitled ‘Without You,’ with that atmosphere and even a theremin used like an opera singer or a ghost.”

The ghosts were especially present where Monterosso was staying. “I was staying in this old family house from 1701, about 10 miles from downtown Catania [Sicily] in Trecastagni, in the foothills of Mount Etna. That’s where I learned to play the guitar, when I was 13 or 14. So I called my friend Matteo [Spinazzé Savaris], who’s recorded all of my albums and some of Tav Falco’s albums in Rome. He came down to Sicily with all the equipment and we set it up inside my house. It was a great experience. We recorded live. I only did a few overdubs after. And I did it with all my old music mates, musicians that I grew up with. It was a beautiful experience.”

The final result is a genre-hopping tour through intriguing melodies and arrangements. It’s no surprise that Monterosso’s first instrumentals were made in collaboration with another great eclecticist, Arkansas native Tav Falco, who made his name as a music/art auteur in Memphis before relocating to Europe and recruiting Monterosso as his musical director. The instrumental version of “Master of Chaos,” which the two co-wrote, is a highlight of Falco’s Cabaret of Daggers album, and Falco’s recent Club Car Zodiac features an instrumental with a spoken-word monologue, “Tony Driver Blues,” based on a film of the same name. A similar Falco monologue lends Take It Away its only vocals as well, the noirish “Midnight in Memphis.” For Monterosso, it represents Falco’s profound influence on his life. “When he writes, Tav has the ability to bring you in and put you somewhere,” he says. Beyond that, Falco brought him to Memphis. “I will always be grateful because Tav was my boat to Ellis Island.”

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Music Music Blog

Goner TV Presents Ross Johnson’s Morally Gigantic Universe

courtesy of Goner Records

Ross Johnson

Ross Johnson, having laid down the back beat of underground Memphis bands for over forty years, is on the verge of spilling the beans.

He’s worn the hat of the rock ‘n’ roll librarian, historian, chronicler, and/or raconteur for some time now, both penning a definitive remembrance of the Antenna Club in The Memphis Flyer‘s own pages, and serving as an articulate commentator on the local scene, either on camera or across the table from you at the bar.

Now, his perspective has been distilled under the title Baron of Love: Moral Giant, soon to be released under the Spacecase Records imprint. To ready us for the full onslaught, Johnson has been softening up the target audience with short bursts of close-range excerpts and interviews. His Back to the Light podcast appearance, reported here last week, was just the beginning. Tonight, you can hear even more Johnson-isms when Goner TV takes to the internet once again.

The Spacecase-related blog, Bored Out, has published a few excerpts from the book, full of tantalizing details on the making of some stone-classic “alternative” records, and tonight Johnson will read even more. Here’s a taste of what to expect, courtesy Bored Out:

I was working as a sack boy in the summer of 1972 at one of the local Big Star (yep) chain groceries. Jim [Dickinson] would usually shop for groceries there mid-afternoon Friday while my drumming idol Al Jackson, Jr. shopped at the same Big Star on Friday around dusk. They were the only customers who ever tipped me for carrying their groceries out.

One day I got the nerve up to speak to him as I was loading groceries into his car and said: “You’re Jim Dickinson, aren’t you, and you recorded with the Flamin’ Groovies on Teenage Head, didn’t you?” Years later Jim admitted that he thought I was going to ask about The Rolling Stones but was impressed when I mentioned the Groovies instead. We had an extended conversation in the parking lot about the Teenage Head session and he enthusiastically mentioned that he got paid $700 by producer Richard Robinson for one night of work on the record. I got in trouble with grocery store management for staying in the parking lot so long, but the conversation was worth it.

Doesn’t the thought of getting Ross Johnson in trouble make you want to read more? Stay tuned for the book, and content yourself for now with a visit to tonight’s installment of Goner TV.

GONER TV Ep. 4: Ross Johnson live at Goner Records, Friday, September 11, 8-9:30 p.m.

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Cover Feature News

Rocking the Boat: Memphis Musicians Speak Truth to Power

A few weeks ago, after Memphis protesters had already been joining in the national calls for police reform and accountability, standing firm in the plaza outside of City Hall, organizers felt something extra was in order to bolster morale and keep the demonstrators motivated. That’s when Joseph Higgins’ phone rang.

“Man, it was a beautiful experience,” Higgins tells me. “Some friends of ours hit us up and said, ‘We’re doing something at City Hall and we really need some music. We asked all these different bands and we haven’t heard back from ’em.’ This was Sunday night [June 21st]. And some bands told them, ‘Man, I don’t want to mess up my look in the scene or have clubs treat us different because we’re standing up for what’s right.’ I thought, ‘Wow, that’s crazy to hear about Memphis musicians not wanting to go into the trenches.’ We were like, ‘Man, this is right up our alley.’”
David Vaughn Mason

Chinese Connection Dub Embassy protest

That would be an understatement. Joseph is one of three brothers who have wed a passion for music and a passion for justice in equal measure. Indeed, the Higgins family has been pivotal in distilling political outrage and righteousness into song. It’s a rare talent, but when done right, it’s galvanizing.

The band in question was the Chinese Connection Dub Embassy (CCDE), one of the few reggae bands in the region, and one of the most politically outspoken. “We’re all about truth and rights,” says Higgins, “and spreading the word of injustice, and trying to get some kind of solace at the end of the day for all the stuff that’s going on in the world right now — from COVID-19 to police brutality to No. 45 acting crazy.”

And it was clear that the band raised everyone’s spirits at City Hall. “I felt all the energy from the city. They were so supportive. The whole essence of ‘we’re all in this together’ really stood out. We had a little kid that jumped up in the middle of our set, couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old.”

That Sunday on the plaza was the perfect time to unveil the band’s new single, “Dem A Callin (Flodgin),” released July 10th on Bandcamp. “I won’t be bought, I won’t be sold. We will decide how our story’s told … Dem a callin’!” sings guest vocalist Webbstar on the track. The words ring true in this historical moment, when deciding how the story is told is half the battle. As stories develop around any given incident, the different narratives begin to coalesce and compete. There is the story embedded in, say, a police department statement, versus the story in a live video of the incident. Indeed, the simple phrase “Black Lives Matter” itself offers a narrative in three simple words, shaming those who would terrorize Black people. It’s not surprising that the cover image for CCDE’s single is a protester wearing a #BLM face mask.

These are not the kinds of songs typically associated with the Bluff City. The weight and momentum of Memphis’ rich musical history can obscure those less-illuminated niches where, over the decades, songs that examine the social fabric, or rip it wide open, have emerged. But they are there, and with this story, the Memphis Flyer aims to honor them.
Ziggy Mack

Negro Terror

CCDE is only one example. In fact, it’s only one example from within the Higgins family. Out of that same household sprang the hardcore punk band Negro Terror, which was equally unabashed about calling for progressive change through the power of music. But the genesis of both bands has a tragic side: Their guiding light was the oldest Higgins brother, Omar, whose sudden death after a staph infection in April 2019 was mourned throughout the city.

Says brother David of the two bands: “They both were started by Omar out of his love of music and community. He wanted to start a big musical family and bring people together. And your color, race, religion, sexuality didn’t matter. And that’s how we were brought up. My mother and father were into bringing people together. Our whole family is all about truth and rights. Fighting against oppression and injustice. My mother was a member of the Urban League. So it’s in our blood. As far as Negro Terror, it’s still going! We’re actually finishing up a record, Paranoia. Omar titled it that. He’s all over the record.”

Negro Terror also lives on in the 2018 documentary of the same name by director John Rash, which culminates in a music video for their most popular song, “The Voice of Memphis.” It’s a hardcore homage to the indomitable spirit of this city rising up to be heard, but the song has a surprising provenance. “It was originally a white power anthem, and Omar completely flipped it on its head,” says David. “It was by a band called Screwdriver. The singer, Ian Stuart, was a white supremacist Nazi, and he said, ‘That’ll be the day when I hear a n*gger cover one of our songs.’ And not only did Omar cover it, he changed the lyrics around, made it Memphis, and did it better!”


Negro Terror is one inheritor of the city’s punk legacy
, which has often been the source of our most politically charged music. The punk label, of course, is no guarantee of political content, but the genre did usher a new social consciousness into rock music when it sprang from the gutters in the mid-1970s. That was true in Memphis as well, though that was when punk was more of an attitude than a formulaic sound. One of the most punk moments of that decade was when roots rockers Mudboy & the Neutrons capped off an outdoor music festival with their take on “Power to the People”: “Hey hey, MHA, someone moved Downtown away,” quipped Mudboy member Jim Dickinson to the Memphis Housing Authority. “I’ve got a new way to spell Memphis, Tennessee: M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!”

That era also saw the premiere of Tav Falco, who sang Leadbelly’s “Bourgeois Blues,” then cut his guitar in two with a circular saw. With his Unapproachable Panther Burns, he would continue to dally in political waters, with songs like “Agitator Blues,” “Cuban Rebel Girl,” or even 2018’s “New World Order Blues.”

But others soon took the impulse in different directions. One of the sharpest purveyors of political pith since the 1980s has been one-time Memphian Joe Lapsley, now a college history instructor in the Chicago area.
Don Perry

Neighborhood Texture Jam

“I’m the lead singer of Neighborhood Texture Jam,” says Lapsley. “If anybody knows about having to explain progressive issues to white people in Memphis, it would be me. To be fair, Texture Jam tends to be a magnet for people that are attracted to something more liberal than what they’re accustomed to in this milieu. But there’s also people there that don’t give a shit about that stuff, you know?”

With songs like “Rush Limbaugh, Evil Blimp,” NTJ made no bones about their leftist tendencies, instincts which made some of their best material relevant to this day. “Wanna see the rebel flags, wanna go and see ’em?” Lapsley bellows in “Old South.” “They’re next to the Swastikas in a museum!” At times, Lapsley took the lyrics a step further, ripping up or burning Confederate flags in their early shows. “Listening to Texture Jam back then,” Lapsley says now, “you were getting a taste of Black Lives Matter before it even happened.

“In Oxford on beer bust night, I said, ‘Anybody that doesn’t want to celebrate the entry of James Meredith here on the 30th anniversary of his registration, well they can just get up and leave!’ These big white football player dudes and their dates all stood up from the first four or five tables. I could see the fear go through the band, so I said, ‘If they come, you’ve got guitars and basses. Just start swinging.’”

Pezz was another band from that era that carries on today with sporadic reunion shows. Their 2017 release, More Than You Can Give Us, updates the Reagan-era punk that first inspired them to today’s struggles, as captured by the album cover, which juxtaposes an image from the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike with one of protesters shutting down the I-40 bridge in 2016. Meanwhile, Pezz frontmen Ceylon Mooney and Marvin Stockwell carry on to this day as community organizers and activists.

The punk spirit lives on in countless other Memphis bands, though what punk actually is is debatable. “If you do hear a band that’s truly just punk, it’s probably kind of boring at this point,” says Natalie Hoffman of NOTS. Yet she and NOTS are usually lumped in with the tag. And while NOTS’ lyrics can often be oblique, they naturally venture into gender politics by virtue of NOTS being an all-woman band in the hyper-masculine punk scene. In that context, the alienation of “Woman Alone” is a unique social critique: “Woman alone/in a landscape/is it always the same? What’s it like/to be a subject analyzed?”


The truth is, songs of political or social critique can take many forms
, and they need not wear their outrage on their sleeve. Bassist MonoNeon wrote “Breathing While Black” after seeing the first footage of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, but gave his outrage the soft-sell in this case. “While the song came from being saddened by George’s murder, the song is for every Black man and woman who has dealt with police brutality,” he says. And the mellow mood of the sparse Prince-like funk and jazzy harmonies does indeed give the track a more generalizable air of contemplation. It’s a universal song of mourning, in a way, with enough bounce to keep listeners motivated.

Some performers make the message even more palatable by taking a more subtle approach. Brandon Lewis, a new artist with David Porter’s Made In Memphis Entertainment (MIME) label, has just released a track produced in January which relates to the current Black Lives Matter movement, titled simply “Black Man.”

As Porter says, “’Black Man’ is not a protest song, it’s an inspirational song about enlightened people, about the pride that these young people feel today. Because I know you’re viewing me as a Black man, let me let you feel the pride that I have in being a Black man. That’s why that hook works.” Proffering a positive message of self-affirmation is a far cry from burning the stars and bars onstage, but may ultimately be just as effective. For at the heart of today’s protests is a demand for dignity and respect.
Matt White

John Paul Keith

Those qualities can be celebrated in unexpected ways. Americana and rock-and-roll singer/songwriter John Paul Keith recently released his song, “Take ‘Em Down,” in sympathy with the TakeEmDown901 movement, but it begins, surprisingly, with a bit of Southern pride. “You can tell I’m from the South when I open up my mouth …” he sings, before turning to the chorus, “Them statues got to go in every state across the USA.” This is no pride in whiteness, but a refashioning of what “Southern” can mean. As the song goes on, you come to understand that Keith is celebrating a new vision of Southerness that embraces our diversity. “Can you hear the Southern feet marching in the street/And someone saying on a megaphone/No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA/And we ain’t gonna rest until they’re gone.”

“The music is very much Southern,” says Keith. “That tune and those chords, you could take that and do it in a gospel way, or the way I did it, which was more country or rockabilly. It would work either way. But I was trying to repurpose that sound, and use it to say something about this thing. And it also came organically out of me like that. That’s what popped in my head ’cause that’s who I am. I liked using something that comes from the rockabilly tradition for this purpose. I liked that, the idea of refashioning this sound to say something about these old statues.” It’s a rare hybrid of blunt political observations and subtle identity politics, and it works.

Protest has been the stock-in-trade of Memphis hip-hop for decades. While it can be argued that there is political dynamite in even the most gangsta trap track out of this city, simply by virtue of its hyperrealism, there have been select lyricists who step back from the euphoric rush of the crime spree and encourage more contemplation, even as they preserve the urgency of rap’s rapid-fire flow.

Though inactive since the untimely death of group member Fathom 9, the Iron Mic Coalition (IMC) are the undisputed kings of this realm, sometimes called conscious or knowledge rap. When producer IMAKEMADBEATS first returned to Memphis, having spent most of the early aughts in New York, the first artists to really capture his attention were the Iron Mic Coalition. One of the pivotal members was Quinn McGowan, a comic book creator, tattoo artist, and visual artist whose son Quinn is now affiliated with the Unapologetic collective. Another was Fathom 9.

As IMAKEMADBEATS recalls, “In my opinion, while IMC had various talents, Fathom 9, to me, was the most left-wing. I think that’s why I gravitated towards him early on. I went to his funeral, and I heard people walk up to the mic and say, ‘Fathom was weird in a way that made us be okay with being weird.’ He had no shame. He was past the point of comfortable and cute. You’d watch him and say, ‘All right, when is he gonna change positions?’ He did it in a way to where it was daringly uncomfortable. And you know you did your job if you inspired hundreds of people.”

Don Lifted

Among those who were so inspired were the Unapologetic team themselves, who often celebrate ‘weirdness,’ and in doing so, are helping to reshape the image of hip-hop and Memphis itself. While not all Unapologetic artists have a political ax to grind, the very process itself has a political impact. Artist and producer Lawrence Matthews, aka Don Lifted, has found the collective’s embrace of the strange to be liberating, both personally and politically, when he works with them on occasion.

“I’m not necessarily making protest songs per se,” says Matthews. “But I’m talking about my Blackness, my queerness, all of these things. My anxieties and fears around religious beliefs, and the juxtapositions of being in the South and being a Black dude that doesn’t fit into those boxes. Being called a white boy over there, but I’m still Black enough to get murdered over here. But don’t get it confused, I’m still what I am.

“I’m not signed to Unapologetic, but I’m affiliated. And you being allowed to show up is a great thing. The fact that I get to sing songs about what I do is political in a city where they do not allow anybody to have a national platform if it is not soul or street music. I have heard every single way you could shoot a person, every single way you could deal drugs, every single way that you could make street music. But I don’t always hear the way that Black men feel. So I appreciate the space where people are allowed to talk about things I talk about in my music, or that PreauXX talks about or that AWFM talks about. I’m very thankful for those spaces. My voice can be as different, as loud, as odd as it wants to be. And I got a lot of that from listening to conscious hip-hop music.”

Marco Pavé

Yet, while political or cultural struggles inform nearly all hip-hop, especially hip-hop that embraces “oddness” and the interior life, not many artists have picked up conscious hip-hop’s overt politics in the way the Iron Mic Coalition once did. One exception is Marco Pavé. His 2017 debut album, Welcome to Grc Lnd, was a shot across the bow, with thought-provoking lyrics like “Bring me a coffin/’Cos they won’t accept that I am so fluorescent /they place us in darkness/I still see ancestors” capturing the same zeitgeist that inspired Pezz. Blocking the I-40 bridge in 2016 was a turning point for both public demonstrations here and the artists who were inspired by them.

Welcome to Grc Lnd might be considered a concept album of sorts, centered on those protests, but Pavé’s next move surprised many: a hip-hop opera revolving around the same concepts and tracks, redubbed Welcome to Grc Lnd 2030, with a premiere at Playhouse on the Square in 2018. It was the kind of multimedia tour de force that is all too rare in Memphis, combining music of the street with music of the salon, and a heavy dose of political critique.

Since then, the critique has moved into the streets, as apathy fades and a sense of empowerment spreads. Combining demonstrations with a band, as the organizers who invited CCDE Downtown last month were doing, may be the newest frontier in politically charged music-making. It’s a powerful combination. Music has a way of reframing old truths in a new light, and of presenting complex realities in concise, poetic form. And that can change minds.

As Joseph Higgins reflects, “It’s been a slow drip. It’s hard to educate people one by one. So with Negro Terror, the name and the concept, Omar was able to not only preach the message of unity, but to teach. And get people to not just understand, but overstand.”

And stand they will, backed by the beats and riffs and rhymes of Memphis musicians who keep one eye on the world and another on the dream.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Dr. William Ferris Brings Voices of Mississippi to Crosstown Theater

Dr. William Ferris with his camera in Mississippi in the 1970s.

In the early 1970s, William Ferris was a graduate student studying folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. His specialty was studying the rich musical culture of North Mississippi. “I was doing field recordings and photography, and coming back and presenting that. I felt I couldn’t communicate the full power of the church services and juke joints I was working in. Film would be the best way to do that. No one there was willing to help me, at the film school. So I got a little super 8 camera and began to shoot footage and do wild sound on a reel-to-reel recorder. I put together these really basic, early films, which in many ways are the best things I ever did. It’s very visceral, powerful material. I brought those back, and people were just blown away by them.”

Ferris was particularly interested in the proto-blues fife and drum music tradition kept alive in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, by Othar Turner. “I was trying to finish a film on Othar Turner that I had shot, and David Evans had done the sound. Judy Peiser was working at public television in Mississippi, and she interviewed me. I told her about the fife and drum film, and she said she would like to edit it. That led to the creation of the Center for Southern Folklore in 1972, and to a long history of working on films. I would spend my summers in Memphis when I was teaching at Yale. We would work on films and other projects. I made a lot of wonderful friends that I’ve been close to ever since.”

Dr. Ferris, with the help of Peiser and others, acquired progressively better equipment and, over the years, created a series of short documentaries immortalizing the artists and traditions of the Mississippi Delta. His successful academic career would go on to include a stint as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently, he is a Senior Associate Director Emeritus at the Center for Study of the American South at the University of South Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Center for Southern Folklore, which he and Peiser founded, became a beloved institution in Memphis. “The Center has made a mark, and continues to make a mark with its festivals and exhibits. Judy Peiser has continued it. She’s an anchor for all this work and Memphis, and really a national treasure.”

On Friday, May 17th, Indie Memphis will present “Voices of Mississippi,” a collection of Ferris’ now-classic short documentaries, beginning with “Gravel Springs Fife and Drum.” “Ray Lum: Mule Trader” introduces us to the title character, who Ferris calls “an amazing raconteur.” Ferris recorded the auctioneer’s stories and tall tales in film, and with an accompanying book and soundtrack. “There are two soundtracks. You can hear the wild sound, and his voice. I don’t think that had ever been done before. All of that was published and produced through the Center. I think it was really ahead of its time in terms of media and film.”

“Four Women Artists” documents writer Eudora Welty, quilter Picolia Warner, needleworker Ethel Mohamed  and painter Theora Hamblett  “Bottle Up and Go” records a Loman, Mississippi, musician demonstrating “one strand on the wall,” a precursor to the slide guitar that makes an instrument out of a house. “It’s one of the earliest instruments that every blues singer learned on as a child, because it was free,” says Ferris. “He also did bottle blowing. Both of those are sounds that have deep roots in Africa and are the roots of the blues.”

Dr. Ferris will bring along some of his Memphis-based collaborators and sign the Grammy-inning box set of his life’s work. He says that for him, this Memphis screening is like a homecoming.“To me, Memphis is the undiscovered bohemian culture,” he says. “You have black and white, rural and folk voices coming out of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, meeting this formally educated group of musicians and artists like Sid Selvidge, William Eggleston. Music and photography was a big part of the scene. The photography, because of Eggleston and Tav Falco and Ernest Withers, makes Memphis unique. It just has so many pieces that you don’t find in the French Quarter in New Orleans, where William Faulkner went to write. You have Julian Hohenberg, this very wealthy cotton broker whose heart is in music. He was involved in the music scene for many, many years. It’s the escape valve for people who love the arts. It’s really funky and countercultural. Everything they couldn’t do in these little towns and rural areas, they do in Memphis — and they do it with a passion.”

“Voices of Mississippi” will screen at 6 PM on Friday, May 17 at the Crosstown Theater. RSVP for a free ticket at the Indie Memphis website

Categories
Music Music Blog

Beale Street Music Festival 2018: Saturday

Nothing was going to stop the near sellout crowd in Tom Lee Park from having a good time on the second day of the 2018 Beale Street Music Festival.

Chris McCoy

Sunset over Tom Lee Park.

The day started early for Memphis music fans, with Chinese Connection Dub Embassy and Tav Falco & Panther Burns starting ten minutes apart on two of the festival’s three main stages. CCDE greeted the crowds trickling into the park with a strong beat, and they responded with an ecstatic sing along to their song “Heavy Meditation”.

Chris McCoy

Chinese Connection Dub Embassy on the FedEx stage.

We then hoofed it the quarter mile or so to the Bud Light stage where Memphis punk legend Tav Falco was holding court. The current touring incarnation of the immortal Panther Burns is a much tighter and more conventional band than the musical terrorists who set the standard for Midtown punk in early 1980s, but compared to the other acts on offer they were still bracingly raw. Sitting in on keys was Memphis Flyer music editor Alex Greene.

Chris McCoy

Tav Falco and Panther Burns tear it up on the Bud Light stage.

Falco was spry, loose, and utterly confident as he switched freely from shockabilly wildman to tango sophisticate. When he left the stage, the entranced crowd called for an encore, much to the visible consternation of the stage manager who called time as Falco returned for his victory lap. But the beleguared staffer did not know who he was dealing with. He could only look on helplessly as Panther Burns held the stage with a blistering rendition of “New World Order Blues”. Falco spit fire, poetically condemning Trump and the current state of America as the crowd egged him on. It was only the second act of the day, but already I had added to my list of all time great Beale Street Music Festival performances.

If the stage manager was worried about Panther Burns putting the show behind schedule, it turned out to be a moot issue, as Mother Nature had the last word. It had been drizzling on and off all morning, but as Calexico was about halfway through their set, more serious weather set in.

Laura Jean Hocking

Storm clouds loom over Tom Lee Park.

We sought shelter in the Beer Garden tent as the rain intensified. Then, a great gust of wind whipped through the park, accompanied by a torrential deluge and, for about five minutes, nickel-sized hail.

Chris McCoy

4:14 PM: Hail on the ground in Tom Lee Park.

It was a scary few moments as the hail poked holes in the tent where we were sheltered along with several hundred of our fellow festival goers. But just as quickly as the unexpected cell materialized, it dissipated.

Chris McCoy

4:39 PM: Blue skies over the Hernando de Soto Bridge.

Pro Tip: Always wear rain boots to the Beale Street Music Festival, even if it’s sunny and dry while you’re getting ready that morning. There were quite a few regretful women in sandals and heels getting stuck in the mire for the rest of the evening. But no one who saw Al Kapone and his posse perform as the FedEx stage resumed music was in the least bit regretful. Kapone’s set was somewhere between a Memphis music lesson and a pep rally. The climax came when he transitioned from “Hard Out Here For A Pimp” to the other Hustle and Flow hit “Whoop That Trick”, which has become something of a rallying cry for the Grizzlies. There were about ten thousand people in front of the stage, and every one of them were pumping their fists in the air.

Laura Jean Hocking

Commercial Appeal photographer Yoshi James capturing the local wildlife.

By late afternoon, the weather radar was clear, and people were streaming into the park in the tens of thousands. As All Time Low took the stage, singer Alex Gaskarth said “Wow, our stuff still works after getting hailed on!”

Chris McCoy

Artist Lauren Lazaru takes a break from working on the mural she and Curtis Glover created live on the festival grounds.

We retired to the Blues Tent to hear Eddy “The Chef” Clearwater and his crack band wail as the sun went down.

Laura Jean Hocking

Sunset at the Blues Tent.

Chris McCoy

Fans gather for Ludacris.

By the time David Byrne began his transformative set by sitting at a table and singing a song to a human brain like a postmodern Hamlet, the area in front of the Bud Light stage was packed. Byrne alternated songs from his new album American Utopia with deep cuts from his decades-long career. His twelve-piece band, playing all wireless instruments and featuring a percussion section instead of a single trap drummer, ranged freely across the blank stage, flawlessly executing both intricate choreography and layered experimental funk. New songs like “We Dance Like This” and “Everybody’s Coming To My House” took flight when liberated from the studio, and he breathed life into reconfigured classics like “I Zimbra”, “The Great Curve”, and “This Must Be The Place”.

Chris McCoy

David Byrne

At age 65, Byrne delivered the most radical and visionary performance of the entire festival by completely disregarding the conventions of the rock and pop show and incorporating new elements from Broadway, modern dance, and even marching bands. I hope some of the young performers were watching him burn down the house he helped build.

Laura Jean Hocking

Categories
Music Music Features

Memphis’ Lost Decade of Bohemia and Music

For many Americans, the death of Elvis Presley in 1977 marked the end of an age of innocence in rock-and-roll. But it had more significance in Memphis, a capstone on a series of events that decimated the musical momentum the city had gathered in previous decades.

Pat Rainer, who documented those times in her photography, puts it this way: “Stax was bankrupt, Beale Street was boarded up, the major record labels had moved out, and it was like, ‘Wait a minute! We’re still here!’ Jim Dickinson coined the phrase that what we did was ‘guerrilla video’ or ‘guerrilla recording.’ I was his disciple, and I would have walked the fires of hell for him.”

Pat Rainer at Graceland the day after Elvis died

Rainer, a Memphis native who studied radio, TV, and film production at Memphis State University, was dissatisfied with academia and struck out on her own, working in record stores and falling in with a tight-knit community of bohemians and creators who came to define the post-Elvis era. She worked at the Yellow Submarine record shop on Poplar, whose owner, Jim Blake, would eventually start the maverick independent label, Barbarian Records. “Blake founded the company when Dickinson told him, ‘You know, you should make a record of Jerry Lawler and sell it at the wrestling matches.’ And I saw a light bulb go off over Blake’s head. The three of us kinda pitched in together, but Blake was the figurehead.”

The Lawler records sold, helping to fund hours of recording sessions by Dickinson, Lesa Aldridge, the Klitz, and others — mostly unreleased. The label was emblematic of a whole scene germinating through the 1970s. “It was a community of artists who all worked in concert with one another, whether it was the musicians or the sculptors or the painters or the photographers or whatever. Our little group of people included Dickinson, [Sid] Selvidge, Lee Baker, Mud Boy, Alex [Chilton], John Fry, Knox Phillips, Bill Eggleston, and Tav [Falco]. We all wanted to create art. I just kinda fell into photography.”

Now, we’re all the beneficiaries of Rainer’s chosen path, as the Stax Museum of American Soul Music opens Rainer’s exhibit, “Chaos and the Cosmos: Inside Memphis Music’s Lost Decade, 1977-1986,” this Friday.

Sam Phillips

“There’s great pictures of Sam Phillips,” Rainer says. “There’s pictures of Willie Mitchell and Al Green in the control room at Hi; Knox and Jerry in the control room at Phillips; Alex and Jim in the studio; Johnny Woods and Furry [Lewis] when we recorded the Beale Street record.”

That 1978 record marked a turning point, where the fringe took up the mantle as guardians of both past and future. “I mean, think of what would have happened if we hadn’t fought to keep them from letting the Orpheum be bought by the Jehovah’s Witnesses!” Rainer exclaims. “And there’s a big thanks due Jim, because he went down there to those guys at the Memphis Development Foundation and struck a deal to make this Beale Street Saturday Night record to raise money to restore the Orpheum.”

It was that concert that seemed to chart the course for independent music-makers in the city. While Mud Boy, Chilton, and Falco ultimately became guiding stars of the “guerrilla” music that has come to define 21st century Memphis, there was little inkling of such possibilities at the time. “Looking back on it,” says Rainer, “it still blows my mind.”

Categories
Music Record Reviews

A Tav Falco Christmas: Just Like Mom’s Popcorn Balls

When I first discovered the early catalog of Charlie Rich, I cringed at the many tracks where Sam Phillips had overdubbed corny background vocals, no doubt in a bid to make the records more commercial. But after a time, I came to enjoy the gooey overdubs as a sign of the times in which the great Rich lived. Imagine my delight upon hearing A Tav Falco Christmas (Org Music/Frenzi Films & Music), the art-damaged Arkansas cat’s nod to festive fun, which is chock-full of those same cornball harmonies.

Of course, this is in keeping with the Christmas spirit. Every year, my mom would make holiday popcorn balls, stuck together with scalding hot corn syrup. Once they cooled and solidified, the bits that stuck in your teeth and gums would give you pause. This album is a bit like that. Having been recorded at Sam Phillips Recording, the vanilla background vocals are spot-on. The band, featuring Falco’s touring outfit of Mario Monterosso on guitar, Toby Dammit on drums, Francesco D’Agnolo on piano, and the great Mike Watt on bass, is well stuck-together: solid and tight, moving deftly between slow burners like “Blue Christmas” and thumping funk like “Soulful Christmas.” D’Agnolo’s bluesy ivory-tickling is especially soulful, crafty but not too polished. And then there is Falco’s voice. Fans, of course, know his earnest hepcat delivery well. It is, as Mose Allison would say, “loaded with rustic charm.” The final effect of Falco crooning while his backing group plays it straight is unsettling, like some kind of feral karaoke.

Toby Dammit, Tav Falco, Mike Watt, & Mario Monterosso

I mean it as a compliment when I say that, should David Lynch make a Christmas movie, this would be the soundtrack. Surely we have enough competently-sung Christmas albums already. What we need more of are singers with real character in their voice, and Falco delivers this in spades. For most of the album, the aforementioned pattern holds. The band plays with dogged restraint and Tav does his thing, as the background singers look on with a nod and a wink. The material is classic holiday fare: “White Christmas,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer,” and so on, book-ended with slightly more obscure numbers, the bluesy “Santa Claus is Back in Town” and James Brown’s “Soulful Christmas.” Only in the latter number does a bit of the old Panther Burns energy emerge, as the boys in the band bring on the slamming beat and Falco lets loose with echo-drenched howls that conjure up the legendary burning panther head. All in all, it’s a wacky, eclectic mix, a tray of backwoods bonbons to fill your hearth and home with good cheer.