Standing alongside Pavement, Guided By Voices, Superchunk, and Memphis’ own Grifters among the top tier of indie-rock bands during the genre’s early/mid-’90s heyday, Sebadoh may have been the scene’s most direct major players. In another time or another place, frontman Lou Barlow might have been his generation’s James Taylor, the sensitive singer-songwriter who makes the […]
Posted inNews, News Feature
WOLO’S WORLD
Being a Manning and being a Mensch may be two different things, as this year’s NFL draft proved.
Posted inMusic, Music Features
Sound Advice
Like his fellow Bluff City Backslider Jason Freeman, Mark Lemhouse plays a style of blues that sounds contemporary and painstakingly traditional all at once. Mixing up ragtime, rockabilly, and North Mississippi trance blues, his infrequent sets are a history lesson in Memphis music before 1960. His no-holds-barred interpretation of “One Hand Loose” won’t make you […]
Posted inWe Recommend, We Recommend
sunday, 25
Okay, if anybody out there still needs to be reminded, what may be the last Grizzlies game at The Pyramid — and the last basketball game of any kind there — will be played at 8:30 p.m. tonight vs. the San Antonio Spurs. Be there! If we can root the Grizzlies in and they win […]
Posted inBook Features, Books
No Telling
“Tell me about the South. What’s it like there? What do they do there? Why do they live there? Why do they live at all?” — from Absalom, Absalom! As a senior writer at Vogue, it was Julia Reed’s job in 1994 to act on an idea and prove a point. The experiment: Take a […]
Posted inCover Feature, News
Convention Center Cave-In?
The end result is a handsome and useful building, but the expansion of the Memphis Cook Convention Center was, by general agreement, a textbook case of a botched public building project. In contrast to the mantra of the construction team of the FedExForum, the convention center expansion was not on time, was not within budget, […]
Posted inMusic, Music Features
Local Beat
A NIGHT OF HEROES: The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences‘ Memphis Heroes Awards, held at The Cannon Center for the Performing Arts last Tuesday, proved to be a smash hit for both the honorees and the crowd of 1,000-plus in attendance. From Sam the Sham to Knox and Jerry Phillips, Little Milton Campbell, […]
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
HE WISHES (AND BEST WISHES)
At last month’s Gridiron Show at the Al Chymia Shrine Temple on Shelby Oaks, city councilman Brent Taylor made an unscheduled appearance onstage during a skit. He hung a pair of boxing gloves around the neck of the actor playing Mayor Willie Herenton, then draped a pillowcase over the face of the actress playing council […]
Posted inMusic, Music Features
Local Beat
Down in Clarksdale, Mississippi, it’s a busy week for the blues: The town is hosting a Sunflower River Blues Festival benefit on Saturday, April 10th; then, seven days later, it will be the site for the first Juke Joint Festival & Planter’s Celebration. “The goal is to get us in good shape for the blues […]
Posted inWe Recommend, We Recommend
saturday, 3
Okay, now I am really running out of space, so here goes: opening reception at Clip Joint Gallery tonight for work by Barry Joyce; For the Lover In You concert at the Cannon Center; Crawfish Dash and Bash festival in Overton Square; and Uptown Square Gala at Uptown Square Apartments with auction and live music […]
Posted inMusic, Music Features
Sound Advice
In 1956, Wanda Jackson, rock-and-roll’s first serious female practitioner, recorded “Let’s Have a Party,” one of the hottest rockabilly tunes ever committed to vinyl. “I never kissed a bear/I never kissed a goon/But I can shake a chicken in the middle of the room/Let’s have a party/Whoo!” Now, what do those lyrics mean, you might […]
Posted inMusic, Music Features
Local Beat
Nearly 60 industry professionals — musicians, producers, managers, and label owners — showed up at the University of Memphis‘ FedEx Institute of Technology for the Memphis & Shelby County Music Commission‘s latest “town hall meeting” last Thursday night. Commission president Rey Flemings kicked off the meeting, which began some 30 minutes behind schedule, with a […]