Geek Weekly #6

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[Photo: promotional photo for the John Michael McCarthy film The Sore Losers] Promotional photo for The Sore Losers (Mike, Korine, Kim, and Susan)

Kimbrough play. It was kind of funny — nobody in his band could drive, so they had to send a driver down to Holly Springs, MS to bring everyone up so they could play the show. And it didn't really last that long, only about 45 minutes, which is about two songs for Junior.

This Dixie Fried was in a wickedly unsuitable venue, the Center for Southern Folklore in Beale Street. As a center for southern folklore, it's great. As a bar, it sucks mud. Venues being what they are in Memphis, it could easily have been worse, and at least you didn't slip in puddles of sweat like at the downtown Barrister's version of Dixie Fried, mark II. It's just that the place is a museum/information center/coffee shop, and as such isn't real conducive to the laid back, uninhibited feel necessary to listen to a lot of nasty music for hours on end. So while it was all right to watch old Sun sidemen Frank Frost and Sam Carr play in there, since a certain amount of reverence is due to them, it was a pisspoor place to watch the Oblivians, who played a pretty stitled set.

Last edit almost 7 years ago by lerivoir
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That Saturday, this amazing guitarist named Robert "Bilbo" Walker played a matinee set there, and boy, talk about a showman! This guy duckwalked halfway around the room, played solos behind his back and was dressed finer than cat hair. Anyone who wears a wig and lamé is going to have my attention, especially if he's black, male, middle-aged and duckwalks. I'm telling you, folks put on a show out there — later on Saturday, Othar Turner's Fife and Drum Band marched through the door in military style to take the stage.

This trip lasted through my twenty-first birthday, and even included a visit to the Hollywood Casino, in Tunica, MS. You drive down the highway south from Memphis into some rural Delta country and the all of a sudden, these huge neon casinos pop up out of the blackness. Considering that the Mid-South is such an affluent part of the country, I'm not surprised that these folks choose to blow their "disposable" income on house odds and quarter slots. Honestly, we were the youngest folks by about forty

Junior Kimbrough at Dixie Fried 3. [Photo: Junior Kimbrough performing on guitar]

Othar Turner's Fife and Drum Band at Dixie Fried 3. [Photo: Othar Turner and band performing]

Last edit almost 7 years ago by ClaudiaDurand
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years in that casino. It was kind of cool that my ill-timed hit at a blackjack table made one drunk redneck lose a grand, though.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND 1997 Readers of GW understand our fondness for the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, so you can understand how a more ideal combination would be hard to come up with: The Thinking Fellers were to play the Shangri-La Shindig in Memphis this year —at Green's Lounge, no less! It was Steve Decon's turn to come to Memphis with me, and he'd just returned from his summer in Mexico, so I figured this trip would help ease the shock of his return to the U.S. The actual show was really interesting. While we were sitting around outside, some guy was babbling on and on about Princess Di, then he pulled out a printout from some internet news site that proclaimed her death. Then we rocked out. The advertised "Hippie in a Cage" turned out to be GW friend Dave Dunlap, who was penned up in the corner behind some chicken wire, taunting the audience. His shirtless, body-painted, joke-crackin' self whipped the audience into a frenzy. An angry frenzy. I truly love Dave's near total disregard for punchlines — I think he's avoided the pitfalls of "humor" that bog down many lesser comedians.

Then the Thinking Fellers played and were pretty good, although their sound isn't so hot in a little concrete box. They played that Butthole Surfers song they cover, the name of which I can't remember right now. That damn band is one of the few reasons I like music right now. They are capable of expressing themselves in a very subtle manner, something to be missed when every stupid band thinks they have to hit you over the head with a goddamned mission statement. Banjos and mandolins are terrifically underused in the rock idiom these days, and their presence in the Thinking Fellers' music isn't anything but vital. Really, when have you ever listened to a Thinking Fellers record and found an element of excess present? Doesn't happen.

Last edit about 7 years ago by lerivoir
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NEW YEAR'S EVE 1997

I ran away from Austin to Memphis on New Year's Eve so that I could salvage my shitty holidays. That means I missed the last New Bomb Turks show here, which I'm sad about, but I got to hear the Oblivians and the Royal Pendletons and a new-wave band play at the Young Avenue Deli. When I arrived in town, Scott met me at the Lamplighter all dressed up, so I was compelled to wear a formal gown (all right, I wore a long, slinky thing from work) and gloves. You know what I like about Memphis? Everyone else was dressed up, too. People are such slobs in Austin.

On this particular trip, Mike McCarthy was kind enough to show me his latest project, Shine On Sweet Starlet, a series of sixties-style clips where ingenues strip for the camera in the comfort of their own homes or favorite bars. The soundtrack should be out this April on Sympathy for the Record Industry, but I'm not sure when the flick itself will be completed. It's a great piece of work — modern naked ladies shot on Super 8 to look like vintage naked ladies. Mike will be shooting his next project this summer — ladies, send GW your headshots [buttshots —ed.] and they'll be passed on.

Dan Ball took some pictures of me while I was there, which I might get to see this year. He's the guy that took all those swirly, arty pictures of the Grifters, the Oblivians and the Clears. I got to crawl around on his piano and couch in a bunch of lingerie, then sit really still for those long exposures. I hope for next year's Christmas card to be one of these photos.

So I figure 1998 will turn out all right since I started it in Memphis. I'll let you know if that helped or not.

Last edit almost 7 years ago by lerivoir
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[Image: illustration of traveler in wooded landscape] Figure 2-11. Travel Restriction

[Photo: Demolition Dollrods performing] Demolition Dollrods at the Empty Bottle, Chicago.

Last edit almost 5 years ago by guest_user
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