Archive for the ‘Music/Music Features’ Category
December 24th, 2009
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Author: Decade-long stalwarts Jay Reatard and Lucero continued their ascent while new bands bloomed in 2009.
by Flyer Staff
The decade concluded with another rich, active year in local music, filled with established artists reaching new peaks, promising new bands making recorded debuts, back catalogs being refurbished, and one particularly wide-reaching loss. Flyer staff writers and contributors came up with this list of the dozen most notable Memphis music releases of the year. — Chris Herrington RECORDS Keep an Eye on the Sky — Big Star (Rhino): About as thorough as a career overview can be without reissuing proper titles…
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Three local music fixtures have their say in new DVD series.
by Chris Herrington
Three key figures in Memphis music will get their close-up this week as local nonprofit film production organization True Story Pictures releases The Music Interviews on three DVDs. Soprano and television entertainer Marguerite Piazza, folk musician Sid Selvidge, and late producer/musician Jim Dickinson are the subjects of the life-story DVDs, which will be celebrated with a public release party Thursday, December 10th, at the Memphis College of Art. “Initially, I didn’t think about doing music because that turf, so to…
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by J.D. Reager
Memphis’ indie-rock scene is notoriously insular and tends to stick closely to its established territory — the generally friendly confines of Midtown bars and restaurants. But lately a new music venue is gathering momentum in an unexpected location, inspiring many local musicians to rethink any preconceived notions about rocking the suburbs. Swanky’s Taco Shop, a popular, locally owned Mexican restaurant and tequila bar just outside the city limits in Germantown (6641 Poplar, in the Carrefour shopping center), began booking local…
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Bill Callahan balances uncertainties on his new album.
by Stephen Deusner
I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got darker again,” sings Bill Callahan on “Jim Cain,” the first track on his 13th album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle. A shimmery, downcast rumination with strings right out of a lost Jimmy Webb hit, the song is ostensibly about author and fellow Maryland native James M. Cain, who wrote the noir landmarks Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice but who died alcoholic and unknown.…
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by Chris Herrington
The Blues Foundation announced last week the winners of the organization’s 2010 Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, which will be presented in January in conjunction with the annual International Blues Challenge. Among the 19 winners this year are a couple of Memphians: Michael Maness — an illustrator whose work has appeared on some recent Blues Music Awards posters — in the “Art and Photography” category and Tom Graves in the “Literature” category for his book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of…
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Mike Bibbs and Mark Stuart stake out new directions.
by J.D. Reager
Memphis has somewhat of a reputation for spawning a host of musicians and bands who eventually become more revered outside of the city limits than within. It’s time to add local art-punk mastermind Mike Bibbs to that growing list. “I was doing an interview for an Australian magazine, and the writer asked me if I had ever received any press at home, saying he’d tried to look up some local reviews and couldn’t find any,” Bibbs says. “Maybe I haven’t…
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Mike Bibbs and Mark Stuart stake out new directions.
by J.D. Reager
Memphis has somewhat of a reputation for spawning a host of musicians and bands who eventually become more revered outside of the city limits than within. It’s time to add local art-punk mastermind Mike Bibbs to that growing list. “I was doing an interview for an Australian magazine, and the writer asked me if I had ever received any press at home, saying he’d tried to look up some local reviews and couldn’t find any,” Bibbs says. “Maybe I haven’t…
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by Chris Herrington
“Dennis was my teacher,” Heidi Knochenhauer says of Dennis Brooks, the tireless advocate of Memphis music and blues who died from a heart attack last month at age 59. Brooks was not a musician but carved a niche for himself through enthusiasm and hustle as a key figure in the Memphis blues scene. That scene will celebrate him Sunday, November 29th, with an afternoon and night concert at Neil’s, the Midtown venue where Brooks promoted concerts most often in recent…
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by Chris Herrington
“Dennis was my teacher,” Heidi Knochenhauer says of Dennis Brooks, the tireless advocate of Memphis music and blues who died from a heart attack last month at age 59. Brooks was not a musician but carved a niche for himself through enthusiasm and hustle as a key figure in the Memphis blues scene. That scene will celebrate him Sunday, November 29th, with an afternoon and night concert at Neil’s, the Midtown venue where Brooks promoted concerts most often in recent…
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For the Black Keys‘ Dan Auerbach, going solo is a crowded affair.
by Andria Lisle
Dan Auerbach is halfway through his winter tour, sitting in a diner in Baltimore, Maryland. He’s got a fever — nothing as extreme as H1N1 or as ridiculous as the boogie-woogie flu, but an annoying low-grade illness that’s got him doped up on Advil’s over-the-counter flu remedy and a host of nasal decongestants. “Right now, I’m getting to be lazy, which is both a good and bad thing,” Auerbach croaks by phone from this tour stop. “I’m trying to feel…
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