Category Archives: TVD Memphis

Alright folks, Wakarusa is in full swing and it’s time to talk schedules. The “grassroots festival nestled in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas where the beauty of nature synchronizes with the euphoric sounds of live music” has already been raging for a full day, and with a full weekend ahead of jam bands, electronic artists, and damn near everything in between, there’s plenty to feel overwhelmed. Here to help you avoid “line-up overload syndrome” is a compendium for the roster’s best.

Let’s go ahead and get the headliners out-of-the-way. These kids didn’t get to the top of the bill on good looks alone (well, maybe Primus), so lets talk about the biggest bands coming through.

As mentioned, Primus will be playing Waka Saturday at the main stage (11:00pm). Also on the main stage on Saturday, Umphrey’s McGee (8:30pm) and Big Gigantic (1am). Friday’s main stage attractions include Avett Brothers (10:15pm) and Girl Talk (1am). Also on Friday’s main stage, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (8:15pm) will not be attempting to go home (eh, eh?), as they are set to play; giving every hipster who likes music on NFL.com tickets commercials something to sing along to.

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Alright Memphis, another week in, another weekend! This Friday and Saturday will have you rocking out to a supergroup from the 90’s, mixing styles at CD release party of one of Memphis’ most fun live bands, getting down to music by a bunch of girls who aren’t named Trisha and much more.

Friday (5/25) starts the weekend right with plenty of options. Allstar metal group Down will be playing at the New Daisy. Consisting of Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar), Pat Bruders (Crowbar), and Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod), the band features cornerstone figures from many of metal’s most active and influential acts.

Also billed are bands Harp and Black Tusk, ensuring your evening will be full of thrashing around and rocking out.

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Last week, off-center electropop guitar-wielding goddess St. Vincent came through Memphis and divvied out love wrapped in music to hungry ears at Minglewood Hall. The songstress brought with her alt-rock outfit Shearwater to fill out the bill. With both acts working off of releases launched in the past year, the evening was full of fresh sounds and energy.

Shearwater is an indie pop band whose tree trunk contains more than a couple of rings. Having been around for a dozen years or so, they’ve been able to craft their sound carefully into a yin-yang of straightforward songwriting and understated odd decorations that teeter on dissonant at their most impacting moments. Jonathan Meiburg’s composition sticks to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus format rather tightly.

This sense of tradition carries a riding vibe of the familiar to anyone who has heard a guitar pop song in the last 20 years or so—with a catch. Very much like Radiohead in the mid ’90s the meat isn’t in the catchy-ness of the choruses alone; it’s a complex dish that comes from the familiarity of the chord progression in tandem with the outlandish feedback flares or sampler supporting parts from Lucas Oswald.

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Hey Memphis! This weekend is the long-awaited BBQ Fest, and teams of cookers from all around the globe have come to compete with their world-class cuisine.

Keeping your health in mind, we here at TVD have organized a list of fantastic shows to dance at, to help you burn those BBQ calories. With a little bit of blues, a little bit of indie rock, and a serving of the weird, this weekend is setting up to fill up both your stomach and your ears!

Friday (5/18) marks an important date for the live Memphis calendar; The Levitt Shell Pavilion opens back up this weekend, ready to give Memphis four shows a week from artists of varying styles and backgrounds. Although the acts vary in taste and style, one thing the Shell does do consistently is line up amazing talent. Friday is perfect example of this with a performance from blues aficionado and his act the Cedric Burnside Project. Grandson of blues legend R.L. Burnside, this guy’s got the blues in his blood, showing it off in every set.

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Hey Memphis! Last weekend’s Music Fest brought lots of great acts through our town. Although you probably had your agenda set for this weekend for recovery, I’m compelled to tell you why you’re gonna have to scratch those plans. Short and simple, this weekend’s line up will be a refresher course on some of Memphis’s most talented natives. 

Friday (4/11) at The Hi-Tone Cafe, Megan Reilly will be performing tunes all night, featuring a few from her new album The Well. Reilly is notable for heartfelt americana and her voice which has an impressive range and often runs through elaborate lines of decorated melodies.

The Well being her first effort in 6 years, the album has a lot to say in just seven songs making complex arrangements and composition ideas equal weight with poppy sounds and catchy choruses. Also, she’s gorgeous so that alone makes attendance almost compulsory.

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Tonight, May 11th at The New Daisy, “Four Shades of Blue” is going down. 

Four unique artists will show the audience their take on the blues, from the swamp blues of Kenny Neal to the Afro-Cuban/Chicago-style blues of Eddie Turner, a wide array of the genre will be on display. Dennis Jones and Blues Hall of Famer Lazy Lester will be making appearances as well. Check out a video of Zac Harmon below.

Doors are at 6:30, show at 7pm. All ages. $20. Tickets here.

Hey there, Memphis! Week after week, great acts come through our lovely city by the Mississippi River. With few exceptions, are we able to enjoy the majestic view of such a powerful body of water in tandem with amazing entertainment.

Well folks, if you’re familiar with Memphis music culture, you’ll know that the end of April brings Memphis in May—a month-long celebration of a culture from the other side of the world. This year will be an extended look into the beauty of The Philippines. In good Memphis fashion, music will kick off the celebration with a weekend-long festival of some amazing live performances by the river.

Over 50+ acts will be playing this year’s MusicFest, featuring some current chart toppers as well as some legends of years past. With so much to choose from, we’ve carefully examined the schedule to give you our picks for this year’s MusicFest.

Friday (5/4) will begin your weekend of wild music fun. We’re starting out with the southern rock and jammy goodness of the North Mississippi All Stars (6:10 at the Bud Light Stage). Up next, Memphis rap legends (and Academy Award winners) Three 6 Mafia (7:35 at the Orion Stage). Metal heads Megadeth (9:00 at the Orion Stage) offer up some saw raw rock, while Florence + the Machine (9:15 at the Bud Light Stage) give their indie cred a test run, playing tons of new and old material.

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Alright Memphians, you know the drill—another week in, another weekend out. Well, this Friday and Saturday are gonna be huge! This weekend hosts not one, but two amazing festivals rich with Memphis culture.

Not only is this the weekend of Stax to the Max: A Soulsville Street Festival, but also the second annual BristerFest! With Friday holding its own with some great material to go out and go see, this weekend is gonna be massive!

Friday (4/27) is going to give you a hefty shot of bluegrass followed by a serving of someone defining the term “multi-instrumentalist.” Leftover Salmon and their quarter century of experience will be playing “Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass” (their words, not mine) at Minglewood Hall. Also billed is one-man band Keller Williams. Williams, who is known for his ability to jam through songs… with himself, will show his advanced super powers in the ways of looping, phrasing, and feeling the vibe enough to unleash some rad solos (err, literally).

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Punk godfathers Social Distortion will tear through Minglewood Hall here in town on May 1st. Formed in 1978, the band has seen its ups and downs, but has forever changed punk rock and will continue to inspire on Tuesday night.

Their last record Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes was released early last year; a new one is planned for next year sometime, which as Social D fans know, would be a very short wait between albums.

Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm. The Toadies and Lindi Ortega will open the show. Get tickets here.

Generally speaking, there are not many reasons to like Tuesday. It’s right next to Monday, so it only reminds you that the weekend is far away. Furthermore, the television won’t even offer you respite from your hard day at work. (I mean, who still watches Biggest Loser anyways?)

Well, this past Tuesday, The Conduits, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and Cursive came to the Hi-Tone Cafe, and if you happened to miss out—it was much better than anything NBC had to offer.

What sweetened the pot is that I had the chance to chat with Conduits about touring and music before the show. We spoke of their moody and dark aesthetic and its ability to still sound big. When discussing arrangement and their sense of crescendo, we touched on influences ranging from Jon Bonham to Mogwai.

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In Celebration of Record Store Day, Blues troubador Eric Hughes will be bringing his saucy sound to Spin Street. Also billed, the Memphis Dawls and their southern folk sounds will be filling the atmosphere.

The Eric Hughes Band have been serving up authentic Memphis blues for over 11 years. Known for their expert musicianship and their amazing showmanship, The Eric Hughes band are sure to put on a damn fine show.

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What’s up Memphians? You all know what today is, so I hope you’re celebrating—that’s right, it’s the 40th anniversary of Apollo 16 landing on the moon!

In this week’s The Line Up, we’re spotlighting some fantastic out-of-this-world live music for you to get spacey to.

Today, Friday, (4/20) will launch things out of the atmosphere with some great music all over town. Funk aficionados and deep space experts Galactic will be serving up funky jazz numbers all night at Minglewood Hall with help from Living Colour’s Corey Glover. Also rocking out will be Corey Henry with help from Lightnin’ Malcolm.

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Two of Memphis’ best rock bands, The Dirty Streets and Tiger High, are hitting the Hi-Tone stage together this Saturday night the 21st.

Headliner The Dirty Streets are kicking off a mini-tour that night. Their album Movements was released back in November of last year on Good For Nothing Records.

Opener Tiger High has been getting some significant press the last several months and their debut Myth Is This was officially released in special edition form earlier this month on Trashy Creatures Records. A new record is to follow sometime this Summer.

Show is at 9pm. $5 / 18+. Rock!

If you ever want to know the proper relationship between color and sound, Shpongle isn’t a bad place to start.

The Shpongle live experience is an assortment of gigantic visuals over hypnotic music. The combination results in a strange mixture that confuses the senses. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines synesthesia as a subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. When one sees Shpongle, it’s hard to avoid this sensation.

This past Wednesday, I was slated to see Simon Posford perform as Shpongle at Minglewood Hall. As I arrived to get Shpongled, Phuture Primitive was jamming out to English psuedo-dubstep grooves as the crowd swayed to the given beat. Phuture Primitive’s sounds were educated and calculated; no gritty or loose beats here. Tracks arranged with surgical precision dropped left and right like bombs on the audience. His tight and commanding sound was defined during the final track of his set, a remix of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” to which the crowd exploded with energy.

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Good Friday Memphis! (Err, wasn’t that last week?) *Ahem* Here we are with yet another addition of the Line-Up. This weekend, we’ll have you getting your southern drawl fix as well as jamming out to some great alt rock from outta town. Get your weekend warrior face on, its time for battle yet again!

Friday (4/13) will start things off with lots of class and a little bit of twang. Kevin Gordon and his heartfelt Americana will be making an appearance at the spacious place that is Minglewood Hall.

Aiding Mr. Gordon with a huge helping of a taste of the south, Grace Askew is set to play all of her classics, ensuring a good portion of delta heat.

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