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Whiskey Porn

A German or perhaps Scandinavian reviews my favorite Tennessee Whiskey.  I’m posting this because things get funny at around 4:25, when he starts sounding like a 70’s  porn actor getting “serviced.”

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Watch Me Jumpstart

Matador has put the GBV documentary Watch Me Jumpstart on YouSchlube for free. Something to do while you’re pretending you’re working.

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The Best Memphis Punk Band You’ve Never Heard Of

Happy Friday, you bastards, you.

In 2012, the documentary I directed about the Antenna club and the vibrant music scene which sprang up around it premiered at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. It had a successful festival run, but a commercial release of Antenna has been repeatedly delayed by music rights issues. With the help of J.D. Reager, we managed to convince Bob Holmes, who had become something of a recluse, to do an interview for the film. For three hours, he regaled us with some of the wildest Memphis music stories I have ever had the good fortune to hear. In order to honor the passing of a Memphis musical genius, I have uploaded the Modifiers segments from Antenna to YouTube and present it here for the first time since 2012.

Thus speaketh documentary director Chris McCoy.

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The Genius Of Shane MacGowan

YouTube’s algorithms recently presented me with a Late Late Show installment featuring Shane MacGowan, along with a room full of famous friends, family and collaborators.

The tribute is framed as a sort of after-hours jolly at Tubridy Tavern. Pint glasses and candles are set on tables; in the backdrop looms an image of the Brooklyn Bridge (in reference to Fairytale, obviously).

Aidan Gillen recalls MacGowan’s music speaking to him when he was a young actor living in London. Glen Hansard remembers when growing up in Ballymun, the Pogues and Bob Marley were on everyone’s mix-tape (and duets on A Rainy Night In Soho with Lisa O’Neill). There are video eulogies from Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream, actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Paul Simon (apparently taping his piece on a golf course in the midst of a hurricane – so bravo for that).

I was surprised to learn that pneumonia and a fractured pelvis led to MacGowan’s sobriety in 2015. And even though he has teeth again, holy shit does he look (and sound) awfully fragile in his wheelchair at the tender age of 62.

Anyway, all this heaped praise reminded me of Hell’s Ditch, the only Pogues album I’ve ever owned. I’m getting reacquainted with it today and thought I’d share with you bastards. Enjoy or don’t.

Seen the carnival at Rome
Had the women I had the booze
All I can remember now
Is little kids without no shoes
So I saw that train
And I got on it
With a heart full of hate
And a lust for vomit
Now I’m walking on the sunnyside of the street

Stepped over bodies in Bombay
Trying to make it to the U.S.A.
Ended up in Nepal
Up on a roof with nothing at all
And I knew that day
I was going to stay
Right where I am, on the sunnyside of the street

Been in a palace, and I been in a jail
I just don’t want to be reborn a snail
Just want to spend eternity
Right where I am, on the sunnyside of the street

As my mother wept it was then I swore
To take my life as I would a whore
I know I’m better than before
I will not be reconstructed
Just wanna stay right here
On the sunnyside of the street

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This Is Excellent

If any of you bastards are into Audible books, this one is a must. I bought it a couple of years ago, making my second pass now. Riveting.

David Sedaris tells all in a book that is, literally, a lifetime in the making.

For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences.

Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Theft by Finding, the first of two volumes, is the story of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet.

Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can’t fully disguise, Theft By Finding proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It’s a potent reminder that when you’re as perceptive and curious as Sedaris, there’s no such thing as a boring day.

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Replacements At A Turning Point

Here’s a great 32-year-old article from SPIN’s archives, from around the time that I was getting into them. (Yes, I was late to the party and had to work my way back through the Twin/Tone albums.) The band had just parted ways with manager Pete Jesperson, fired lead guitarist Bob Stinson, and released one of their best albums, Pleased To Meet Me. Recorded right here in Memphis!

“When we started,” [Westerberg] says, pausing to sip from a midmorning Schmidt, “we definitely had a fear of success. We had a fear of everything. We were all very paranoid, and I think that goes hand in hand with the excessive drinking thing. We’d get drunk because we were basically scared shitless, and that snowballed into image. Now we’re a little more assured of what we’re doing. We’re not positive which way we’re going, but we think we know what mistakes lie ahead, and we’re trying to sidestep ‘em.”

Full article here.