Andy Kaufman’s Helpful Hints

Renfield and I caught the new Kaufman documentary at the Indie Memphis Film Festival yesterday, which of course sent me down the YouTube rabbit hole later. These clips are not in the movie, but a good sampling of some of the things he did to enrage the locals during his Memphis wrasslin heel stint in 1982. Hilarious.

The guy they keep cutting back to is Dave Brown, weatherman and co-host (along with Lance Russell) of the local wrestling program on our NBC affiliate.

These Guys Are Doing Gonerfest Saturday

Guys who can play – pretending they can’t – while dressed as monsters is fucking genius.

The Mummies are an American garage punk band formed in San Bruno, California, in 1988. Exhibiting a defiantly raw and lo-fi sound, dubbed “budget rock”, the Mummies’ rebellious attitude and distinctive performance costumes exerted a major influence on garage punk and garage rock revival acts later in the decade, as well as in the 1990s. Their recorded output was intentionally completed with poor, cheap equipment, including their first and only studio album Never Been Caught, which was released after the group’s initial break-up. Since then, the Mummies have engaged in several positively-received reunion concerts and tours, including appearances in Europe and the US sporadically through to recent years. The band is currently working on a movie.

Agent Elvis

So silly it could work? We’ll find out in March!

This ten episode, Netflix adult animation series from Sony Pictures Animation is an irreverent action comedy starring Matthew McConaughey as Elvis Presley and follows Elvis as he lives a double-life as a secret agent. The show was created by Priscilla Presley and John Eddie, and was developed by Co-Showrunners Mike Arnold and John Eddie, who also serve as Executive Producers along with Executive Producers Kevin Noel, Matthew McConaughey, Priscilla Presley, with Fletcher Moules serving as Co-Executive Producer and Seranie Manoogian as Producer. Jamie Salter, Corey Salter, and Marc Rosen with Authentic Brands Group also served as Executive Producers. Vancouver-based Titmouse served as the animation studio with Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, and Ben Kalina serving as Executive Producers and Gary Ye as Supervising Director, Chris Thompson as Art Director, and Josue Sanchez as Editor. Robert Valley created original character designs, and Agent Elvis’ wardrobe was designed by John Varvatos. Music and original score was composed by Tyler Bates and Timothy Williams.

s p a c e r

I’m kind of obsessed with these guys at the moment, although this recording doesn’t capture their live energy exactly. Guitarist and drummer, the new power trio!

Sure I Wanna Meet the Scruffs


My mother gave me an Amazon gift certificate, and rather than spend it on something useful like a Nic Cage pillow, I decided I’d buy something really stupid and overpriced. Kidding. I’ve been looking for this for awhile, and haven’t run across one anywhere, so I pulled the trigger because it was free money. Not in the best shape (record plays great, but cover is a little beat), but I’m happy to finally have it.

Collectors collect.

The nice thing about buying used records is the artists get fuck all from it. If I ever happen to meet any of the contributors to this very good record, I will at least buy them a beer or other beverage of their choice, but that’ll probably never happen.

Tearjerkers!

I found a first pressing at Shangri-La and forgot how great this album is! The lineup for this release is Jack (Oblivian) Yarber, Scott Bomar, Subteen John Bonds, and John Whittemore. Released on Sympathy for the Record Industry in the year of our Lord 2000.

This is a playlist. CRANK IT UP!

Focus On Big Star

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of its release, host Rich Tupica compiled a two-part show on Big Star’s “No. 1 Record.” Released in 1972, by Ardent and Stax Records, it’s influenced everyone from R.E.M. and Teenage Fanclub to Beck and Wilco.

The first part, comprising only alternate takes from the LP, also includes 1972 radio interview clips with founders Alex Chilton and Andy Hummel – recorded days after the album was released. Part two of this show digs back into the roots of the Memphis band, playing only Big Star pre-cursors. Part two also features 1975 interview clips from Chris Bell, who left the band just after the LP was released.

Check it out here!

Also, can’t remember if I told you bastards or not, but I grew up on the same street as Chris Bell. Missed him by about ten years, though. They moved in ’65.

52 Years Ago Today…


…I attended this show, age 12. Upon walking in the coliseum, I asked “what’s that smell?” “That’s pot, you idiot,” replied my friend, who apparently ran with a faster crowd.

It was quite a show, with generous use of a theremin during Heartbreaker and Whole Lotta Love. I’ll admit to getting bored with some of the longer ones, but much of it was stunning. Anyway, you can forgive them for overdoing it, because they loved to play and no one was playing better at the time (I doubt if they ever played as well as they did during these early years; they were clearly not as good by the time they made their concert movie, I think in ’73). They were pumped about playing here, you can hear Robert Plant announce that just before they begin. They’d spent much of the day scoring local rockabilly and blues records that were rare elsewhere, something you could still do fairly easily in Memphis back then.

However, as good as the show was and as well as they played, they did not depart on good terms. The police got very antsy and interrupted them during the last long medley (based around How Many More Times but including Tobacco Road, Honey Bee, and also Memphis TN and That’s Alright Mamma for the occasion) and kept harrassing them to get the crowd to sit down. This was still the era of violent Viet Nam protests, and the cops were just nervous. Before the encore you can hear Plant, at the behest of the police, beg the crowd to sit before a policeman chimes in. Plant obviously didn’t care about the crowd standing, but the band was under threat of arrest at that point. Then Page lashes out the first chords of Whole Lotta Love and the place goes bonkers again. The police had ordered all the house lights turned on during How Many More Times; they just wanted people to leave. But of course no one did, because the band was at full throttle.

Meanwhile, backstage, the promoter was afraid the authorities would ban him from ever staging another show in Memphis, so he pointed a gun at Peter Grant to try to make him stop the show. Grant called his bluff and reportedly looked him square in the eye and said “ya can’t shoot me, ya cunt. They gave us the key to the fuckin’ city.” And they had. Prior to their arrival, Mayor Loeb decided to award an official key “to that Led Zeppelin feller who can sell out the coliseum in an hour” (a record at the time). When the mayor saw their hair, he regretted the decision, but ever the southern gentleman, proceeded anyway in a short, awkward meeting the afternoon of the show.

As for me, I got grounded a few weeks for attending. The newspaper reported the widespread pot use and trouble with the police. When I’d asked permission to go, I said LZ were sort of like the Partridge Family. I had no idea they reviewed rock concerts in the newspapers. It was worth the grounding. I don’t think I saw such an exciting culture clash until the Sex Pistols came through in early ’78.

This tour was in support of Led Zeppelin II. The Memphis date came a few months after the legendary Royal Albert Hall show, so the set is similar but mostly better. They’d toured extensively in between, so they’d perfected it on the road by the time they got to Memphis. Just one of many examples: here’s the RAH version of their opener, “We’re Gonna Groove,” and here’s the Memphis one. Page had added some great guitar fills, and then there’s the extra funk groove in the middle.

Speaking o’ Memphis

Here’s a radio show of some 60’s-70’s rarities.  I love the ones by the Breakers and Flash and the Memphis Casuals.  I bet they kicked ass live (I’m not old enough to have seen them, although I did see about half of the others on this list).  Unlisted after the Tommy Hoehn song is a pretty terrible cover of “I Walk the Line” by a band called Hot Dogs, who had some good songs;  why on earth was that chosen?  I find Chris Bell’s acoustic version of “I Am The Cosmos” too slow, sludgy, and depressing–which I guess makes sense, as he was chronically depressed.   It’s the sound of Quaalude abuse.  The official single version moves along better, although there’s still about as much sludge as I can endure.