LIVE FROM MEMPHIS

My former band often functioned unprepared, and ultimately, half-cocked. This often left us vulnerable to the occasional beat-down from bands we shared the stage with. It’s a humbling but much welcomed pimp-slap that has become necessary to my own evolution as an artist. Plus, I usually find myself becoming a huge fan of such bands. My most rewarding paddling came from the local band Arma Secreta, one of the most underrated and unconsidered groups in Memphis. Arma Secreta is Portuguese for “Secret Weapon” and it’s a damn shame that more people aren’t in on the secret.

Pezz celebrates twenty years of making music together this Friday night at the Hi-Tone, and judging from the sound of their new 7”, they don’t show any signs of slowing down. For two decades, Pezz has released their brand of very American sounding punk rock laced with messages of personal empowerment, social justice, and the individual duty to live with honor and serve those in need. Their new three-song 7” expands their legacy.

For years I would cry myself to sleep as I watched my favorite touring bands play anywhere and everywhere but Memphis. Without a cool venue or a magic anti-apathy voodoo spell, musical acts would avoid Memphis like the black plague. Seven years ago, I played a show with a relatively well-known act (that regularly avoided the Bluff City) who showed shock, surprise, and appreciation for what they called “the best crowd they have had in this town”. There was less than a hundred people in the room. To say that I felt embarrassed would be an understatement.

Thank Gawd things have changed! Hope sprung from new ownership at the Hi-Tone. Jonathan Kiersky brought a new face to the establishment and a fresh kick-in-the-pants to the Memphis music community. Much of that credit goes to Dan Holloway, the Hi-Tone’s Talent Buyer. As Kiersky’s right hand man, Holloway’s passion for music drives him to book some of the best acts in the country.

I recently asked Dan a few questions about how and why he does what he does.

Part of my “job” at LFM is supposed be to go out and see new local bands and find something interesting or funny to say about them—to bolster a member of the music community that rarely gets its due.

When I was in the 4th grade I was way into Poison. I wasn’t lookin for nothin’ but a good time and I totally wanted to finger-bang the blond singer chic. Aside from the Sesame Street Fever album (Grover is a pimp!) and some Beatles tunes that I picked up from my parents, I had yet to experience anything that appealed to my pre-pubescent sensibilities more than Poison. In my defense, I had virtually no frame of reference for what was “cool”.  Poor me.

I was thinking about an old friend the other day, a guy in a band who I used to share shows with back in Murfreesboro. He was smart, talented and a damn good musician. One of those guys who just craps art. He could write ten songs to my one, and every one of them was a gem. But the tragic end to that story is that he gave it all up.  He found love and this love did not love the fact that he loved writing and playing music. Maybe it was the clubs. Or the booze. Or the possibility of other women being in these clubs with booze, who knows. So he quit. Just gave it up.Through the years, I have had a handful of other friends that threw in the towel. Kids, shitty bosses, fear, and unrealistic expectations have all claimed their casualties. 

Simon’s front man Lee has the calm of a serial killer. He holds his gaze just a hair too long, momentarily unsettling you.

I’m not the biggest metal fan. And I don’t care to argue what is and what isn’t metal. I use the term as loosely as it has been used since the genre's inception. I didn’t necessarily grow up on it either. Geraldo Rivera’s 1988 special on Satanism and metal hijacked any possible interest I may have had. On the bus in seventh grade, I was listening to the Sugarcubes and wearing Bauhaus t-shirts while facing the weekly threat of an ass-kicking from a dagger-earring wearing dude named Peanut. It took years of intense therapy for me to build compassion for the metal heavy.

When one of the LFM boss men asked me to review this record, I was a little hesitant. I’ve never written a record review before and I didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the other handjob reviews I’d read. I’ve gotten the impression that these critics don’t let the music sit with them—they just listen once or twice through and then write. I have to give it some time, play it in different settings, and think about what I've heard. Plus, how would I rate the thing? I considered a starred rating system like in kindergarten, or maybe a number thing from 1 to 10, or an academic letter grade system. But really, all that shit seems arbitrary. Instead, I can sum up my opinion in a short but precise manner: The album is awesome, but not great.

Let me tell you something you don’t know: the Dirty Streets rock.

The Dirty Streets bring the full pleasure grimace. Photo by Adam Dodds.

One of the main reasons I’m doing these blogs is to get my ass off of the couch. I spent too much of my twenties stoned in front of the TV, vacuuming up as many hot wings, crab legs, and Bud Lights as I could fit into my gaping yap hole. Being out-of-the-loop for so long, I picked a band at random out of the Flyer. I’ve seen the name "Dirty Streets" around, so I went online to check them out. It was a little dodgy. The recordings were flat and the songs were fairly stock. But I liked the name of the band and I rarely trust my first impressions.

For a Monday night in Memphis, I was surprised to see a healthy crowd inside of the Hi-Tone. I was also taken aback by friends I had inside that were far more hip to the Streets than I was. Hi-Tone door man/guard dog Danny Lewd filled my ear about how great they were. Apparently there is a buzz about these guys.

The Dirty Streets are a 3 piece blues-psych-rock band somewhere between The Whigs, early AC/DC and Cream, with maybe a little Grand Funk Railroad thrown in there for good measure. While I am not much of a fan of some of the other throwback, roots-oriented bands in town, The Dirty Streets have two things the others don’t: youth and bawls. They are too young to intentionally pander to the tradition lovers and heavy enough to avoid the genre's beige complacency. Thankfully, their live show trumped the recordings I heard online.

They can play, and the dude can really sing, but the most promising part of the show came out of seeming disaster. Crapped-out bass heads, anonymous feedback, and a runaway bass drum were all throwing wrenches into the works. During one squirrelly kick drum episode, a guy jumped up on stage to aid the bass player as he secured the drum. The guitar player was left to cover by vamping on a finger-picking, John Lee Hooker type thing for about two minutes. He sang with his mouth on the mic in a soft but throaty slur. It was a small flash of potential brilliance that was strongly punctuated by the soon-to-be recovered rhythm section. Upon their return, the bottom dropped out with a ferocity that got the hairs up on end.

The Dirty Streets are a good band, but right now the stock is in their potential. It’s incredibly hard to keep a band together and functioning, sometimes damn near impossible. The various organizational, personal, and as The Dirty Streets experienced that night, mechanical conundrums a band can find itself in are extremely taxing—but these hardships are exactly what can make a band like this go from good to great. A year or two from now, when they find out how dirty the streets really are, everyone will know about The Dirty Streets.