Claire Robinson, New Food Network Chef from Memphis

I got curious about the new TV chef on Food Network and found that Claire Robinson is from Memphis and used to work at Maggie's Pharm, (website) (recent news story), which has been selling oils, herbs, teas, and such in Overton Square since the 80's.  Here's a link to her Food Network bio and a link to the video introducing her to cooking show watchers.  Good luck, Claire!

Billy Lavender -- Memphis Livin'

Some friends and acquaintances of mine have worked hard putting together an album of good blues under Billy Lavender's name, with the title Memphis Livin'. Click here to sample it. Below is the press kit video for the album, and below that, a video of a song off the record, "Singin' The Blues," that appeared first on an album by Blind Mississippi Morris (MySpace page).





Go to I55 Productions to hook up with these guys, or talk to Brad Webb.

FGF -- The Fibonaccis

Here in Memphis we need a Feel Good Friday badly this week, so let me nudge my cohorts with this very unusual number.

I was in bed watching this goofy movie Android with Klaus Kinski and fell asleep in the middle of it. I figured that out after I was awakened by a very strange instrumental that was made even stranger by hearing in a half-sleep state. It turned out to be the closing theme over credits of that movie. I was relieved, because there is more than a hint of weirdness in this tune, named after a well-known Italian director of spaghetti westerns, "Sergio Leone", by a Los Angeles 80's new wave art rock group, The Fibonaccis (wiki).

Perhaps shoot-out surrealism matches the week we've had. Click here to hear "Sergio Leone" in a new window.

They did make one video, of their cover of "Purple Haze":



Someone put two more of their originals in one video. There are more tunes on their MySpace page. Here's the band's own site with LOTS of their music, where you can stream "Sergio Leone" into your media player or download your own copy, courtesy of the band!

Wintermute Judges the International Blues Challenge

The call went out early this year for volunteers to judge the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in February.  I hadn't done any judging since the Memphis Blues Society's preliminary competition a few years ago, so I signed up.

I enjoyed being one of the three who judged one of the two nights at the Hard Rock Cafe venue on Beale Street, despite having to sit in a non-cushioned chair for hours.  I had a different judging style than my two fellow, out-of-town judges, who treated their scorecards for each act like a top secret CIA dossier and who made almost no comments out loud.  Hell, I wanted them to know what I thought about each act.  They were probably just less confident in their blues judgment.

After the results for my venue became known to me, I started questioning the methodology used to select the winners.  Each of several venues has something like eight bands that play two nights in succession in the same venue, and the acts are scored by a different set of three judges each of the two nights.  Perhaps there is some thought to prevent the two sets of judges from interacting; but if that is the intent, why not have six judges one night, seated apart in the club instead of at the same table as we were?  I'd rather interact with all the judges judging the bands at a venue.  Sometimes I feel like influencing, be it in the positive or negative direction; and I listen to see if someone has seen or heard something I missed.

I put this in the post-competition survey of judges.  I don't think I want to judge a venue the same way next time.  I'd be happy to judge the finals, because the panels are not split and judging two different performances on two different nights.  I discussed this with a local entertainment writer and musician who also said he didn't want to judge this thing anymore because of being blindsided by other judges' completely contradictory opinions of what a good blues band sounds, looks, and acts like.

Anyway, here are the snaps I took of what I had as the second best band of the venue, and they could have struck me as THE best on another night.  They were more of a soul blues band than the others, which is certainly a concept that is popular in Memphis.  In fact, the band in the pictures could play at Wild Bill's, and no one would gripe one bit.  Researching these guys for this post, I see the drummer and guitar player are veterans of Buckwheat Zydeco's band, so see, I could hear the quality without knowing the bio.  Dig it!  The Inner City Blues Band! (MySpace site) (band site) (their CD)

Yes, that's a real zoot suit the horn player has on.  Here it is closer up.

The guitar player was terrific.  Again, I liked one other guitarist just a tiny bit better, but that was a close call.  Check this guy out:

Here's my scorecard for this outfit, they were really fine.  I had 'em second, but it was close, and maybe I should have reversed my top two.

Guess what?  Found a video of this band playing the Hard Rock that weekend, although you can tell from the guitar player's different clothes that it was the first night; I judged the second night.



Some of you are asking, "Who was the band you thought deserved to be first over this band?"  Shawn Curle & the 44's. (band site) (Shawn's account on MySpace)  I guess I was just a fool for who I thought had the best playing guitar player that night.  A major touring act that needs an ace guitar player (like the guy in the other band, Nick Sonye, who goes out with Buckwheat) ought to hire Shawn and relieve him of having to field his own band and carry vocals and just make him use that electric guitar vocabulary and the great technique and tone on semi-hollowbody he showed me a piece of that night.  There are a lot of videos of Shawn on YouTube, but what makes me a bit sad is that he has evidently not gotten the production, direction, and focus sufficient to show off his strength.  Oh hell, this one is pretty representative sonically:



You wanna see and hear how the band that made it into the finals from the Hard Rock sounded and looked like the night I judged?  Found a video of that too.  See what I mean?  You wanna see the finals performance of the band that won?

Artesian Well Digging on the Memphis Greenline

More pictures that stayed in my cell phone until I could transfer them without paying Verizon.  I mean, I bought the phone, I'm not leasing it; but they disabled some features in the phone (Motorola E815) before they sold it to me (or had Motorola do it before shipping), like being able to transfer multimedia to/from my PC through USB, Motorola Phone Tools, and the cable that came with it.  I had to buy a memory card as a workaround.

Anyway, I snapped these taking a walk on the Vollentine-Evergreen Greenline, a stretch of abandoned L&N Railroad right-of-way.  I suspect MLG&W is drilling a new artesian well with this rig, because there are several other wells along the Greenline.  I made an inquiry to the appropriate MLG&W official requesting details and received the following from several personnel responding:

This well was a replacement well in the Mallory wellfield. When MLGW purchases well lots, it is done with the intention of having enough real estate to drill two to three wells on that lot. Well 35B is the third well to be drill on this particular lot. Every year, Water Engineering & Operations assess the water well needs of every station. During the last assessment, it was decided that Mallory's wellfield needed more reliable wells. MLGW anticipates wells to last at least 35 years.

This well is about 80% complete, so costs are still accumulating. The estimated total cost of the well is $500,000.

Verizon Is Greedy - Have Some Home-Made Pizza

I dumped some old cell phone pics after I got a memory card for my Verizon-issued cell phone.  That was the workaround a kind worker in the company store suggested after I griped about being forced to pay $0.25 to send every picture through their system to my email.  Verizon turned off the ability to use Motorola Phone Tools with the E815 to transfer multimedia to my PC, and that sort of greed and arrogance is why I have not renewed my contract with Verizon and will get my phone flashed over to Cricket soon.

Anyway, here's a before and after pizza I made from scratch except for the crust, which was a refrigerator roll-up, pre-baked a bit for crispness.  I made the marinara sauce according to Mario Batali's recipe, used a grated multiple pizza cheese mix along with extra mozzarella, and topped it with pepperoni, cut-up cotto salami, Black Forest ham, and sauteed mushrooms.

Free Shows at the Memphis Shell Sundays in July

Click pic to embiggen.

Memphis Belles Pinup Car Wash

UPDATE: Bumpin' this up because the girls are so beautiful mentally and physically. Go get you some good vibes and a clean car for cheap.

The Memphis Belles burlesque troop is having another car wash at Shangri-La Records on Madison. I went to the last one; and the girls did an amazingly good job on my van for the measly $10 contribution. Here's the latest poster:

More info at the Belles' great MySpace site.

See who else will be there on the Facebook page for this event.

Two words: Hubba Hubba!

Jim Strickland for Memphis Mayor Blog Button

Here's the new Jim Strickland for City Mayor blog button.

Click on it to go to the Draft Jim Strickland for Memphis City Mayor page on Facebook:


To get this blog button to show your support for Jim Strickland for City Mayor, copy and paste this code into your template wherever you want it, for a 220 pixel-wide button:

<a title="Go to Strickland for Mayor web page" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=95357075845"> <img alt="Go to Strickland for Mayor web page" style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HZLzbjVc4AY/SkQp2J7iH2I/AAAAAAAABPc/7tbe_0-Virs/s320/Strickland+220.gif" border="0" /></a>

If you need a narrower button, then try this 125 pixel-wide button:

by copying this code:

<a title="Go to Strickland for Mayor web page" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=95357075845"> <img alt="Go to Strickland for Mayor web page" style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HZLzbjVc4AY/SkQ2S5Z9UmI/AAAAAAAABPk/GwH4aLiAWY0/s200/Strickland+125.gif" border="0" /"></a>

Users of the latest Blogger™ software can just click below to autoinstall either the 220 pixel-wide button or the 125 pixel-wide button:

VotD: Rock Hard with Jimi Jamison