SLEAZE ROCK LIKE ONLY MEMPHIS CAN BREED One of my few guilty pleasures: sleazy and oh so very often cheesy, (but unless your name is Brian Hall, I don’t wanna hear nuthin’ ‘bout no CHEEZE) cock rock, like only Memphis can breed. At the first sight of any of these bands and you know what I’m talking about. BLACKBONE, ROXY BLUE, ROCK CITY ANGELS, TORA TORA, EGYPT CENTRAL to name but a few. But the overall VIBE of that Memphis Sound, cannot be matched anywhere else. Like a very young Bobby Durango said on MTV, “it must be something in the water.” It’s not immediately definable, but it’s in my blood, it flows through my veins, and I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for My Memphis Bad Boys….mind you, I have never actually met many of these guys, but we are acquainted through emails, myspace, and yahoo…and I have had their cassette tapes, their cds, pictures from shows that my brother went to , and a wild assortment of stories told to me by those who were actually there. I grew up in Little Rock, AR and we all considered Memphis bands as our own, they would play our smoky little bars before they went on to be famous, then we saw them some more at the big arenas. My brother is a local legend in his own right, having been on the music scene for decades and has met/hung out with some of the finest musicians ever to walk this planet, many of them notorious Memphis Bad Boys : Josey Scott, Chris D’abaldo, Trent Anderson, Brian “ Cheeze” Hall. This was back in the early 90s. My husband and I fled the town we grew up in to the City of Sin in 1990, Roxy Blue & Tora Tora were HUGE nationwide at this time, and Vegas was the scene of much debauchery when these Memphis Bad Boys hit the local bars. In 1994, we relocated to The Armpit Of Hell, New Mexico, but it wasn’t terrible because my brother sent me the BLACKBONE HOMEGROWN cd . In 5 years, I never saw BB live, but I almost saw them half a dozen times in half a dozen barsunfortunately they either played the day before or the day after we left...in El Paso and Little Rock both. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess. But I have stories from when my brother’s band 2ND NATURE opened for BB at Nite Life in 93ish and the pics from that night…and yes, I am not ashamed to admit I have had a big ol’ silly crush on Cheeze for more than a decade who will reamin MY ALWAYS AND FOREVER FAVORITE HALF NAKED BASS PLAYER Regardless, this one cd carried me through a number of years, through every move, through 3 different states, 5 different houses, and a dozen different neighborhoods. That Memphis Vibe takes me home, makes me feel alive. No matter how many times I hear it, no matter how many moods I’m in, it has been my SALVATION. Once we had finally moved to Memphis, where I had always dreamed of living, I had a mission to track down the musicians who had made such an impact on my solitary life. I thought along the lines of a WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Kinda scenario. Get everyone’s opinions of everyone else on the scene at that time. I found Trent “Stix Axetion”
Anderson, and Brian “Cheeze” Hall, met the legendary Chris D’abaldo, I met Matthew “Twinkie” Downen, my music guru , cousin to Todd Poole (Roxy Blue, Rail, Stiff Kitty), I “met” Rock City Angels’ singer Bobby Durango and bassist, Andy Panik on MySpace. I’ve collected many many stories from some very interesting sources. I stumbled across THE NEXT BIG NAME TO COME OUT OF MEMPHIS : Egypt Central, and once I heard their songs, I had to see them every chance I got. It was never enough. One more time, it meant something to be in a band from Memphis. Sleaze Rock…one look, and you know what I mean. They’ve got the look, the talent, the charisma, the backing, the fan base. Everything is RIGHT in the music world. A singer to just make ya stupid and who actually interviews well (YouTube “John Falls”, you’ll be wrapped up all day), a three ring circus of a performance, a bass player like you have NEVER seen, and one very funny, very insightful drummer (have you seen his interviews on YouTube ?) Not only are they talented, but they’re personable, friendly, and easily accessible to their fans, not exactly what one would expect from rising rockstars, they haven’t forgotten where they came from. These guys are the very definition of THAT MEMPHIS VIBE. Soon you will see that it is indeed a sickness, an addiction, a brand new guilty pleasure…and I promise you, you’ll want one of your very own;) So it’s only taken me a dozen years or so to get my thoughts organized, and there are a few random thoughts that may or may not make print. I have a million or so more questions to ask a few key players and then I will consider it FINISHED. But then what the hell will I do?