Austin Fanzine Project

Our friends from Columbia, Missouri arrived around 7 pm and we all headed down to Ellen's Soul Food for the best friend chicken I've ever had (besides my mommy's of course). Then, with out bellies so full we could hardly more, we headed down to Barrister's for the first night of the Dixie Fried Backalley Brawl. Amazingly, we ran into [Casey]] of Make Room fanzine fame, another proud Texan who had journeyed north to worship at the garage rock altar.

The entrance to Barrister's is on an alley, which makes it easy to take a between-band breather with beer in hand. Memphis seemed to have a lot of unenforced laws and the open-contained law was one of the, (Another curious Memphian alcohol law is that you can't sell a container of beer larger than 38 oz- that's right, folks... no 40s.)

Inside testosterone surged through the air. An ancient big-screen TV was showing clips from early 60s-ish sexploitation films. People were shooting pool, buying records from the merch table and drinking beer. The crowd was much livelier than the typical Austin crowd, and there were a lot more girls out!

The first band was the Hate Bombs, a classic 60s-style garage band who played more songs about girls than any other band I've ever seen. Everyone in the band sings lead except the bassist who, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to a young Elvis. I thoroughly enjoyed this set. Next up was AMF (which stands for many things, including Adolescent Music Fantasy). Their drummer, Ross Johnson, who emceed the whole event (and who had played with Panther Burns, Gibson Brothers, Alex Chilton and Pink Slip Daddy) kept demanding that the proprietor "play more nekkid movies." AMF took it slow and easy (they were self-proclaimed "middle-aged, over-weight rock'n'rollers") and they played mostly covers, but there were fine choices like "Drunk Again," "Theme From A Summer Place," and "I Walked With the Zombies." '68 Comeback (or rather Jeff Evans + the Oblivians) was next. Not being familiar with Jeff's stuff, I didn't know what to expect, but I was very pleased with their set.

Then came the Oblivians. I'd only seen them once before (at that horribly ill-attended Thanksgiving-night show at Emo's) and I had almost forgotten how great their show are. I was speechless. Luckily we got some of it on tape, including most of "Motorcycle Leather Boy" as sung very

fucking time. Someone even thrust tambourines into our hands at one point.

All three nights pretty much went like that. Since a girl travels faster when she travels alone — and I'm nothing if not fast — it was a new experience to have company in Memphis. Ever since our esteemed editor Jennifer La settled down, got married and started having kids [one boyfriend, one dog —ed.], she hasn't been able to go with me on my little trips. But this time I had other folks to show me around, to take to Ellen's soul food, the AmVets Thrift Store, Schwab's Dry Goods and Neely's BBQ. And we even went out for a night of dancing at Green's Lounge with Scott Bomar and Mike Tole. Green's Lounge was this truly nasty blues dive where we saw Wilroy Sanders play. There's usually a few white folks there, but it's generally populated by neighborhood types, older black folks drinking, dancing and macking — the same shit we do on a Saturday night, but with better music. You're served Budweiser in quart bottles with paper cups and can bring in your own hard stuff and buy a set-up. Margaret brought in some vodka and got fuckin' trashed, Andrea danced with every guy that asked, and my purse got stolen — par for the fuckin' course if you ask me. What a great night.

I can't explain how much I love listening to the music you find in these spots in Memphis. It inspires vastly conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I'm terribly grateful It's still around for me to hear and it makes me feel right at home. On the other, I feel no better then some cultural tourist who gets to pop in and listen for a while, then say "Wow, fellas, thanks for living the underprivileged life so's we could hear those snappy tunes! See Ya!" That liberal guilt sure was eased by having my purse stolen, though, I can tell you that. Oh, Green's Lounge burnt down last year, RIP.

JUNE 1997

A few years ago, Jennifer La and I attended the first Dixie Fried fest in Memphis and I've managed to hit all three now. Sadly, this year's Dixie Fried was the last time I got to hear Junior