Austin Fanzine Project

[Photo: promotional photo for the John Michael McCarthy film The Sore Losers] Promotional photo for The Sore Losers (Mike, Korine, Kim, and Susan)

Kimbrough play. It was kind of funny — nobody in his band could drive, so they had to send a driver down to Holly Springs, MS to bring everyone up so they could play the show. And it didn't really last that long, only about 45 minutes, which is about two songs for Junior.

This Dixie Fried was in a wickedly unsuitable venue, the Center for Southern Folklore in Beale Street. As a center for southern folklore, it's great. As a bar, it sucks mud. Venues being what they are in Memphis, it could easily have been worse, and at least you didn't slip in puddles of sweat like at the downtown Barrister's version of Dixie Fried, mark II. It's just that the place is a museum/information center/coffee shop, and as such isn't real conducive to the laid back, uninhibited feel necessary to listen to a lot of nasty music for hours on end. So while it was all right to watch old Sun sidemen Frank Frost and Sam Carr play in there, since a certain amount of reverence is due to them, it was a pisspoor place to watch the Oblivians, who played a pretty stitled set.

NEW YEAR'S EVE 1997

I ran away from Austin to Memphis on New Year's Eve so that I could salvage my shitty holidays. That means I missed the last New Bomb Turks show here, which I'm sad about, but I got to hear the Oblivians and the Royal Pendletons and a new-wave band play at the Young Avenue Deli. When I arrived in town, Scott met me at the Lamplighter all dressed up, so I was compelled to wear a formal gown (all right, I wore a long, slinky thing from work) and gloves. You know what I like about Memphis? Everyone else was dressed up, too. People are such slobs in Austin.

On this particular trip, Mike McCarthy was kind enough to show me his latest project, Shine On Sweet Starlet, a series of sixties-style clips where ingenues strip for the camera in the comfort of their own homes or favorite bars. The soundtrack should be out this April on Sympathy for the Record Industry, but I'm not sure when the flick itself will be completed. It's a great piece of work — modern naked ladies shot on Super 8 to look like vintage naked ladies. Mike will be shooting his next project this summer — ladies, send GW your headshots [buttshots —ed.] and they'll be passed on.

Dan Ball took some pictures of me while I was there, which I might get to see this year. He's the guy that took all those swirly, arty pictures of the Grifters, the Oblivians and the Clears. I got to crawl around on his piano and couch in a bunch of lingerie, then sit really still for those long exposures. I hope for next year's Christmas card to be one of these photos.

So I figure 1998 will turn out all right since I started it in Memphis. I'll let you know if that helped or not.