goner

i am *slammed* in my last two weeks until final book due date. slammed! i'm glad i was ahead most of the process-- because i have SO much more to do. i am in that last sprint of the marathon.

still, got to take a moment to blog about geoff and my amazing trip to memphis last weekend. some friends of ours were playing in a local garage band music fest called gonerfest and we promised if they ever played in my hometown we'd come and help show it off. to boot, geoff's old friends own goner records, the organizers of the fest. goner had sold out of geoff's last memphis zine in little more than 24 hours so he figured he'd try his hand at photographing bands-- something that had always intimidated him-- and see if he couldn't come up with enough good stuff to produce a mini-goner zine.

but in the days leading up to our flight we were wondering why we booked the trip. geoff was slammed at work and i was in the homestretch of the book-- and getting over a nasty cold (that unfortunately took a worse turn for stomach flu on sunday- gross!) still, we sucked it up and went.

as it turned out several bands were from san francisco and bay area kids just flooded the joint taking over much of midtown memphis. and-- my years of preaching how great memphis is and yelling at people when they mistakenly said i was from nashville-- were finally proven true as nearly everyone fell in love with the town. my friend andy had two great lines on the subject. at one point he came inside the club, holding up his cell phone and said, "this is the danger of living in the cell phone age. i just bought a condo across the street and joined the local country club." he later remarked, that real estate agents should set up a table alongside all the bands' merchandise tables asking people if they prefer their property by the acre.

of course in true memphis-style, few people actually LIVING in the city came out. this is what keeps memphis from selling out: it has no idea how great it is. many of the bands participating marveled at how goner had seemingly pulled off the impossible in the fourth year of this festival: keeping the quality top notch, the crowd small, the scene non-commercial.

oh, and geoff's photography was simply amazing. it's fair to say he's conquered his fear. here are some shots on his blog of Jay Reatard, who headlined Thursday night and was discovered by the Goner folks. geoff very impressively elbowed his way to the front of a near-mosh pit to get them. i was sitting on the bar a safe distance away supervising. i'm too old to mosh.