Memphis / Gonerfest Part One - Anyhow Anywhere Art Show

Finally getting a chance to write about the wild week in Memphis! I was lucky enough to be asked to headline Gonerfest 11 on Saturday night as part of the Gizmos! Melanie & I headed out on Wednesday in order to see as much of the r'n'r city as we could, as well as check out as much of the festival as we could - we turned out to not be as much as we hoped, as we are old and we can't be in two places at once!

We got in Wednesday night, dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed out on foot to check out the pre-festival opening night of the art show portion of Gonerfest 11. We thought that the galery was a little closer than it was and after walked a number of blocks, the street turned a little more...run-down...and we stayed alert a bit more, but didn't have any issues.

Croostown Arts is a nice sized room for a gallery, simple and open, allowing for a concentration on the art, of which there was plenty. Tim Kerr, ex-of the Big Boys and Poison 13 (among others) have a large number of pieces - he took up on entire wall - of his "outside art" dedicated to pop icons of all sorts - musicians of all genres, artists, photographers and much more - painted on various media, from paper to skateboards. Bruce Lee Webb would also be considered "outsider", and also painted on various media, including a nice, large phrenology piece, which many people considered a highlight. John Henry Toney created similar work and TImmy Lampinen made some cool, psychedelic collages.

Our favorite, though, was Butch Anthony, who takes thrift store paintings, year book pictures and whatever else he can find and paints over or adds to the originals to make his own unique creations. Well done and very cool.

We met several people related to Goner here, including none other than the man himself, Eric Friedl, who was super nice, helpful and friendly. In fact everyone that we ran into was extraordinarily cool and friendly. Great start to the weekend!

And we even got to poke our head into the Hi Tone next door, where the Gizmos would be playing, to check out the lay of the land - cool layout and fun dive bar.