Shangri-La Projects

Kreature Comforts Burger Wars Update: We have sadly lost two of the all-time great generals of the Memphis burgers wars in the last couple years: the unparalleled Rizzo's burger and the awesome, mess of a pound of fun Roxie's burger. But we have to soldier on and dine with what we gots, not we hads.

Recently, the new Elwood's Shack took to social media to fire up the competition and announce their new "smash" burger. It comes in at a robust $12.00 price tag and its chief ingredient is bacon jam, which can enhance a good burger, but, in this case, made it a little more boring as the beef was either overcooked or a bit too dried out. Not juicy at all like a good smash burger. Still a decent yet unmemorable burger, but if you're hankering for a burger at Elwood's, we highly recommend the Texas patty melt burger with all the jalepeno peppers! Totally unique & delicious.

Also a new entry to the "smash" burger Memphis world is Bain's BBQ, now open for inside seated dining in Cooper-Young. This one comes in at a hefty $14.00, which is a bit robust for a smash burger as well. However, in this case, Bain delivers all the goodness one would expect from a $14 smash (pic below). Kreature Comforts recommended.

Finally, we cannot herald the new without praising the old, standby classics. The closest thing to these 2 new entries of smash burgers at Topps is their double cheeseburger, coming in at $8.00 (still way cheaper than both even at $10 if you get their krinkle fries with it!! Value, value, value!). When they're done right & juicy, these Topps are as good as any burger in town. The one on Union, despite its always "exciting" environment, somehow finds a way to deliver the juiciest burgers in the franchise to these local tastebuds. Still 2 thumbs up for taste, price, quality, & availability! Go Topps!

(These new thoughts will be in the--possibly--fall upcoming Kreature Comforts update--so many heartbreaking moving pieces in the dining industry the last 5 years to update....)

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2024/07/11/is-memphis-a-good-place-for-music/74273948007/

Is Memphis still a music city? Why the answer will be yes for generations to come Memphis remains one of the vertices in a Southern triangle of indelible music meccas that includes Nashville and New Orleans.

Maggot Brain delivery day is always better than Tax Day!

Another magical, cool, wonderful summer evening at the Memphis Listening Lab!! This young man Robert Clayborne truly has the Power to Overcome! Moving to Memphis at age 6 from deep Mississippi, losing his sight to glaucoma at age 3 was just a minor bump in the road for him. You think you have struggles? Try riding a bike in Memphis in the early '60s as a blind, black young man. What!!??? I still don't even know how he did it, but he said you just rely on the handlebars!! (Jesus, take the Wheels!)

But the evening was really about celebrating his synth-based, groove-filled 1987 gospel/disco-ish/soul album Power to Overcome--also guest-starring Memphis legends Lannie McMillan & friend of the label Rick Steff! What a night. This WYXR series continues to amaze & surprise! Only in Memphis & in the Movies! Shout-out to Pastor Shipp (seen in the lp photo!) for instigating this!

Got him! Icewater Bob vs. Guitar Wolf! A rare shot of Bob in action, moving the camera!! Bob was always there and last to leave. Miss this guy!!

We'd been selling records a little over 2 years full-stop by this date in '92, and we had freakin' Unrest playing out front! Everyone in the shop & our immediate circle was gay for Unrest, so this was top of the world type stuff. Unrest were very popular--like Ferris--with the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, s***s, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, di*****ds — they all adore them. They think they're a righteous band. Yep.

Lots of OGs in this one: peak Gina (& a Shelby B. cameo!), Andria, Dave Shouse on sound, Hippie Dave (not in a cage)...this is the greatest hits package of Unrest. So good! Camera mic is not so great, but you'll get the picture. You should buy all their records. Start with Malcolm X Park. They are all great. "I do believe you are blushing" is still the greatest indie rock smash hit of all time and makes me cry every time I hear it.

P.S. Phil Krauth is a badass drummer! And Bridget, whoa!!!

Shout-out to Icewater Bob Angst (RIP) for documenting this!! Love ya, man!

UNREST 11/15/92 SHANGRI LA RECORDS'MEMPHIS,TN

What a June of music!! So many good shows & events out there. What was the best Memphis Moment of the month--one of those times you hope to get once or twice a year, if you're Lucky? Had to be the Lucky 7 Brass Band with Marcella & Her Lovers at DKDC on 7 June 2024. It was Victor Sawyer's birthday, and he was on fire as was the whole band! Whoa, it was like when Sam & Dave opened for Otis Redding in Europe, Lucky 7 forcing Marcella to dig deep to keep up with Lucky 7! And then later in Marcella's show, a couple of Lucky 7 including Victor jumped in with Marcella, & then the place really went bananas!

Most of the crowd wasn't born back when Big Lucky Carter was tearing up Wild Bill's, but it was that same kind of multi-cultural, smokin' Memphis music vibe including my favorite trick when the drummer plays along with the jukebox & kicks into that song live and then when the whole crowd was doing the electric slide & the small room feels like its moving along with the dancers. That's what this night was like at DKDC's--see the video--it's not the camera moving, the room was! Happy birthday, Victor!

Double-Posting Day!! Call the law!! Homies are bringing the zines back!! Wish Zine-Guy was still around to enjoy it!!

Shangri-La Records Memphis Magazine Edition 2 Shangri-La Records Magazine Edition 2 features stories on new Memphis releases, conversations with legendary artists and producers, and more

Last night was the conclusion of OG Mempho Rap Star Feature Week at the Memphis Listening Lab, and, man, was it a good 'un! Tommy Wright, III walked into the Sound Room & said, "Am I in the right place?" I would say so!

Great program hosted by Ezra Wheeler and the Shangri-La Records crew on this massive, classic independent smash hit On the Run (original cd now going for $450 on discogs for the cd!!!??? Crazings!! Wut?!). Great history of the roots of Mempho rap, how the genre came to be in Mempho, how to put together the recording gear, doing promotion, hustling, working with creating your own distribution system, & then blowing up all over the world to the point of having a guy from Ghana film your MLL event almost 30 years later!

This young man couldn't have been more interesting, engaged, & educational! Great program all around, and now we gotta add Tommy Wright to our Nicest Guys in the Rap Game Top 2 along with Al Kapone!!

Othar Turner in the intro to Gangs of New York…Something you don’t see (hear) every day, a relatively unknown, current Memphis band getting major motion picture featured music treatment. Now, Lucero gets the money shot at the outro of The Bikeriders, playing the theme song. Well done!

Gangs of New York Opening Sequence Othar Turner Fife & Drum Band from Mississippi provide the music for this segment prior to Battle scene.

What a fantastic crowd for what may be the best event at the Memphis Listening Lab yet! There was a good, personal history of Memphis rap, a nice, hilarious story of Al Kapone & Reese Witherspoon acceptance speeches urging all the Critics Awards' folks to come to Memphis for some bbq, but the best part was the end of the program where Al Kapone demonstrated his new blues-rap soul direction. Most important take from the show was that if you want a long career in the music biz, you better evolve and try new things. Great to see Al Kapone, the nicest guy in rap, continue to grow as an artist and head into this new direction with his music. Look for his new album The Blues Rap Mane.

It's been years--if ever--since we cared about the embarrassment of 'official Memphis music biz' and its high school levels of popularity contests & misinformed/misdirection/misuse of any official public funds (see Blair Taylor & her embarrassing Memphis Tomorrow's hiring of an incompetent & completely underqualified head in the early 2000s for the Memphis Music Foundation...striking out on every endeavor undertaken save the center that opened & closed...Throw in the Memphis Music Commission as well, but I digress).

If you actually want to call your group "Memphis Music Hall of Fame," & you have inducted Kevin Kane--who didn't lift a finger for Memphis music when it needed it most until he absolutely was forced to by the market after everything else he tried failed--while leaving out folks like Doug Easley, who was keeping Memphis music out there for the world with no help from folks like Kevin, you never had the plot to lose.

Memphis Music Hall of Fame announces new inductees Soul and opera singers, civic promoters and recording-session aces are among the latest class of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

30 years ago, there was nothing to do on Labor Day Weekend in Memphis. We wanted to do something to show appreciation for our customers & have a good time, so, for a couple of years, we rented out the riverboats & threw top-shelf parties on the Mighty Mississippi. (We quit blowing so much money on the parties--moving to Green's Lounge after the redneck as****es who ran the boatline cut off the mics & power of the Strapping Fieldhands--while they were playing--when we docked!)

Anyway, the parties were always insane & fun-filled! 3.5 stars on Yelp, if I remember correctly! Goner Records is doing it for their 30th anniversary June 28th. They've got Quintron playing on the boat. This is like getting to see the Grateful Dead at the Pyramids!!! If you live in Memphis & you aren't on this boat, you should definitely move.

Beautiful overview of just one aspect of Ron Hall's amazing & eclectic rock 'n roll life--his published works of the last 25 years. Thank you to the Memphis Flyer & Alex Greene for recognizing Ron's work!!!

The Ron Hall Chronicles Remembering works by the great historian of Memphis music … and wrestling.

This week's Kreature Comforts Fun Fact: the best new wave record outta Memphis??? While researching a potential project a little over a decade or so ago (lots of projects never come to fruition for so many different reasons!), I came across this record Sick of Driving by Johnny Singer that Ron Hall loaned me. I had never seen it or heard of it before. It was truly great and very influenced by Elvis Costello. There is nothing like it in Memphis from that era before or since that I have heard! (This is nothing at all like the cool, new wave, synthesized-based but also great Calculated X catalog!)

It was--according to Memphis bandmate & urban legend Jim Spake--cut as a demo. Damn good demos, I say! Johnny Singer aka John Eatman also created the great, perfect, new wave graphics on the front.

Here's the craziest thing about this record to me: for years in the '90s, John Eatman, who passed away over 10 years ago, was one of our most favorite & best customers at the shop. He was always, always, always smiling, happy, in a good mood etc. And he always bought tons of way-cool records. In short, he was delightful to see & had great taste in music. Not ever once did he mention that he was in a new wave band or had made this record. Wut!!! So humble & cool. I wish every customer was this nice. You never know who you're dealing with!!

Anyway, after years of searching, I finally found the 2nd copy I have ever seen. RIP, Johnny Singer. I miss this cat's smiling face, but I am glad to know his music is still here! Happy rekkid hunting!!

P.S. Jim also said that much like some of the genius work by Chris Bell, this was cut at Shoe. Check out the Shoe doc on vimeo!

The hits just keep on coming at the Memphis Listening Lab!! Another standing-room only video release party for the extremely popular country rockers Dead Soldiers. Cool video for "Ride" debuted last night & available online now!! 2 big shows coming up for the Dead Soldiers: at the Green Room 6/21 & then in August at Hernando's Hideaway!

It's been a minute since we had 2 Shangri-La Projects bands on tour. Whoa, Linda Heck tonight at South Mains Sounds beginning at 7:30 p.m., and Kelley Deal's band Protomartyr hits the road tomorrow!! Support these ladies rockin' across America!!

TOUR DATES — PROTOMARTYR

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 300,000 subscribers!! Wow!! To celebrate, here is today's Kreature Comforts Fun Fact!!! Back, back, back in the day, when Eric & I were sitting around like Maytag repairmen waiting on customers, we used to write questionnaires for Kreature Comforts & Wipeout! to various (our world) celebrities and entities like cartoonists, musicians, & manufacturers, etc. (All this had to be done through the mail, pre-internet, of course--back before we got so busy with social media).

One day, I wrote the legendary producer Jim Dickinson & axed him what his top 10 records cut in Memphis were. I knew most of them, but I had never heard of--& could barely read his handwriting on--Thomas Pinkston Trio lp. It is extremely obscure.

Thomas Pinkston is featured on the Beale St. Saturday Night lp doing narrative reminisces of old Beale St. That seems to be his claim to fame, but he played with Handy when he moved up to Memphis from Vicksburg in 1916!! He obviously spent many moons on Beale St. for the next 50 years or so! I have only seen 2 copies of this rare Memphis gem. Found this one at an estate sale a few years after reading about it in Jim's list. It's quite interesting...I call it barrelhouse jazz with a taste & feel of Champion Jack Dupree but moreso in that Memphis jazz meets blues/Beale St. vein. Out in 1969 on the infamous Buford Records, probably sold exclusively at Schwabs. Happy hunting for today's Kreature Comforts Fun Fact!!! RIP to Mr. Pinkston & Mr. Dickinson! Thank you for the jams!!

Holy crepe! It's a double-posting day!! Pick up the new Creem mag & who has a big ole feature in it but friend of the store The Mummies??!!! Nice work! (stickers & pennant not included!!)

Only 121 shopping days left til Bailter Space! We dreamed about these Flying Nun bands in the '90s...& here comes Goner Claus with the goods. Thank you, Jesus!

One More Reason Provided to YouTube by Beggars Group Digital Ltd.One More Reason · Bailter SpaceTanker / Nelsh℗ 1996 Matador RecordsReleased on: 1996-01-23Associated Perfor...

Kreature Comforts Fun Fact: If you walk into a bar or club in Memphis and you see this man Felix and his bongos, you are in the correct place! It means the bandleader really wants you to have a great show, and it will, therefore, always be extra special!

Who needs a copy of Memphis Rocks: A Concert History, 1955-1985? Simpler times...when the ticket "fee" was 50 cents, maybe a dollar or two on the high end! Times have changed...they don't even give you a ticket any more, but the "service fee" for an email is close to a hundred dollars--per ticket!! No wonder Live Nation is being sued for monopoly!!

How timely this week!!! Stax marketing guru Larry Shaw's grandson Blvck Hippie returned to showcase his new record at the Memphis Listening Lab last night. Out June 14th, look for Basketball Camp. New single out today with A Wierdo from Memphis!

Our main man Ron Hall won't be there tonight, unfortunately, but his work 25 years ago lives on at tonight's Memphis Listening Lab event featuring D. Beaver & Combinations! Come find out about this unique Memphis lp and all of the band off-shoots like Acrobat--as well as other obscure TMI studio connections in WYXR's Stereo Sessions at 6:00 p.m! Let's say the over/under of bands featured in Ron's Playing for a Piece of the Door: A History of Garage & Frat Bands in Memphis 1960-1975 will be at least 5!! Thanks for the great research, Ron!! And thanks for the cool event, WYXR!! And thanks to all the bands who cut these great gems in Mempho!!!

The Memphis Listening Lab/Stax Museum mash-up had another effortlessly enlightening album event last night. Jazz ringmaster Joe Restivo & Stax museum director Jeff Kollath took the obscure Stax release Chico Hamilton The Master and dove deep into it. Fascinating stuff and one of the best album discussions in the short history of the Memphis Listening Lab! Not sure if we can handle the next one in the series--the ill-fated Lena Zavaroni album that almost single-handedly took down Stax Records!! (P.S. The Master got reissued last fall so funk-groove fans should seek it out!)

Memphis crime is outta control! Who did this? Police are still looking for the rogues who broke into the Shangri-la Records' parking lot over New Year's Eve and did this malfeasance. Thank goodness the store was not open at the time and nobody was (directly) hurt! Shangri-la Records is offering a generous $25 Sweatfest bounty that leads to the incarceration of these vandals.

The spring hits just keep emanating from the Memphis Listening Lounge! Another fine record release party from friend of the label JB Horrell and his wife Laurel in Aquarian Blood. We've been watching this young man grow musically for over 30 years, & it's always great to hear what he comes up with next!! (Still waiting on that Reg reunion!!) Congrats on the new lp!--Counting Backwards Again!!

Another sold out, outstanding music event at the Memphis Listening Lab with Pat Sansone's new solo record Infinity Mirrors. Big Brian Eno/Extreme Records '90s ambient/drone feel on this musical bath! Great to have the artist in the house for the presentation!! Yes, that's friend of the label & drummer extraordinaire for Big Star Jody Stephens holding the album artwork! Only in Memphis & in the Movies! What a weekend!

Kreature Comforts Fun Fact PSA: The rare "no lines, no waiting" at downtown Gus'!!! Open at noon! 😆

Everyone is posting their hopes for 2024 on Smart City blog. We hope the Memphis Library system gets the same funding the pro sports teams & college football teams are getting (approx. $600 million, so far!!!) so they can fix the roof, clean and fix the elevators, fix the escalators, clean & fix the bathrooms, & receive the funding they need so the whole library system can function much more better (sic) than they have been.

Also, we attended this amazing concert at Otherlands in June, 2016, starring the late, great John Kilzer. Twas one of the best live shows ever! Ward Archer and his record label recorded it. Would love to hear it released this year!! (Our pix do not do the music justice! Pictured Steve Selvidge/John Kilzer/Sam Shoup) Small things!