Michael Donahue continues to find the interesting people around the Beale Street Music Festival. Donahue’s audio journey continues here (mp3) and here (second mp3)

While the measurable quality of acts appearing at MIM has remained relatively steady over the years (If not vastly improved, especially in terms of hard rock, rap, and blues), the sad fact is that the once ubiquitous city/regional festivals like BSMF have fallen to a second tier behind the mega-events like Bonnaroo and last weekend’s Coachella.

These events throw BIG money (available thanks to BIG ticket prices) at all the top acts, enough even to draw a few one-of-a-kind events. Sadly, we will not be treated to anything like Roger Water’s rare Pink Floyd-heavy performance at Coachella, which is too band because a giant pig floating over Tom Lee Park would certainly make a lot of sense.

Don’t expect MIM to go chasing after that Bonnaroo/Coachella audience any time soon. There’s no sign that that they’ve hurt their business at all. And at $60 for three days, its still a deal. (Not to mention the added bonus of getting to sleep in an actiual bed instead of a rain-soaked RV.) Still it might not hurt for Holt & Co. to look at taking a few pages out of those other fests’ playbooks: More unique “event” bookings? Commemorative CDs?

I understand that this event is not really marketed towards “me,” per se. I think it’s marketed to the Cordovians and Arkansians and whatnot who are willing to come downtown and drop some serious loot on hotel rooms, the festival itself, and other local businesses. That makes sense. Hence we have headliners like Santana, Sheryl Crow (again), and The Black Crows (again).

Then the organizers throw in a smattering of headliners that radio stations and record execs believe appeal to the “kids.” My Chemical Romance, Disturbed, Seether, etc. (Not great choices in my own meager opinion, but what do I know? I don’t understand the kids, either.)

Then a little pop garbage I won’t even acknowledge.

So, for myself and people like me, Music Fest has to be cherry picked. You pay to get in and see a few bands you already like, and if you’re lucky, stumble on to something new.

Sometimes you even see something completely amazing. (Think that empty Sonic Youth show a few years back.)

It’s a little random, but there you go. Fortunately there is usually, simply “enough stuff” to find something that isn’t terrible. I almost always end up having a good time.

Maybe if you really luck out tomorrow you will like something new.

I will be at The Roots. Maybe Project Pat and Ben Folds. We’ll see.

Friday night of Barbecue Fest is the big party night. But before the revelry begins, the teams take care of business. Judging is early the next morning, so the pigs need to get smoking.

Across the way from my team the Ques Brothers, the Pigs-R-Us crew was preparing their own entry for the judging. Maybe I’m just a food wimp, but there’s something still a little disturbing to me seeing an animal splayed out on its back, disemboweled and having its insides carved up. While taking this picture, the wife of one team member and I traded high school dissection stories.

“We did baby pigs,” she said.

“I did a starfish once,” I said. “But the worst was the big yellow grasshopper.” (more…)

The cult of the pig is pervasive in Memphis, but it really takes barbecue fest to bring out the fanaticism.

I was lucky enough to share a special moment with whole-hog contestants Tracy Hughes and Missy Hobbs in their tent. The couple tied the knot in a brief ceremony officiated by the Mayor of Germantown. Below you’ll see a photo from the actual ceremony. (more…)

All around BBQ Fest, in booths such as mine, the first edibles were removed from the smokers yesterday afternoon and evening. The sight of our juicy beef brisket, which had been slow roasting for more than 17 hours, had mouths watering. While waiting for our pitmaster Willie to cut that sucker up, I finally knew what the family dog must feel like at Thanksgiving when the turkey is put on the table, just out of reach, and all you can do is sniff the air and whimper.

The Friends and Family party went into high gear in the evening as even more food — smoked corn on the cob, smoked chicken, smoked ribs — was served up to our team members and anyone else who got invited into Casa de los Ques Brothers. (more…)

Okay, kids, I’m exhausted and sore and smelly (seriously, is there ever another time in this city when you can come home smelling like mud and port-a-potty sanitizer and corndogs and smoke and Nag Champa?) and ready to drink this third glass of wine and pass out, so it’s time for a final recap of some of Sunday’s performances that I happened to catch.

First I have to mention Project Pat.

From what I can tell, this man owns Memphis. The crowd for his set was fricking huge. I didn’t think I was going to make it out alive once I emerged from the photo pit. And all the sheltered teenaged suburbanites know all the lyrics, so Project’s booming, syncopated stylings could be heard clearly from his stage — AutoZone — all the way across the park to the CellularSouth stage. Poor Edwin McCain on the middle stage was practically drowned out.

The Barenaked Ladies played an entertaining set, according to my friend Courtney, but I only listened to the first three songs or so. I don’t know, I just can’t work up that much excitement for them. But I did manage to catch 16 seconds of one of their songs on video:

Shortly after the Ladies, I caught a bit of Corinne Bailey Rae. The sun had begun to set, so the sky was a milky blue color, which made a beautiful background for Rae’s music, which is a sort of soothing jazz-pop with an indestructably sunny feel to it. She smiles and the stage lights up.

And then, later, I caught the first several songs of the Counting Crows set. I’ve always admired Adam Duritz for his songwriting ability, even if I’ve not cared too much for their latest album(s). I appreciate his writing, his imagery, and the band’s overall ability to spin stories with melody. I made the leap from adolescent to post-adolescent to a soundtrack of mid-’90s alternative, including lots of Counting Crows. I thought it was a nice touch that Duritz came out in a leather jacket lined with fringe. He’s still got those dreads. The world still turns on its axis. May God bless America.

Perhaps the biggest — and only — bummer of the night was having to make my way out of the park past the butt-rock stylings of Hinder. The bummer is not that I missed Hinder’s set, but that I had to encounter it at all. Look, I know there’s no accounting for taste, and it’s not too classy to rag on musical acts just because you don’t like them, but honestly, this band seems like it was created by the hyperconsumerist megacorporatocracy to keep 18-year-olds occupied while their freedoms were snatched from under their noses. Or something. Seriously, there is no soul to be found in this band. “Have you ever had an ex who wouldn’t stop calling so they could stop by and pick up sh–t?” the frontman asked the audience. Everyone was all “Wha?” and then they launched into some hyperemotional blather about relationships that, sadly, everyone can relate to, but most people try not to relate to so artlessly.

But Hinder’s crowd was pretty freaking huge, which means that plenty of people flocked to the northern end of the park to get a good spot to see them. Which is cool. People like what they like. I don’t have to understand to understand.

So, BSMF ‘07, thanks for having me. I found the event staff to be delightfully easy to work with, and despite the requisite grumblings about the lineup, I think the festival was a mud-caked, rumbling success.

See ya next year.

I spent the last day of Music Fest powerwalking from one end of Tom Lee to the other, trying to catch as many acts — okay, the first three songs of as many acts — as possible. The rain was a fun and quick diversion, and brought the humidity down to bearable a level that I dare say could be described (quietly, of course, so as not to jinx it) as “pleasant.” As I slogged through the mud and fought with my $5 poncho (free with one of those Southern Comfort hurricanes!), I thought about what a wuss I am, and how I’d never be able to handle Bonnaroo. And I wondered exactly how all those people who’d worn white skirts and pants were doing right about then. And then I thought about going home and drinking a glass of wine. And doing laundry. And holy crap, someone just splashed mud on me. And it smells like vomit right here around the corndog stand.

And then I remembered I was there to do a job. Or something like it.

So I watched people tumble out of the giant inflatable obstacle course. I hung back and took photos long enough that people stopped actually going through the course because they were wary of having their photo taken as they tumbled out onto the ground like this good sport here:

Very near the silly obstacle course was the oxygen bar, where festival-goers could hitch themselves to a supply of pure oxygen, which came in flavors (scents?) such as watermelon and strawberry and lavender. I appreciate flavored air, actually, which is part of the reason why I’m poor; I spend about a hundred thousand dollars a year on candles.

When asked what breathing pure oxygen was like — is it like being more or less drunk? — this young man began talking about how transcendent an experience it was, since our usual access to oxygen is hindered by all those other annoying gases in the air. And then he told me it was kind of like chewing gum through your nose. Which makes perfect sense, actually.

Just a few yards from the oxygen tent was a sizeable mudpit, pretty much bisecting the food/bathroom area in the middle of the park. I spent more time than I can make an excuse for waiting for someone to slip and fall in front of me and my jerk camera. But no one did. Several people lost flip-flops, and some nearly fell, and others made a big to-do about crossing the moat. But I can report that the collective balance of BSMFers is decidedly solid this year.

… but there is a cloud the exact size and shape of Tom Lee Park pouring God knows how much rain on Music Fest. Rawk.

So, last night I was trying to decide who I wanted to go see right before I left for the night Saturday. I asked Blake, one of the photographers I met in the media trailer, who he was going to go see. He tells me he’s going to go see Taj Mahal.

At this point, the only Taj Mahal I’d ever heard of was in India, so I didn’t have any clue what to expect. I asked him why he wanted to go see them.

“They’re very photogenic,” Blake said.

Photogenic? That didn’t tell me anything about the band, of course. Bugs are photogenic. Stupid drunken antics at parties are photogenic. As we found out the other day, people protesting stupid drunken antics are photogenic. But since I’ve definitely been in more of a shutterbug mood this weekend, photogenic was good enough for me.

So I headed down to the Autozone stage, wondering the entire time exactly what I was getting into. Part of me was worried I was walking into some strange Bollywood-type of performance, which would have definitely fit the label of photogenic, but a bit out of place.

Needless to say, Taj Mahal was awesome. In case you’re as ignorant as I was, Taj Mahal plays blues. Jam band-ish blues. And it was awesome. He did this cool thing with his voice where it sounded like two different people singing, one old bluesman, the other hard to describe. One of the other photographers there said it sounded like a “cranky, old white guy.” Close enough. His “cranky, old white guy” voice kept asking the crowd “Who’s you’re daddy,” which the audience ate up.

An appropriate followup should have been, “I ain’t yo daddy.”