Last night I was hanging out at the Tap Room, and I ran into my friend IQ, who is one of the main organizers at the Center for Southern Folklore’s festival. I had my schedule of events for the festival with me (if you don’t have one you can see the lineup here) and I asked him to recommend some good bands to see this evening. Here are the ones he highlighted:
FreeWorld, 6:00, Verizon Wireless stage
Renardo Ward and The Promise, 6:15, Folklore Store
Kavious, 7:45, Trolley Stop stage
Kattawar Brothers, 9:00, Verizon Wireless stage
Joyce Cobb, 9:00, Folklore Hall
Domingo Montez & Los Cantadores, 9:15, Trolley Stop stage
Nathaniel Kent & Exodus, 10:00, Verizon Wireless stage
I also recommend stopping by the Center and trying Ella Kizzie’s greens and hot water cornbread.
What I’ve been up to this week: Well, Wednesday night I went to the concert series at Court Square. Thursday morning it occurred to me that I only talked about Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis to one person, out of a park full of people. “If we had shirts, I bet lots of people would come up to us and want to talk,” I thought. So Thursday evening after work, my co-founder Mike King and I met at the Second Street branch office and managed to get two shirts, a white golf shirt and a yellow T-shirt, designed online in an hour and a half. We have them ordered and they should arrive by midweek next week.
Once we get the first shirts and verify that they look OK, we’re going to put up a storefront so other people can buy Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis shirts. We’re doing it through CafePress and we’re going to sell them at cost – we’re not looking to make a profit, we just want to get the word out.
There are 18,000 people in town to audition for American Idol. They had to be here early Friday morning to get wristbands, and the auditions are early Sunday morning. So there are a lot of extra people partying on Beale this weekend.
That’s all for now… I’m giving a Romanian a ride to the mall at noon, and after that I’ll be back downtown at the festival.