Memphis Never Gave Up: Friday news

Singer Karen Waldrup will unveil her new song “Memphis Never Gave Up” at Songwriter Night #43 at South Main Sounds, 550 S. Main, tonight at 7 PM. Also performing will be Jimmy Stephens Jr., Eric Crays Music, David Cousar, Mark Edgar Stuart and McKenna Bray. This place gets packed every time they have a songwriter night, so get there early to get a good seat.

Remember to clean up after your pets, Downtowners! Here’s a deal for 540 dog poop bags for $9.

There’s a free wine tasting tonight in The Pinch at Pyramid Wines and Spirits from 5 to 8 PM.

While we’re on the subject of The Pinch, the official announcement was made by Mayor Strickland yesterday: the city and county are investing $25 million to improve the infrastructure from St. Jude’s campus west to the river. The investment will not tap the general fund which is used for essential city services, nor will it come from property tax dollars. For its part, St. Jude expects to raise $8 billion in private donations for an expansion that will create 1800 new jobs.

In case you don’t get enough live music at Memphis in May’s Beale Street Music Fest May 5-7, you’ll get more at FedEcForum the following evening: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have announced a concert date for Monday, May 8. It’s part of their 40th anniversary tour.

If you can’t make it to the Memphis Farmers Market winter market tomorrow but want to purchase some pottery, Erica Bodine Pottery will have a shop in the event room of the Memphis Made taproom on Sunday.

The Whiskey Chute Smugglers play the Center for Southern Folklore tonight at 8. $10 admission.

For those of you who use Chrome as your web browser (I do), you can make America kittens again. The Chrome extension finds headlines with President-Elect Cheeto’s name in them and replaces the associated images with photos of cute kittens. It turns the New York Times article profiling the cheeto’s Cabinet nominations into a kitten party.

Ballet Memphis will perform The Nutcracker tonight through Sunday at the Orpheum. Tickets are $10-78.

The DMC has a list of stocking stuffers you can purchase in Downtown Memphis. Keep your shopping dollars local with these buys.

If you need to buy a Christmas gift for an old-school wrestling fan, check out these books from MemphisWrestlingHistory.com.

The intersection of Second and Peabody Place is about to get lit up: ServiceMaster has been granted a variance from Downtown’s sign code to place 10 signs on its new headquarters.

That’s it for this post. I will hit Silly Goose happy hour after work for a quick minute, then I have my apartment building’s Christmas party. Back tomorrow with more news.