It’s easy to forget about Memphis, a mid-size American city wedged into the southwest corner of Tennessee. Our collective memory of Memphis seems frozen in the mid-20th century: Elvis and Graceland, B. B. King and Beale Street, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his “Mountaintop” speech—the last he’d give before his assassination on the balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel in 1968.

Certain aspects of Memphis’s past stifled the city for decades, snuffing the spirits of residents and scaring away visitors. But there’s something newly electric in the air.

The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located on the grounds of the famous Stax Records, is at the forefront of that revival. The museum, along with its Stax Music Academy and the Soulsville Charter School, celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2013 with concerts, parties, and Stax to the Max, a huge outdoor music festival. It’s far from a solo act.

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Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

you know why.

It's funny how many nashville friends I have who consistently bad mount the city but who will take the megabus here to party for the weekend in downtown or midtown.

(11-30-2012 01:08 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

you know why.

It's funny how many nashville friends I have who consistently bad mount the city but who will take the megabus here to party for the weekend in downtown or midtown.

Don't you know that Nashville is the seat of culture. The best line I ever heard about Nashville was, while pursuing the hockey team. I saw a t shirt that said. "Nashville doesn't need another toothless man."

Everyone in this thread so far makes valid, ironic, and hilarious points.

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

(11-30-2012 06:13 PM)memp600 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

I hope so - one of the things that stood out in the NG piece was the dates of the movies made in Memphis - early 90's? It's sad that more incentives aren't offered for movie production here - the publicity would be a potential gold mine for the city. But for some reason, this has been discouraged.

(11-30-2012 06:13 PM)memp600 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

Calkins nailed it in the "50 things you need to know about memphis" article he wrote to Robert Pera

20. You will hear that we have an inferiority complex, but that is so last decade. We actually think we're pretty cool.

(11-30-2012 07:19 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 06:13 PM)memp600 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

Calkins nailed it in the "50 things you need to know about memphis" article he wrote to Robert Pera

20. You will hear that we have an inferiority complex, but that is so last decade. We actually think we're pretty cool.

agreed.

(11-30-2012 06:13 PM)memp600 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

Yes, our own attitudes have changed. We think we're pretty damn cool, now.


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(11-30-2012 06:30 PM)ballen Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 06:13 PM)memp600 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 12:51 PM)ballen Wrote:  Love it!

It takes a national magazine to give props to our city. I wonder why we don't get more positive publicity and endorsement from our state? Things that make you say hmmm....

I think people's impression and attitudes towards Memphis are starting to change. That goes for its citizens as well.

I hope so - one of the things that stood out in the NG piece was the dates of the movies made in Memphis - early 90's? It's sad that more incentives aren't offered for movie production here - the publicity would be a potential gold mine for the city. But for some reason, this has been discouraged.

Look where the location of the office that implements those incentives is. Five years ago, not in the 90s, but five years ago, Memphis Beat, The Blindside, and Footloose all had interest in filming in Memphis. Louisiana and Georgia offered incentives that Tennessee was unable (or more likely unwilling) to match. Not to mention the TV show Hellcats was based in a fictional Memphis college, but filmed in Vancouver.

That reflects the value of the Memphis brand name, even if the State film commission tries to sabotage it. They can't sabotage the brand name. Hopefully they will fail in sabotaging our film industry. I suspected before that they were plotting to kill it here, and then pass incentives for productions that "just happened" to inquire about another Tennessee city. Then use the excuse that no one wants to film in Memphis, or that the industry is already dead in Memphis, when they played a part in that result.

Call it a conspiracy. I don't. That's what happens when you entrust a competitor with power over your destiny. And civic competition is cutthroat.

Save the Memphis Entertainment Industry!