Monday March 06, 2006

South in the House

Almost nine years ago, I saw Three 6 Mafia play the New Daisy Theatre in Memphis. (That’s a picture from that show on the left.) They rolled in at least a half an hour late with a posse of a dozen, all loaded down with twelve packs and bottles of tequila that they carefully poured into their long-neck beers. The notoriously hot-headed owner stormed the cinder-block dressing room, demanded the DAT and screamed himself red until the show started. The whole party rolled onstage—like last night, but without the interpretive dance and with Juicy J about fifty pounds lighter—and shouted and stomped for thirty minutes, whipping the suburban kids who knew something I didn’t into a frenzy, then disappeared out the club’s fire exit.

Three days later, the group held a press conference to announce that they had signed with Relativity, although they’d been doing pretty well for themselves without the backing of a major label. Three 6 had built a grassroots following that took indie-rock squares like myself almost completely by surprise, having sold tens of thousands of cassettes—cassettes!—at neighborhood stores and out of the trunks of cars.

An Oscar? For D.J. Paul and Juicy J and Crunchy Black and Lord Infamous (whom I ran into one morning at the Circle K while he was on his way to court for something or other)? I don’t think I would have believed it, just like I would have never believed that the Nirvana of Bleach would hit #1. At that press conference in the summer of ‘97, D.J. Paul said he wanted Triple 6 to become a “second Elvis in this town.” But, hell, even Elvis never won an Oscar. Good for them.

Posted by jim at 09:28 AM ||