PROFILES

Jack Yarber (Oblivian)

His music: With his unassuming demeanor, Jack Yarber easily blends into the Midtown music scene, even as he's revered as a cult hero on the international garage rock circuit. Yarber moved to Memphis from Corinth, Miss., in the mid-1980s, after forming that town's first punk group, Johnny Vomit & the Dry Heaves. Soon after, he co-founded Compulsive Gamblers and the Oblivians, two bands that Jack White and Swedish rockers the Hives cite as major influences. When the Oblivians combusted at the height of their success in the late 1990s, Yarber recruited a top roster of local performers for his growling, country- and soul-inspired garage outfit, Jack-O and the Tennessee Tearjerkers.


In $5 Cover: Yarber performs a set at Earnestine and Hazel's as other characters spar in the background. Featured song: "Ain't Got No Money."


In $5 Cover Amplified: A day in the life of Jack Yarber finds a garage rock iconoclast searching for the perfect riff.


On Memphis music: "I'm a fan of the extremes in Memphis music — I'll play an Al Green record, then put on one by Monsieur Jeffrey Evans. With my own music, I just want to try to do something that's kind of like a Salvador Dali painting, but with one chord."


Latest news: On May 9, Jack-O and the Tennessee Tearjerkers celebrate the release of The Disco Outlaw, their fourth full-length, with a concert at the Hi-Tone Cafe. This summer, Yarber will reunite with the Oblivians for a 7-country, 15-date European tour.


--Andria Lisle


Jack Yarber (Oblivian) on MySpace



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$5 Cover Amplified Summary:

Intimate, thoughtful, always entertaining and often formally daring, the 12 documentaries that comprise the anthology "$5 Cover Amplified" reveal a modern Memphis music scene that is as creative, passionate and vibrant as in the city's commercial heyday, when Elvis, Isaac Hayes and Al Green demonstrated that visionary art and popular culture could be inseparable as the 'A' and 'B' sides of a vinyl record.

Produced as a complement to Craig Brewer's episodic MTV drama series/ new media experiment, "$5 Cover," the "Amplified" series of documentary portraits chronicles the rousing art, uncertain careers and sometimes problematic home lives of a diverse, distinctive and often eccentric group of Memphis music-makers.

Mesmerizing Valerie June croons confessional lyrics from beneath a Medusan tangle of dreadlocks that's as thick as her family ties and her musical roots. The puckish Tommy Chong-meets-Pippi Longstocking "clown prince of rap," Muck Sticky, proves to be as dedicated to the welfare of his mother and sister as to his own pursuit of happiness. Punk rock pioneer Jack Oblivian, who plays to sell-out nightclub crowds in Europe, makes ends meet in Memphis by cleaning houses. "Crunk" hip-hop artist Al Kapone is shown to be a tough but loving father, bringing new urgency to the concept of rapper as "role model." Troubadour of heartbreak Harlan T. Bobo is portrayed impressionistically, through stop-motion animation, allegorical fantasy and other conceits.

Whatever the focus or style, the direction of Alan Spearman, an award-winning photographer/filmmaker with The Commercial Appeal, ensures that each segment is as visually assured as it is musically irresistible. "$5 Cover Amplified" was co-produced by Spearman, Andria Lisle and John Hubbell, and edited by Eileen Meyer; their familiarity with the Memphis "scene" ensures unprecedented authenticity as well as access.

John Beifuss- The Commercial Appeal