Celebrating the Antenna Club: Marker, concerts and film honor legendary Memphis rock venue

Bob Mehr
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Exterior of Antenna Club on Madison Ave 1995. The fame Memphis rock club will be given a historical marker this week. A concert festival featuring over 30 bands will celebrate the club on Saturday.

Memphis’ famed Antenna Club — hailed as the city’s “original punk rock club” — may have closed in 1995, but the nostalgia for the venue began almost immediately after its demise and has only grown in the decades since. 

In 2009, 14 years after shutting its doors, the Antenna was reborn during a two-day reunion concert at the old site at 1588 Madison in Midtown, with many of the familiar local bands from the club’s heyday getting back together to perform. A second Antenna Reunion festival followed in 2010. This activity culminated with the premiere of director Christopher Scott McCoy's documentary on the club’s history, “Antenna,” in 2012. 

In 2019, the Antenna will again be celebrated, this time with the club becoming part of the city’s official history. On Saturday afternoon, a Shelby County historic commission marker will be dedicated on the old Antenna site (now home to The Renaissance event venue). The unveiling will be following by a concert festival featuring local bands connected with or inspired by the Antenna at trio of venues on Madison. The documentary “Antenna,” will be screened Friday night, helping kick off the celebration. 

In brief, the Antenna’s historical marker tells the story of a club operating “from 1981 until 1995 … [which] would elevate and energize Memphis’ music scene and place it on the national map.”

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The building at 1588 Madison evolved starting in the late-'70s, when it was known as The Well, a roughhouse bar managed by Frank and Jackie Duran. It was later transformed into the Antenna by entrepreneurs Jimmy Barker and Phillip Stratton — and originally designed as a rock club that screened then-novel music videos. But it wasn't until the arrival of the Frayser-bred Steve McGehee in 1981 that the club truly took shape. McGehee — who had cut his teeth as a waiter at TGI Fridays — along with his brother Mark, would help define the club's identity over the next decade.

Steve McGehee tends bar at the Antenna Club in this undated photo.

McGehee's stewardship of the club coincided with the rise of American indie rock and a growing touring circuit that regularly brought bands like Black Flag, R.E.M., the Minutemen and Meat Puppets into the Antenna. For the patrons of the club, the Antenna was symbolic of a gradual shift in the zeitgeist of rock culture, anticipating the eventual mainstream explosion of alternative music in the early-'90s.  

Over the years the club also became a focal point for up-and-coming local talent, providing a home base for notable Memphis groups like The Grifters, Compulsive Gamblers and Impala, while also fostering a thriving hardcore and all-ages scene.

First screened seven years ago, the 98-minute “Antenna” documentary was shaped from more than 100 hours of often-distressed archival footage, as well fresh interviews with more than 88 veterans of the club's history. 

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The film recounts the many influential bands that played the club — the Replacements, Mission of Burma and Bad Brains among them — but mostly focuses on a bevy of fascinating local acts like Panther Burns, the Randy Band, The Crime, The Modifiers, Big Ass Truck, The Grifters and the Oblivians that called the Antenna home. 

A screening of the movie — which has remained in commercial release limbo due to music rights issues — will take place at 7 p.m. Friday at Black Lodge. Director McCoy and editor Laura Jean Hocking will conduct a Q&A following the film. 

Saturday’s historical marker unveiling will take place 4:30 p.m. The ceremony will include a live sidewalk performance by Ross Johnson and Jeff Evans. The Antenna festival will follow at 6 p.m., with 30-plus acts playing sets at B-Side, Murphy’s and the Lamplighter Lounge. The venues, all within comfortable walking distance along Madison, will host the concerts simultaneously. The Antenna celebration events are all free.  

Antenna Club card

ANTENNA CLUB CELEBRATION 2019

Friday 

“Antenna” film screening 

7 p.m. at Black Lodge, 405 N. Cleveland

Saturday 

Antenna Club historical marker unveiling 

4:30 p.m. at 1588 Madison 

Featuring a performance by Jeff Evans and Ross Johnson  

Antenna Festival 

B Side, 1555 Madison Ave.  

6 p.m.: Dream Journal featuring Robby Grant 

6:30 p.m.: Jim Duckworth 

7 p.m.: Modifiers 

7:30 p.m.: Calculated X / Barking Dog 

8 p.m.: Small Room 

8:30 p.m.: The Markdowns play the Rockroaches 

9 p.m.: Pezz 

9:30 p.m.: Sobering Consequences 

10 p.m.: Grifters 

10:30 p.m.: Alex Greene & the Weeds 

11 p.m.: Lorette 

11:30 p.m.: Hellcats 

Midnight: Odd Jobs 

Murphy’s, 1589 Madison Ave.

6 p.m.: Linda Heck 

6:30 p.m.: Grown Up Wrongs 

7 p.m.: Mark Harrison 

7:30 p.m.: Bum Note Bob 

8 p.m.: Rick Camp, Carlton Rash and Friends 

8:30 p.m.: Superlo 

9 p.m.: Randy Band 

9:30 p.m.: Whatever Dude 

10 p.m.: Recoil 

10:30 p.m.: Jimi Inc. 

11 p.m.: Devil Train 

11:30 p.m.: Olivera 

Lamplighter Lounge, 1702 Madison Ave.

6:30 p.m.: Cuz 

7 p.m.: Kip Uhlhorn 

7:30 p.m.: Javi Arcega 

8 p.m.: Richard James with Java 

8:30 p.m.: Ross Johnson and Jeff Evans 

9:30 p.m.: Los Psychosis 

10 p.m.: Impala 

11 p.m.: Harris Scheuner 

Midnight: Jack Oblivian & the Sheiks