Yesterday afternoon, someone left a bicycle chained outside Terminal C of the Memphis International Airport. No biggie, except whoever found the bike was unfamiliar with a Pensacola, Florida hardcore band called “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb” — and, seeing a sticker for the group on the 2-wheeler, they panicked, and the airport was closed.

As CA staffer Jody Callahan reported, “bomb-sniffing dogs ruled out any explosives, and the airport was reopened. The owner of the bike was taken into custody, but later released.”

Less than 3 years ago, a similar misunderstanding occurred, when another bike with the same sticker was discovered on the campus of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Fox News contacted This Bike is a Pipe Bomb’s lead singer Ryan Modee.

Modee said he heard about the confusion over the sticker affixed to a bike at Memphis International Airport just before speaking to FOX13 News Tuesday.

“I was at work and just kind of freaked out,” he said. “I was like ‘Oh God, not again. How could this be happening?’”

The incident happened when officials say an airport police officer found a bike chained outside Terminal C with the sticker on it. Police detained and searched the bike’s owner before releasing him.

“It’s just really sad,” said Modee. “It seems like it’s costing a lot of money and making them more scared.”

But Modee said this wasn’t the first time the name of his band has caused an alarm. In 2001 and 2006, similar incidents occurred in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

“They ripped this guy’s bike to shreds with the jaws of life,” he said. “The fire department, SWAT team came from 40 miles away, shut the school down for a while. It was a big mess.”

The folk-punk band came together 13 years ago and the band name came about because of their passion for riding bikes together.

But Modee said while he thinks the commotion is a big waste of money for tax payers, he advises people to think about where the sticker is before they go show their support in some public places.

“This is a weird society we live in,” he said. “It’s not like it was 12 years ago. If you’re going to…go to the court room or if you’re going to go to the airport, just cover it up. Take it off and we’ll send you a new one.”

While no charges have been filed against the man involved in Monday night’s incident at the airport, Modee said since the problems with the stickers have started they have not been contacted by either local state or federal authorities. But he did say the band played a show in Ohio after the incident at Ohio University.

The 2009 Folk Alliance Conference starts tomorrow at 11 a.m.  If you’ve never attended the conference, which will be held at the Downtown Marriott Hotel, it’s well worth the $250 per day (or $750 for all 5 days) admission — hundreds of musicians, including John Sebastian, Rodney Crowell, Kathy Mattea, Charlie Louvin, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Albert Lee, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, are scheduled to play. 

Go here to read CA writer Bob Mehr’s interview with performer/keynote speaker Roger McGuinn — pictured above with his 1960s-era group the Byrds. And go here to read my interview with 17-year old Pennsylvanian Brittany Ann Tranbaugh, who will be traveling more than 1,000 miles to appear at the event.  

While this is an international conference, with musicians from all over the world networking and performing, there’s plenty of Memphis in the mix, including: 

1. Screenings of the Memphis jug band documentary Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost, slated for tomorrow at 3 p.m. and Thursday at 2 p.m. 

2. An open mic set hosted by the Memphis Songwriters Association.

3. The Kids Show, on Thursday at 11:30 a.m., with Memphis host Darin Hillis and a performance from Valerie June and Jason Freeman.

4. An interview with legendary musician — and former Memphian — Charlie Louvin on Thursday afternoon.   

5. An interview with onetime Elvis sideman, guitarist James Burton, on Friday afternoon. 

Also: panel discussions with the likes of new Memphis Music Commission head Johnnie Walker; Memphis International record label owners David Less and Bob Merlis; producers Jim Dickinson,  Jeff Powell, and Scott Bomar; Oxford attorney Tom Freeland,  and performances from Valencia Robinson, Nancy Apple, Valerie June, Jimmy Davis, Blair Combest, Jed Zimmerman, Deering and Down, Holly Cole, Caleb Sweazy, William Lee Ellis, Cory Branan, Susan Marshall, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Dan Montgomery, Andy Cohen, and more. 

In conjunction with the conference, The Folk Alliance will also present a number of concerts and events that will be open to the public at various venues around town.

The Center for Southern Folklore will host a free performance by Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart with special guests Act of Congress and Deering & Down on Feb. 20. On Feb. 21, the Center will welcome The Ebony Hillbillies along with Valerie June and Andy Cohen. Both shows start at 8 p.m. 

The Hi-Tone Café offers a pair of shows starting with a Feb. 20 bill featuring the Duhks, Hoots and Hellmouth and 2 Mule Plow. The following evening, Small Faces legend Ian McLagan brings his Bump Band in for a concert. The bill will also include a performance by Jack Oblivian & the Tearjerkers. 

On Feb. 21 at 3 p.m., Ardent Studios will host a creativity workshop featuring banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and drummer Amir “?uestlove” Thompson of hip-hop band The Roots. The event is free. For more information, call 725-0855.

They’re from Ohio, but Heartless Bastards are actually signed to Oxford, MS-based Fat Possum Records. Last month, they rolled into the Young Ave Deli for a show — go here to read Mark Jordan’s interview with frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom, published in the CA. And tonight, Heartless Bastards are making their network TV debut, via a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Tune into WREG channel 3 at about 11:30 p.m. to watch.

Stax great Booker T. Jones — the latest soul artist to ink a deal with the Anti- label, already home to Mavis Staples, Bettye LaVette, and indie greats Neko Case and Tom Waits — wrote an incredible essay for the Anti- website about what it means to be black in 2009. In it, he also documents what it was like to grow up African American in Memphis during the 1960s, and lists his hopes for the future:

“In September ‘08, weeks before the election, while walking in Washington DC with my wife Nan, I was struck with an awareness I had never had before. It was as though I knew, with an unreal sense of certainty, of a real estate transaction that was about to transpire. And I was walking on that very piece of real estate.

We were walking from the Lincoln Memorial towards the Capitol Building on the Mall. Unbelievable. How could this be happening to my consciousness? Why did I feel so certain I was not mistaken?

Years ago, while reading Chesapeake, I was struck with a sense of luck and pride at having been born on soil that had been consecrated and dedicated by such wise, inspired, courageous men as the composers of our own constitution. How could they have had such wisdom and foresight so long ago? But they did, and it came to pass.

It became a beacon to the world, and because of its qualities, the young nation seemed destined for special gifts and privileges from the gods. Things could happen here that could happen no other place on earth. It became the destination of choice for all the disenfranchised of the world.

Its national anthem, that stirring piece, still sends chills through my soul.

Sometime in the 1800’s, my grandfather, Benjamin Jones, graduated from Mississippi Industrial College and was able to purchase 70 acres of land on which he built a school where he became the only teacher. My family still lives on that land in Marshall County, MS.

Not too far away, in the same county, my mother’s family evolved, sired by a white man and a black slave woman.

Eventually, my parents met in Memphis, TN through the church and church music that they both loved, and life was given to me.

Being born African American is just so special to me. In my blood runs all the rhythms of the African drums, the determination and sacrifice of my grandfather’s fathers and uncles to survive, the love of Debussy and Liszt of my grandmother’s musical heart, and the devotion to the fertilization and development of the mind and spirit through education of my grandfather.

So, at age 17, even after having recorded a million seller, “Green Onions”, at Stax in 1962, I headed off to Indiana University in search of knowledge, both musical and otherwise. With $900 saved from my paper route, I paid the out of state tuition, and passed the jury. John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” was the only book I had read that wasn’t science fiction, and the heavy load I carried never crossed my mind. I had a strength I didn’t understand.

I had been taught some “Negro History” in Tennessee History class by the great Nathaniel D. Williams of Memphis. A local DJ/History teacher who rushed from WDIA Radio to Booker T. Washington High School every morning after his show. “Nat D”, as he was known is finally enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and given his due. He, and others like him risked their jobs to impart knowledge that the Memphis City School System (which employed both my Mom and Dad), was hell bent on destroying. I even suspect those elements were responsible for the mysterious fire that destroyed the Cossett Library in Memphis, which was the only one available to blacks when I was growing up and where I spent so much of my time.

On this same soil, I was walking, and remembering hymns written by Mrs. Lucy Campbell, and sung by the likes of Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King, that said this too shall pass. I, a black male, was walking un-accosted, with my wife, who has white skin. And so, I knew, true to the dreams and instructions of the white men who wrote that inspired document that got us started, anything was possible.

The feeling of pride was overwhelming, and it still is. People are awake here in America. And that is so good! Even better, the majority of these “awoken” are of a generation after mine, and so there is hope. Ah! What a word, HOPE. With hope, hearts are lighter and easier to carry. Past disappointments are easier forgotten and moved forward from. Darkened minds are lightened. Empty stomachs are filled. Life itself becomes all it is capable of being.

Thank you Anti- for being Anti-. This blog is what being Anti- is about. Now America is being America, and all that America can be. Black History Month will now need to add a new entry thanks to all these influences. It’s about time, and it’s just all good.”

Go here to check out the Anti- blog site, and go here to check out “Warped Sister,” Booker T.’s brand-new single, which was recorded with Neil Young and the Drive-By Truckers. It’s the first track off Potato Hole, Jones’ upcoming Anti- album, which is due to be released on April 21.

Last week, several of Memphis’ finest garage rockers loaded up their van and headed for points west — Portland, Oregon, to be exact, where they performed at the Slabtown Bender.

According to this article, published in the Portland Mercury daily newspaper, the festival marked the 3rd anniversary of Slabtown, a local bar, and featured more than 36 bands, including a reunion from NW rockers Mudhoney.

Portland musician Matto Howe told Mecury reporter Ned Lannamann that the festival was modeled on Memphis’ own Gonerfest. Said Howe: “I went two years ago and had a fantastic time, and saw a lot of great bands, so at the pre-planning meetings for last year’s Bender, we kind of used the Gonerfest template as far as program design, general structure, and such.”

Lannamann described Bobo as “a man shrouded in mystery, often quite literally.”

“His recent Christmas show in Memphis is already the stuff of legend, complete with costumes, props, outrageous sets, and a script that was apparently dictated to Bobo by Martians. Bobo’s plainspoken songs are entirely more down to earth, and his everyman croon is equal parts Ray Davies, Beck, and Leonard Cohen.”

Following in the footsteps of the Limes, Richard James & the Special Riders are in the middle of a month-long Monday night residency at the Hi-Tone Cafe. Admission is free, and drinks are discounted! Plus, Monsieur Jeffrey Evans and Ross Johnson are also performing tonight. Above photo by the fabulous Don Perry.

It’s Saturday, to be exact — and the music lovers at Shangri-la Records are getting things in gear a little early with a free “Bloody Valentine’s Bash” on Friday the 13th with a veritable live music smorgasbord (or, as the flyer states, a chance to speed-date your favorite bands) courtesy of 15 minute sets from the likes of Misti Rae Warren and Mike Graber, Perfect Vessels, Nice Digs, Evil Wizard Eyes, Shabbadoo, Jeffery James & the Haul, the Warble, and the Simpletones.

Yesterday afternoon, I hoped the folks on the Goner Records message board were wrong. Unfortunately, it’s true — Lux Interior, frontman for the Cramps, died in a Glendale, CA hospital due to complications from a pre-existing heart condition. He was in his early 60s.

Lux and his romantic/musical partner Poison Ivy (born Kristy Wallace) formed the Cramps in the early 1970s, based on a love of horror films, surf rock, and rockabilly music. According to this timeline, they met Alex Chilton in Sept. 1977, less than a year after they debuted onstage at CBGBs. By Oct., they were walking the streets of Memphis, recording sessions at Ardent and Sam Phillips Recording Studio. The Cramps returned here the next summer, to record their first full-length album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, with Chilton at the helm, and, in ‘84, they teamed up with Jim Dickinson to cut a version of Sonny Burgess’ “Red Headed Woman.” According to my friend Bobby, however, Lux came to Memphis much earlier than that — as U.S. Navy enlistee Erick Lee Purkhiser, he lived and worked on the base in Millington back in the 1960s.

Okay, enough background info — the way the Cramps made me feel when I was a bored-out-of-my-skull kid looking for, as Lux put it, “some new kind of kick,” and I dropped the needle on one of their records, was nearly indescribable. Fortunately, I got to see the Cramps perform live several times, most notably at the New Daisy in the early ’90s. I also got to meet Lux and Ivy in person, when they came into Shangri-la Records that day. The store was packed with Cramps fans in town for the concert, but Lux and Ivy graciously signed autographs as they made their way through the bins, picking up a few hundred dollars worth of records. Of course, I totally geeked out when the CD player stopped, and inadvertently played a Cramps tribute disc that just happened to be laying on the top of the stack…

Back on the Goner Board, Cheater Slicks guitarist Tom Shannon said it best: “Back in the early 80’s when there wasn’t much rock n roll, those records (Gravest Hits, Songs the Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, Peppermint Lounge, Date with Elvis) were beacons to a hidden future. I tried to analyse them: what were the secret codes? What did Lux Mean? What am I supposed to know? It was strange how much that band affected me. I would have fought someone to the death if they had badmouthed the Cramps. I certainly could not respect someone’s taste if they did not worship the Cramps. They were the glue that bound us together. The truest element. The electricity.”

Tonight: Start the weekend off with Girls of the Gravitron’s free show at Shangri-la Records. Also: AC/DC’s “Black Ice” tour at the FedEx Forum; Colourmusic and Good Luck Dark Star at the Hi-Tone Cafe; Van Duren at Central BBQ East; the Heartless Bastards at the Young Ave Deli (go herefor CA music critic Bob Mehr’s interview with frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom); Memphis rapper RI’m Skeem at the Crystal Palace (go here for my interview with the rising star); Thrush, Silent Haze, Distilled Blood, and more, at the New Daisy; Will Graves at Cafe Soul; Or, head down to Tunica for a country music two-fer — the legendary George Jones is at Sam’s Town, while Gary Allan is at Horseshoe.

Saturday: Get your indie rock fix from Snowglobe at the Hi-Tone Cafe, with the Bulletproof Vests opening. Also: 34-year old composer Jonathan Leshnoff will debut a composition with the IRIS Orchestra at GPAC. Violinist Augustin Hadelich, winner of the 2006 International Violin Competition, is also on the bill, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’ Serenade No. 1. Classical pianist Terry McRoberts is at the University of Memphis’ Harris Concert Hall; Uncle Jungle is at the New Daisy; Down in Tunica, George Jones and Gary Allan wrap up their respective 2-night stands.

Sunday: At 3 p.m., the Germantown Symphony Orchestra makes its 2009 debut at Hutchison School’s Wiener Theater, at the same time that the Ceruti String Quartet and pianist Marsha Evans perform “Conversations Among Friends,” at the Memphis Chamber Music Society. Later, Rob Jungklas and Deering & Down (who have been laying down tracks at Poppa Willie Mitchell’s Royal Recording Studio this month) are at Otherlands. RI’m Skeem is back at the Crystal Palace, with Atlanta MC Yung LA.