Jimmy Crosthwait's new venture is reminiscent of shows he used to give with his puppets at Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

Photo by Michael Donahue

Jimmy Crosthwait will play his "16 Gauge John Cage Cymballic Gongs" at a Jim Dickinson tribute Monday at the Levitt Shell.

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He makes music by stroking or hitting 5-1/2-foot tall gongs with steel rods or his hands. "The whole apparatus is sculptural," he said. "And it is as visual as it is melodic."

With the lights and shadows, the gongs begin "to look like shadow puppets on a massive scale."

In addition to the gongs, Crosthwait, 64, plays wind chimes and other brass pieces. "When we assemble it all, it's called a Time Machine. The individual gongs I call '16 Gauge John Cage Cymballic Gongs.' They have the sound of cymbals and gongs.

"My friend Jim Dickinson, who passed away recently, once said that music is just a way of turning time into space. Well, if it can go one way, maybe it can go another. I kind of want to take space and turn it into time here. Because if our planet is running out of time, what we need is more time."

Crosthwait came up with the gongs while looking for sound effects for the MTV horror series, "Savage County," in which he plays "a murderous sort of hillbilly killer."

He originally used the steel pieces to cut out petals and leaves for his Wallflower sculptures. "(This is) the dough once you cut out the cookies."

He named the gongs after the late avant garde composer because John Cage "just did such unorthodox music."

Crosthwait is going to perform the Time Machine along with fellow "cymbalist" Jessica Jones, bassist John Stubblefield and saxophonist Jim Spake at a memorial to Dickinson Monday at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park.

When he was in the ninth grade at East High School, Crosthwait met Dickinson, who was four years older. They were in a jug band called The New Beale Street Shieks. Later, they were in Mud Boy and the Neutrons.

During the memorial, Crosthwait is going to perform "Rain Summer," based on the title of a novel Dickinson wrote when he was young and never published.

"I will start the show. I will host it and this will be the first thing out of the gate, so that we can be done with it and go on to more legitimate music," he jokes.

A Memorial to Jim Dickinson

From 7 to 10 p.m. Monday at the Levitt Shell in Overton Park. Free.

Listen Up spotlights area performers. Michael Donahue can be reached at 529-2797.