Stevan Collins Lazich — Archival Dossier & Timeline

The Antique Shop Sink & The Architecture of Scale

In 1984, in the fourth grade, my family moved to Memphis to renovate 583 S. McLean. By 1985, home was literally the interior of an antique store at 1707 Madison Avenue. Education didn't happen in air-conditioned classrooms—it happened on workroom cutting tables, surrounded by heavy bolts of French silk damask, cast brass fittings, and aged walnut patina.

When you're a fifth-grader taking nightly baths in a stainless commercial kitchen sink between 18th-century French armoires, you develop an intimate, unromantic relationship with physical objects. That summer going into sixth grade, I rode home with Mom in a cargo van loaded to the roof with French antiques—spending two full days riding and sleeping directly on the solid wooden base of an authentic Louis XVI-style armoire. You learn what most modern designers never touch: weight, structural proportion, and honesty. If a timber frame wasn't plumb, you felt it in your bones. If drapery fabric wasn't weighted, it fell lifeless.

Midtown streetlife was raw and unscripted. Mowing the corner park across from the shop for $35 to earn a Libertyland season pass meant pulling empty Stag bottles from azalea shrubs and hosing down neighborhood legends like Dancing Jimmy under radiating streetlights.

Coiffure Deluxe, Hollywoods Design & Super 8 Film "Blown" (1994–1997)

In 1994—the exact same year we opened Otherlands Coffee Bar in Cottland Bedding—I met Robin down the street at Hollywoods Design (966 S. Cooper St., the space that later became Karen Carrier’s legendary Beauty Shop Restaurant). Having hair past my shoulders, Robin cut it and deposited Wella No. 1 Black with a blue wash over it: “I wanted the neck of a blackbird, the way it shines.”

Joel and I concocted the pomade: Memphis-made Black and White (only available in England then), Murray’s orange can, and three dashes of liquid Tres Flores hair dressing oil—requiring a 10” razor-sharpened stainless steel comb heated to slice through the wax. Captured on set by photographer Sallie Sabbatini with Bryan in Will’s ’74 Monte Carlo during the filming of the Super 8 motion picture Blown (filmed strictly in Downtown Memphis in 1996, released 1997).

Babylon Café & The Antenna Club: Midnight In Midnight Memphis

Between 1991 and 1993, I operated as the all-around "Boy Friday" at Babylon Café, tucked into the gravel alleyway behind 1783 Union Rear. Hand-rolling pasta on long wooden boards, simmering scratch marinara, and grinding espresso in the Herb Room while Cyndi Lauper, Laurie Anderson, or delegations of Tibetan monks in saffron robes slipped in through the back door at midnight.

Down the street at 1588 Madison Avenue, The Antenna Club was where underground Memphis kept its teeth. Narrow as a bowling alley, with tin ceiling tiles rattling from bass amps and sneakers sticking to the linoleum floor. Black Flag, Sonic Youth, The Replacements, and Alex Chilton tore through that stage without velvet ropes.

The B-52s: 17 Years of Touring, VIP Sanctuary & Memphis Soul Food

On February 4, 2002 at Irving Plaza in New York City, The B-52s celebrated their landmark 25th anniversary birthday concert. I served as VIP host that evening—igniting an enduring 17-year touring and hospitality relationship with the band that stretched from Manhattan ballrooms to the Mid-South's own Horseshoe Casino Bluesville venue in Tunica.

Whenever the B's rolled through the Mid-South, I would take Kate Pierson and band members "bouncing Memphis for soul food"—riding the vintage Main Street trolley cars down to beloved local holes-in-the-wall like DejaVu Cajun & Creole Soul Food. Pictured outside DejaVu with Kate is Tracy Wormworth, the legendary bassist of 1980s new-wave icons The Waitresses ("I Know What Boys Like"), who has held down the low-end groove for The B-52s for decades. Backstage at Horseshoe Casino's Bluesville venue in Tunica, we were joined by close friend JW Whitten, longtime career advisor and confidant to rock & roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis. It was an unspoken partnership across American music lore: I kept us backstage at the pop and rock; JW kept us backstage at Country Western and legendary roots shows. We were always rolling up in either my Cadillac Eldorado or his STS to see our friends play and hang out after the house lights came up. That bond remains unbroken today—the bed I sleep on, the TV I watch, and the washing machine at Spottswood House are all from JW.

That work expanded into more than fifteen years of discreet artist hospitality, touring wardrobe coordination, and artist sanctuaries for major festivals and music legends. The golden rule of VIP care: genuine warmth, zero pretension, complete discretion, and knowing where the real greens, cornbread, and crawfish étouffée are in Memphis.

DJ Steve Anne: Monday Night Rehab & The Reverse-Surprise Float

Following Brice Antiques, Halloween 2007 launched the full-time moniker DJ Steve Anne. Anchored by the legendary Monday night "Rehab" retro residency at The Beauty Shop in Cooper-Young—co-DJed with Piper Dandy, daughter of southern rock icon Jim Dandy—I was spinning up to eight gigs a week across Dish (Tea Dance, White Trash Wednesdays), Mollie Fontaine Lounge in Victorian Village, and EP’s on Beale.

Every year, my birthday parties at Monday Rehab transformed the entire Beauty Shop restaurant into an unhinged, packed throw-down with live bands and relentless DJ sets. But one year, I orchestrated the ultimate reverse surprise that no one was ready for: instead of arriving at a party, I pulled up outside 966 S. Cooper St. on a full illuminated parade float trimmed in shimmering gold fringe and red banquet booths—spinning live behind my turntables with my band dancing on the front deck of the float.

Between 250 and 300 stunned partygoers poured into Cooper Street in absolute disbelief. The shock and wild pandemonium of that night is the exact reason only two photographs exist to document the spectacle. Documented by Memphis Magazine (“The Transformers”) and headlining four consecutive years for the Friends for Life Halloween benefits at Bridges ("Shipwrecked" and "Under the Big Top"), the DJ decks were about sheer room tempo, physical spectacle, and high-contrast typography flyers that continue to define the TallSlimCollins aesthetic today.

The Rubber Stamp Basement Studio & Decadence Manor Salvage

While downtown Memphis was renovating the historic Advance Rubber Stamp Building on Madison & Danny Thomas, I established my creative atelier in its deep brick basement. In that subterranean workshop, surrounded by historic printing presses, I began painting large-scale botanical textile wall art and experimenting with waterfast inks on raw canvas.

Up the street, Decadence Manor stood as Midtown’s monument to Southern bohemian freedom: grandfather clock faces leaning against weathered porch railings, motorcycle frames resting among magnolia blossoms, and artists lounging on velvet daybeds until sunrise. Rescuing architectural salvage before developer bulldozers arrived became a core preservation mission.

The Honest-Work Mythology: Shop Dogs, Swallows & Artifacts

Merchandise in the TallSlimCollins world never exists in a vacuum. A shirt isn't a logo slapped on cotton—it's a physical relic from a real night, a lost room, or an oral tradition.

From the Shop Dog Society honoring the faithful companions snoozing in workbench sawdust, to the Spottswood Swallows carrying tape measures and extension cords, to upcoming NAVETS capsule releases: each piece is an invitation to step into a complete cultural world.