THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22
BAR DKDC – LATE
SELMA OXOR
OPTIC SINK
IL GRUPPO FR
LAMPLIGHTER – 11:30ish
FORTEZZA
MYSTIC LIGHT CASINO
LITTLE BABY TENDENCIES
KIDS BORN WRONG
THE B SIDE – 10:30
KOOL 100s
WAYNE PAIN & THE SHIT STAINS
SHITSTORM
ACE OF SPIT
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FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 23
LAMPLIGHTER
THE HOFMANNS
PINK & MAUVE
PANTERA BREAD
LUDI GENI
THE DAIN
BAR DKDC
JACK OBLIVIAN & THE SHIEKS
MODEL ZERO
HARTLE ROAD
DJ T-ROY SLIM
THE B SIDE
EASY ACTION
FAT SAVAGE
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SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24
THE HI-TONE – 11 PM
TRUE SONS of THUNDER
SATANIC TOGAS
CHERRY CHEEKS
LAMPLIGHTER
ARCHAEAS
THE STOOLS
MANATEES
THE WIRMS
NIGHTFREAK
Tag Archives: Memphis
GETTING READY FOR GONERFEST 15
GONERFEST 15 is shaping up to be an extraordinary festival. And just writing this is awfully redundant because every single one of them since the first one in 2005 has showcased the very best rock ‘n roll performers who are revered not just around the US, but also across the entire world. Pretty deep. I’m saying this not as someone who is an OG Memphis pilgrim, but as someone who has gone yearly since 2015 and has admired the label’s appetite for raw rock ‘n roll (garage/punk) for as long as KLYAM has been around. Describing GONERFEST to those who are entirely unfamiliar always makes for interesting conversation. Picture a music festival that draws people from Denmark, Australia, Los Angeles, you name it. But imagine the headlining shows at a 400 capacity venue and the afterparties (which can go well past 4 AM) at a tiny dive bar packed with crowds more than ready to continue the live music party. Giorgio Murderer closing out the weekend at Murphy’s. You can’t really top that. Anyway, here is who I am particularly excited to see:
CARBONAS – Who knew recommending a band in 2010 could be so incendiary? I know I made so many people mad on Terminal Boredom for liking contemporary 2010 bands (aw shucks being only a toddler in ’93). Well the haters can stay at home and listen to their obscure, limited press color 45s while I jam out to Carbonas at The Hi-Tone on Saturday night. No ‘pausing, extra lean straight-ahead move-out-of-the-way rock ‘n roll. I always connected with this, but thought seeing them live was out of the question considering their lengthy time not releasing new music. But with an album like Carbonas (released by Goner), it makes perfect sense to stop there…in a good way.
OBLIVIANS – It seems like I must’ve seen Oblivians, but nope this will be the first time. Seen Jack O, seen Reigning Sound, seen Greg, but the greatest group of the bunch that also features Goner owner Eric O? That will be Friday night at the Hi-Tone. I can’t really add much original thought to the highly influential legacy of this Memphis band. Super catchy AND super raw and noisy. I’m still angry that I left a CD copy of Best of the Worst bought from Bobby Hussy in Madison, Wisconsin in a Rent-A-Car in Chicago. Hopefully someone found it and started a band.
COBRA MAN – My Cobra Man obsession took on new heights this winter as I found myself playing their New Driveway Soundtrack almost daily. I think their charm is similar to the charm that gets me going when I listen to DEVO and the B-52’s, but this Cobra Man I tell ya is a bit more showy, club-ready (and still quite nerdy). The production is so crisp with really thick groovy basslines that shine through and bring these songs to the penthouse when they could have easily stayed in the basement bedroom or garage. I saw them play at Murphy’s during the daytime Saturday Blowout (amazing), but am even more excited to see this duo light up the darkened walls of the Hi-Tone on Friday night.
GENTLEMEN JESSE – Woah is me. The first band to really hurt my eardrums back when I was relatively new to going to loud rock and roll shows was Gentlemen Jesse and His Men. 2009 opening for Black Lips at Middle East Down (in case you’re keeping track). Now, Jesse will be performing a solo set at Memphis Made. To go back to the previous point – the hurt eardrums wasn’t a bad thing. I enjoyed the music greatly. Pop rock, or power-pop they might call it. But not so super wimpy as those two words might make a purist weep or some bullshit like that.
NOTS – Goner mainstays and KLYAM favorites. Time Warp Weekends, too. Want a band that wastes no time with what they’re doing? Shouted, repetitive lyrics, with the kind of dynamic instrumentation that for lack of a better phrase is as if we’ve been blessed with the Greatest Hits of the Goner label all packed into one band. Take a minute for that. They’ll be playing Saturday night at the Hi-Tone.
SICK THOUGHTS – Like Oblivians, like Carbonas, Sick Thoughts just knows how to write a banger of a raw rock ‘n roll song without wasting any time. Album after album. Single after single. Put on any Sick Thoughts and you can be guaranteed you will start to immediately do whatever your signature “I’m really feeling this song” move is. Catch ’em right before Oblivians on Friday night.
HARLAN T. BOBO – Not going to lie, do I know much about Harlan T. Bobo? Very little and I am talking about his music. Apparently he is fairly mysterious as well, but Goner has lent their full support to what I am only guessing is a Memphis legend. I don’t know where to start, but maybe his Thursday night Hi-Tone show may be just the right kind of live introduction?
MORE TO BE CONTINUED!!!!!!!!
Band Recommendation: Model Zero
We all know that Memphis, Tennessee has/had the greatest bands. STAX. Goner Records, Jay Reatard, The Oblivians, NOTS, The Barbaras, Girls of the Gravitron, Yesse Yavis. I’m forgetting a lot. I know, I’m sorry. So what about the contemporary group called Model Zero? Dang, I don’t even know if they’re around anymore. First and last I heard of them (until now) was at Gonerfest, outside of Memphis Made. Their stuff clicked with me – drum machine + real drummer, a variety of dance punk, but like if Giorgio Murderer was less bare bones and got funky on us. I remember hearing “Japanese Death Poem” live and being like “yup, I’m in.” Except it was one and done. Until I decided to do an ole search. An ole Googling of “Model Zero Bandcamp,” because I was craving for more of this group. They had to have recorded something right?
And look at this. https://modelzero.bandcamp.com/releases
That’s a four song tape with my favorite damn one on there. If the members of this group catch wind of this post, please keep doing what you’re doing. I’m not a freaking barometer of what is cool and in fact I hope the opposite, but let me tell you that you’re one of the most exciting groups going right now and that is based on very limited, limited information.
Cheers
GONERFEST 14 HIGHLIGHTS PT.1 (L.A. & NOLA)
Everyone’s Gonerfest is a personal Gonerfest. Everyone’s Memphis is a personal Memphis. Folks travel far and wide, or in some cases – not at all – to get to Gonerfest to see the best bands in the land. For us, this was our third trip down there. Veteran status? King Louie might beg to differ. At any case, if it was not for the precise organization of the heads at Goner and the cooperation of the city, venues, groups, and fans, this might be a different animal. Instead, it’s for the most part a meeting of minds, a reunion for many, or for the uninitiated – the first annual.
I will call it an international summit, with some representation of the past, present, and future. Where bands unite, where bands stop on tour, where bands play their first (and maybe last?) show. Is there a Goner sound? If anything I learned this weekend, it’s that no, no there is not. Maybe in 2009, but not in 2017. And the record label/store is better off for it. There are some sounds and scenes that curry a bit more favor across the board. Los Angeles and New Orleans have some wild bands, shoving that straight-ahead, raw, fast sound into our welcoming ears. Die Group (Los Angeles) are mainstays and were a definite highlight for me on Thursday night at the Hi-Tone. Almost from the second they begin to play, I’m into it and there is no resting after that. Sex Tape Records – Die Group’s record label – put on a Friday early morning afterparty at Bar DKDC and this was a choice shindig with the Sex Tape’s very own Brain Bagz (Salt Lake City) and Tenement Rats. Now, it being a long drunken night, I thought Tenement Rats’ Jonny Watkins was Pitbull. A garage punk Pitbull. Yes, that Pitbull. It took some clarification. Count me in as a big fan of both groups, both with the noisy, catchy immediacy we need in these modern times.
New Orleans deserves a paragraph of its own. From my very first Gonerfest (12), I gathered some intel that this is a very incestuous group of music playing individuals. Playing in each others bands, supporting each other. From the start we had NOLA king King Louie (weirdly called King Louis on a Memphis news website?) playing opening ceremonies in a new band with Abe White, formerly of The Manatees (Memphis). A few hours later BENNI started Night One at the Hi-Tone. With an album recently released on Goner, the mysterious BENNI might just be the weirdest project of the bunch. Armed with a few synthesizers and a talk box, he eased us into what would be a night of heavy rock ‘n roll. Kind of like Couteau Latex did last year. It would be more than 24 hours until we got another dose of freewheeling New Orleans punk – this time at the legendary Murphy’s for the Night Two afterparty. Gonerfest alum Die Rötzz, and Dummy Dumpster (both been around for more than a decade) along with newer crew Enoch Ramone got the booze spent revelers moshing around into each other. Maybe it was the peck on the cheek from Don Perry (eternal gratitude for the rides to the afterparties and the laughs), or maybe it wasn’t, but the Enoch frontman was in a frenzy start to finish, save for the “Gates of Steel” DEVO cover, which was sung by Sam from Trampoline Team. Maybe Murphy’s is the true second home of these NOLA characters as this year’s Saturday afternoon Blowout brought us three performances: GUSHERS, IS IS, and HEAVY LIDS. While the first and last just mentioned groups are more in line with the above mentioned quick zip, speedfire r’n’r and absolutely rocked it, it’s that middle group that put on arguably the most subdued, but interesting performance. Masterminded by Giorgio Murderer and featuring members of Trampoline Team and Black Abba. This was the closest thing we got to that unmistakable Giorgio/Buck Biloxi sound. Click the link and go be offended.
Pt. Two coming soon…………………….
Angry Angles S/T – Goner Records (2016)
Formal reviews won’t do this record any good; instead the notes on the sleeve that come from those closest to Angry Angles – Alix Brown (one half of the band) and Zac and Eric from Goner Records – tell the story of the band and this record better than any music writer will. The time frame is 2005, when Jay Reatard and Alix formed the band after the dissolve of Jay’s previous group, the synth heavy “dark wave” Lost Sounds. According to Zac, Angry Angles were Jay’s “return to punk, in a way. Still raw, but now more focused, with a pop sensibility.” They recorded a few singles in Atlanta and Memphis over the course of two years and even got some studio time in Montreal before Gonerfest 6 that culminated in three songs previously unreleased until now.
Unfortunately I was not hip to Angry Angles (or any of Jay’s pre-solo bands) prior to his death in January 2010. But upon listening to Angry Angles shortly thereafter, I was blown away. Listen after listen, this group became most certainly an all-time favorite, right up there with The Reatards and The Lost Sounds, both of which I also had no previous exposure. What stood out to me, particularly, with Angry Angles is sure they were dark and robotic (like The Lost Sounds), but they were mighty concise and sharp. Hook after hook. Jay’s quick fire/angular guitar playing, quasi Brit vocal inflection, easily identifiable drumming, and fat production – trademarks of what would be his solo style take root here. But this was a dynamic duo and Alix and Jay were musically perfect for each other, often taking the heaviest/simplest moments of Wire and Devo soundscapes and modernizing them with the relentlessness of your neighborhood garage band. It seems like Alix challenged Jay-isms to a most positive affect, to me, most apparently on “You Lied” stuffed with a more traditional sounding bouncy bass line and some piano.
Angry Angles no doubt were the basis for the direction that Jay chose to pursue throughout his mighty solo discography from Blood Visions through his final LP Watch Me Fall, which features a tune I never would have guessed was by Angry Angles — “Can’t Do It Anymore.” In fact the final three songs on here, which I mentioned were recorded in Montreal (and not by Jay himself) with drummer Ryan Rousseau, sound very much like Jay’s solo stuff. His obsession with doing it all himself, as Alix writes in her blurb about the album, gives insight into why they never saw the light of day until now. There are no ‘weak’ songs on here, all memorable jams, and I am so thankful for Goner for putting together this album. It is strange to think that over the past six years many of these songs like most of Side A and the first half of Side B have been so influential for me and I have played them over and over, if only via YouTube or a WFMU session. I’ll always say it and I know at least some others agree, the rock ‘n roll that came out of Memphis in the span of four years – 2005 to 2009 – is simply the best. Angry Angles, The Barbaras, Girls of the Gravitron, Boston Chinks, these are my favorite groups NOW. Back then I didn’t know such wonderful raw stuff. I was a teenager from Boston, MA, listening to The Strokes and The Libertines, damn was I missing out on the real good stuff, most of it coming from Jay and his adjacent friends and cohorts. I hope this record might incite or re-ignite passion, because Angry Angles and a healthy chunk of the Goners left (and still leave) an impact on me.
Music Video: NOTS – “Decadence”
Produced and directed by Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury
Here you go you little punk slime eaters. A new music video for “Decadence” by Memphis synth punkers NOTS. The song is featured on their debut LP We Are NOTS on Goner Records.
NOTS on Memphis Live TV
YO YO YO! Spend the next seven minutes rocking out with NOTS Live on Memphis TV from a few weeks ago.
And hey, don’t be a damn fool and miss these NOTS on their upcoming tour:
SAT 11/8 – Memphis, TN @ Buccaneer (tour kickoff show) w/ Black Abba and Buldgerz
TUE 11/11 – St. Louis, MO @ CBGB’s
WED 11/12 – Kansas City, MO @ Minibar
THU 11/13 – Omaha, NE @ Sweatshop w/ Digital Leather, Coaxed
FRI 11/14 – Minneapolis, MN @ ShitBiscuit w/ Solid Attitude, Claps
SAT 11/15 – Madison, WI @ Turkey Fest w/ The Hussy, Digital Leather
SUN 11/16 – Milwaukee, WI @ Circle A w/ Olives
MON 11/17 – Chicago, IL @ Bric-A-Brac (in-store)
MON 11/17 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle w/ Dream Police
TUE 11/18 – Indianapolis, IN @ Kismet w/ Raw McCartney
WED 11/19 – Detroit, MI @ Painted Lady (Timmy’s Taco Night) w/ Feelings
THU 11/20 – Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class w/ Obnox, Kill the Hippies
FRI 11/21 – Brooklyn, NY @ tBA
SAT 11-22 – New Brunswick, NJ @ TBA w/ pebbles (message us for the address)
SUN 11/23 – Jersey City, NJ – WFMU ON THE AIR
SUN 11/23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Palisades w/ Degreaser
MON 11/24 – Allie’s Birthday!
TUE 11/25 – Philadelphia, PA @ Bourbon & Branch w/ Abandos
WED 11/26 – Baltimore, MD @ Windup Space
FRI 11/28 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 w/ Zoners, Slugga
SAT 11/29 – Oxford, MS @ Cats Purring Dude Ranch
MON 12/1 – Memphis, TN w/ Blind Shake
https://www.facebook.com/events/284395905094942/
NOTS & Back Pages @ Uncle Lou’s (8/22/14)
Some sick footage of Memphis punk slimers NOTS at Uncle Lou’s in Orlando, Florida.
AND while we’re at it, why not throw up a video of KLYAM Records’ own Back Pages playing that same night.
Videos by Tantrum! Imagery
Get your shit together and grab Back Pages’ Singles 13′ tape from KLYAM Records: http://klyam.bigcartel.com/product/back-pages-singles-13
Noisey Doc “Made In Memphis”
Sweet, little ten minute documentary on music in Memphis. At 4:30 you can check out more KLYAM oriented slime with Goner Records, Ex-Cult, Nots, and some good ole’ Jay Reatard.
Classic Album Review: “Magnetic Mountain”
Band: Girls of the Gravitron
Release: 2010
Label: Miss Lonelyhearts Records
Comments: Once in a great while – and it sure is great – I come across a very inspirational group of music creators. Girls of the Gravitron are one of them. I got into this album on a whim, because why wouldn’t I want to explore a Memphis project that features members of the Barbaras and Magic Kids? Magnetic Mountain is not a highly polished offering; in fact, its homey and tinny sound accounts for a lot of what makes this click for me. The one song that I literally couldn’t stop listening to from the time that I heard it first is “Her Flower Opens Like Slow Moving Trail of Atom Bomb”. It makes me want to pick up a guitar and learn how to rip off Girls of the Gravitron. If only I could. It has the cheeriness of a lot of what folks might call underground pop – lots of jangle and some killer keyboard (especially at the end…thanks Will McElroy!). Cole Weintraub sings sort of like Jeffrey Novak and Calvin Johnson with a cool blend of Adam Green’s off-the-cuff delivery (listen to “Weird World” for justification of this claim) . Basically, if you love those dudes and a wide range of music styles – punk, folk, garage – you should have no problem loving this. There are 19 tunes on this one…this review would probably read more like a tiny research paper if I went into intricate detail about everything. At any rate, Magnetic Mountain is something you ought to listen to yourself rather than reading me describe what it is like to listen to. The other thing that is especially noteworthy is that these are dudes who know what they are doing. This record is almost a continuation or a confirmation of their legacies in those other bands which I’d argue puts a cherry on top of a ‘Memphis sound’ that they cultishly created. I will list some other weirdo gems that are approximately outstanding (this is tough!): “Principes of Kimberly,” “Magnetic Mountain,” “Violent Appetites,” “Come Alone,” and the finisher “1000 Yrs”. This will be your new favorite musical discovery!
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 