Chico, California native Robin Bacior has been taking the NYC Folk Scene by storm since moving to the East Coast. Rest Our Wings, her new album (Consonants & Vowels Recordings) arrives on November 1, 2011. On it, Bacior weaves sensory details into 3/4 time with a softness and heart that brings to mind early Joni Mitchell.
1.Woman Of Heart And Mind: A Life Story
I can’t emphasize enough how awesome Joni Mitchell is, this documentary about her is ridiculously awesome, makes me sob and makes me want to run ten miles, it just pumps extreme emotion right through me. Anytime I’m feeling low, this is a definite go-to.
This Vancover duo (Maya Miller on drums and Becky Black on guitar/vocals) are releasing their fourth album Unpersons (Mint Records) on September 13, 2011 (I loved it after just one listen). We were lucky enough catch up with The Pack a.d. to get their pop culture picks prior to the hub-bub of the release.
If ever we’re feeling tired or we’re driving at night, Erasure is the only thing that will keep us up, awake, singing, seat dancing, suddenly gripped with the feeling that everything’s gonna be just great. I actually have other Erasure albums on my ipod but this hits collection is sure fire.
1. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Moon Pie” – Playback (Vol.5) – Through The Cracks Tom Petty’s “Moon Pie” is an outtake from a 1986 recording session that is on his Playback box set. Since I am around music almost all the time, I find this little ditty very entertaining. I get a kick out of hearing one of the best recording bands just having fun and cutting up in the studio. Even though it is only a minute and five seconds long, it is long enough to irritate most people and short enough that I always play it twice for full effect.
From the liner notes: “Just an example of what goes on…” Tom sighs. “That was probably us waiting for somebody to plug in a wire.”
Tiger High is Pick Three’s first all-band effort. As a group, the Memphis-based Tiger High (Jake Vest, Toby Vest, Greg Faison, and Greg Roberson), tell us three things that they all agree upon.
The bands new Digi-Single,“Riding The Wave” b/w “Hot Black Honda”, as well as their debut album “Myth Is This” are available for download from Trashy Creatures Records secure store . “Myth is This” is also available as part of a 250 count limited edition cassette release. Hear Tiger High previews on Trashy Creatures Radio on the Trashy Creatures Records home page and on Tiger High’s Bandcamp Site .
Toby Vest and the members of Tiger High stay pretty busy recording and producing records for local and national acts at Tiger High’s home base studio High/Low Recording.
This is one of the few albums we put on before rehearsal or a recording session. The whole thing is perfect, but it’s no surprise, because it came from San Francisco. Most of our favorite, current bands are from there: Thee Oh Sees, Sonny & The Sunsets, The Fresh & Onlys, Mikal Cronin, etc… Another great thing about “Goodbye Bread”: the first side is the exact amount of time it takes Toby to get motivated to do any actual work.
New Orleans native Harry Koniditsiotis moved to Memphis by accident in 2002. “I went for a 2 week trip to visit family and just never left.” Since then he has formed the bands The Angel Sluts, The Turn It Offs, and Twin Pilot. He also started the recording studio The 5 and Dime and works with a variety of local and national bands.
The Angel Sluts are currently celebrating the release of their newest 7”, Suesie Was A Nihilist (Fat Sandwich Records). Formed in 2003, the band consists of Harry Koniditsiotis on vocals, Ben Abney and Matt Burns on guitars, Crews Baggett on bass, and Luke Stubblefield on drums. The Angel Sluts continue to stay true to their dive bar, punk rock roots. The Angel Sluts have spent most of summer 2011 on tour, and making stops at festivals like Horrible Fest in Cleveland, Ohio, Creepy Fest in New Orleans, Louisiana and Blackout Fest in Athens, Ohio.
The Angel Sluts have played shows with Richard Lloyd (ex-Television), Batusi (ex-New York Dolls and The Dead Boys), The Queers, Peelander-Z, The Dirtbombs, Joe Buck, and The Goddamn Gallows.
1. Spacemen 3 – The Sound of Confusion I’ve listened to this record since I was 16 and it still sounds amazing to me. The minimalism, the phased, reverbed out distorted guitars. Of course then I didn’t realize all the covers that they did and I was soon turned on to all sorts of new old music.
Nick Redmond was raised by wolves in Clarksville, Tennessee. He came to Memphis to produce and engineer at Ardent Studios. He has been on tour with the band, Star and Micey for over a year now. Redmond joined the group after helping to make their first album. Nick Redmond loves deviled eggs and German Shepherds!
1. “Eyeless”-Slipknot.
This song has incredible production from Ross Robinson. It also has one of the best vocal takes I’ve ever heard. The rumor is that Ross would hit the singer over the head with a frying pan to get him to perform.
Graham Burks is a Memphis musician who has been playing music on its stages since the days of all ages shows at the famed Antenna Club. He currently plays drums for Memphis punk veterans Pezz, and guitar for the Perfect Vessels. Both bands will be playing Rock for Love 5, with Pezz appearing Friday, August 19th at the Hi-Tone and the Perfect Vessels playing Saturday, August 20th at Shangri-La.
1. tUnE-yArDs – I like the studio album w h o k i l l, but it wasn’t until I started browsing through all of tUnE-yArDs’s live clips on YouTube that I was hooked. At the heart of this band is Merrill Garbus and her loop pedal, which she uses to build the songs layer by layer. She loops drums, ukulele, and harmonized vocal phrasings from another dimension to create her anything-goes compositions. Influences from all over the place, including world music (particularly African music), dance, electro, folk, and soul, are combined to create something absolutely unique. Now, I just need to see them play live.
In 1984, I was in first grade. I lived in a tiny town in East Tennessee about 25 miles from Knoxville. We did not have a movie theatre, but thankfully, for some reason, we had MTV. I would watch the videos constantly. I liked Madonna, tied huge bows in my hair (I would not comb or brush it to give it that “Lucky Star” look) while clunky bracelets adorned my tiny wrists. I was six years old and already pretty much a latch-key kid. I was an only child in the only Jewish family in the county, everyone else was at the Baptist Church. I was an odd bird. MTV was my friend.
I liked videos but I had yet to be compelled to insist my parents buy me a record (not even Madonna). But I was a tyrant and my parents, both working professionals were too tired to argue with me when I really wanted something. One day there was a video with a man in a bath tub (blindfolded) narrated by a keyboard and guitar, and being accompanied by what sounded like my dad’s electric razor (my mother rather nervously and quickly agreed that that was exactly what it was).
I watched and listened to the video without blinking. I asked my Mother to read the credits off of the screen at the end of the video: “When Doves Cry” by a man named Prince (a name that was so enticing for a six year old girl). Suddenly, Michael Jackson was just not as cool and Madonna was just–well, Madonna. I got Purple Rain that night. He had me at “Dearly Beloved….”
We missed Jared McStay while he was on vacation. Now back in Memphis, he tells us what is hot right now at Shangri-la. Check it out his picks in person or at their website.
Also come by Shangri-la on Saturday, August 20th from noon to 5PM as they host the Rock for Love Day Party, which will include live performances by Bake Sale, the Wuvbirds (Jared’s band), the Perfect Vessels, and the Silver Seeds.
1.Timmy’s Organism / John Wesley Coleman – split single There’s a million ways to go crazy, which is one reason it’s so depressing to hear so many bands that sound alike. Get a little bit outside yourself, folks! Two fellows with no problem getting outside themselves are JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN and TIMMY VULGAR. Wesley’s been bashing out demented pop songs buried in fuzz and blather for about a decade—here he provides a track that might remind you of the Buzzcocks pretending to be a drunk Bruce Springsteen trying to play a Nick Lowe song that he hasn’t written yet. Guaranteed to be stuck in your hair for a week.
Timmy Vulgar began as a punk in Michigan but quickly moved from angry personal attacks to more epic attacks on the entire universe with his bands HUMAN EYE and TIMMY’S ORGANISM. Mind Over Matter follows this musical quest to musically shoot out the musical sun. Jimi Hendrix, Timothy Leary, and a whole bunch of musical lizards like this.
When it comes to music, Arkansas native Patrick Glass knows it inside and out: he has a scary knowledge of the catalogs of about any artist one could imagine, he builds guitars at the Gibson Guitar Factory downtown, and he plays a pretty tight guitar in the local band Richard James and the Special Riders. He is also about as friendly (and enthusiastic) as a golden retriever. Supportive as he is active in the Memphis music scene, one can spot him at pretty much any must-see Memphis show. This week Mr. Glass shares what is making him a happy man.
1. Frank Sinatra – “The World We Knew (Over and Over)” So a few months ago on a whim I picked up about 15 Frank Sinatra LPs from a dollar bin, and it’s taken me a while to go through them. I usually throw one on when I’m about to go to sleep, but when I hit this one I kind of flipped out. From that fuzzed out intro to Frank’s amazing vocal range, I think this one’s perfect.
In the Memphis music scene since her teens and with six generations of Memphis in her blood, Grace Askew has been a steadfast presence regionally as a singer/songwriter. Askew is a road warrior and has been making a national presence as of lately, touring in New Mexico and Chicago promoting her bluesy and soulful new album Grace Askew and The Black Market Goods.
She is no lump on a log back home either as she plays out frequently throughout Memphis and Northern Mississippi. Askew has played on the same bill as Marty Stuart, James McMurtry, Jesse Winchester, and Hayes Carll. Evolving stylistically both lyrically and musically, while being a versatile musician, she is definitely an artist to watch.
1.Webb Pierce “There Stands the Glass” – I love a great country drinking song, and this one especially gets to me because not only does Webb have one of the most heart-wrenching voices of all time, but the lyrics are utterly brilliant . . .
“There stand the glass, fill it up to the brim / ’til my troubles go dim / It’s my first one today.”
Here’s the youtube video of him doing it at the Grand Ole Opry:
Jeremy Scott is an original member of the Reigning Sound; he has also played with Harlan T. Bobo, Jack O & the Tennessee Tearjerkers and Jim Dickinson, among others. His new band, the Burning Sands, is working on its debut album, probably as you are reading this.
He has hosted the “Out On the Side” program on Memphis volunteer radio station WEVL for nine years. He has found life to be significantly easier since accepting Quick Draw McGraw as his personal savior.
1. Turtles – “Somewhere Friday Night”
(Jan.1970, The Barbara Mc Nair Show)
If this clip had a subtitle, surely it would be “Miserable Together.” I know it’s a lip-synch, but you could troll youtube all day and not find a more dispirited performance from this usually cheerful bunch. They broke up the year of this TV appearance; if you told me they packed it in immediately after leaving this show’s set I would believe you. Yet as this incredible song demonstrates, their material was pure quality till the end, and beyond. (cf. The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie) Note reference to “Halloween Boulevard.”
This week we are featuring another five (of many) great finds from a giant collection of amazing original blues LPs from the 60s and 70s that came into Goner Records several weeks ago. This includes: Pre and Post War Blues, Gospel, String-band, Jug-band, Fife and drum, Washboard, Whistling, Ragtime… it’s all here – on Yazoo, Arhoolie, Roots, Flyright, Revival, Southland, Adelphi and Folkways. These records are extremely rare and adds to any great vinyl collection.
Not in Memphis? Please visit the Goner Records Website for more information and other great records.
Check back next week as we gear up for Gonerfest 8.
Chico, California native Robin Bacior has been taking the NYC Folk Scene by storm since moving to the East Coast. Rest Our Wings, her new album (Consonants & Vowels Recordings) arrives on November 1, 2011. On it, Bacior weaves sensory details into 3/4 time with a softness and heart that brings to mind early Joni Mitchell.
