Author: J.D. Reager

2010 has not been a kind year to Memphis musicians. The scene is still reeling from the recent deaths of such noteworthy figures as Alex Chilton, Jay Reatard, and Willie Mitchell — and last Thursday, June 24th, brought the unfortunate news of the passing of another well-known Memphis musician, power pop singer/songwriter Tommy Hoehn.

Hoehn was perhaps best known as a sometime collaborator with the members of Big Star (he sang back-up vocals on Third/Sister Lovers) and the Scruffs, but was a gifted pop artist in his own right, releasing two fine solo albums in the mid-late ’70s on London Records. The 1977 single “Blow Yourself Up” was his biggest hit, eventually earning Hoehn a new generation of followers thanks to its inclusion on the 1993 Rhino Records compilation D.I.Y.: Come Out and Play: American Power Pop I (1975-78), as well as the 2008 retrospective Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story.

“I met Tommy at Ardent Studios in November 1975, when he came in and played piano on a song that [Big Star drummer] Jody Stephens and I were recording with [legendary Rolling Stones producer] Andrew Loog Oldham,” says frequent Hoehn collaborator Van Duren. “I think that anyone who worked with Tommy respected his talent and saw him as one of the best pop musicians and singers that Memphis ever produced. He was underrated by the musical movers and shakers here.”

Hoehn continued to record throughout the early-mid ’80s, most successfully with the 1983 EP I’m So Afraid of Girls. The title track in particular is a textbook example of Hoehn’s prog-ish take on McCartney-esque pop; indeed, the song’s gut-wrenching refrain of “I’m so afraid girls/I’m so afraid of you” may be Hoehn’s most effective plea.

“That album was a lot of fun to make,” says Emory Smith, who played guitar on I’m So Afraid of Girls. “There was lots of silliness involved, and trying new things, even if it was wrong. We were like mischievous brothers in the studio, trying to figure out what we could do.”

The 1990s brought a series of comeback attempts from Hoehn. First came solo offerings with Of Moons and Fools and The Turning Dance, and later the start of a collaboration with Duren, which produced the albums Hailstone Holiday, Cows on the Fence, and Blue Orange, the latter of which would prove to be Hoehn’s last official release in 2002. Both Hoehn and Duren were fresh off of major life-upheaval at the time of the album’s creation, which may account for the tangible sense of urgency that ended up getting captured on record.

“I was recovering from the stroke and going through a divorce, and Tommy was taking debilitating Interferon treatments for hepatitis,” says Duren. “Blue Orange is a pretty fierce record as a result.”

After a long hiatus, Tommy Hoehn began work on a new solo album in late 2009, tentatively titled Pi, at Chris Swenson’s Memphis Independent studio. Work on the record continued through early this year, with many local musician friends, including Duren, Lucero’s Rick Steff, and Big Star/Chilton-collaborator Richard Rosebrough, chipping in. But Hoehn, diagnosed with cancer in December, was never well enough to sing lead vocals.

Tommy Hoehn died on Thursday, June 24th, 2010. He was 55 years old.

“The last time I saw Tommy, I promised him that we would finish the record,” says Duren. “The idea now is to bring in different vocalists and make this a tribute to him. The material is sometimes complex, a thinking man’s pop music, and always melodic and honest — essential Tommy Hoehn.”

Beyond the music, however, a dear friend and family member will be sorely missed.

“Tommy was one of the best friends I have had in this life,” says Duren. “He had such a huge heart, and was one of the most intelligent guys I ever encountered. Tommy Hoehn’s legacy will be what any father hopes his legacy will be: his children. But he also leaves a great body of recorded music, almost every bit of it really great. Now it is the work of those who knew him and loved him to try to see that that music goes on, the unfinished work finished.”

From the moment he signed a contract to be the music supervisor on Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow in 2005, Scott Bomar had a plan.

“That very same day I went out and bought enough recording equipment to start a studio,” says Bomar, a longtime fixture on the local music scene as a bass player with such noteworthy bands as Pezz, Impala, the Tearjerkers, and, most recently, the Bo-Keys. “I knew I didn’t want to have to pay to work in outside studios for the project, and had already accumulated a large collection of musical instruments and gear over the years — amps and stuff that I knew other musicians could appreciate. So I just did it. I set everything up at my house and tried to record just about anybody I could.”

Bomar’s interest in recording music dates back much further than five years, of course. Roughly 15 years prior to signing on for Hustle & Flow, a 16-year-old Bomar had an epiphany of sorts while recording a compilation track with Pezz in Doug Easley’s then-garage studio.

“I thought to myself, This is my environment, this is home. It completely mystified and fascinated me,” Bomar says. “It was then that I realized that the coolest part about being in a band, for me anyway, is recording.”

Later on, as a member of Impala, Bomar acquired a cassette 4-track recorder and began producing demos and compilation tracks for the band. During that time he honed his skills, all the while searching for ways to get the sound he heard in his head onto tape.

“I definitely came out of the 1990s home-recording movement,” Bomar says. “And I had been listening to Travis Womack and a lot of Hi and Stax Records stuff. So I focused on learning how to achieve that sound myself.”

These days, Bomar finds himself one of the most sought-after producer/engineers in Memphis. Three years ago, he moved his studio, dubbed Electraphonic, out of the house and into a large building on South Main and has worked there with a litany of prominent local acts such as the City Champs, Jack Oblivian, the Dirty Streets, and the late Jay Reatard. Bomar also has continued to do high-profile film and television work, including Black Snake Moan, Soul Men, and $5 Cover.

In late January of this year, Bomar received a call that would lead to his highest-profile album-recording project to date.

“I was at a [University of Memphis] Tigers basketball game. A friend of mine from Downtown Records [a subsidiary of Universal] called me, asking for a reel of recent stuff I’d recorded for a potential project,” Bomar says. “It was very cryptic, because he wouldn’t say who it was for, just that he wanted to hear stuff that was ‘blues-y.’ So I sent him a few things and didn’t think much of it.

“Around that same time, I happened to see Cyndi Lauper performing on TV and also heard her song ‘All Through the Night’ while I was in a hardware store. So I was already thinking about how much I liked her music and how much I’d like to hear her do a new record.”

As fate would have it, Lauper turned out to be the artist looking for a producer. And, of course, Scott Bomar got the job.

“I asked her why she decided to record with me, and she said, ‘Because when we talked, you didn’t act like you know everything,'” Bomar says, with a bit of a chuckle.

Lauper holed up for two weeks in March at Electraphonic with Bomar and an all-star backing band of local musicians: Stax players Skip Pitts and Lester Snell, Hi Rhythm veterans Howard Grimes and Leroy Hodges, and a horn trio of Marc Franklin, Kirk Smother, and Derrick Williams. The end result is the raw but rewarding Memphis Blues, which hit stores nationwide this week.

On Memphis Blues, Lauper is also joined by big-time heavyweights such as B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Charlie Musselwhite, Jonny Lang, and Ann Peebles. But, according to Bomar, the heart and soul of the record is Lauper:

“She immersed herself in Memphis and what goes on here completely. Everyone was impressed by it. You don’t see a lot of artists today making a record this real. I really respect her.”

Indeed, if the album sounds a bit rough around the edges (in a good way), it’s because the majority of it was tracked to Bomar’s vintage 8-track tape machine entirely live and all at once.

“I was kinda surprised she went for it,” Bomar says. “But that’s how I prefer to work. What happened in the room translates on record.”

Looking ahead, Bomar will focus the remainder of the year on finishing a long-awaited new Bo-Keys album, as well as new offerings from the City Champs, Ryan Peel, and whatever Memphis-related projects come his way.

“I’ve always loved Memphis music and bands. Working with them is what I love to do — nothing gives me more satisfaction,” Bomar says. “That’s why I stay here.”

Entering its second year, Memphis Hates You Fest is emerging as a viable local music showcase for underground artists and bands involved in the Memphis Hates You online community. But for many fans of Memphis’ notoriously splintered and cliquey music scene, the success of Memphis Hates You remains a largely unknown quantity.

“We still feel like outsiders,” says Cremains frontman and Memphis Hates You co-founder Michael Jasud. “We don’t cater to any specific genre, niche, or aesthetic. We’re more about the music. I think our nonaffiliation with anything else going on in town keeps us at a distance.”

Beyond that, even defining what Memphis Hates You is presents another set of difficulties. The group arose out of the membership of two now-defunct local message boards — Bound & Gagged and OurMemphis.net — but what it has become is a nebulous collective that challenges any preconceived notions of a “scene.”

“I’ll tell you what it’s not — it’s not a record label,” says co-founder Ben Aviotti, guitarist for the Unbeheld. “Originally, it was just a message board, a forum for like-minded musicians helping each other with shows and promotion. Eventually it expanded to include an online store, festival, and booking agency.”

And then there’s the name itself, which by design evokes a sense of antagonism.

“It’s not that we’re hateful, necessarily,” Jasud says. “The phrase ‘Memphis Hates You’ is more directed at ourselves rather than others. This whole thing grew out of a common frustration with the music scene, the fact that nobody seems to give a shit. But we still see it as a positive thing. Memphis is not an easy place to get ahead in music, but we’re trying to do something good and promote underground music that is valid and interesting.”

Despite their frustrations, Memphis Hates You’s collective of bands, which includes Cremains, the Unbeheld, Tanks, These Wolves Are Robots, Burial Within, and Panther Piss, among many others, continues to gain traction in town, thanks largely to the overwhelming success of last year’s Memphis Hates You Fest. The event drew approximately 500 fans to the Hi-Tone over the course of two nights.

“Everything is built upon the contributions of those involved. We were successful last year thanks to tremendous effort and word-of-mouth. The local media gave us no coverage,” Jasud says.

Indeed, according to Hi-Tone owner Jonathan Kiersky, it was the tenacity of the group that initially led to the club’s interest in hosting the festival.

“They were a musical anomaly, a scene without a venue, when they approached us,” Kiersky says. “I realized right away how active they are with promotion and supporting their own scene. They don’t miss any opportunity. It makes them extremely easy to work with.”

As a collective, Memphis Hates You has a reputation for being dominated by heavy/metal acts, but Aviotti and Jasud strongly assert the eclecticism of the group.

“I’d say it’s about 60/40,” says Aviotti, referring to the ratio of metal to non-metal acts. “And even within the ‘heavy’ genre, there’s lots of variation, differences in each band’s sound and approach.”

“We make no requirement that a band be of one particular genre. We have folk, indie-rock, punk rock, metal, and all sorts of bands. We defy any sort of categorization,” Jasud explains.

To that end, this year’s Memphis Hates You Fest promises to be a great deal more diverse than the last.

The second night of the event, in particular, has been programmed as the “eclectic night” and will feature the indie/folk songwriter Randolph Robinson, the alt-rock American Gods, and the grunge-y punk Chinamen, who could be the festival’s can’t-miss sleeper.

“We played last year and had a really good time. The festival is run by a bunch of good guys who care more about the music than how awesome each others’ hair is. There is no pandering or bullshit. It’s just about the music,” says Chinamen frontman Alex Pilkington.

Looking ahead to the future of Memphis Hates You, both Aviotti and Jasud express a reluctance to further organize the group.

“I think it would be counter to the original idea,” Aviotti says. “There’s a general sense that it’s getting bigger and that more people are interested and getting involved. But if we turned it into a business or a record label, I think we’d be subject to unwanted scrutiny or criticism. I think it’s best if we keep it open-ended.”

So, how does one, if so inclined, get involved with Memphis Hates You?

“Just be involved,” Jasud says. “Get on the message board, go to shows, be present. That’s all it takes.”

memphishatesyou.com

Memphis Hates You Fest 2010

May 29th-30th at the Hi-Tone Café

$7 cover each night, $10 both nights

SCHEDULE

Saturday, May 29th

6-6:20 p.m. Galaxicon

6:35-6:55 p.m. This Fucking Train

7:10-7:30 p.m. Process of Suffocation

7:45-8:05 p.m. Elephant House

8:20-8:40 p.m. Thorax Hum

8:55-9:15 p.m. Pulltrigger

9:30-9:50 p.m. Ragpicker

10:05-10:25 p.m. Dead-I-On

10:50-11:20 p.m. Burial Within

11:35 p.m. Cremains

Sunday, May 30th

6-6:20 p.m. Meme

6:35-6:55 p.m. Vere

7:10-7:30 p.m. Chinamen

7:45-8:05 p.m. Randolph Robinson

8:20-8:40 p.m. American Gods

8:55-9:15 p.m. Saurus

9:30-9:50 p.m. Panther Piss

10:05-10:25 p.m. Tanks

10:50-11:10 p.m. These Wolves

Are Robots

11:25 p.m. The Unbeheld