Author: Joshua Cannon

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Rockabilly Man

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

When I walk into my grandparents’ home, my Nonnie, Peggy, is standing over the stove. Bacon and eggs crackle in the skillet, and as I lean down to kiss her on the cheek, the sound of my Pop’s singing carries throughout the kitchen.

“Pop’s in his room,” she says, pointing to a closed door at the back of the house.

With every step, his voice and the strumming of his acoustic guitar grow louder and louder. I stand outside of his door and sing along under my breath to a song I’ve heard all of my life:

Sing your heart out, country boy

Sing your heart out

Play your guitar

Once I enter Pop’s room, I’m in his world. He’s holding his Martin, sitting in a chair with a four track and a page full of scribbled lyrics on a table in front of him.

“Hey, Grandson,” Pop says, standing up to hug my neck. “I had an idea come to me in the middle of the night, so I woke up and wrote it down. I’m trying to make sense of it now.”

Justin Fox Burks

James Wesley Cannon plays a tune for his grandson, Joshua Cannon

James Wesley Cannon has built his life around music. A teenager of the 1950s, he pioneered rockabilly alongside Elvis Presley, Bill Black, and many others. He’s still writing, hoping to put out another record of material he’s been sitting on for years.

At 82, his voice is still a booming baritone. When he digs deep into his belly for a stronger note, he finds a pulsating vibrato. His hair is as thick as ever, held together with pomade and hairspray. He’s rockabilly to his core.

Mementos of his musical pursuits decorate the room. Yellowed write-ups from Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the Memphis Press-Scimitar are preserved in Ziploc bags. A list of nominees from the fourth annual Memphis Music Awards, for which he was nominated for Outstanding Male Vocalist and Outstanding New Songwriter along with Alex Chilton, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Willie Mitchell, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley, are tucked away in a folder.

“James, Joshua,” Nonnie yells from the kitchen. Breakfast is served.

Nonnie’s cooking is no frills. Black coffee, greasy eggs. She’s been doing it all of her life for guests and family. Jerry Lawler, Larry Raspberry, Jimi Jamison, and Rufus Thomas — they ate her cooking. Pop and Nonnie always enjoyed entertaining people.

“I had a bad habit of walking up to people and saying ‘Hey, I want to talk to you,'” Nonnie says. “Next thing you know, we’d have them over for supper.”

We’re finishing breakfast when Pop’s phone rings. A smile spreads across face, the wrinkles in his cheeks revealing a man weathered by experience. It’s Johnny Black, one of the last-living friends from Pop’s childhood. Johnny’s older brother, Bill, was Elvis’ first bass player and later went on to have success with the Bill Black Combo. Bill recorded Pop’s first song, “Danny’s Dream Girl,” and pushed him to play music more seriously. In 1962, he opened Lyn Lou Studio on Chelsea Street, where he and Pop would spend hours working on mixes.

When Bill passed away in 1965 at just 39 years old, Pop was by his bedside, playing the songs they’d grown up on and written together.

“He was so full of music,” Pop says. “He would count with his hands like we did when we were in the studio together.”

Pop would later be the best man at the wedding of Bill’s son Louis Black.

“How do you feel about some company?” Pop asks Johnny over the phone.

He looks my way and nods his head up and down. We finish off the last of Nonnie’s coffee, and we’re soon on our way to have another cup with Johnny. He’s 83 and has just gotten out of the hospital after a close call with the flu. He and Pop have been making a point to see more of each other lately.

“Johnny told me he thought he’d be on a walker from now on,” Pop tells me. “I said, ‘Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. If you are, don’t give up on walking. Push yourself a little more every day. Don’t just roll over.'”

The two are notes from the same chord. Johnny saw Pop battle malaria and polio. They apply a similar mindset to music: against all odds, never stop.

When we arrive at Johnny’s house, the two men hug like long lost brothers. We sit down on the couch in his living room, and they are back at the beginning.

Courtesy Cannon Family

Blue Light Studio, which was located at Beale Street and Second Avenue.

Birthing Rockabilly

In 1948, Pop and Johnny Black met when their parents moved into the Lauderdale Courts, a low-income housing project located between Danny Thomas Boulevard and Third Street. Coincidentally, a young boy named Elvis Presley moved into the Courts with his family not long after.

As more families joined the community, the Lauderdale Courts became a creative environment that fostered the growth of the Memphis sound.

When the sun was out, a fresh-faced troupe would take Pop’s guitar and any additional instruments they could gather to the Triangle, a patch of grass at the northeast corner of the Courts now covered by I-40. Elvis, Pop, Johnny and Bill Black, Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, Paul Burleson, Charlie Feathers, Jack Earls, and whoever else found their way to the shade would sit beneath a towering sycamore tree for hours, trading licks and talking music.

The Blacks’ mother, Ruby, kept her door wide open for the teens.

“If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Black, we may have scattered to the four winds,” Pop says. “She’s the mother of rock-and-roll.”

In the 1950s, Memphis was still very much a segregated city. But the Courts was a melting pot of black and white. The teenagers had a common interest unmoved by race, and when country and blues rubbed shoulders, rockabilly was born.

“There were no distinctions,” Johnny says. “With musicians, there is no black and white. We’re all brothers. You don’t look down on one another. You’ve got a common denominator, and that’s music. That’s where it begins and ends.”

It wasn’t uncommon for other musicians to drop by the Triangle and join the jam sessions. At any given time, there could be 30 to 40 teenagers gathered in a circle, clothes dirty from a day’s work, joyfully passing their instruments around. But it was one local musician, about eight or nine years older than the typical group, who stopped by and changed the way they thought about music altogether.

Courtesy Cannon Family

Jim Cannon (left) and Johnny Black (right) pick and sing at Cannon’s mother’s house at party for Cannon before he left for Korea. Carolyn Black (right), Vivian Miller (middle), and Joseph Buck Cannon (left) watch and sing along behind them. Johnny, who is left handed, would flip his guitar around and play it upside down.

“There were four or five of us sitting around one afternoon,” Johnny says. “We were playing a little country because that’s all we knew. Then a young black man came along and said, ‘Can I play your guitar?’ We had never heard anything like that. We were not only amazed, but we were delirious.”

Sometime later, they would hear the visitor playing on KWEM, a West Memphis radio station that featured many live performances from Mid-South musicians, and discovered his identity: He was B.B. King.

“Everybody who was going to be anybody was a nobody,” Pop recalls.

Courtesy Cannon Family

Jim Cannon (left), Jean Jennings (middle left), Johnny Black’s wife Carolyn (middle right) and Elvis (right) mingle at a party at Cannon’s mother’s house on Colby Street.

Johnny, three years older than Elvis, remembers the moment he realized Presley wouldn’t stay a nobody. One day in 1951, while a group of teenagers was throwing a baseball, Elvis and Johnny sat on the sidelines. Johnny had just purchased a used bass, and the two were picking when Elvis went into Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right.”

“The rhythm Elvis had was gigantic,” Johnny says. “You talk about tearing it up. I told Bill, ‘You’ve got to hear this guy.’ But it was about two or three years before they would get together.”

Catching The Train

Pop was drafted in 1953 to fight in the Korean War. He turned 21 years old in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But even in Korea, Pop stayed connected to Memphis music. In a 1973 interview with the Memphis Press-Scimitar, he said, “Bill Black’s mother was always writing to me when I was overseas, telling me about ‘this little record’ Elvis had coming out.”

That “little record” was “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” the double-sided single that launched Elvis into stardom in 1954.

Pop returned to Memphis in 1955 and started a band with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette called the Bluff City Six. They recorded a demo at Sun Studio with Bill Justis, whose song “Raunchy” was the first instrumental rock-and-roll hit, but nothing came of it.

“When I got back out of the service, everyone I knew who had any talent was on Sun or some other label,” Pop says. “I started chasing the rainbow, but it looked like the train had already pulled out of the station.” Still, he pressed on.

James and Peggy became Mr. and Mrs. Cannon in 1959, and got a family underway.

As Pop balanced the life of a traveling musician with that of a working, family man, he spent nearly every free moment in the studio. Chips Moman, who worked with Elvis and the Box Tops, produced two of his songs, “Evil Eye” and “Underwater Man.”

In 1966, Jim Cannon, then 25 years old, took six songs into Sonic Studios on Madison Avenue to record with Roland Janes. After numerous takes and hours of recording, Janes told him only one of his songs was any good, but that he needed a B-side. Determined, Pop went home and wrote until the early morning.

“I put pencil to paper and didn’t stop until I had, ‘Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy,'” Cannon says. “Roland could take a razor blade to tape when he was cutting a song, and you’d never know there was a stitch on it. He said ‘You’ve got a pretty good start on a song, but it’s not a song yet.’ He took part out of the chorus, put it on the front for an introduction and said ‘that’s going to be your A-side.’ Roland was a master musician.”

Pop pressed 1,000 records through his own WesCan Publishing company and sold them out of the back of his car. But in 1970, The Wilburn Brothers recorded a version of the song and released it through Decca Records. “Country Boy” received national airplay and made it as high as no. 4 on some radio charts. Author Dorothy Horstman named her first book, an anthology of country songs and the stories behind them, after it. Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn recorded a version of the song that was shelved due to a dispute between their labels. It has never been released.

When Pop was 36 years old, he found himself in a conference room with executives from United Artists, who asked him to write lyrics to four different song titles. Pleased with the outcome, they started to negotiate a contract until they found out his age.

“They liked all of them, but I didn’t get the contract,” Pop says. “They said it would take 10 years to make anything off of me, and they didn’t think they would get their money back. Everybody has got an opinion. They are what they are. If you believe in it, you stay with it.”

In 1973, Pop got lucky when Fretone Records founder Estelle Axton, a co-founder of Stax Records, signed him as an artist for the label. One of Fretone’s first singles was “Frumpy,” a Christmas song Pop wrote about a pet frog who overhears a group of children talking about being too poor to have a Christmas. The frog hops to the North Pole and works as Santa’s helper to ensure the children have gifts under their tree. James Govan also recorded a version of the song.

Looking back, Pop sees his time at the Triangle as his formative years. Underneath a sycamore tree on that patch of grass, a group of teenagers stumbled upon rockabilly — a genre that would become synonymous with Memphis.

Some, like Elvis and B.B. King, became known all over the world as forerunners of the sound. Others, like Pop, would scratch the surface — making a mark but never etching their name into history books. Still, Pop says his involvement is something he holds close to his heart.

“We were just playing what we felt,” Pop says. Before he finishes his thought, he takes a sip of coffee and realizes it’s cold.

Johnny continues for him.

“I don’t think we really realized [the impact we had],” he says.

Pop checks his watch and finds that we’ve been talking for more than two hours.

Johnny stands up from his recliner, and they hug again before pausing a moment. The room is silent. Pop looks at me, his smile appearing again.

“If it hadn’t been for the bunch of us over there, I don’t think there would be rock music,” Pop says. “Not then, anyway. Some went really big, others didn’t. But we followed our dreams. We gave it all we got.”

James Cannon performs “Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy”

and, “Slow Down”

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Music Music Features

The Warehaüs: Hair Salon and Concert Hall.

From the window of The Warehaüs, a salon-music venue hybrid on the 11th floor of the Union Centre building on Union Avenue, the Memphis horizon stretches before Mat Brown.

“You see something new every time you look out,” Brown says.

A stage sits in the corner of the room, and stylists are working with customers as Brown steps onto it, absorbing the work that he and his business partner Chad Runken have put in since they opened six months ago. During the day, combs, scissors, and hair products line the counters while blow dryers and faucets sound like white noise in the background. But the salon was built according to a multi-faceted vision that Brown has for his business. Tall mirrors are staggered on casters throughout the room, ready to move at any moment. When the sun goes down, The Warehaüs transforms into a D.I.Y. space for local and touring bands to play shows. Brown pays all of them.

“I knew no matter what, if I was going to open a salon, I was going to include music,” Brown says. “I thought ‘What if we create a fusion between something from the music industry and something from the beauty industry? Maybe we could include some visual arts, like performing and fire spinning, and dancing and painting and maybe graduates from Memphis College of Art could do art shows here, and we could even cut hair on stage while bands play.’ It would be something that no one has ever seen before. It’s an oasis.”

Since opening, Brown has booked at least 10 shows, and The Warehaüs recently hired a booking agent to bring in more bands. Brown is hoping to have at least one show a month, charity events, and more depending on how much momentum they receive.

“Everything has an even flow,” Brown says. “I’d like to use the salon as a platform to show people that. I feel these two passions, hair and music, are a good way to bring people together.”

The 3,000-square-foot salon isn’t walk-in friendly, but Brown doesn’t care too much about that. Conceptualizing The Warehaüs, he knew it was an off-the-wall idea, and he wanted a space that captured the Memphis spirit. Turn your neck to the left and you’ll see the Memphis Bridge. Peer down, and 150 feet below, you’ll see cars weaving their way through Midtown. Directly across, the Sears Crosstown building stands like a beacon to the recent revitalization that many local businesses have felt in Memphis. Brown wanted to plug into that momentum.

“There’s millions and millions of dollars that are being put into small businesses just in this area, and that’s one thing that rang really true to me,” Brown says. “You’ve got Crosstown Arts, you’ve got that whole district. We’ve seen buildings start off as mounds of dirt and become bars, restraunts, and music venues.”

At 26 years old, Brown has spent the better part of his 20s bringing his dream to fruition. The Warehaüs is the end result, a combination of the creative outlets that drove him as a teenager: music and art.

As a child, Brown’s dad taught him the basics of playing guitar on an old acoustic that was lying around the house, and it stuck. He started a metal band in high school with a friend, and they eventually landed shows across the city. But one bad haircut before Brown had to go on, and he had unexpectedly discovered his purpose.

“I got a haircut that really wasn’t great, so I went home and fixed it,” Brown says. “I thought, ‘I can’t go on stage looking like that,’ so I fixed my haircut and thought, ‘Oh, I could do this. I could pay the bills with this and play music.’ A lot of my passion about anything in life originated with music.”

Brown graduated high school in 2007 and told his parents he wanted to become a hairdresser, but they weren’t supportive. They had preconceived notions that the field was full of “party animals” that “sometimes might not be very successful.”

With no direction and without his parents’ approval, he explored different avenues, which ended up being dead-end streets. He took classes at Memphis College of Art before enrolling at the University of Memphis and starting on a path to become a math teacher.

Focused more on writing music than attending class, Brown dropped out and got a job helping deaf people with identity theft prevention to make ends meet. He was eventually laid off and later evicted from his home. Once he got back on his feet, Brown became a bill collector, and after having to repossess the vehicle of a man who was in a coma, Brown decided to finally pursue his dream.

“I was really good at what I did, but I was making people miserable,” Brown says. “I went to my family and said ‘Look, I’m sick of making people miserable. I don’t want to be the guy people hate. I just want to do something that I’ll be proud of, a creative outlet where I can make money. Everyone will always need a haircut.'”

In 2009, Brown enrolled at Paul Mitchell the School Memphis. With the exception of his acoustic guitar, he sold all of his musical equipment to pay his way through school.

Brown worked his way up the chain. He got his license to cut hair, his instructor license, and his certification as a master educator. Tommy Callahan, the vice president of Paul Mitchell who Brown refers to as his mentor, made him a member of the Paul Mitchell team. The position took Brown to Las Vegas and all around the country, cutting hair and instructing crowds of 300 or more eager stylists-to-be.

Once Brown graduated from Paul Mitchell in 2010, he started seriously entertaining the idea of opening his own salon. He naturally went to Callahan, but, to Brown’s surprise, his mentor dissuaded him from doing it.

“I was taken aback,” Brown says. “I just heard ‘don’t.’ But then he said ‘yet’ [and to] ‘give it five years.’ So, I started business training with Paul Mitchell. I didn’t realize I was going to do exactly what he suggested.”

Looking around his salon, Brown laughs. “We have a lot of fun, but we’re professional up here,” he says.

Now, he’s a seasoned stylist with years of experience under his belt. He studies his customers and goes into every haircut like a painter approaches a canvas or a musician feels out a melody.

The salon’s mission statement is “cut with a purpose,” which hits home with Brown. Like many first-time business owners, he spent the latter part of 2014 trying to keep his head above water. But he and his team are calling 2015 “the year of The Warehaüs.”

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Music Music Features

Kidnapped

CREDIT: Carly Hoskins

If you’ve seen a band in a living room or at a non-traditional venue in Memphis, chances are Ryan Azada had something to do with it. He’s been bringing touring bands through the city since his teens. When New Jersey-based Dads played Memphis for the first time earlier this year at Crosstown Arts, Azada was pulling 70-80 hours a week running shows and art exhibits out of the space. The emo two-piece teased the crowd that they were going to kidnap Azada and take him on the road. But they weren’t kidding. When the band came back to the Hi-Tone in July, Azada was playing bass for them. In October, Dads released their sophomore LP I’ll Be the Tornado, and early next year they will be hitting the road with Kevin Devine. The Flyer caught up with Azada to talk about his first show with Dads, booking shows in Memphis, and his other project, Small Fires.

Carly Hoskins

Ryan Azada

Flyer: How did you get involved with Dads?

Ryan Azada: I had booked a band named Run Forever here, and they were just so nice. They took me to a festival in Florida, but we got along so well that I toured with them for three years. I started out just doing merch, but I tour managed them when they got a bit bigger. We did a weeklong tour with Dads, but we had never met them before. After that, I would go out and do a few days with Dads just to hang and do merch. They wanted me to run sound for them on a tour, but they found out I play bass, and now my life is ruined.

It was that fast? They had never heard you play?

They were just like, “Oh, you play bass? Well, here are the songs.” They flew me out to rehearse with them, and I think when we got there, we played 30 seconds of a song before the power went out. We went back to John’s [drums, vocals] house, and Scott [guitar, vocals] played the guitar parts on a practice amp. I played unplugged bass over that. We pretty much just hung out. They were like, “We just needed to make sure you weren’t glaringly awful before we sent you home.”

And you were booking and running shows at Crosstown Arts around the time you met them, right?

Yeah, I was working there like 70-80 hours a week. Actually, the first time I could have met them, Scott emailed my Crosstown email address to book a show for Dads, and I totally forgot to respond. The next time when they came through during SXSW, they were joking on the mic, saying stuff like, “We love Ryan, we’re gonna steal him from you one day.” When they came back to the Hi-Tone with Touché Amoré, I was playing with them, and they were like, “Yo, we did it.”

What’s been your most rewarding experience on the road with Dads so far?

My first show with them was crazy because I had never played a show with a band that wasn’t out of a basement. I also had never played with monitors or lighting around me, so I had no idea about mixes and how I wanted it to sound. It was unreal to play to 1,000 people. Our Memphis show at the Hi-Tone was really special because nobody, aside from seeing me play acoustic guitar really quietly, had any idea that this was the world I was in. It was cool seeing all of my friends.

Carly Hoskins

Ryan Azada

How did you get involved with Crosstown Arts? I was booking random shows everywhere all over town. I found out about the Crosstown development project and I was like, this is a multi-million dollar nonprofit, they are not going to care about a kid booking shows in a basement. I finally met with Chris Miner [the director of Crosstown Arts], but I went into it expecting him to be some weirdo businessman who wouldn’t be receptive to it at all. But he was so nice and was so into what I was doing, and, since then, he has become one of my best friends. We did shows in the basement of their office for six months before shutting down that space and moving into the actual art gallery where they book things now.

You have another project named Small Fires. How did that get started?

I taught myself to play acoustic guitar because I wanted to write songs. I’ve been working on an EP that I’ve been recording in my friend’s backyard studio, and my friend Julien Baker from the Star Killers just joined. Hopefully one day it will be a full band, but right now it’s just the two of us. We’re putting the EP out online on January 2nd and releasing a tape on January 9th at Spillit: Survival at Amurica Photo Studio. We’re leaving for a short tour January 2nd-9th.

At what point did you realize you wanted to be touring fulltime?

I went to college for a day, and then I dropped out. I had a full ride to University of Memphis, which I don’t know why anyone gave me a scholarship because I wasn’t a good student. But I went for like half of a day. I was going to study film, and it just sucked. I was working on movies anyways. So, I just quit. I think if you’re just willing to do stuff, you’ll be fine.

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Music Music Features

Nights Like These, Days Like This

CREDIT: Nicholas Hall

Billy Bottom has a different perspective on playing music than he did when he started Nights Like These in 2003.

“A lot of the people who knew us when we were younger aren’t even in the scene anymore,” Bottom said. “A lot of the young people coming up don’t know about anything we did in this area. When we started coming around in the early- to mid-2000s, there was a high point for hardcore and metal. It was flourishing. It’s just funny how things change.”

Genrefying Nights Like These has always been difficult. Some have labeled them as a metalcore band. Others say deathcore. On the band’s Facebook profile, they are self-described as “heavy shit.”

Regardless, at 27, Bottom still dominates the stage. The vocalist’s commanding presence and deep-throated screams are terrifying and entrancing.

Drummer Patrick Leatherwood, bassist Sebastian Rios, and guitarists Derren Saucier and Matt Qualls play together in a way bands only do after spending 200 plus days out of the year touring together.

But Nights Like These haven’t toured in five years. “When I was first starting, I had no responsibility,” Bottom said. “I was so focused on playing music that nothing else really mattered. As I grew up and got some more life experience, I realized I probably couldn’t do it for a living.”

All of them work full-time jobs now. Off stage, Bottom works as a registered nurse, covering his chest piece and tattooed arms in scrubs. Qualls is a freelance engineer at Ardent Studios, where Nights Like These will record their third and final album in January.

When Nights Like These started, it was less a band and more a group of kids looking for an outlet, which they found in punk clubs. Enamored by the local hardcore scene, they began writing.

Once they had their driver’s licenses, Nights Like These started playing shows at now defunct venues like The Skatepark of Memphis and The Caravan. They generated a local cult following and became involved with Brian Vernon and Smith7, a non-profit record label that, since 2000, has been giving local, mostly underage bands the resources to get their music heard.

In 2005, Vernon, who had gotten very close with Bottom, fronted Nights Like These the money to record with Kurt Ballou of Converge at GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts.

“Billy was family,” Vernon said. “It wasn’t even the kind of music that I understood. But I was cool with the other guys, and it was important to Billy. So it was important to me.”

After finishing the songs, they began shopping them around to different record labels. Ultimately, they would sign with Victory Records, who had the band rerecord the GodCity sessions. The result was 2006’s The Faithless, which sold more than 30,000 copies, according to the band, but didn’t represent the sound they were trying to achieve.

“They told us, ‘If you rerecord it, we’ll make it sound bigger and better,'” Leatherwood said. “I think they tried to make us sound more metalcore, that whole mosh-metal thing, as compared to the hardcore we were closer with. We were marketed incorrectly, I think.”

Nights Like These were stuck between who they were and who their label wanted them to be. After Victory released The Faithless, the band spent most of 2006 through March of 2007 on tour with bands that, although diverse, didn’t always align with their sound. When they took time off to write and record their second record Sunlight at Secondhand, they had established a fan base that wasn’t receptive when it was released at the end of 2007. The album pulled in 12,000 copies, give or take, according to the band.

“Looking back on it, I’m thankful for the opportunity,” Bottom said. “But I definitely would have done stuff differently. We [and the label] didn’t see eye to eye. The Faithless was released in 2006, and those songs were written in 2004 or 2005. That record was a juvenile version of what we wanted to become. They wanted us to be a polished version of what we were.”

For the first two years of touring, Nights Like These was making $100 a night, and 10 percent of it went to their booking agent.

According to Qualls, who joined the band fresh out of high school before they recorded their first album, the idea of touring doesn’t always align with reality.

“When I was a kid, I thought being on tour and making a record was the big time,” Qualls said. “But being on tour 24 hours a day for a month and a half with the same four people will make you start to resent each other. But also, touring was the most influential time of my life for me to grow as a person intellectually and emotionally. I would never take it back.”

In 2008, internal conflicts within the band led Leatherwood to leave and pursue a college degree. With no luck finding a permanent replacement drummer, Nights Like These went on an indefinite hiatus. Eventually, they ended their relationship with Victory, who wiped the slate clean.

After five years apart, the band decided to play what was supposed to be a one-off reunion show in 2013, a motion pushed mostly by Leatherwood.

“I tried to do what I thought was the right thing,” Leatherwood said. “I regret it, but sometimes when you try to do the right thing, you end up lacking in some other aspect of your life. You always need something you’re passionate about, and that’s what drew me back to Nights Like These.”

They moved into their old practice space, and, according to Bottom, it was like they never missed a beat. At one of the first rehearsals back together, a new song, “Ox Plow,” was written in one sitting. According to Qualls, this sparked the idea to record a final album. “We thought it would be awesome to just come out of nowhere,” Qualls said. “If it was all going to be as strong as this, why not?”

When the band goes to Ardent in January, Qualls will record their last record. It’s in their hands now, and, according to Bottom, everything has come full circle.

“It’s something I don’t think I would have predicted,” Bottom said. “This was my life for so long, and it helped shape me. But we aren’t little kids anymore. This record will be a culmination of everything we’ve tried to do as a band, and it’ll be nice to finally release a record we are 100 percent proud of musically and stylistically in every way.”

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Foxing at Carcosa Monday Night

CREDIT: Sam Leathers

Sam Leathers

When a band releases their first album, it usually becomes one of two things: a trial and error attempt at finding their place or one that defines them, a record that all of their future releases will be stacked against.

For St. Louis, Missouri natives Foxing, it’s the latter. Last November, the quintet released their 10 track, 30 minute debut The Albatross through Count Your Lucky Stars. After burning through copies of their first pressing and touring extensively through living rooms and venues across the country, the band caught the attention of Triple Crown Records, who remixed, remastered and rereleased the album.

The band is currently on their fifth pressing of The Albatross, an album that sounds more like a film score than a collection of songs. Each track weaves together into one cohesive piece, which is a difficult feat for any band, especially on their first full-length record.

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Foxing at Carcosa Monday Night

Foxing’s sound has been placed at the forefront of the emo revival, a claim that entirely undersells the band. While they pull influences from many different directions, they stand on their own feet. Foxing is band that is breathing life into a scene that features a great deal of rinse, wash and repeat – genrefication simply pigeonholes all that they are doing.

Nevertheless, it is the widespread components of Foxing’s music that sets them apart from other bands. Atmospheric post rock elements brush shoulders with orchestral arrangements, and the juxtaposition of the two are a defining trait throughout The Albatross. The rhythm section holds down the fort but is careful to leave breathing room for the intricacy of the guitars. Vocalist Conor Murphy pulls no stops with his melodies. His quiet, shaking falsetto often grows into a roaring croon before becoming a full-throated yell. When Murphy isn’t singing, he’s at times playing horns over the rest of the band.

Foxing spent the better part of October supporting Cymbals Eat Guitars and Brand New on a tour that placed them in front of a thousand or more people every night, a head count atypical of the smaller venues and house shows they have long been accustomed to playing.

The last time Foxing played in Memphis, it was to a moderately sized crowd at Crosstown Arts. This time, they play Carcosa, a living room turned venue, with local openers Gryscl, Wilted, and Kid on a Milk Carton. After the band’s undeniably crazy year, it will be interesting to see what the turn out looks like.

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Music Music Features

New Horizons for Fly The Light

CREDIT: Alyssa Craig

For Daniel Craig, there is nothing more satisfying than finding a new artist and exploring a discography he never knew existed. A 30-year-old High Fidelity type, Craig’s life revolves around spending time in record stores and going to as many local shows as possible, all while settling into a new marriage and working a day job. His self-run record label, Fly The Light, was created with the simple intent of releasing good music into the world, and since 2013 he’s been helping bands and musicians press their records when they can’t afford to do it on their own.

Flyer: How did Fly The Light get started?

Daniel Craig: I started a record label named Fat Sandwich with a friend named Daniel Drinkard in 2009. He eventually got engaged and decided to move to Birmingham, Alabama, and we couldn’t run the label in two different cities. I just gave it over to him and decided to start from scratch. Fly The Light started in 2013. I was reading a book, and I saw the phrase “fly the light,” which is a loose translation for a demon that comes out at night. I thought that sounded like all of the people I work with and all of the bands I hang out with.

Fly The Light is a one-man show. With 19 releases under your belt, how do you fund all of it on your own?

When I first started the label, I was using the excess of my student loans. Now, I get paid well enough [from working a job] to release most everything, but honestly, I haven’t turned a profit on any of my releases. I am close to breaking even on the Dead Soldiers’ All The Things You Lose. But music is the number one motivator for me in my life. Maybe music defined me, but it has made me the person I am. I’m eternally grateful for that. So I want to help musicians get out there, and I like believing in people.

You help musicians press their music when they can’t afford to do it. How do you decide what you’re going to release?

Alyssa Craig

Daniel Craig

It’s music that I believe can be something. When I first started, I wanted to be Memphis oriented and focused. When I first heard [local band] The Star Killers, and heard Julien Baker play, good God, I knew I had to get behind it. There’s that emotion [that] seeing a live band gives you, and you just know it. But coming across [Melbourne, Australia’s] #1 Dads was just a chance happening. I was looking for another band that everyone had been listening to named Dads, and I stumbled across them instead. I contacted their label in Australia, and bam, I was releasing it here.

A few months ago, Fly The Light pressed the eighth annual Rock for Love compilation. How did that come about?

It was something that kind of came out of talking with Marvin Stockwell [of local band Pezz]. He introduced me to J.D. Reager [who helped found Rock for Love], and it just fell together once I had their permission. I originally wanted to do it because the Church Health Center really helped me when I had something going on. They paid for all of these tests and medication. That’s why I threw my hat in the ring, but Marvin and JD were the ones who gave me permission.

Which release are you most proud of?

You know, the first #1 Dads record, for personal reasons. I suffered from an anxiety disorder for a really long time. Tom Iansek, he is #1 Dads. His record Man of Leisure is just about how the world is one big playground. Listening to it, [I realized] I literally couldn’t allow myself any longer to be a prisoner of the city. I had this irrational fear of traveling. I just love that record. It never gets old.

What was the first record you got as a kid?

My first record was Bush’s Sixteen Stone. I love that record. We didn’t have a lot of money [growing up]. When Bush played the Mud Island Amphitheatre, we sat on the riverbank and listened to it from there. But when I was a kid, my dad used to play all of these records, and we would blow the doors off of the house listening to old bands like Black Sabbath. I thank my dad for making me as musically inclined as I am.

What do you have cooking up right now?

We just approved the test presses for GRYSCL’s one-sided 12 inch. It’s split between me and another label named Broken World Media. It should be out in November. But I’m dialing everything back a little bit. I’m slowing things down to a more gradual pace so I can focus on giving each release the right amount of attention. Instead of just filling people’s ears, I’d like to give great music to the world.

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Music Music Features

Lafayette’s Knows What You Want

Memphians love to complain. One of our favorite old saws was about how all the live music in town was either party music, a usually awful knock-off of Memphis’ classic recorded music, or got started about five minutes before dawn in some un-air-conditioned hell hole. For years, Memphis’ music scene was awesome if you were still young enough to sleep it off the next day. If you had kids or a job, there wasn’t as much for you. Lafayette’s Music Room is designed to appeal to all of us.

The reincarnation of the early ’70s music hall opened last week and set the stage for a new relationship between Memphis’ musical talent and the busy people who’ve been missing out. Lafayette’s opened with a strong showing of local greats. The Bo-Keys, vocalist Susan Marshall, bassist Sam Shoup, and Joe Restivo, and Marcella René Simien were among those who played. There’s no angle to these bookings other than the fact they are great musicians. That’s encouraging in Memphis’ often scene-bound music scene.

We are adding some new writers to our music coverage. Below, Joshua Cannon takes a look at four national acts that are coming to Lafayette’s this month. Look for expanded Flyer music stuff online, even if it starts at 6 a.m. on Monday morning.

— Joe Boone

Shook Twins

Shook Twins: October 16th, 9 p.m. $5.

When Katelyn and Laurie Shook’s voices come in on “What We Do” from their 2014 LP of the same name, their near-perfect harmonies are proof that the sisters share a bond unmatched by most bands. To call them a folk band would be selling the Twins short. Their sound ranges from blues to bluegrass, and their melodies are that of a pop band. The Shook Twins won’t be confined to one genre, and no instrument is off limits. Banjo, electric and upright bass, acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, glockenspiel, ukulele and a slew of other instruments find their way into the Shook Twins’ songs. While Katelyn sings through a repurposed telephone microphone, sister Laurie records ambient, vocal loops and does percussive beat boxing over different arrangements. There’s something special about family bands.

Ruby Velle & the Soulphonics:

October 17th – 18th. $5. Ruby Velle & the Soulphonics have torn to the root of R&B. In the process, they’ve managed to write songs reminiscent of ’60s soul while simultaneously cooking up fresh sounds. The group’s debut album, It’s About Time, is 10 tracks long, and each song showcases the diverse band’s wide array of talent. On the opener”My Dear,” Velle sings, “Only love will help us overcome everything,” with such sincerity that it will tug at your heartstrings. The Soulphonics rhythm section will pull you on the dance floor, and their horns will keep you grooving through the entire set. The group has toured to SXSW and played with Kings of Leon and Kanye West.

Junior Brown:

October 21st, 8 p.m. $15. With a career spanning 10 albums, Junior Brown has followed the conventions of traditional country music in the most unconventional way. Brown is an outlaw who defies what country music was and what it has become. Under a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, he sometimes-sings, sometimes-speaks over his songs in a low baritone voice evocative of Merle Haggard. Brown wields what he calls his “guit-steel” — a double-neck crossbreed of an electric and steel guitar — moving his fingers like Hendrix having a psychobilly freak out. With songs like “Hang Up And Drive” and “My Wife Thinks You’re Dead,” he pairs tongue-in-cheek lyrics with an individualistic style of playing guitar, creating a sound that could be attributed to no one other than Brown.    

Leon Russell: November 16th, 8 p.m. $50. At 72 years old, Leon Russell has spent most of his life shaping the music industry in ways that many musicians can only dream of doing. He’s led a long career as a session musician, songwriter, solo artist, and producer, and he even started his own record label, Shelter Records. He’s collaborated with musicians from Steve Cropper to John Lennon to B.B. King and even once found a hit with “Hummingbird,” a song from his debut album that was first released in 1970. In April, Russell released Life Journey. The album features the seasoned musician singing a mix of new material and songs by other artists that have moved him throughout his life. Shelling out $50 for an evening with Russell is more than worth it.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Spaceface at Minglewood Friday Night

CREDIT: Erika Mugglin

Erika Mugglin

Spaceface

Jake Ingalls is a jet setter. When he isn’t touring the world with The Flaming Lips, he’s hitting the road in a short, yellow school-turned-tour bus with his own band Spaceface. Last week, the band embarked on a seven-day tour that ends this Friday with a hometown show at Minglewood Hall, where they will open for dream pop New York natives Phantogram. Spaceface formed in 2012 and has since been touring extensively to build a regional fan base. They even made their way to this year’s Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and were put on stage by The Lips to play an unexpected set.

Spaceface at Minglewood Friday Night

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In the digital age, there is a new band on the radar every week, and it’s hard to find anything that stands out. But in a pool of up-and-coming bands that blend together, Spaceface has fused psychedelic rock ‘n roll with pop in a way that makes them – dare it be said – unique.

But it isn’t just bassist Matt Strong and drummer Victor Quin “Caveman” Hill’s groovy rhythm section, Eric Martin’s washed out guitars, Ingalls’ trippy vocals or Peter Armstrong’s spacey keyboards that will pull you in. When Spaceface loads in for a show, they don’t just bring their gear. The band carries an extravagant light show to every gig, and when they take the stage, the guitarists have lasers attached to the necks of their instruments. A sixth member, Daniel “Big Red” Quinlan, operates hundreds of multi-colored bulbs, lasers, LED rope lights and whatever else the band can get their hands on from side stage. A Spaceface show is as much a production as it is a performance. The band has stolen the light show typical of an arena rock act and made it their own in hopes that they can give showgoers the most for their money.

Phantogram and Spaceface have more common ground than just playing the same show in the same city on the same night. Recently, The Flaming Lips announced that they would be releasing a full-album cover of The Beatles’ iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band titled With a Little Help From My Fwends. The Lennon-McCartney classic “She’s Leaving Home” will be a collaboration featuring Spaceface, Phantogram, and Julianna Barwick.

The last time they were inside of Minglewood Hall, Spaceface played a show at The 1884 Lounge. On Friday, they will play the main stage for the first time. Every venue has different standards when it comes to Spaceface’s expansive light show, and it will be interesting to see if they will use all, or any, of it in the midst of Minglewood’s already stacked LED light system. 

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

10 for 10: October Sound Advice

CREDIT: Aviana Monasterio

Aviana Monasterio

Neev

1. Neev with Aviator, Rescuer and Gone Yard

Crosstown Arts, Oct. 5. $5. 7:00 p.m.

For those looking for something heavier than Katy Perry’s Prismatic World Tour, post-hardcore local NEEV will be opening for Aviator and Rescuer as they make their way through Memphis on their “Death-to-False Music” tour. While both touring bands have recently released records on No Sleep Records, NEEV put out their first full-length album Those Things We Tomorrowed on cassette in May through Ireland based ndependent label Little League Records. The post hardcore outfit combines melodic math rock with chaos, and while no song meets the three-minute mark – they are each packed with unpredictable twists and turns that keep you on your toes. This is not a band to ignore.

10 for 10: October Sound Advice

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2. Hea Head and the Heart

d and the Heart with Rayland Baxter

Minglewood Hall, Oct. 6. $30. 8:00 p.m.

On The Head and the Heart’s sophomore release Let’s Be Still, they managed to capture a sense of sincerity that is often lost in the now saturated indie folk genre that has grown popular over the last few years. This is serious, heartfelt songwriting. Perhaps it’s the band’s humble beginnings playing on street corners that separates them from the rest of the crowd. Without a doubt, their live show is less of a concert and more of an experience that will pull your mind away from Memphis for the evening and take you somewhere special.

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3. Berkano CD Release with Ugly Girls and Hair Party


The Hi-Tone, Oct. 7. $7. 9:00 p.m.

Berkano is everything that is right about garage rock. The guitars blend distortion and reverb while the vocals lazily echo their way into the mix. It’s beer-drinkin’-head-bobbin’ rock ‘n roll, and you’d be silly not to come pick up a copy of Santa Sleeping. Ugly Girls are also not to be missed. The three-piece punkers are unapologetic. They sing songs about hating “frat boys” and being gifted cancer from God. You can find more of that on their EP Bad Personalities that they released in February. 

10 for 10: October Sound Advice (2)

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4. Juicy J with Project Pat

Juicy J and Project Pat


Minglewood Hall, Oct 8. 8:00 p.m.

Juicy J has risen far beyond Three 6 Mafia fame, making his way to the soundtrack of the latest reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now, he’s rapping alongside Miley Cyrus and is an active member of Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang. His third studio release Stay Trippy featured the radio favorite “Bandz a Make Her Dance,” and landed at 29 on the Billboard Top 100. J and his older brother Project Pat will be returning
to Memphis with some new, and, fingers crossed, hopefully some of the old iconic sounds that defined Memphis rap from the ‘90s to late 2000’s. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get to hear some classic Three 6 Mafia tracks. 

Footnote: Juggalos gather and spray your Faygo. Da Mafia 6ix, a new project formed in 2013 featuring six original members of Three 6 Mafia, will be joining Insane Clown Posse and Mushroomhead at The New Daisy Oct. 11.

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5. Interpol with Rey Pila

Interpol


Minglewood Hall, Oct. 9. $25 advance / $30 day of show. 8:00 p.m.

Interpol didn’t reinvent the wheel with their nearly brand new release El Pintor, but after four years, it breathes life into their tired, old routine. It’s reminiscent of Turn On The Bright Lights, the album that launched them into the spotlight, and is arguably the best thing the band has released since Antics. With bassist Carlos Dengler having the left the band, the former four piece is now made of three, which is not at all a bad thing. Interpol is playing like a band in their prime again, and the energy of their live show may very well be the best that it has been in quite some time.

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6. Slugz with Gimp Teeth and DJ Wasted Life
 Josh Miller

Gimp Teeth


Murphy’s, Oct. 12. $5. 9:00 p.m.

Richmond, Virginia’s Slugz plays raw, punk music that gives show goers a reason to thrash their bodies against each other. Local punkers Gimp Teeth merge power violence with surf rock to create a sound that belongs in a Harmony Korine film. They recently played Gonerfest 11 and released an EP titled Naked City earlier this year.

10 for 10: October Sound Advice (3)

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7. The Jack Oblivian and Monsieur Jeffrey Evans Revue

Josh Miller

Jack Oblivian

The Hi-Tone, Oct. 18. 9:00.

Jack Oblivian and Monsieur Jeffrey Evans have spent decades creating and cultivating a sound derivative of blues and punk that has forever left a stamp on Memphis music. On Oct. 18, the two will share the stage with a batch of Southern musicians. If you can make it to only one show during October, this is it.

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8. City and Colour with Clear Plastic Masks

City and Colour


Minglewood Hall, Oct. 30. $25 advance / $30 day of show. 7:00 p.m.

Dallas Green’s distinguishable tenor and stripped down, acoustic structure coupled with his sentimental lyrics and catchy melodies have carried City and Colour from a small, independent band with a cult following to a household name, selling out venues all over the country. His latest release, The Hurry And The Harm, sees
Green moving into the mainstream with additional musicians and even poppier sensibilities. More recently, Green released the single “You and Me” with Pink, and the two have formed a duo under the same name with plans to release an album titled Rose Ave. While Green’s place in the indie music world seems to be ever growing, he hasn’t lost sight of the intimate performances that define City and Colour’s live show, and you shouldn’t miss out on it, either.

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9. Dead Soldiers with Clay Otis and James & The Ultrasounds
 Jamie Harmon

Dead Soldiers


The Hi-Tone, Oct. 31. $10. 9:00.

Dead Soldiers are one of the most hardworking bands out there – playing a brand of alternative-country that is similar to no one else in Memphis. The Soldiers are packing out every show they book, and for good reason. For a relatively new band, 2013’s LP All The Things You Lose and follow up EP High Anxiety are impressive, to say the least. On Halloween night, they will play alongside local pop singer Clay Otis as well as James & The Ultrasounds, whose first full-length Bad To Be Here is due out through Madjack Records in December. The Hi-Tone will also hold their annual costume party, where they will choose the best dressed male and female who participate. The winners get free admission to The Hi-Tone for a full calendar year.

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10. Manchester Orchestra with Chris Staples

Manchester Orchestra


The New Daisy Theatre, Oct. 31. $18. 7:00 p.m.

The last time Manchester Orchestra came to Memphis, it was a cold February evening in 2010 at The New Daisy Theatre. The Atlanta-based rock quintet was touring heavily on their sophomore release Mean Everything To Nothing, and they were just on the cusp of the success that would carry them through 2011’s Simple Math. After releasing 2013’s COPE, an 11-track album that capitalized on the huge guitars and roaring vocals of Frontman Andy Hull that have come to define Manchester Orchestra’s sound, the band later released a stripped-down album entitled HOPE featuring alternative versions of all 11 songs accompanied with a string of stripped-down tour dates. When Manchester Orchestra comes back to The Daisy, it may be the first and last time we get to see the band abandon their amps and tone down their songs.

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Music Music Features

Lucky Break

Memphis punkers Pillowtalk recently survived an encounter with a tornado while on tour. Joshua Cannon is a band member and a journalism student at the University of Memphis. A version of this essay ran in The Daily Helmsman, the school paper.

It was mid-afternoon on Sunday in Peoria, Illinois, when our GMC Suburban and the trailer carrying all of our music equipment was lifted off of the ground and sucked into the middle of an unexpected and devastating twister that swept across the area, leaving six dead and neighborhoods in ruins.

Just moments before, it had been an ordinary day on the road for our band, Pillowtalk. We played a show the previous night in someone’s basement. The next morning, we woke up on a stranger’s floor. I’m not sure there is any way we could have been prepared for Sunday morning’s storm.

After we drove onto the interstate, the rain shot down like machine gun bullets. Branches broke from trees and flew like hummingbirds.

“Guys, I think we’re about to be in the middle of a tornado,” Calvin Lauber, guitarist, singer, and our driver, turned to us and calmly said as the wind pushed like a tidal wave against the car. Before we could process what was happening, the autumn leaves grew into a chaotic collage of color. The colossal tornado grabbed our car and trailer before throwing us into the air.

“The wind and debris blocked any view of the road,” Lauber said. “I realized we were in danger right before I lost control. My only thought was to maintain the direction of the car in any way possible. I wasn’t scared at the moment, because I was determined on keeping my friends alive.”

Our car spun three times while in the air — 1,080 degrees that lasted no more than 10 seconds but felt like 10 minutes. From the third row, my perspective was much different from Lauber’s. Considering my powerless position as a passenger, keeping my friends alive didn’t cross my mind as I tussled with the idea that we were all going to die.

Kevin Gibson, another member of our band, cradled his arms around me.

“I love you. This is it. I’m not going to let you go,” he said staring me in the eyes.

In that moment, the glass from the windows imploded onto us from every direction, and the debris from the funnel flew into our car as we shook back and forth.

We buried our heads into the seats, as there was now nothing separating us from the white winds of the twister.

Shards of glass struck Gibson in the forehead. Weston Hall, a friend who was selling our merchandise on this tour, was sliced on the ear. Barrett Kutas, bassist, was in the front seat when the window imploded against his neck. Sam Leathers, drummer, temporarily lost his glasses as he was directly hit in the face by the debris. Nate Packard, a photographer at The Daily Helmsman who was traveling with us, was thrown into the back of the vehicle while he was reaching for his camera gear.

“I sat in the front and accepted that I was going to die with six of my best friends,” Kutas said. “I thought I was going to die.”

Just as the Suburban was on the verge of flipping, our trailer rolled over and slammed onto the ground, pulling us from the twister and back onto the interstate, facing oncoming traffic.

The tornado passed. There was silence — the kind of quiet that you never hear on the interstate. We raised our heads from the seats, maneuvering through the broken glass that was covering every inch of the car.

“Are we all okay?” Leathers asked, afraid of the answer.

We all had a moment when we looked at each other and realized that even though Packard was thrown into the back, he still had his camera. I could see Kutas’ chest moving in and out with every breath as he became aware that we were all still together. We wrapped our arms around each other and didn’t let go. We just kept squeezing, in disbelief.

“I felt like it was a scene from a disaster movie,” Packard said. “I couldn’t believe that we were all alive and uninjured. There is no reason that any of us should have survived.”

If it were not for the nearly 2,000 pounds of gear tethering us to earth, we would be dead.

In retrospect, we were such a small part of the devastation. Houses were leveled. Cars were strewn across streets and yards. Telephone poles fell like dominoes, cutting power throughout the area. We were fortunate to have houses and families to come home to after all of this — not everyone could say that.

Somehow, our car managed to drive. Our trailer was totaled and towed to a lot. The police officer guided us up the exit ramp of the interstate to Harvest Bible Chapel, where we met Matt and Kelsie Zarko, two members of the church.

“We were in service when the power went out,” Kelsie said. “It sounded like a train that was going to come straight through the church. There was a point where I had to give it to God and act out my faith.”

The Zarkos took us into their home. The church paid for our dinner. They used their cars to help us move our music equipment from our totaled trailer into their garage.

“The community in Peoria was unbelievable to us,” Leathers said. “They took us in without question and helped us with whatever we needed. They never thought twice and never wanted anything in return.”

Mysteriously, all of our gear still worked. The guitars were still in tune and in their cases. The amps had barely moved from their original position, despite the trailer rolling. Even if they had been completely useless, it didn’t matter — we were fortunate enough to be able to say that we walked away from a tornado.

Our families drove eight hours from Memphis and picked us up. While we were physically unscathed, mentally picking up the pieces may be the most disorienting part. The cliché “someone’s life flashing before his or her eyes” is more than just an old saying.

The near-death experience rattled me. Food tasted better. The first meal I had after the accident was barbecue, and while it wasn’t from my home city, it was the best meal I’d ever eaten. I hugged my mother and father longer than I ever have, realizing that I was moments away from never being able to tell them how thankful I am to have them as parents.

“It’s almost like normal life feels out of place,” Kutas said. “I’m going back to work and the real world as a different person.”

Whether it was higher powers at work or mere coincidence, we made it out of the storm. Lauber, as well as the rest of us, is thankful that we even have a story to share.

“I believe all of this happened for some reason,” he said. “I’m not sure how to process it yet, but I do feel inspired to be alive.”