Memphis Wax Honors John Fry
Memphis Wax will honor John Fry today with tracks from Ardent Studios’ illustrious history. Memphis Wax founder Frank Bruno is something of a Library of Congress when it comes to Memphis music. Fire up your Facebook and let Memphis Wax remind you of the legacy of John Fry. Here’s a sample to get you going. Thank you, Frank Bruno. And thank you John Fry.
Courtesy Ardent Studios
John Fry, Jody Stephens, John Hampton, and Jim Dickinson
Memphis is stunned by the loss of John Fry, founder of Ardent Studios. Following the loss of engineer John Hampton last Saturday, our music community feels like a biblical plague is upon us.
Fry’s combination of technical diligence and artistic experimentation was unique. His legacy is larger than the studio or recordings that he leaves behind. The mics, the rooms, and the records are sacred objects in Memphis. But it’s the people he influenced who will determine his legacy.
One of Fry’s many proteges, Pete Matthews, recently said in passing, “Memphis guys just know how to record acoustic guitars.” It’s true, and most learned from Fry or from someone who learned from him.
Jim Stewart’s studio is gone. Sam Phillip’s studio was restored. Fry’s place endured, a testament to his love for music and audio. We miss him and wonder how Memphis’ production world will survive in his absence. We look forward to reflecting on his and John Hampton’s influence in this community and the world at large. From a musical standpoint — from Hot Buttered Soul to Skillet — Fry’s influence is fortunately inescapable. Losing him and Hampton at the same time seems like a lot to endure, even for Memphis. Hang in there, and make a joyful noise for the lord of the manor. Rest in peace, John Fry.
Well, aren’t you Mr. Busy? You’re not going to stay home write sad entries in your diary; at least not with this much music going down. You have no choice but to go out, get bananas, and dance your bad self straight into the jailhouse. Don’t call me.
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Friday:
Amy LaVere and Will Sexton are back at Bar DKDC.
Songstress Faith Evans Ruch will celebrate the vinyl release of her latest album, After It’s Said and Done!, tonight at Co-Motion Studio in Crosstown.
Songsterer Graham Winchester is holding a competing album-release party over to the Buccaneer Lounge.
Think I’m through? Son, don’t kid yourself.
Paul Collins Beat returns to Memphis after a laurel-garnering set at this year’s Gonerfest. He’s at Murphy’s tonight with Talbot Adams, and the Subtractions. Let us pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the Subtractions and anyone, really, who is photographed in an El Camino.
Saturday
Just keep your disguise on, and all of this will blow over. You didn’t mastermind the jailbreak. Worry about that after hearing more good music.
Justice Naczycz, Mark Akin, and Karl Creech at Otherlands.
We mentioned Arkaics at the Bucc in the paper, so you are up to speed on that. RIGHT? Aquarian Blood joins in the melee. DJs Hoppe and Madfarm shake the foundations in-between the bands.
Need to sit down and take a breather? Forget it. That’s for the weak.
Gringos, Powers That Be, and IV are at the Murphy’s.
Remember, don’t call me.
Producer and label honcho David Less has seen a lot in the course of running Memphis International Records. Some of what he’s seen was through a lens. “When You Wish Upon a Star” an exhibition of photos taken from sessions that he produced, will be on display at Otherlands, and he is kicking things off with an opening on Sunday that features his musical subjects doing their thing in real-live 3-D.
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“The thing is, we never allowed pictures in our sessions,” Less says. “We didn’t allow photographers. But our designer wanted snapshots so she could make collages for the art if we needed them. So I would take pictures, but I never told anyone I was taking pictures. This was only on sessions I produced. But you have time when people are listening and playing. A lot of them are pictures that people didn’t know were being taken, in fact, most of them are. So it’s kind of unguarded moments in the studio in that respect. It’s not a posed photo session.”
“There are picures of Jim, of course. I did a lot of records with Dickinson,” Less says.
Alvin Youngblood Hart, Louise Hoffsten, Steve Selvidge, Sam Shoup, Amy LaVere are among other subjects. And they won’t just be stuck to the wall.
“A lot them will be there,” Less says.
The Dickinson Boys, aka Luther and Cody, will perform the first set.
“In the second set, we’re going to let the people who are in the exhibit sit in,” Less says. “I know Amy will be there. And Jim Spake and Sam Shoup.”
What else ya need? It’s a perfect stop before Lafayettte’s.
Martin Savage Gang
There is a garage rock show every night this week in Memphis, and Murphy’s in Midtown is hosting most of them. The Blind Shake along with Nots and The Shieks drew a large crowd that you might expect on a weekend, but probably not on a Monday night. Tonight, White Mystery, Hectors Pets, Dirty Fences, Loser Vision and Johnny Lowebow will take the stage, and tomorrow Martin Savage Gang (all the way from Stockholm) plays with MAMA, The James Godwin Situation and The Sueves. Check out some music from most of the acts playing over the next couple of days, and plan on spending the next two nights at Murphy’s. Both shows start at 9 p.m. sharp.
White Mystery:
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (2)
Hectors Pets:
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (3)
Dirty Fences:
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (4)
Martin Savage Gang:
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (4)
MAMA:
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (5)
The Sueves:
NitetrotterTV Sessions///The Sueves from Deep Cover on Vimeo.
Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (6)
Memphis’ Mighty Souls Brass Band‘s new record comes out next month. But guess what, you can hear new tracks below and buy the record at their show on Sunday, December 7th at Lafayette’s. Caleb Sweazey opens, and it’s all ages.
“It will be an interesting show for us,” band leader Sean Murphy says. “We usually play with five to seven players. We had 13 people playing on the record. We’re going to have all 13 people there. It’s going to be this huge wall of sound.”
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Mighty Souls at Lafayette’s
“It’s 10 originals and two covers: “Memphis Train,” the Rufus Thomas tune, and “I’ll Fly Away.” Everything else is original stuff, songs from seven different band members.
People may not think of brass band music as a medium for contemporary composition. That would be wrong.
“It’s interesting that people have that conception about it being mostly a traditional-song kind of genre, the brass band genre” Murphy says. “You go down to New Orleans and listen to those brass bands — especially those young guys — they’re always composing and writing new stuff. I think they’ve figured out that that’s how you can make some money: getting stuff placed [in television and film].”
There are some heavy player and writers among those 13 souls. The compositions take the sound in new directions.
“We’ll do some stuff that is just a lead sheet,” Murphy says. “Other things — beside the solos — are through-composed. Tom Clary in particular. His compositions are extremely complicated. I jokingly make the Steely Dan Brass Band reference. It ends up being super funky and cool. His tune “Love Button” is my favorite tune on the record.”
This Friday, November 28 (a.k.a. the day after Thanksgiving), retail stores across the country will be deluged by rabid Christmas shoppers and sale-hunters in a phenomenon that has come to be known as somewhat affectionately as “Black Friday.” Independent record shops, once immune to such commerce-driven chaos, are now solidly in the fray thanks to the expansion of something called Record Store Day (www.recordstoreday.com).
For those who don’t know, Record Store Day is a coordinated, one-day sale/event (as well as a loose collective) that seeks to promote indie record stores in the United States to the masses by offering exclusive and/or limited-edition releases (mostly on vinyl) by well-known artists only at those stores. Originally, it was just a once-a-year happening, usually in mid-April. But in recent years, Record Store Day has added Black Friday to its calendar.
Both Record Store day proper and the Black Friday sale tend to do big business for the participating shops in the Memphis area, like Goner Records, Shangri-La Records, and End of All Music in Oxford, MS. In turn, local artists and labels have started to take notice and get in on the action. One such label making its debut on Black Friday is Misspent Records.
Misspent is the brainchild of a pair of longtime Memphis-music advocates, John Miller and Chaney Nichols.
“We both love working with independent artists who are creating original music that we like and think will grab people when they hear it,” says Miller, who has served time with local music institutions such as the Memphis Music Foundation, Archer Records, and Shangri-La. “I’m from Memphis and Chaney is originally from Mississippi, so we’re really rooted to the music of this region and want to be part of sharing that.”
For their label’s first offering, Miller and Nichols (who for his part ran a successful label in Jackson, MS called Esperanza Plantation for over a decade) partnered with the very much on-the-rise local garage/psych outfit James and the Ultrasounds for a new single, “Robot Love.”
“We both really liked what James (Godwin) was doing with his band and how they were developing since the Lovers and Ghosts EP that James had recorded by himself,” says Miller. “He’s got a great feel for crafting a rock and roll tune and with that rhythm section driving everything behind him it really is a perfect fit. ‘Robot Love’ has a great shout-a-long type chorus that gets stuck in my head and the whole thing is wrapped in a 0-to-60 package that the band blasts through. The B-side is a fun one too, a crunching tribute to the Alex Chilton-produced ‘Songs the Lord Taught Us’ by The Cramps.”
The single will be released to local independent stores on Black Friday, and will also be available at a release-party on Saturday, November 29 at 10 p.m. at Bar DKDC.
As for what’s next for Misspent Records, Miller remains light-lipped on specifics, but promises more is to come.
“We’ve got ideas for a number of projects with artists and label friends for this next year. We’re pretty open stylistically, so it’ll be fun to see what opportunities arise,” he says.
For more information on Misspent Records or Robot Love, visit www.misspentrecords.com.
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Another exclusive Black Friday Record Store Day release with local ties will drop this week – a deluxe, triple-LP re-issue of The Afghan Whigs’ classic 1993 album Gentlemen.
Recorded in Memphis at Ardent Studios with local producer/engineer Jeff Powell, the album was the band’s major label debut for Elektra Records, and by far the its biggest commercial and critical success. Gentlemen yielded two hit singles – “Debonair” and the title track – on both alt-rock radio and MTV in a prime era of both. The record also helped set The Afghan Whigs apart from the group’s heavier “grunge” contemporaries by incorporating a hefty dose of soul, R&B and ‘60s garage influences into its sound.
“I feel lucky to have been a part of such a great record,” says Powell. “I probably got more work from doing that record than any other I have worked on. It really kind of put me on the map when I was a young engineer and gave me a lot of opportunities to show what I could do in the studio.”
Last month, Rhino Entertainment re-released the record as Gentlemen at 21 in both CD and LP formats. But for the Record Store Day vinyl exclusive box set, a bevy of B-sides, demos, and live tracks that were previously only available on the CD-version, as well a host of other collectible photographs and knick-knacks, have been included in the package.
Additionally – at the band’s insistence, Powell was once again brought in to work on the project.
“I cut the master vinyl lacquers,” he says. “I haven’t heard the CD version, but the vinyl version I cut is pretty much the same as I remember it. It sounds great. It brought back memories.”
For more information on Gentlemen at 21, visit www.theafghanwhigs.com.
Every once in a while, for whatever reason, a great rock show falls through the cracks. Lucky for you, we scour the internet religiously looking for great opportunities to see live music. Enter Drag City recording artists Purling Hiss. The Philadelphia trio cranks out grungy noise rock somewhere in between Bleach era Nirvana and the 60’s band Les Rallizes Denudes. Sure Purling Hiss could have been on Sub Pop in the early 90’s, but don’t chalk them up as just another revival act. Check out two Purling Hiss videos below to get a feel for what the band is all about, and make sure to get to the Hi-Tone by 9 p.m. tonight. They are the only band on the bill.
Purling Hiss tonight at the Hi-Tone (2)
Purling Hiss tonight at the Hi-Tone
Ausmuteants
Order of Operation
Goner Records
When Australia’s Ausmuteants started appearing on American music blogs last year, they were described as goofy and self-deprecating, words not usually used in reference to synth-driven punk. While their first album found the band delighting in pissing on themselves and stepping in dog excrement, it’s fair to say that on Order of Operation the band has scrapped the bathroom humor for more serious lyrical content. Some of the tracks on the new album are the fastest Ausmuteants songs to date, but the strong synth leads are still present, which is what separated the Aussies from the garage rock pack in the first place.
Their second album for Goner owes as much to Dangerhouse Records bands like The Eyes as it does to “Smart Patrol” era Devo, but even if it seems obvious who Ausmuteants are influenced by, Order of Information isn’t a rip off record. The songwriting is calculated and original (not a requirement in modern garage rock), and the way Ausmuteants can dramatically switch pace from one song to the next is a testament to the bands talent. Order of Operation is a strong step forward from Ausmuteants’ critically acclaimed first LP, which is pretty impressive seeing as they were both released this year.
Lucha and the Flatspots
Lucha and the Flatspots
Self Released
Lucha and the Flatspots hail from Midtown Memphis, but they might as well claim the DIY skate park Altown as their actual home. The band has heavy ties to the local skateboarding scene, and drummer Zach Beerman has been a key factor in turning the DIY skate park on Evelyn into what is today, one bag of concrete at a time. On their self-titled CD, The Flatspots play traditional skate-core, meaning they’re a punk band obsessed with pushing wood. While they would have fit perfectly among Memphis bands of old like Deathreat or Rednecks in Pain, Lucha and the Flatspots represent an exciting up and coming scene of young delinquents, even if some of the members are pushing thirty. The lyrics on “Swamp Stomp” sum up the band’s message perfectly: “welcome to Altown, where we all understand, we’re all gonna die.”