Tag: Eric Friedl

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Teenage Kicks

Shannon and the Clams (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

Perhaps nothing has been more indicative of how Gonerfest has grown than the moment last year during Gonerfest 18 when Abe White jumped onstage with Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks to sing Alice Cooper’s ode to adolescent confusion, “I’m Eighteen.” It was the perfect moment to celebrate Gonerfest’s coming of age, bigger than ever and still kicking.

This year, the alternative music festival celebrates its last year as a teen, though few expect it to ever outgrow its adolescent angst and experimental bent. And though milestone years are generally reckoned in even numbers, this year’s iteration feels like a true turning point, coming full circle to its earliest touchstones. The King Khan & BBQ Show, who played the first Gonerfest in January 2005, is back for its first Gonerfest since then. The Compulsive Gamblers, who set the tone for a new gonzo rock-and-roll culture in this city back in 1990, are back again as well. And ticket sales indicate that this will be the most popular Gonerfest ever.

Aquarian Blood (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

Fans and Bands

When Eric Friedl started the Goner label back in 1993, it was an act of fandom. He saw the Japanese turbo-charged punks Guitar Wolf and knew he had to get their demos out to a wider audience by any means necessary. And it shaded into his work in a band as well. The Oblivians, where Compulsive Gamblers front men Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber joined forces with Friedl as a trio, were just taking off, and their recordings were also among Goner’s earliest releases.

That unique mix of fandom and band-dom has colored Goner’s aesthetic ever since, especially when Friedl teamed up with Zac Ives, front man for the Final Solutions, to make Goner Records a brick-and-mortar store in 2004. Gonerfest was conceived that same year, exuding the same blurred line between players and their audience. As Friedl says today, “There’s not a whole lot of separation between fans and bands and everything else in Gonerfest. It gives it a different feel, rather than seeing someone up on stage that isn’t interacting with the people at all.”

Bennett (Photo: Tommy Kha)

Friedl recalls the small scale of the festival when it began. “It was amazing that people wanted to come to Memphis to see this music. The first time I realized we were doing something more than just putting on a show at the Buccaneer was when we saw this guy with a label in Italy, walking down Cleveland in the middle of the day. I was like, ‘Okay, if people are willing to come from Italy to watch these bands over a weekend in Memphis, we might be doing something interesting here.’ That was at Gonerfest 1. We had The King Khan & BBQ Show, and they may have been the only band from out of the country for that one. And then it kind of exploded from there. People wanted to come to the festival, and they had bands as well, so it was like, ‘I’ve got a band, why not just try to play?’”

Since then, the festival’s international reach has only grown, with the notable exception of last year, when Covid-related travel complications kept the band roster all-American. Now, the entire world is returning to Memphis once more. “This year,” says Friedl, “we’ve got the Australians, a band from Switzerland, and The King Khan & BBQ Show from Berlin and Canada. We’ve got people coming from all over the place.”

Snooper (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

The Great Outdoors: Not Going Viral

In other words, back to normal for Gonerfest. Of course, last year also marked the advent of a more cautious approach. Proof of vaccination was required of all attendees. This year, Friedl says, “I’m sure it’ll be a lot looser than last year, when people really didn’t know how things would go. But obviously, if you get a bunch of people together, there’s a chance for spreading Covid. We are strongly encouraging people to be vaccinated, and we’re keeping everything outside. And Railgarten gives everyone enough space that you aren’t forced to cram into any kind of small, restricted area. So we’re hoping that is sufficient and people can stay safe on their own.”

Last year’s move to Railgarten as the sole venue, as opposed to spreading the festival across several stages in the past, was indeed a game-changer, both in terms of Covid safety and in the camaraderie of the festival-goers. For the first time, everyone was in one place. “Railgarten has worked out great,” says Friedl. “It’s a big enough stage for everybody, and there are enough sight-lines that you can be in different places and still see everything and get away from it a little bit without feeling you’re not at the festival anymore.”

Michael Beach (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

And, he adds, the venue change has dramatically increased the capacity of Gonerfest. “We had our biggest attendance ever last year,” reflects Friedl. “We just had more space to put everybody, and everybody wanted to come. So we’re right on the same pace as last year now, and we’re not close to maxing out Railgarten. Last year, we limited it a bit more than we had to, probably; this year we’ve increased the capacity a little bit, but not enough that anybody would notice. It’s going to feel the same as last year, which I thought was pretty comfortable.”

One consequence of the outdoor venue is an earlier noise curfew, but the festival carries on informally after the outdoor stage goes dark, with after-parties featuring bands at the Hi Tone Cafe, the Lamplighter Lounge, and Bar DKDC, with DJ sets at the Eight & Sand bar in Downtown’s Central Station Hotel.

Another Covid-induced innovation that will remain in place this year is the live streaming of every performance. “We constantly question the sanity of trying to live stream every performance, but it’s fun,” says Friedl. “I hope people take advantage of it. It’s a full-on video shoot over four days of long hours, with more than just one static camera. Technically, it’s challenging, but we do it in our DIY style. I really like how it turned out last year. We learned a lot. It’s its own kind of animal. And we do have a big community of people that want to be here and participate that way.”

The King Khan & BBQ Show (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

The King Khan & BBQ Show

As it turns out, the idea of community is at the heart of both Gonerfest and the many bands it brings to Memphis. This is especially true of one of the opening night’s headliners, The King Khan & BBQ Show, but the theme runs through all the performers we spoke with: Music, be it punk or simply innovative, is a kind of haven for those who can’t quite find a niche elsewhere, and Gonerfest is just such a haven, writ large.

That’s how King Khan sees it, going back to his earliest days in Montreal. “I joined the Spaceshits when I was 17, and it changed my life,” he says. “Me being Brown, with Indian parents, I always felt like an outsider in Canada. Just being someone with Indian genetics, growing up in the ice and snow was a shock. And I think I took that sense of shock to the Spaceshits. Now shock rock is such a ridiculous thing, but I think we were trying to shock the audience. I used to love getting naked and stuff. We loved to incite chaos. And having Mark Sultan and the rest of the Spaceshits, we were just a disaster!”

But that shock just built stronger bonds with the audiences, all seeking some meaning through music. “Music was my secret world,” Khan says. “But I also found my greatest friends, who were like my chosen family. And that led me also to the Spaceshits. We had this common love of being freaks and accepting freakdom. And worshipping it. We literally worshipped it.”

That was a time, in the early-mid ’90s, when Khan and Sultan first met the Oblivians, even coming to Memphis for a memorable show at Barristers. “People were throwing snowballs at each other on stage,” recalls Friedl. It was a fortuitous encounter, for when Khan and Sultan formed their duo, The King Khan & BBQ Show, featuring Khan on guitar and vocals and Sultan (BBQ) playing drums and guitar simultaneously, they had a receptive fanbase in Memphis, open to their unhinged hybrid of punk and doo-wop sensibilities. Indeed, two of those fans ran Goner Records, leading to the duo’s first commercial release on the label, and ultimately their appearance at Gonerfest 1.

And while the duo is decidedly unconcerned with traditional commercial potential, apropos of most Gonerfest bands, a funny thing happened during the social media revolution. “The elephant in the room,” says Khan, “is obviously what happened with TikTok, with me and Mark. We had no idea what TikTok even was. We just got weird messages from people, saying, ‘Hey look, this Italian astronaut posted about making a taco in space and used your song!’ I was like, ‘What?’ And it was our song ‘Love You So,’ from our Goner debut! With this taco floating in space! And other weird stuff. You know when Drew Barrymore posts it, there’s something fucked up going on. But a lot times, these posts wouldn’t say the name of the song, so a lot of people don’t even know what song it is. They just grab it because it’s popular.

“It’s funny because we released that song almost 20 years ago, we never even made a video for it. And now it’s up to almost 20 million streams. But because of the pandemic, we haven’t toured since that happened. So I’m curious to see what the effect will be in America.”

The duo will find out Thursday, when they and garage-pop masters Shannon and the Clams will headline the festival’s opening night. And while the latter band has been put through the ringer, with front person Shannon Shaw still grieving the loss of her fiancé, Joe Haener, in a car crash, they too will soldier on for the community, closing Gonerfest’s first night.

The Rev. Fred Lane

If, as King Khan quips, “the quality I love most about rock-and-roll is when it’s a secret,” then Fred Lane and his band are the perfect expression of that, for they have purposefully aimed for obscurity since their first recordings. But they aren’t really rock-and-roll.

“Since the ’80s, when Shimmy Disc put out the Fred Lane records,” says Friedl, “I’ve been fascinated with the idea of this group of people in Alabama, putting out this crazy, twisted big band lounge jazz. And learning more about the people in Tuscaloosa in the ’70s that did this, and all the wild music and art that came out of there at the time.” Yet even learning that much was not easy. “Before the internet, especially, nobody knew anything about who Fred Lane really was.”

Indeed, the group’s two releases from the ’80s seemed to come out of nowhere. The covers sported disturbing images of the Reverend himself, looking greasy with a waxed goatee and a demonic grin, his face covered in band-aids, and a list of many imaginary albums on the back cover that created an entire universe.

Lane and his cohort turn out to have been the product of yet another community, this one centered around the University of Alabama, which eerily echoed other alternative communities springing up across the U.S. (Gonerfest has brought in other bands with roots in this era, such as Akron’s X__X.) Even Memphis had a similar avant-garde, giving rise to Tav Falco’s Panther Burns and others.

One of the musicians in Tuscaloosa was the visual artist and flautist Tim Reed, who describes how the scene expressed an impatience with consumer-oriented music. “By the mid ’70s, I was getting sick of rock and counterculture music. It sounded manufactured. There was no heart in it. So I just said, ‘I’m gonna go out there and pretend I’m a really bad Frank Sinatra, and just insult people in the audience. If Don Rickles can do it, I can do it.’”

He was already helping to mount art exhibits mixed with vaudeville-like revues, and ended up writing a whole show built around his persona, the Rev. Fred Lane. “In 1976, I wrote a show called From the One Who Cut You,” he recalls. “There were different band names, but they were basically different versions of a group of us musicians who had been calling ourselves Raudelunas. We were influenced by Dada, Alfred Jarry, and the Ubu plays.” With an aesthetic somewhere between Andy Kaufman, Bill Murray’s early lounge act skits, and the Joker, he recruited musicians well-versed in free improvisation and got them to learn tunes, over which he recited and sang his surreal lyrics, often in a blazer and boxer shorts.

“I always tried to make it hard to know when everything was recorded,” Reed says today. “I’m a contrarian. If people thought the tracks were from the ’50s or ’60s, we agreed with them. That was back when nobody knew who we were. We were kind of a secret society.”

But lately, with the documentary Icepick to the Moon, and an album by the same name, the Rev. Fred Lane has resurfaced. Superfan Friedl is pinching himself about it. “I never thought I’d have the chance to see them live, much less reissue the records. And I never thought they’d have a chance to play Gonerfest. And it’s definitely in the Gonerfest spirit of things, and at the same time diametrically opposed to it. Just in terms of music. So I think it’s going to be really fun. The first jazz group at Gonerfest! With a great feeling of anarchy at all times.”

Freezing Hands (Photo: Courtesy Goner)

The Compulsive Gamblers

If Fred Lane is an outlier in the usual Gonerfest musical milieu, the Compulsive Gamblers practically defined it. For many Memphians, the band needs no introduction. Though their heyday was nearly 30 years ago, co-founders Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber (aka Jack Oblivian) have maintained a strong presence here. When they play their 2000 album, Crystal Gazing Luck Amazing, front to back on Saturday night (full disclosure, with myself on keyboards), they’ll be evoking the kind of quality songwriting that both singers have exemplified ever since.

“The Gamblers were my favorite band in Memphis. Everything was an event. They had the horn section that was never in tune, and a violin player, and nobody was really doing that. Even in the garage kind of scene, it was too weird. A lot of those bands, once they’re in a genre, they use those genres to define who they are. But Greg and Jack had this big, expansive idea of all the music they wanted to make, ranging from Tom Waits kind of stuff to punkier stuff to more R&B stuff. It was fantastic, and the shows were just a mess. But at the same time, the songs they were writing were so good.”

Indeed, the songs hold up impressively. Garage rock aficionados can hear the nascent echoes of Reigning Sound and Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks in nearly every riff and chorus. And it will be all the more powerful in combination with Gonerfest coming full circle, back to its roots, and back to the future.

Gonerfest takes place at Railgarten, Thursday-Sunday, September 22nd-September 25th, and at various venues for after-hours shows.

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Music Music Features

Gonerfest 18: Accidentally All-American!

Quintron and Miss Pussycat (Photo: Courtesy Goner Fest)

Looking over the schedule for Gonerfest 18, taking place September 23-26, I was flabbergasted to see all of the performers will be from the continental U.S. The festival known for sounding a clarion call to every punk, skunk, lunk, and hunk (and lovers of innovative music) across the world had gone nationalistic on us! Then I realized, no, it’s just a Covid thing (sigh). Still, this Gonerfest will be like no other, so I hit the speed dial to Goner HQ to get the skinny. Who should answer but Eric the Erstwhile Oblivian?

Memphis Flyer: It’s odd that the international aspect of Gonerfest is missing. I didn’t realize that until I dove into the schedule.

Eric Friedl: Yeah, we didn’t really either. We thought, “Okay, the bands are going to be local or driving in,” but we quickly realized that our international fans were going to miss out on this one. Hopefully they’ll be there on the livestream. We’ve sold a bunch of tickets to the stream. And there’s a handful of Canadians determined to come. I think they have to go through mandatory quarantine afterwards, but they’re willing to do that. Very impressive, their dedication to do this. So it’s all American bands and all American fans! [laughs] Which is a little bit different. And the response has been really overwhelming.

All the performances are at the Railgarten outside stage. Did using only one venue limit the possible attendance at all?

Well, we actually have a bigger capacity. We looked at the space and said, “How many people can you get in there?” They told us, and we were like, “Well that’s more than we’ve ever had at any Gonerfest!” We capped it at half capacity, but it’s still bigger than any ticket sales we’ve ever had. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds. People are going to have space to hang out, and everybody that wants to come gets to come.

Have you had to refund some tickets as Covid has changed the situation for some people?

Yeah, we’ve refunded. We sold out and stopped selling tickets, but then we refunded tickets and made those available again. So right now there are tickets available. We are going to do some walk-up sales for each night, like 50 tickets. So if people do want to get a ticket, there are golden passes at gonerfest.com. If we have them, we’ll sell them at the gate.

What are some of the highlights this year?

Wreckless Eric’s playing — he loves coming down here! Kings of the Fucking Sea has members of the Quadrajets,

The Ettes, and The Little Killers. They’re a full-on, heavy duty rock band. So that’s one extreme. Then we’ve got The Exbats from Tucson, who are a father/daughter team, and that’s more ’60s jangly stuff. The drummer, Inez, sings. We’ve got Sweeping Promises from Boston, who are like the new wave of new wave. Their new record has gone bananas in our underground underground.

And then you’ve got the Memphis folks that people come to see. Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks, Alicja [Trout], and the Reigning Sound Memphis lineup, along with Nots, Model Zero, Ibex Clone, Big Clown, and Aquarian Blood. They’re something special for people from out of town. Quintron and Miss Pussycat recorded their last record with less Quintron and organ and more full-on rock band, with lead guitar and all this kind of jazz. So they’ve been itching to play with this lineup. And we’re ending it with the Wilkins Sisters, the late Rev. John Wilkins’ daughters, who backed him up when he would perform. They’re going to be the last act on Sunday.

We have so many bands playing a short, sweet little set. All of them should be featured more than they are at Gonerfest. If anyone came upon them in a club show or something, they could spend more time with them and really get into their thing.

Visit gonerfest.com for more information on Gonerfest 18.

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Music Music Blog

Have a Punky Xmas with the Goner TV Holiday Special

This happens on the Goner TV Holiday Special.

It’s that time of year when you ask yourself, “How many more versions of A Christmas Carol do I have to watch?” Well friends, liberation is available if you want it. It’s called the “Goner TV Holiday Special,” and it’s happening tonight.

Memphis’ pioneering garage/punk label and beloved record store Goner’s pivot from live shows to streaming has been one of the rare success stories of the pandemic. Their weekly webcasts have become wacko variety shows combining live music, comedy, art, talk, and whatever else they can put in front of their cameras.

Now, the variety show format reaches its final form with the Holiday Special. Goner honchoes Eric Friedl and Zac Ives will be joined by Friedl’s Oblivians bandmate Greg Cartwright, Christmas music from Robby Grant (joined by Memphis Flyer Music Editor Alex Greene), Shannon Shaw & Cody Blanchard, and Detroit’s Human Eye madman Timmy Vulgar. You’ll also get to see the world premiere of The Sheik’s new “Christmas in Space” video, which is absolutely bonkers. There’s also new art by ex-Nots keyboardist Alexandra Eastburn, a cooking segment, and a bunch of other cool stuff that you’re just going to have to tune in to believe.

The Goner TV Holiday Special streams tonight at 8 p.m. CST on Twitch or GonerTV.com.  

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Remembering “The Goner Records Cookbook.” The WHAT?



This holiday season, why not whip up some Broke-Ass Ramen?

Or maybe Cheesy Tongue on Rice?

Then again, why not add some Curry Dogs to your Christmas dinner?

All these recipes — and a whole lot more — are in The Goner Records Cookbook. Goner Records co-owner Eric Friedl reprinted 200 copies of the original cookbook, which first made the scene in 2004.

Unfortunately, all those are gone. “They’re being printed and they’re all earmarked to go all over the place,” Friedl says. “We had orders from all over the country. And internationally, too”

But take heart. You can practice on some of the recipes from that book, which are included at the end of this article. These include Hazil “Haze” Adkins Fried Chicken, which includes “a bunch of corn flakes” as one of the ingredients. And Ernie Quintero’s Top Ramen and Spaghetti-O’s, which asks the chef to “add the noodles to a bowl of spaghetti o’s [sic], the 3 for 99 cents at the 99 cent store kind.” 

These will give foodies practice on making some Goner-style cuisine before Goner’s new cookbook comes out next year.

Friedl came up with the idea to do the original cookbook. The Goner Message Board was the inspiration, he says. “We had our bulletin board going, and one of the main things that everybody was discussing was food and eating and recipes and bars and where to go in some cities for food and good places to eat. It  sort of was a natural.”

He began asking around for recipes. “I hit up some people I knew who were into cooking. There are some serious recipes, some silly recipes. So it turned out really well.”

The cookbook is “a little different” from other cookbooks, he says.“I kind of lifted parts of the Message Board discussions and put it in the cookbook. So, you have a bit of banter and back and forth.

“This is more of a time capsule as well. Recipes from places in Memphis, Detroit and New York, and Chicago that don’t exist anymore.”

The look of the spiral-bound cookbook is reminiscent of something a women’s organization or church would publish. “The classic form with the ladies auxiliary and different clubs putting their cookbook out and having Goner put one out — especially in 2004 — was really funny and really fun.”

The cover mentions “Goner Records Kitchens.” What is that? “We don’t know. It just sounded like something the Junior League would say.”

Friedl also is featured in the cookbook. “I have some recipes. Like my black bean recipe.”

Asked how he came up with that recipe, he says, “Just improvising and getting drunk and cooking.”

Friedl enjoys getting in the kitchen. “I do like to cook. I’m not a good cook. I’m a practical cook. I cook with whatever’s in the kitchen. I don’t really need too much subtlety.”

The original cookbook “sold really well” in 2004, he says. “People have been bugging me ever since about it. And I just kind of decided to do it this year. I didn’t anticipate that many people would be that interested. And we sold 200 in less than 24 hours.”

Friedl already is working on the new cookbook. “We’re just starting on it. I don’t have anything really nailed down. My brother sent a recipe for his father-in-law’s beef stew.”

And Friedl again may be included. “I hope so. If my own recipes pass the cut.”

He’s open to submissions from people who might want their recipes considered for the new cookbook. 

“It took me two years to get the last one together. Asking people for things that never arrived or took a year to show. Some things just take time.”

From Eric Friedl.

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Music Music Features

Robyn Hitchcock and Lydia Lunch Highlight Gonerfest 15

As the always unpredictable Gonerfest has grown over the past 15 years, it has cast its nets ever further afield, spotlighting bands that one doesn’t see at other festivals. Though we’ll hear plenty of that trademark Goner slam-and-bash (as with Aquarian Blood, NOTS, Negro Terror, the Carbonas, the Neckbones, Ten High, the Oblivians, and others), there’s a true smorgasbord of other styles and sounds (including many beyond category). Landing two major artists as different as Robyn Hitchcock and Lydia Lunch is a major coup for this most DIY of festivals, and yet the contrast between them can’t obscure their shared quality of bucking trends, even punk, since the ’70s. One of them does it through a tenacious and ever-inventive historical stubbornness; the other through a kind of “musical schizophrenia.”

Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock

The ascent of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians in the 1980s, with such albums as Element of Light, marked the ascent of his previous work as well, as college radio junkies went digging through bins to find LPs by his first real group, the Soft Boys, and the solo albums that followed. While the former were full of slashing and chiming guitars, and the latter were more intimate affairs, all his work had the common thread of harking back to the perfect marriage of guitar jangle, harmonies, and songwriting that first peaked in the late ’60s. The genius was in the way Hitchcock’s songs subverted classic rock cliches by embracing surrealism and weirdly pointed lyrics.

Memphis Flyer: When you were starting with the Soft Boys in Cambridge, did it already seem like the ’60s were antique? In hindsight, Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd had only started 10 years earlier.

Robyn Hitchcock: It seemed like that kind of music was not there, or accessible. But that was the vein I wanted to work in. I wanted to play 1966-67 music, whatever that was. It wasn’t exactly psychedelic. It’s a bit of a misnomer. I suppose it’s more accurate than saying I was a punk or something industrial. But there was never an exact definition for what it was, and there still isn’t. You could say “It is that which was played by people in 1966-67” — it was when pop became rock. And like all movements, it was unstable. It existed in transition. It existed really in motion.

If you come see me at Gonerfest, I’ve got three Nashville guys backing me up. It will have that sort of sound, the spangling guitars and the harmonies, which we had in the Soft Boys. The Soft Boys had more intricate arrangements than my more recent material, but all of it is now absolutely vintage. It’s like an old car, and it has some of the beautiful qualities that old cars have. It may not be that reliable and you can’t travel that far in it, but it should make it to Memphis. And you’ve got the old street cars there, so I’m kind of a complement to that, really. I’m the equivalent of a vintage street car.

Do you feel like an anachronism, being an English psychedelic folk-rocker living in Nashville?

No, it’s very appropriate, because Americana itself is a throwback. Americana is basically white music before punk happened. Punk is never gonna happen. It’s always 1974. People are playing “Cortez the Killer,” you know? Gram Parsons is still touring. That’s what East Nashville is. I was even touted as an Americana artist last year, which you would think is a misnomer, but 10 years ago, Americana was alt-country, and 10 years before that it was alternative. As I used to say, if the Beatles had come out in 2004, they’d have been an alt-country act.

Still, the Beatles’ songs may last a long time, because they were so good. Through some freak of nature, they just happened to have three great songwriters, and they made each other greater through competition. It was sort of like an egg with three embryos in it. But sooner or later, there will be no Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan or Rolling Stones. That generation that were born in the early ’40s will be gone. People like me will be the seniors about to go over the waterfall.

I’m not really, technically rock anymore. Essentially, I’m a folkie. It’s all music that’s written without a click track. But no definition really covers me very much. So you could say, well, he’s a psychedelic folk singer, but what does that mean exactly? And I think it’s hard to sell things if you can’t define them. Is that a banana or an apple? What are these fruits you’re selling me? Do you eat it with a skin, do you cook this, or where does it go? And I think I’m one of those unidentified fruits, you know?

Jasmine Hirst

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

This multi-media subversive has been on music fans’ radars at least since the 1978 Brian Eno-curated collection, No New York, which featured Lunch’s band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. Not long after that, though, she took a stylistic left turn with her jazzy debut LP, Queen of Siam, and ever since she’s followed unexpected muses, while always keeping a taste of the downtown New York performance art scene, and its radical politics, that first nurtured her. Memphis Flyer: Who were your greatest inspirations when you started playing in the 1970s?

Lydia Lunch: They were all writers. They weren’t musicians necessarily, but writers like Henry Miller and Hubert Selby. The Marquis de Sade, more for his philosophy. His outlandishness was just painting a picture of what goes on behind closed doors in parliament, for instance, or the White House.

You played dissonant noise in the No Wave days, but your debut solo album was very jazzy. What inspired the change?

Well, as a musical schizophrenic, I was always trying to contradict what came before it. There are many sides to express. Actually, half of the album is big band jazz, the other is nursery rhymes. I was listening to a lot of cartoon music at the time, and just wanted to do something that was just totally in a different vein. Something kind of noir and sassy. And then, bringing Robert Quine into the mix was just a highlight of my life. My favorite guitar player. He played with Richard Hell and Lou Reed and produced some of Teenage Jesus.

Then you quickly moved beyond that big band sound …

But I’m actually back in it now. I came back around to it with an album called Smoke and the Shadows. And I’ve just finished recording an album with Sylvia Black, who is a very diverse musical schizophrenic herself, out of L.A. We’ve almost completed a totally jazz noir album that’ll come out sometime at the end of the year. It’s like swamp rock; I come in and out of it. And jazz noir as well. And also psycho ambient.

And at Gonerfest, you’ll be upping the rock noise quotient again, playing your Retrovirus material.

I’m constantly flipping the script. What’s interesting about Retrovirus is that it’s chaotic, but somehow there’s a cohesion when you hear it all together. The band somehow unites the mania into a different beast altogether. That’s what I’ve been focusing on the last few years. Working with Weasel Walter is great. It’s a fun, maniacal musical mayhem.

Gonerfest 15 runs from Thursday, September 27th to Sunday, September 30th. See www.goner-records.com for the full schedule.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

How to Survive Gonerfest With Your Liver Intact

CREDIT: Jake Giles Netter

Gonerfest 15 is this weekend, and, boy, is my liver already tired!

I was in my mid-30s when the garage-rock music festival — the brainchild of Goner Records co-founders Eric Friedl and Zac Ives — was started. In those early days, the promise of endless rounds of booze rivaled the guarantee of great musicianship, and there were pre-shows and post-shows galore, which led to drinking around the clock.

I vaguely remember tossing back a vodka and Kool-Aid concoction during an after-hours party in a trashed room at the beleaguered French Quarter Hotel at the corner of Cooper and Madison. Another year, I recall carrying a bottle of tequila into Evil Army’s home base, the Armory, as dawn was breaking on a post-post-Gonerfest show. And at the very first Gonerfest, back in 2005, I pogoed inside the also-long-gone Buccaneer Lounge, spilling more Busch beer on the floor than I could pour into my mouth as the Black Lips caroused onstage.

Now I’m 49, and a little wiser about my drinking habits — particularly when it comes to maintaining the stamina required to make it through four days and nights of live music.

Jake Giles Netter

Ex-Cult

It was former Memphis Flyer music editor/Ex-Cult frontman Chris Shaw who stated that “if treating your body like a trashcan while thrashing around to high-energy bands is your idea of a good time, then consider Gonerfest the shit-head Olympics.” Shaw coined the phrase for a Vice article, in which he chronicled Ty Segall baptizing the Hi-Tone audience with four bottles of champagne, amongst other liquor-fueled hijinks. As he sagely noted, Memphis’ relatively lax drinking laws lure garage-rock boozehounds like moths to a flame. Seriously — I’ve clinked beer bottles and red Solo cups with people from Australia, New Zealand, all corners of Europe, and even Japan, who travel to Memphis for the weekend year after year.

Unfortunately, there are no open container provisions in Cooper-Young, so when the opening ceremonies begin in the gazebo on Thursday night, I’ll be a teetotaler. Or, if I get a wild hair, I’ll brown-bag a tall beer. Tecate, bought from the corner store, is a likely contender.

Even if garage rock means nothing to you, the crowd-watching during the Friday afternoon show at Memphis Made Brewing at 768 S. Cooper is sublime. This year, the brewery’s tap room will be serving a time-honored favorite: a cream ale dubbed Gönerbraü, which has 4.5 percent ABV. It’ll be a smooth component to the musical line-up at Memphis Made, which includes bands from Austin, New Orleans, and Chicago.

After a late night at the Hi-Tone on Friday — where I hope to stick to water after pre-gaming with a round of cocktails — I’ll be ready for white wine (I’m no snob — the Barefoot Pinot Grigio, listed on the menu at $4.50 a glass, suits me just fine) or a beer at Murphy’s on Saturday. The music, slated for indoor and outdoor stages, starts at noon and runs until 7 p.m., with the party moving back to the Hi-Tone at 8 p.m. My strategy includes sunglasses, plenty of shade, and a few healthy meals that will cushion whatever I decide to imbibe.

No matter which musical genre floats your boat, when attending festivals, moderation is key. Getting so wasted that you forget all the fun — or wind up acting like a total jackass — is an issue, but so is dehydration. Water is especially crucial if you’re dancing, walking, or staking out your spot on the front row. Add in some Gatorade to replenish your electrolytes. Pace yourself. And for heaven’s sake, don’t drink and drive.

At concerts, I hate standing in line at the bar, so when I do buy drinks, I tend to purchase them two at a time. Sometimes I drink them both; more than likely, at Gonerfest, I’ll run into a friend from halfway across the world and share. That kind of camaraderie is what the weekend is all about — and, along with the stellar music, it’s what keeps me attending year after year.

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Music Music Features

Strong Come On

CREDIT: Jamie Harmon

Three garage rock titans take over the Highland Strip this Saturday when the Oblivians, Jack O and the Sheiks, and the Leather Uppers play Newby’s in celebration of Eric Friedl’s 50th birthday. As the founder of Goner Records and member of bands like Bad Times, True Sons of Thunder, the Dutch Masters, and the New Memphis Legs, Freidl has been an integral part of the Memphis garage-rock scene for decades. We caught up with Friedl the week before his 50th birthday party to find out more about Saturday’s blowout. — Chris Shaw

Memphis Flyer: How did the show come about and what made you want to host it at Newby’s?

Eric Friedl: We wanted to do something around my birthday and get a bunch of people in town to basically just have a good time. We looked around, and, by the time we had everything in order to book it, everywhere we’d normally play was unavailable. Jack had already been booked at Newby’s for that date, so we just decided to piggyback on his show.

The other thing that was attractive about Newby’s is that we’ve never played a show there, so it’s kind of new territory for us. I have no idea how many people they can fit in there or how many people will be able to get in. There are people driving in from Austin for this show and other places, so it should be pretty interesting.

When the band was more active, did you guys ever play the Highland Strip?

Oblivians never did, but my other band True Sons of Thunder made it over there a couple times. We played the Rally Point, and I’m pretty sure we played the side room in Newby’s one time. The Rally Point may have been the worst venue I’ve ever played in or been in. That place was bizarre; it was unbelievable.

Is this the only local show currently booked for the Oblivians?

I think this is it as far as local shows go, at least for now. We are playing the In the Red birthday party in Los Angeles in July, and doing some European dates in July as well. Jack (Yarber) and Greg (Cartwright) have their own things going on, so we just fit the Oblivians in when it makes sense for everyone to do it. It’ll be a good mix because the Oblivians kind of know what we’re doing, but Jack’s band is incredible right now. They have been killing it lately.

Let’s talk about the Leather Uppers. They’ve been around about as long as the Oblivians right?

They started in the mid ’90s, and they released a bunch of 45s that were later compiled into an LP by this guy Ryan Richardson. He’s basically like an archivist or a librarian when it comes to collecting.

The Leather Uppers were just this really raw and funny three piece. They existed in their own world, and they were one of those bands who, when we first started doing Gonerfest, we knew we had to have them play. It was kind of like “We will probably never get to see them otherwise, so let’s just ask and see if they’ll come down.” They said yes, and they’re just a great, ridiculously fun band. Saturday’s show will be their only U.S. appearance.

What is the Leather Uppers relationship with Goner like?

After Ryan released the singles compilation on his label, we released their follow-up album. By the time our record came out, the band had kind of moved on, but Ryan still had all those copies of the record he released, so we bought them from him and repackaged it as a Goner release.

How’d they get on the bill?

I already had the Gories play my wedding, so I wasn’t going to ask them again. I started thinking about who I’d like to see, and I thought “I’ll ask the Leather Uppers,” and they said yes again. They are a two piece now, but they agreed to do it.

At this level, they aren’t doing it to make a bunch of money or anything like that. They are basically just interested in coming down and spending a weekend in Memphis in between playing crazy rock-and-roll. They are both living in Canada, so I think they are excited about coming down.

50 is a pretty major milestone in terms of being a touring musician. You’ve been playing with this band longer than some of your fans have been alive.

The Oblivians has been a great opportunity to make noise that turned into an opportunity to travel and meet new people. We’re playing Finland in July, and I’ve never been to Finland. That’s not a place I could just go by myself. As long as we are having fun and it makes sense to do the band, we’re going to do it.

We’re not out to change the world, but writing a new record a few years ago was a kick in the pants and kept us from playing the same songs that are almost 30 years old at this point. We never set out to do much with the band, and we’ve exceeded all our expectations, so there’s no reason not to keep it going. If it gets to the point where we feel like geezers up there, we will stop playing, or other people will tell us to stop playing.

The Oblivians, Leather Uppers, and Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks, Saturday, April 2nd at Newby’s. 8 p.m. $15 admission.

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Music Music Features

Rockin’ Down Under

CREDIT: Jamie Harmon

The Oblivians traveled to Australia earlier this month for the first time since forming more than two decades ago. While the band has played in Europe and Japan, Australia seemed out of reach until a couple of years ago when the band’s booking agent starting laying the groundwork for American bands to make the trip down under. After he caught up on some much needed rest, we talked to Eric Friedl of the Oblivians to find out more about their latest trip, the bands they played with, and trying to find time to relax while on a grueling tour.

Flyer: You guys have strong fan bases in Europe and Australia, but how did the trip and tour get set up?

Eric Friedl: A lot of the guys from the Onyas had been bugging us about coming to Australia, but it just never really seemed possible. You never really know what you’re getting into when you travel that far from home, but our booking agent has been over there a few times and she seems to have set up a home base for some of her bands. We have a lot of friends in Australia, and it was kind of a Goner Fest reunion in a lot of ways. Seeing everyone who’s traveled all that way to the USA to watch us play really hammered home how far people travel to come to Goner Fest.

I know the Oblivians played Japan a couple of times, but was this everyone’s first time in Australia?

Yep. A long time ago we were looking at going to Australia, but we had better connections in Japan with Guitar Wolf at the time, so it made sense for us to go play over there. We thought we could swing by Australia on the way to Japan but those countries seem a lot closer when you’re just looking at a map.

What was the travel situation like? How did you all feel when you finally got there?

I think it takes like 16 hours to get to Sydney and the trip takes a bunch out of you. We slept most of the way, which was good since we didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the tour. I’m looking forward to some severe jet lag in the next couple of days because it takes a while for your body to realize it’s doing something completely different. We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the tour, not just from the shows but more from the jet lag.

You guys got to play with some really great Australian bands, some of which your music has influenced. Which show was your favorite?

We gave our booking agent a list of bands we wanted to play with ahead of time, so that helped. We figured if we were going to travel all the way there we might as well play with some of our favorite Australian bands. Everybody was great; we didn’t see a bad band the whole time. We got to play with Feedtime twice, which was incredible, the Ausmuteants and Low Life were also great.

The first Feedtime set we saw was just completely unbeatable, so mean and so nasty, and they were following Low Life, who are also really good. Feedtime just leveled the place. It was like the apocalypse. We knew we weren’t going to come close to following their performance, so it made it pretty easy to get up there and play.

How were the music scenes in Australia different from what you’ve experienced playing shows in Europe and the US?

It was a lot different. Sydney had a younger, more aggressive crowd, and Melbourne was mostly an older reserved crowd, but they were also older people who are into really good stuff. It was awesome to get to play the Golden Plains festival. So many festivals suck to play, but this was one was amazingly cool. The number one rule of the festival was don’t be a dickhead, which was kind of weird because most of the time that’s what festivals are for. There were about 6,000 people at Golden Plains festival just hanging out, and it was probably one of the biggest shows we’ve ever played.

Did you have time to be a tourist or were you too busy playing shows?

We got to the beach twice, but we didn’t have time to do much, no surfing or anything like that. We had radio shows, solo shows, and then two shows a day for about half the dates. All the travel time also kept us pretty busy. We got up to see Mikey Young from Eddy Current Suppression Ring; he lives a couple hours north of Melbourne. We saw some kangaroos hanging out in the park and that was pretty cool.

As a record store owner and collector, how big of a priority was trying to go shopping for vinyl?

I only got to a couple of shops but Greg [Cartwright] got to a lot more. Besides some foreign pressings, I didn’t really buy anything, but Greg can dig up records anywhere.

What other kinds of culture shock did you experience?

We did notice that there are like 10 million kinds of chicken parmesan in Australia, and everyone is very conscious of free range everything there. They serve you portions that are basically twice American size, but other than that it was pretty standard. We didn’t eat kangaroo or anything too wild.

What do the Oblivians have going on for the rest of the year? Are you going to tackle any other new places?

We are doing a run up through Chicago and Cleveland at the end of May – that’s our next little jaunt.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Greg Cartwright Plays Goner Records Saturday

CREDIT: kyle dean reinford

“Time changes everything.” That was the best reason Greg Cartwright could offer for getting his ’90s-era band the Oblivians back together for a new record and tour in 2013. It was really the only answer he or his bandmates Eric Friedl or Jack Yarber could provide when confronted with the question “why now?” Still, it seemed unlikely that there would ever be a new record, let alone one as deeply satisfying as Desperation, with its classic Oblivians’ mix of originals and perfectly chosen covers that are raw in spirit but as stylistically diverse and mature as the garage punk genre will allow.

Now even more time has passed, and the evermore prolific and peripatetic Cartwright has inked a new deal with Merge Records and is on tour and gearing up to release a new collection of songs with his other band the Reigning Sound, the ever-evolving all-purpose rock-and-roots band he formed in Memphis at the turn of the century, before moving to Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and family.

Shattered, due to be released July 15th, is the Reigning Sound’s sixth studio LP, and its first since 2009’s fantastic In the Red release, Love and Curses.

The Reigning Sound’s recorded output has ranged from the introspective Byrds- and Everly Brothers-inspired folk rock of Break Up Break Down to the noisy electric shock of Too Much Guitar, with a romantic core and a 1960s rock-and-pop sensibility that reached an apogee with Love and Curses. Shattered picks up where Love and Curses left off with a slight return to the folksier sounds of Break Up Break Down. The arrangements are more lush, though, and the clean production puts Cartwright’s expressive voice front and center.

Fans who want to hear Cartwright play material from Shattered can do so Saturday, when he visits Goner, the record store/label founded by his Oblivians bandmate Eric Friedl.

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Book Features Books

Punk’d (Memphis-style)

Among the memorable moments in Memphis punk-rock history, some things you just count on: the New York Dolls playing the Auditorium in ’73, when David Johansen of the Dolls was arrested either for inciting a riot or impersonating a woman (accounts differ); the Sex Pistols at the Talysen Ballroom in ’78 (no incidences, but hey, it was the Sex Pistols); and singer/onstage-defecator GG Allin at the Antenna club in ’91, when Allin was stabbed by a fan.

Other high points are anybody’s guess, and in The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists (Backbeat Books), it’s Eric Friedl — onetime Oblivian, today a True Son of Thunder, and the man behind Goner Records — doing the guessing.

In addition to Friedl’s “10 Things That Made Memphis Punk,” count on #11, supplied by Memphian Jim Cole and his fond memory the 1910 Fruitgum Co.’s “Bubblegum Riot” at the Mid-South Coliseum in the late ’60s. At the top of the bill was Tommy James & the Shondells, but it was the Fruitgum Co. that brought the house down and the police out in force when members of the band went running through the aisles, the lead singer took a swing at a security guard, and a dozen cops dragged the group off the stage.

Which kind of puts Tav Falco’s appearance on Marge Thrasher’s TV talk show (#2 on Friedl’s list) in a kinder light. After Falco and his Panther Burns performed their version of “Train Kept A-Rollin,” Thrasher greeted the group with: “That may be the worst sound I’ve ever heard come out on television.” Falco’s polite reply: “Thank you very much.”