The absence of Shawn Cripps and his band, Limes (aka The Limes), on the local scene is still difficult to process for many. His death in a highway accident at the age of 55 in 2021 was so sudden as to seem surreal, especially because his art — in the form of three celebrated albums and even more unreleased material — lives on so vividly. As reported in 2019, The Limes’ “mesh of crunchy guitar tones, sharp rock rhythms, and Cripps’ acerbic lyrics” occupied a niche all their own in the local scene.
This weekend, as part of the ongoing River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, a group of his friends and fellow musicians will offer some closure as they honor Cripps’ unique, unflinching talent. They’ll be opening for headliners Spider Bags, who were also friends and fans of Cripps.
I spoke with Chris Owen, who helped organize the ad hoc group known simply as “Limes Tribute,” about the challenges of recreating the sound of The Limes, the way Cripps’ songs captured the imaginations of die hard fans, and how those songs inspired them to form groups of their own.
Memphis Flyer:Who will be playing in Limes Tribute? Were they all in The Limes at some point?
Chris Owen: Yeah, the core is me and Jack [Oblivian], who played with Shawn a lot, and Tim Prudhomme, who played with Shawn a few times. And then the Spider Bags guys — we went on tour with them twice. There were a few bands that idolized Shawn for whatever reason. He was kind of an enigma, in the sense that he was just a normal person sitting at the bar, like many of us here in Memphis, and then you go out on tour with them and inevitably at every show some crazy fan would come up who just worshiped him. It was an era when it was really cool to know a band that no one else knew, when I was playing with him, which was around 2008-10. Because Shawn was my friend, he was just another musician. But once we got on that first tour, it was like, ‘Oh, this guy is very well liked!’ So it was always fun to meet people that were just obsessed with his music. Dan [McGee] from Spider Bags was one of those people, and so we ended up going on tour with them.
I guess the bands and artists who dug him so much are real songwriters’ bands. Was it his unique lyrical approach that they dug most about him?
I think the inclinations of a songwriter would certainly guide you to Shawn’s music, but also I think his guitar playing was so strange that people had a hard time figuring it out sometimes. I know for a fact that everybody that’s ever played with him was constantly trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. And I don’t think anybody ever did. Playing with Shawn was very seat of your pants. Sometimes it would be a disaster and other times it would be euphoric. He would use standard tuning but he he stayed in this G chord kind of thing — I think most of his songs are in G, but he could make a G chord sound 10,000 different ways.
Did he lead The Limes through their arrangements?
Well, his picking style was really strange. He didn’t have any training. It was all just him sitting in his apartment with a guitar and singing all the time, and it created this very unique sound. The songs are built off of the nuances that those of us that have played with him could hear, enough of to sort of form an arrangement around them. He had no idea that that was even there. Like he couldn’t say, ‘Oh, yeah, it goes like this.’ It would just be something that came out of the garden of his music, and we all just tried to pick those things out. Make sense? Some of the more unique arrangements are just things that Jack and Harlan [T. Bobo] picked out of Shawn’s craziness and said, ‘Okay, well, you’re doing this here. Let’s make that a part of the song, let’s make that a theme.’ I don’t know what you’d call that but he was like a genius who doesn’t know they’re a genius.
The Limes at Gonerfest 16 in 2019. L-R, Shawn Cripps, Chris Owen, Jack Oblivian, and Seth Moody. (Credit: Alex Greene)
What was your time in The Limes like?
I got to know the most of those guys, Jack and Harlan and everybody, and started hanging around, and at some point Shawn asked me to play drums. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m not a drummer.’ And he was like, ‘I know, that’s why I want you to play drums.’ Finally he convinced me and I went on three tours. So that that line up was me and this girl Stephanie Richards. She was part of the co-op scene and played bass with us. She was very melodic and complex, and she had an innate ability to key in on what Shawn was doing. She passed away about seven or eight years ago, from gastrointestinal cancer. She died super young too; it was really sad.
So we went on three tours with that line up: west coast, east coast, and then a little southern/southwest tour. And we recorded probably three records that no one has ever heard. Shawn probably recorded 20 albums and only three of them have ever been put out. We did some stuff with Doug Easley, and he’s got a reel somewhere in his collection. We actually mixed it and everything and Shawn just never did anything with it. He was was never finished with anything. You know, it was always, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little bit more work to do on that,’ and then years would go by and nothing would ever come of it. He was so prolific, but had a hard time getting it out there, you know?
Will you be playing any of that unreleased material on Saturday?
Yeah, I’m going to play a song called “Hey Killer” that was part of that period of his writing. Eventually there’s potentially going to be a collection of his unreleased stuff. They located all the reels and his notebooks and everything.
He tended to record to tape, didn’t he?
He was recording on reel-to-reel tape machines he had in those later years. He had a fascination with those things. And one of his frustrations was that could never find somebody to work on them. So he just started tearing them apart and putting them back together again, and ended up being able to fix a lot of the old stuff that he was buying. He got them working and so he did a lot of recording on old ’70s-era, reel to reel machines.
It must be difficult, putting together a set without him.
We’re going to try not to be trying, so as to embody Shawn’s ethos, and not be stressed about anything. It was really hard to get Shawn to do anything if he didn’t want to play music. He wasn’t like a regularly disciplined kind of guy. He’d say ‘Hey, I got a show, you know, let’s practice.’ So I guess it’s apropos for The Limes to be slapdash. It’ll be quick and dirty, for sure. We’re anticipating having a couple of acoustic jams. Just people playing songs that they like, and sort of ramping up to a full bands for a few numbers, depending on what Spider Bags want to do. And then of course, the Spider Bags are amazing.
You know, you never really think about how valuable people are to you until they’re gone. And Shawn was a perfect example of that, because we spent so much time together and that was just a normal part of life, to have him around. Now that he’s been gone for a year and a half, I’m realizing he inadvertently had a huge effect on my life. And a lot of other people’s, too. Without even trying! He could just so casually change somebody’s life. He was a magic man, for sure.
The River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, featuring Limes Tribute and Spider Bags, takes place Saturday, May 20, 4-7:30 p.m., behind the Maria Montessori School. $10 for adults, $5 for children. All proceeds support the Maria Montessori School.
This Friday, April 7 will mark the ascension of yet another venue into the realm of Memphis’ popping live scene. That quiet corner joint on Cooper and Peabody, Bar Keough, jump starts a new era within its walls as it plays host to Brisbane’s Dippers. The band formerly known as Thigh Master is familiar to many Goner Records fans, as the label released their second album, Now For Example, in 2019. Now that back catalog lives on the Dippers Bandcamp page.
It will be a cozy affair, but denizens of spaces like Bar DKDC find that intimacy a positive boon, especially if one’s inclined to tune into the dry Oz-ian wit of singer Matthew Ford’s lyrics, which range effortlessly between Robyn Hitchcock’s surrealism and the Go Betweens’ school of hard knocks lit, all over scrappy guitars.
The latest sounds from Dippers, to be released on Goner this June as the LP Clastic Rock, carry on where Thigh Master left off. Hear their lead single, “Tightening the Tangles,” above. Rolling Stone calls their sound “catchy-as-fuck and perfectly unpretentious guitar pop split by venom-spitting gloom … a face slap of scrappy punk revelry.”
Opening the show, and representing some of the finest in Memphian songwriting, will be Aquarian Blood, also perfect for an intimate listening room, as long as patrons can fit in after the band sets up.
Already looking ahead to the fall, Goner Records announced the key bands to be featured at Gonerfest 20 this year. And while the fest will officially be entering its twenties, there’s bound to be plenty of primitive teen spirit afoot with headliners like The Mummies, Osees (aka Thee Oh Sees), and The Gories.
Indeed, the creepy-crawly, goo goo muck vibe is echoed in the Gonerfest 20 artwork, unveiled this week along with the band lineup. Once the festival kicks into action, such is the omnipresence of the annual Gonerfest artwork that its premiere is nearly as newsworthy as the bands themselves. Last year’s imagery by Sara Moseley drew many comments as the festival wore on, and this year she’s back, collaborating with Stacy Kiehl. Together, they’ve created the creature above, with more elaborations sure to come as the festival’s opening approaches.
Osees (Credit: Titouan-Masse)
The three biggest names on the bill are all Gonerfest veterans who, like many punk/art damaged/freakish bands, have retained their edge even as they reel in the years. Case in point: Osees, who last played Gonerfest some 14 years ago as Thee Oh Sees. Known for their prolific output, the shifting personnel around lead Osee John Dwyer have gone through a few stylistic shifts since then, though always with a sound that grabs listeners by the throat.
Just counting their releases since their latest name change in 2019, they’ve put out Protean Threat (2020), Metamorphosed (2020), and A Foul Form (2022). And they recently pulled off an incendiary set on celebrated Seattle station KEXP:
Having first exploded out of Detroit in 1986, The Gories both predate and embody the Goner aesthetic, but they too have not played Gonerfest in over a decade. Their 2011 performance was deemed newsworthy to the Memphis Flyer‘s J.D. Reager at the time, and subsequent footage proved him out as they played an incendiary set:
Clad in tattered “bandages,” the band powers through a dynamite performance. The keyboard player lifts his instrument over his head and onto his back. They’re so obviously in lock-step with each other, the tempo and changes so ingrained, that they play with a ghoulish intensity.
This year, the gonzo independent music festival hosted by the label and iconic Tennessean storefront takes place in Memphis’ Railgarten from Thursday, September 28 through Sunday, October 1.
In addition to the headliners, Gonerfest 20 will showcase many other bands, MCs, and DJs from around the world. Highlights include a number of acts coming from overseas, including performances by UK artists Chubby & the Gang and Vivron Vavron; Australian bands CIVIC, Dippers, 1-800-Mikey, TV Repairmann, Vintage Crop, and C.O.F.F.I.N.; Denmark’s The Courettes; Japan’s The Smog; and Lewsberg from the Netherlands, among others.
Gonerfest 20 tickets go on sale now. Golden Passes, which allow entry to all official GF20 events, are $130. Single-day passes will be available at the door, according to venue capacity. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Fans should also watch for after shows at other venues around town, often as thrilling as the official lineup. This too fits the Goner aesthetic. As Goner Records’ co-founder Eric Friedl told the Memphis Flyer last year, “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.”
With the publication of an annual program guide, Gonerfest also works to support local business while promoting the music, arts, and culture of Memphis to its attendees. “Gonerfest has become a rite of passage,” says Goner Records co-owner Zac Ives. “It allows us to showcase our city and celebrate our little part of the music world in front of an extremely wide audience.” More than 1,000 tourists make the pilgrimage to Memphis for Gonerfest, which culminates in a substantial economic impact for its city. Gonerfest attendees eat at locally-owned restaurants like Payne’s BBQ and Cozy Corner, drink Goner-inspired beer brewed at Memphis Made, and visit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Graceland, and the National Civil Rights Museum.
Festival goers can also plan on seeing Marked Men, Chubby & the Gang, Sweeping Promises, Ibex Clone, CIVIC, The Cool Jerks, Bill Orcutt / Chris Corsano, The Courettes, C.O.F.F.I.N, Alien Nosejob, Dippers, Virvon Varvon, Cheater Slicks, Lewsberg, 1-800-Mikey, TV Repairmann, Vintage Crop, The Smog, Laundry Bats, and Turnt.
Ibex Clone is vocalist and guitarist George Williford, bassist Alec McIntyre, and drummer Meredith Lones. The Goner Records artists are releasing their second album, All Channels Clear, on February 3.
For their first music video, director Noah Miller broke out the super-8 film. “Our friend Noah filmed this in the middle of last summer’s heatwave,” says Williford. “The sun was beating down so hard it was hard to tell if everything was brimming with energy or verging on death. This song and video are about all kinds of cycles.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
August 17, 2018, was a historic night in the Bluff City. A new space in the newly renovated Crosstown Concourse, The Green Room, was about to enjoy its inaugural concert — the culmination of years of planning. A sizable audience had gathered to hear the music of celebrated avant-garde pioneer John Cage, and a hush fell over the room as the lights dimmed. Then Jenny Davis, a flutist in the genre-defying Blueshift Ensemble, stepped up and began to play … a cactus.
Jenny Davis (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Around her was a scene from a gardening shop. Cacti of different sizes were arrayed on a table, and Davis was systematically plucking the thorns of each plant as if it were a drum. Each movement resonated over the sound system; the cacti were outfitted with microphone pickups. It was as if we’d all shrunk to the size of geckos, immersed in a world of desert greenery, every brush of the needles an arpeggio.
For lovers of unusual sounds and textures, Davis’ performance was captivating. But it also marked the beginning of an avant-garde renaissance that is putting Memphis on the map of all that is strange and fascinating in 21st century music. It was only fitting that Davis was making the sounds, as that night foreshadowed the extent to which she, as programmer of Crosstown Arts’ musical performances, would be making waves. As it turns out, she’s only one of a host of players and presenters who are introducing Memphis audiences to sounds well off the beaten path. Beyond that, she sees no need to define what the music is. It’s here to stay, whatever you call it. “The avant-garde realm is hard to describe,” Davis says. “It becomes kind of tricky. Maybe it’s not even necessary to always describe something as being in one genre or another.”
The Cactus in the Room: A State of Mind
As Davis notes, playing Cage’s “Child of Tree” that night was a prescient grand opening. “That was the first concert we ever did in The Green Room,” she notes, “which I love. We christened the room with some John Cage!” In keeping with that, the space has become a key venue for musicians who want nothing more than to be listened to, and it’s likely rooted in the context of that first show. As part of the 2018 Continuum Festival, also organized by Davis, attendees could learn of the different states of mind that most avant-garde music demands, with talks on “Suggestions on How to Listen to Contemporary Classical Music” or a “Mindful Listening Workshop” based on composer Pauline Oliveros’ sound and meditation activities.
The seriousness suggested by such presentations is often belied by the sheer playfulness of the music. Beyond cacti, for example, the John Cage tribute also included his “Imaginary Landscape No. 4,” in which players adjusted the frequencies and volumes of 12 transistor radios. Whether whimsical or disturbing, the one thing that most avant-garde, experimental, or “out” music has in common is the need for deep listening. While B-Side Memphis or the Lamplighter Lounge have also cultivated scenes for strange music, The Green Room and its big sibling, Crosstown Theater, have set the standard of spaces that encourage silence.
Art Edmaiston, a veteran saxophonist of more conventional R&B, soul, and rock ensembles, has played enough noisy bars in his storied career to really appreciate silence. “You know, people wander into bars just to have a drink, and then they’ll say, ‘What is this? Why is a guy dragging a music stand across the floor? What’s going on with the flame thrower?’” he says with a chuckle. Such a crowd may not be tuned in to the subtleties of experimental music, and that can impact the playing itself. “The other thing is how quiet some of the music can be,” he notes. “We’re all listening. If you’re not in a listening environment, which means the crowd has to be quiet, then it’s hard for us to communicate, almost telepathically, and everybody’s going to miss what’s going on.”
What’s Going On
Edmaiston is a key figure in the local music landscape, and his involvement in the free improvisational group SpiralPhonics is indicative of just how much is happening on the cutting edge here. As he describes it, just having a venue for avant-garde music has made all the difference. “It’s hard for our little group to find places,” he says. “Revenue and venue, it’s all kinda in there together. You’ve got to find people. Listeners needed!” That has usually required staying on the more accessible side of the street. “Playing commercial music, you have a structure and vocabulary applicable to that situation. If you come in playing like Albert Ayler on [a track like] ‘Take Me to the River,’ you’re not going to be called back. So throughout most of my career, I was trying to assimilate, trying to be a studio musician. I’ve had a life of doing that, but never lost my desire to be on the more artistic side of things.”
When drummer Terence Clark proposed collaborating in a more improvisational context, and they joined forces with guitarist Logan Hanna to form SpiralPhonics, the mere existence of a venue helped them to manifest their vision. “We only played sporadically,” he recalls. “So we booked The Green Room in order to make us get our stuff together.” Ultimately, the gig not only brought their group into focus; it led to their debut album. “The Green Room being a listening room, that’s the spot to do it,” says Edmaiston. “That’s where we recorded our Argot Session. It was a live performance that we recorded there, and we couldn’t have done it anywhere else. It would take a lot more tries to get good takes and a quiet environment somewhere else. Your head space has to be right.”
Others note the resurgence of “out” music as well. Chad Fowler, a saxophonist, woodwind player, composer, and producer from Arkansas, studied at the University of Memphis in the 1990s, and the experimental music scene here at that time had a profound impact on him. Having then left town, he was surprised upon his return over a decade later. “I felt, when I first moved back to Memphis six or seven years ago, like there was a real dearth of creative music happening. It was kind of disappointing. I felt it had been stronger in the ’90s. However, since then it feels like it’s changed. A lot of it is due to Jenny Davis and Blueshift. Crosstown and B-Side have made a huge difference.”
The scene’s personal impact on Fowler is in turn reflecting back on the local environment. Having ultimately settled back in Arkansas, he’s nevertheless a regular in the avant-garde music world of Memphis, even as he also increases his profile in the New York experimental scene. His Mahakala Music label, focused on experimental jazz, has built on associations he forged in the ’90s Memphis scene, with players like Marc Franklin, Chris Parker, and Kelley Hurt, and Anders Griffen often appearing on Mahakala releases today. But he’s also used his and others’ connections to New York, Chicago, and New Orleans to create ensembles of world-class players from elsewhere, often bringing them to Memphis.
Dopolarians at The Green Room (Photo: Jack T. Adcock)
As Fowler notes, “It’s kind of weird because the same people might be on, like, a New York Times best of jazz year-end list but then also playing in a room the size of a closet for a tiny crowd in Brooklyn. We might get better audiences in Memphis for the same music.” He points to a gig by one of Mahakala’s “all-star” groups, Dopolarians. “With the Dopolarians show, I think William Parker was blown away by how great the energy was when we were there in The Green Room — by how many people came out, how engaged the audience was. It was a good experience.”
Collaborating with William Parker, a highly respected free jazz bassist and co-organizer of the Vision Festival, “New York City’s premier live free jazz event,” according to TheNew York Times, has been a boon to Fowler and Mahakala, arising quite organically from Fowler’s earliest free jazz experiences. Parker played on the debut album of Memphian Frank Lowe in 1973, as Lowe’s star was rising. Ultimately, Lowe would join Alice Coltrane’s band and enjoy a solo career of some renown, yet would still return to Memphis and jam with the likes of Fowler, Franklin, Chris Parker, and other University of Memphis students. Now, Fowler carries that inspiration back to New York on a regular basis, often playing with William Parker in various ensembles and recording projects. Mahakala’s star is now rising as well. “The first record we put out was on Rolling Stone’s end-of-year jazz roundup list,” says Fowler, “and since then, pretty frequently, we’ve been mentioned in Jazziz, JazzTimes, DownBeat, and all the go-to jazz publications. It seems the label is becoming one of the most respected of the genre, even though it’s very new.”
Lately, the links between Memphis and leaders of free jazz from the Northeast have only strengthened, as when drummer Ra Kalam, aka Bob Moses, who’s been on the cutting edge of the free improvisation world since the ’60s, relocated to Memphis permanently. Edmaiston recently played with the drummer on a New Year’s Eve show and was surprised at his embrace of more traditional R&B. Edmaiston recalls, “Ra Kalam told us, ‘Hey man, that was ‘Cleo’s Back!’ I recorded that in 1967 with Larry Coryell and Jim Pepper. We used to play it all the time!’ So that was kind of wild. He can play inside, but he’s developed into something else. When he plays himself, he says, it’s like he’s got to be in Europe to be expressive. Over here, less people want to hear that. Over there, he’s celebrated for it.” Yet now, with improvisational music on the rise here, that’s changing. On January 18th, Ra Kalam will be holding a master class and concert at Nelson Drum Shop in Nashville.
New Music, from Punks to P-basses to Piccolos
If there’s an uptick in free jazz and improvisational groups like SpiralPhonics and Fowler’s various projects, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, since Jenny Davis and Jonathan Kirkscey founded Blueshift Ensemble, a loose collection of Memphis Symphony Orchestra players with a penchant for experimental music, an Iceberg has orbited them — for that’s the name of a composers’ collective that collaborates with Blueshift every August to bring their works to life. “I like to have some new stuff along with some more familiar sounds, and that’s a nice way to introduce new things to audiences,” says Davis. “Blueshift’s work with Iceberg New Music, the composer collective out of New York, encapsulates that idea, too, because it’s a group of 10 composers, some of them more on the experimental, avant-garde side of things and some whose works are more lyrical and tonal, so you have the whole spectrum of what’s going on in new classical music today.”
Other avenues have long been available for the edgier side of the classical world, though they tend to be tucked into programs that showcase more traditional works. Conrad Tao’s “Spoonful,” commissioned in 2020 by the Iris Orchestra in honor of Memphis’ bicentennial, was a New Music tour de force, pivoting from cacophony to explosions of orchestral texture to delicate piano lines in a heartbeat and even a sample of Charley Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues.” It lost none of its power by being sandwiched between works by Haydn and Brahms. And many such experimental works continue to percolate out of the classical world.
A more hybrid approach was concocted by David Collins’ Frog Squad, when they premiered his arrangements of the music of Erik Satie at The Green Room in 2021. Turning the composer’s original sparse arrangements into showcases for a more jazz-oriented octet represented a perfect balance between accessibility and “out” music, as the players took solos with the abandon of a free jazz group, even as they remained grounded in the composer’s classic works. This year, they’re set to release a similar treatment of Horace Silver’s music and an album of all originals.
Misterioso Africano (Photo: Courtesy Khari Wynn)
Frog Squad’s bassist, Khari Wynn, is a virtuoso in his own right. While best known as one of Public Enemy’s go-to guitarists, his real passion is a kind of Afrofuturism first pioneered by his hero, Sun Ra, yet channeled through a thousand other influences he’s absorbed over the years as he plays under the name Misterioso Africano, or a few years back, The Energy Disciples.
But there’s plenty of experimentation coming from less-schooled musicians as well. Goner Records has long waxed enthusiastic for musical risk-takers, and in recent years they’ve brought many edge-walking groups to the city, from the surrealist big band sounds of Fred Lane to the free improvisational textures of Wrest to Tatsuya Nakatani’s Gong Orchestra. The latter wowed music fans gathered at Off the Walls Arts last year, part of that gallery space’s increased staging of “out” musical events under its roof.
The label has also played host to some of the city’s more rock-adjacent groups who test the boundaries of conventional musical ideas through combinations of electronic music and guitar noise, from Aquarian Blood to Nots to Optic Sink, who all offer servings of noise and synth madness to variations on the big beat of rock. Yet other, less-punk groups are dipping their toes into strange waters at the same time. Salo Pallini’s new independently released album advises it be filed under “Progressive Latin Space Country,” and while that obscures the heavy dollop of rock in their sound, it does capture their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. They’ll be playing a record release show on January 20th at — you guessed it — The Green Room.
Some of these artists are also featured in the annual Memphis Concrète festival of electronic and experimental music, also centered in and around Crosstown, set to resume this June after some Covid-related setbacks.
IMAKEMADBEATS at Continuum Fest with Delara Hashemi (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Meanwhile, more hip-hop-adjacent sounds are percolating through the city. Unapologetic, who have long celebrated strangeness and vulnerability in their edgy hip-hop productions, now have a dedicated studio space, and producer IMAKEMADBEATS is enthused about the possibilities for combining traditional beat production with live players free to create new textures in a more spacious setting. “We’re all electronic/hip-hop-based producers who play instruments,” says IMAKEMADBEATS. “Finally having the kind of space that allows us to easily incorporate live instrumentation into our music is a game changer here. Because our minds are decades-trained to think of warping sounds in ways never done traditionally, but now we can combine that with traditional instruments in a space sonically set up to present it in an amazing way. Our producer engineers aren’t just band recording people or rap recording people. They are that and everything in between. We just needed space. Now it’s time to take off.”
MonoNeon and Daru Jones (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Of course, the kitchen-sink approach has also been perfected by MonoNeon, whose transpositions of Cardi B tirades into carefully pitched bass solos and whose jams in his YouTube offerings may be the most experimental music of all. While he often records at home, he’s also branched out with other producers, including his work with Unapologetic. Like most of these artists, he’s appeared at The Green Room and/or Crosstown Theater multiple times. So it is that we must give credit where credit is due, as Crosstown Arts sits squarely at the center of the avant-garde revival. As Amy Schaftlein, co-host of the Sonosphere podcast and radio show, notes, “Jenny Davis has been doing such an amazing job of getting great artists to come to Crosstown Theater and The Green Room. She’s continued in that vein of ‘Let’s try to get folks to Memphis who may not hit us on their tour.’” Often recruiting acts on their way to or from Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival, Davis has brought a steady stream of experimental and jazz artists to town, the likes of which have not been seen in decades. This March and April alone, Crosstown will feature Deepstaria Enigmatica, Makaya McCraven, SpiralPhonics, The Bad Plus + Marc Ribot and the Jazz-Bins, Tarta Relena, Ami Dang, and Xiu Xiu.
All of which is making the city a richer, more connected community. As Davis says, “I like the challenge of hearing something new. And [it] can be jarring at first. But then if you go back a second time, you start to see the patterns and it’s like learning a new language. I think that keeps things interesting.”
PreauXX (R) joins AWFM (L) onstage at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
“One thing about Gonerfest,” remarked an old friend who’s seen many of them in his day, “it always brings great drummers to town.” We were bobbing our heads to Nashville’s Snooper at the time, and their drummer was indeed distinctive, helping to elevate the crowd’s dancing to a climax last night.
That could be said of the whole band, of course. Imagine the Flying Lizards with Keith Moon guesting on drums, all buzzed on caffeine, and you’ll get close to the feel of Snooper. Pigtailed lead singer Blair Tramel hit the stage bouncing and leaping from the start, inspiring the audience to surge toward the stage as the mosh pit reached a boil.
Snooper (Photo courtesy Goner Records)
Yet the band was anything but standard-issue hardcore, instead combining that genre’s breakneck tempos and shouted choruses with an eerie sonic onslaught of two noise-weaving guitars, undergirded by a rhythm section akin to rolling thunder, topped by the warble of Tramel’s slightly processed voice and her occasional synth blasts. It was a sound at once trippy and energizing, as the band, largely dressed in workout windbreakers, matched Tramel’s energy leap for leap.
Snooper was a blur of movement at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
The tweaked reality of the band’s sound was augmented by the unheralded appearance of larger than life papier-mâché figures shuffling through the crowd. While not quite feeling theatrical, it was a subtle bit of world-building by the band, as they knocked our conventional world askew and replaced it with a more inspired reality of giant human flies and much more leaping.
Snooper’s larger-than-life puppets (Credit: Chris McCoy)
And yet Snooper weren’t even the closers. Instead, the final band was a beautiful puzzle that inspired swaying, twisting, and head tilting more than any mosh pit. Fred Lane and His Disheveled Monkeybiters brought a bold new approach to the classic Gonerfest closing set, bringing swing rhythms and alt-jazz chops to the festival for the first time. Ultimately, the bizarre left turn the evening took at the hands of Lane et al. was refreshingly unpredictable.
While the crowd eased up from the front of the stage a bit, the Disheveled Monkeybiters turned heads around the grounds of Railgarten, and got many up front moving, as the band alternated from tightly arranged swing stompers with riffs by the three horns, to the honks and growls of freakish free jazz. Presiding over it all with a kind of anti-charisma was Fred Lane, whose Dada-ist mutterings, non sequiturs, and scat singing ranged from the fiercely animated to the awkwardly reserved.
“In my ineptitude/I don’t really deserve to be alive,” crooned Lane, neatly summing up the dark self loathing lurking in his absurdist rants. It did not make for the classic barn-burning show closer that so many festivals offer. As if to extinguish such expectations, the tenor sax player stepped up to the mic and announced, “This is art!” And those of us who listened deeply to the chaos knew what he meant.
It was a set of extreme dynamics, most apparent in the closing moments of the show, when each band member mimicked their own death as they played shrieks of noise and rhythmic fusillades. How to follow that with an encore? Have Lane perform the a capella “Oatmeal,” of course. “I sailed the China seas/In my pajamas on a raft,” he sang whimsically. “I drift into the sewers/In a miner’s hat,” and then a few perfunctory squawks and honks from the band broke the quiet.
“Oh, what a glorious feeling/Oh, what a marvelous plight/To be numb beyond feeling/Senseless, without sight,” Lane’s voice returned, almost sotto voce, echoing in the glorious emptiness. It put a fine point on the group’s darkly humorous ethos, still oddly compelling over four decades after it was cooked up by Surrealist-friendly proto-punks in Tuscaloosa’s fringe art scene.
Incredibly, those two closing set weren’t even the highlight of the day for some Goner-goers. Many were still reeling from on-point afternoon performances by local favorites like Aquarian Blood or Sweet Knives. But the day’s local hero trophy must surely go to A Weirdo From Memphis (AWFM), whose set offered one surprise after another, always topping itself. Starting with the very diggable surprise of AWFM’s live backing band, showcasing the deep ranks of musical talent in the Unapologetic collective, the set accelerated when colleague PreauXX jumped onstage. It all culminated in AWFM’s use of a series of ladders to scale the box car-based stage structure, as he sang and spit rhymes from atop the venue’s giant retro sign, Roller SKATE For Health, towering over the ecstatic crowd.
A Weirdo From Memphis on the roof of the Railgarten stage at Gonerfest 19. (Credit: Laura Jean Hocking)
After that, Sydney, Australia’s Gee Tee gave the fans a rush of amped-up, old school punk with a tweaked edge, as if the young Clash had found a Casio in the dumpster. Their catchy set caused a dramatic upsurge in Gee Tee T-shirts as the night progressed. Then, seeming to go through the history of alternative music, Austin/Melbourne/New York-based Spray Paint took us into post-punk territory, as their twin guitars seemed to redefine harmony and dissonance, matched by the urgent shouts and wails of the singer. And, throughout the day, an added perk of a Railgarten-based Gonerfest became apparent. Through all the textures of guitar riffs, synths, and impassioned vocals, another sonic element was occasionally woven: the blare of the train horn, and the visceral rumble of heavy steel wheels on the rails. That screeching guitar feedback, those gut-rattling beats, all were coming home to the urban wall of noise from which they were born. Memphis AF, y’all.
Joey Reyes, age 5, reads the Gonerfest 19 program. (Photo by Sarah Fleming)
“It’s rock and roll Christmas!” cried Gally as she greeted friends in line at Railgarten for the 19th edition of Gonerfest.
She’s worked at every Gonerfest since number 4, but for opening night, she’s just here as a fan. “That’s why I’m wearing a dress tonight,” she says.
This is the second year the underground rock festival has been held at Railgarten, a COVID safety precaution that has also allowed the festival to expand ticket sales. This year, fans of the classic late-night sweat fests have plenty of options with afterparties at DKDC, the Hi-Tone, and B Side. And since noise ordinances mean the main shows have to wrap up by 11 p.m., those afterparties are getting started earlier — I heard a fellow Goner reminisce about the time she booked an afterparty that started at 3 a.m.
The hours may be slightly more civilized, but the music remains untamed. I arrived just in time to see the much-anticipated comeback set from Bennett Foster. As one of the Barbaras (and later the Magic Kids), Foster was the catalyst for some of the most gloriously chaotic sets in Gonerfest history. His new music, which he recorded under his first name after almost ten years of “retirement” when he devoted his time to political organizing, has the pop sensibilities and decadent atmosphere of early Roxy Music. Tall and lanky, with a keen sense of stage presence, Foster cut an imposing figure on the Railgarten stage.
Bennett stages a comeback at Gonerfest 19. (photo by Chris McCoy)
Philadelphia-based Rosali, who just returned from a European tour, brought out the big guns for her first Gonerfest set. Her roaring guitar sound echoed off the metal walls of the stage, which is built from shipping containers.
Next up was another highly anticipated set, the return of The King Khan & BBQ Show. The duo of Mark Sultan and King Khan (aka Arish Amad Khan) were the core of the very first Gonerfest, which took place at the now-disappeared Buccaneer, and now have a huge Tik Tok hit with “Love You So.” Things didn’t exactly go as planned, though, when Sultan tested positive for COVID earlier in the day. But King Khan couldn’t have asked for a better backup plan, when two-thirds of the Oblivians joined him for a one-time-only performance as King Khan and the Bolivians.
King Khan and the Bolivians asking the musical question “Which song is this?” (photo by Chris McCoy)
Resplendent in gold sequined hot pants, raccoon cap, leather mask, and what appeared to this reporter to be a fox head covering his crotch, Khan received a hero’s welcome of hurled beer cans from the rowdy crowd. Out-of-towners from as far away as Seattle and Melbourne got a lesson in Memphis musical superiority, as Greg Cartwright and Jack O, never ones to stoop to such gauche measures as “learning songs” or “rehearsing,” picked up the tunes on the fly, and led the crowd in a stomping version of Rufus Thomas’ “Walking The Dog.”
This was the third Gonerfest appearance by Shannon and the Clams, and the first as a headliner. “I always think it’s a prank,” said bassist and vocalist Shannon Shaw. “I’m not cool enough to play Gonerfest!”
Shannon and the Clams’ Cody Blanchard and Shannon Shaw at Gonerfest 19. (Photo by Chris McCoy)
Yes, you are Shannon. After tackling some early sound issues, the band delivered the evening’s tightest and best-received set. Shaw’s voice, a mixture of sweet alto and gravel which brings to mind Memphis legend Wanda Jackson, was in top form. Many of the women in the crowd appeared to be there just to hear her, and the crowd surfers who appeared during the band’s encore were all female. Between harmonized lines with co-founder Cody Blanchard, Shaw admonished the frenzied crowd, “Don’t you drop her!”
A crowd surfer during Shannon and the Clams set at Gonerfest 19. (photo by Chris McCoy
It’s no secret that vinyl is resurgent. After being eclipsed first by CDs in the 1990s and then by streamed digital music, records were nigh impossible to find in mainstream stores for many years, until around 2008, when the manufacture and sales of vinyl albums and singles began to grow again. Since then, the trend has only accelerated, with market analyses predicting continued annual growth between 8 percent-15 percent for vinyl musical products over the next five to six years.
What fewer people realize is how every step of the process that makes records possible can be found in Memphis. “The Memphis Sound … where everything is everything,” ran the old Stax Records ad copy, and that’s especially true in the vinyl domain: All the elements are within reach. Johnny Phillips, co-owner of local record distributor Select-O-Hits, says “There’s not very many cities that can offer everything we offer right here. From recording to distribution, from inception to the very end. Everything you need, you have right here. Memphis is like a one-stop shop for vinyl right now.”
From the musicians themselves to the final product you take home on Record Store Day, here are the 10 pillars upon which our Kingdom of Vinyl rests, 10 domains which thrive in Memphis as in no other city.
Take Out Vinyl’s Jeff Powell (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Mastering
A lacquer master, freshly cut on a lathe, offers a level of high fidelity that most listeners, even record aficionados, almost never hear. But Take Out Vinyl, run by Jeff Powell and Lucas Peterson from a room in Sam Phillips Recording, is that rare beast, a vinyl mastering lab, where raw audio from tape or a computer is first transferred to plastic and one can sometimes hear a lacquer playback. It’s not meant to be listened to. The discs cut here would typically be used to create the metal discs that stamp the grooves onto the records we buy, but the lacquer itself is too soft for repeated plays. And yet, for those who’ve heard a playback from a freshly cut lacquer, the quality is haunting.
That was the idea behind the one-off Bob Dylan record auctioned at Christie’s last month for $1.78 million. Spearheaded by producer T Bone Burnett, a new recording of Dylan performing “Blowin’ in the Wind” was cut onto a single lacquer disc, never to be duplicated or mass-produced.
Producer T Bone Burnett (Photo: Jason Myers)
To help make it a reality, Burnett enlisted Powell, one of the world’s most respected mastering engineers. “Lacquers are very soft,” says Powell. “We can’t play these things after I cut them or it destroys the groove. You lose a little high-end every time you play it. T Bone’s idea was to try to capture that sound of a fresh cut lacquer, but one that you could play over and over again, even up to a thousand times, with no degradation to the sound. And that’s what we have accomplished.”
The trick was finding a way to protectively coat the lacquer after it had been cut, and after years of R&D, the labs enlisted by Burnett found the right compound. “T Bone says the coating is only 90 atoms thick,” says Powell. “A human hair is about 300,000 atoms thick — that’s how thin the coating is. It was derived from a protective material used on satellites.”
Ultimately, says Powell, the goal was to reassert the value of vinyl records over digital media. “The purpose of this was not to see how much money could be made,” says Powell, “but to show how music has been devalued to next to nothing. T Bone wanted to establish that a recording like this should be considered fine art.”
Memphis Record Pressing (Justin Fox Burks)
Manufacturing
The notion of a vinyl record as fine art is not so alien to legions of collectors who curate their own personal galleries of albums and singles. But even the rarest of records were mass-produced at one time, and Memphis has that department covered as well. For decades, nearly all of the records recorded in Memphis were made at Plastic Products on Chelsea Avenue. Such was the pressing plant’s impact that an historical plaque now marks where it once stood. But in recent years, a new business has taken up the torch of vinyl manufacturing.
In 2015, the Memphis Flyer alerted readers to the fledgling Memphis Record Pressing (MRP), which arose from a partnership between Brandon Seavers and Mark Yoshida, whose AudioGraphic Masterworks specialized in CD and DVD production, and Fat Possum Records, whose co-owner Bruce Watson first suggested that they move into vinyl production. Now, it’s in the hands of Seavers and Yoshida and GZ Media, the largest vinyl record manufacturer in the world, and the Memphis company is expanding dramatically.
Memphis Record Pressing (Justin Fox Burks)
As Seavers points out, the world of vinyl has evolved as well. “When we started, we searched the world for record presses, which was really a challenge. Back in 2014, there were no new machines being built. You had to scour the corners of the earth to find ancient machinery and bring it back to life. Fast-forward to 2018, when a few companies emerged around the world that invested in building new machines. We started bringing in these brand-new, computer-controlled machines that were very different from our old machines. And that started the process of expansion. Through 2018-2021, we replaced our aging equipment bit by bit, and in September of last year, we replaced the last of our old machines.”
The pandemic was actually a boon to the young company. “We reopened in May of 2020, and by June our orders had skyrocketed. We were overwhelmed. And by the first five weeks of 2021, we booked three-and-a-half months’ worth of work in five weeks. So to say it overwhelmed us is an understatement. Now we’re sitting on a quarter-million units’ worth of open orders. So, it’s insane to see the demand grow. Before Covid, we had reduced our lead time to eight weeks. Now, it’s frustrating to quote nine months of lead time to new customers because that amount of time is life and death three times over for some artists. That’s why we’re so intent on expanding as quickly as possible.” Construction of additional facilities, expected to be operational in October, is now underway.
Distribution
Once the records are made, where do they go? Thanks to the decades-old Select-O-Hits, the answer is “across the globe.” Johnny Phillips reckons it’s the oldest distribution service in the world, and it may be one of the oldest businesses in Memphis, period. “In 1960, my dad, Tom Phillips, was Jerry Lee Lewis’ road manager. When Jerry Lee married his 13-year-old cousin, he couldn’t be booked anywhere. My daddy put all of his money into promoting Jerry Lee, and he lost it all. So, he came up from Mobile, Alabama, to Memphis and went to work with my uncle Sam, taking back unsold returns: 45s, 78s, and a few albums. We gradually grew into one of the largest one-stops in the South, supplying all labels to smaller retail stores. There used to be over 25 retail stores in Memphis, believe it or not. And then in the early ’70s, we started distributing nationwide. My dad retired, and my brother Sam and I bought him out.”
Over the years, Select-O-Hits has seen every ebb and flow of the vinyl market, including a major uptick after the advent of hip-hop. “We were the first distributor for Rapper’s Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang in 1979,” notes Phillips. That tradition continues today. “We’ve released about half of Three 6 Mafia’s catalog that we control in the last two years, on colored vinyl. And we distribute it all over the world.” And if the distribution numbers are not what they used to be before CDs and then streaming took over, they are climbing steadily. “Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, we were selling half a million vinyl records. But now we’re doing 5,000, 15,000. Still, last year was our biggest vinyl year ever [since CDs became dominant], and this year is looking just as good.”
Shangri-La’s Jared McStay (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Record Stores and Record Labels
If Select-O-Hits is moving the product around the world, it needs to land somewhere, and in Memphis that means record stores. Though we no longer have 25 retail outlets for vinyl, there are several places to buy records here. The granddaddy of them all is Shangri-La Records, founded by Sherman Willmott in 1988, then taken over in 1999 by Jared McStay, who now co-owns the shop with John Miller.
“The first couple of years,” says McStay, “I had to bet on vinyl because I couldn’t compete with the CD stores, like Best Buy or whatever. I was getting crushed, until I realized I could never compete with them. In the early 2000s, they were phasing out vinyl, and even stereo manufacturers stopped putting phono jacks on their stereos. But I had tons of records.”
Around the same time, Eric Friedl was running a small indie label, Goner, which ultimately became the Goner Records shop when Zac Ives joined forces with Friedl in 2004. They too leaned into vinyl from the very start. “I think Eric had done maybe two CDs at most when we joined forces and started expanding the label in 2004,” says Ives. “Out of his 10 or 11 releases, I think only The Reatards had a CD release. The rest were only on vinyl. There was no giant resurgence of vinyl for us. Those things came up around our industry, but we never left that model. And that’s how it was for most smaller, independent labels, especially in punk and underground realms.”
Combining a record shop with a record label is a time-honored tradition in Memphis, going back to Stax’s Satellite Records, and it carries on today through Shangri-La and Goner, which have both been named among the country’s best record stores by Rolling Stone. Both stores’ dedication to vinyl relates to their investment in live bands. Gonerfest, which brings bands, DJs, and record-shoppers from around the world, will be enjoying its 19th year next month, and Shangri-La has hosted miniature versions of that for years.
“We’re having Sweatfest on August 13th,” says McStay, “and we haven’t had one in three years because of the pandemic. There are going to be thousands of bargain records. We’ve been hoarding them for three years!” Meanwhile, local bands will perform in the parking lot, a pre-Covid mainstay of Shangri-La for most of its existence.
Though Goner boasts its own label, and Shangri-La has spawned at least three (Shangri-La Projects, plus the loosely affiliated Misspent Records and Blast Habit Records), not all stores do so. River City Records opened last year and, along with Memphis Music and A. Schwab, is already doing a brisk vinyl business in the Downtown area. Meanwhile, the city has several vinyl-friendly labels untethered to any retail outlet, namely Back to the Light, Big Legal Mess/Bible & Tire, Black and Wyatt, Madjack, and Peabody Records. These local imprints and the bands they sign, in turn, feed into the doggedly local support that the above mastering, manufacturing, and distribution businesses offer. As Powell says, “Anybody local, I’ll always try to move heaven and earth to get them ahead of the line a little bit and treat them special. Because you know, it’s Memphis, man!”
Memphis Listening Lab has thousands of LPs. (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Archives, Audio Technology, Community Radio, and DJs
A wide swath of this town’s music lovers are brazenly vinyl-centric, and that demographic has a ripple effect in other domains. The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, for example, boasts the huge archive of Bob Abrahamian, a DJ at the University of Chicago in the 1990s, with more than 35,000 singles and LPs, now being cataloged by a full-time archivist, Stax collections manager Leila Hamdan.
Then there’s the Memphis Listening Lab (MLL), founded last year on the strength of the music collection of John King, a collector’s collector if there ever was one. As a promoter, program director, and studio owner, he’s collected music all his life. Now, his roughly 30,000 45s, 12,000 LPs, 20,000 CDs, and 1,000 music books reside in the public archive of the MLL, free for the listening and even free to record. Further, MLL has hosted countless public events where classic or obscure albums are played and discussed in depth.
The listening lab also benefits from a less-recognized aspect of vinyl culture in Memphis: the technology. Being outfitted with high-end, locally made EgglestonWorks speakers enhances the listening experience at MLL considerably. And the city is also home to George Merrill’s GEM Dandy Products Inc., which markets his highly respected audiophile-grade turntables (one of which MLL hopes to acquire).
Another archive boasting EgglestonWorks speakers is the Eight & Sand bar in The Central Station Hotel. The private bar was envisioned as a place to celebrate Memphis music history, and its dual turntables are duly backed by a huge vinyl library of mostly local music. “Chad Weekley, the music curator, is doing an incredible job there,” says Ives. The bar now plays host to the DJs who enliven Gonerfest’s opening ceremonies, and the hotel has even offered package deals combining room reservations with gift certificates to the Goner shop.
And let’s face it, this town is crawling with great DJs. In a sense, they are the ultimate vinyl record consumers, and thus help to drive all the other institutions. “It’s similar to a band,” says Ives, “because you’re taking your knowledge of music and putting it back out into the world in some way. I love hearing somebody’s personality coming through their radio program or DJ event. … Sometimes at venues like Eight & Sand, sometimes on community radio.”
The latter is clearly fertile ground for those who favor the sound of vinyl. Both WEVL and WYXR sport turntables in their on-air studio rooms, not to mention their own vinyl libraries. As WYXR program manager Jared Boyd says, “I’m a record collector myself, and for a time I was DJ-ing at Eight & Sand and using those turntables. So, when we started the radio station, we wanted people to be able to have that experience without having to go down to Central Station. We wanted these people who collect deeply to broadcast these really unique finds. I particularly wanted to cater to people who use records.”
The Music
And so we come full circle, following vinyl’s great chain of existence back to the reason we all want it in the first place: music. And it’s undeniable that the music this city produces fits our predilection for vinyl — from Jerry Lee Lewis’ piano swipes to the guitar/organ growl of “Green Onions,” from the choogling riffs of power pop to the crunching, distorted damage of punk, the sounds of this city lend themselves to the weight and warmth of music’s greatest medium. Just drop a needle on your favorite band and you’ll hear the truth in Brandon Seavers’ words: “Memphis is the grit to Nashville’s glitz,” he says. “And grit sounds a lot better on vinyl.”
Sarah Rayne and Andrew Harris of Cobra Man (Credit: Brian Ziff)
The California skateboard scene knows how to party. Exhibit A: The self-described “Los Angeles Power Disco” of Cobra Man, who play Memphis tonight at the Hi-Tone Cafe.
It was sunny sidewalk surfers that birthed the synth-heavy dance group, when Andrew Harris and Sarah Rayne first collaborated for a video, “New Driveway,” by The Worble skateboard company in 2017. That collaboration felt so perfect that they built a band around it — now grown to seven members. And it felt right to Goner Records, who released both that soundtrack and its follow up, Toxic Planet.
And, unlike most soundtracks, the sound is intoxicatingly hedonistic, a heady blend of fat analog synth riffs with soaring choruses that plays like a lexicon of ’80s synth pop, distilled to its throbbing dance core. In memory of the recently departed Alan Hayes, I’d even put them in the company of Memphis’ darkly synthetic dance pioneers of the late ’70s and ’80s, Calculated X. And yet Cobra Man’s perch from the heights of the 21st Century lends them a more brazen take on the genre. As Harris told Thrasher magazine in 2020, “We are definitely being shamelessly grandiose. We’re leaning into all of our guilty pleasures at one time, which some people think is corny but I honestly just don’t give a shit.”
It’s that last sentiment that puts Cobra Man, and thus their commitment to the party vibe, over the top. The blended textures of thick, chorusey keyboards, riff rock guitar, and unrelenting rhythms are true to their “Los Angeles Power Disco” tag, but one is never quite sure where they’ll take it.
Cobra Man, with opener Snooper from Nashville (slated for their own Goner release) play the Hi-Tone Cafe Monday, August 1, also featuring the premiere of a new Worble skate video. Doors 8 p.m.
Hats off to the venues and artists who have kept the internet alive with free sounds, all in the name of safety. Memphis has a better track record than most cities in the variety and volume of online music. And, on top of regular venues, we have the bonus of Goner Records’ ongoing Goner TV series. This week brings another installment, which goes beyond music and into some very funny/weird places. Sample all the offerings below — it’s an embarrassment of riches.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, March 17 7 p.m. Amy LaVere & Will Sexton — at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way Website
