Las Rosas, Toxie, Clear Plastic Masks, Warm Girls Wednesday night over to the Hi-Tone.
Check out Las Rosas’ story of a dude and a cat, in song:
Tag: Goner
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Oblivians on NPR
Memphis’ major export, the Oblivians, were on NPR today at KEXP at the University of Washington. On Monday evening, the layout of NPR’s music site placed them below Elton John but on par with ?uestlove and Leonard Berstein. That’ll work. Eric Friedl is cloud-seeding Gonerfest 10 like a master. Nicely done, sir.
Local female punk group Nots return to the Buccaneer tomorrow night with support from Chicago touring acts the Wet and Negative Scanner.
Formed more than two years ago, Nots has been gaining steady attention in the local garage/punk scene, much like their former band Bake Sale did a few years ago. While Natalie Hoffmann and Charlotte Watson handle songwriting duties for both groups, Nots is noticeably more aggressive and stripped-down than its predecessor, sounding more punk than pop and trading in ’60s’ girl-group songwriting tactics for shorter songs and aggressive vocals. And while Bake Sale was approached by now-defunct Nashville label Grand Palace Records to release their first single, Nots will have their debut seven inch released by local label Goner, who should have the single out in time for the annual Goner Fest in late September.
Nots isn’t the first local band recently approached by the Memphis-based label. In the past year, Goner Records has turned inward to the local scene it helped create, releasing records for local bands True Sons of Thunder, Manatees, and Sector Zero, with an upcoming single from local group Moving Finger reportedly on the way.
Nots, the Wet, and Negative Scanner play the Buccaneer on Thursday, August 29th. Admission is $5.00. Watch Negative Scanner’s video for “Fan vs. Wild” below:
- Annabel Mehran
- Ty Segall
California’s Ty Segall is a garage-punk prodigy who might be on a par with Jack White or Jay Reatard when it comes to inherent musicality or prolificness, though he so far lacks quite as compelling a sense of purpose as White’s wounded romanticism or Reatard’s now-tragic sense of self discovery.
Since emerging roughly a half-decade ago, Segall has averaged well more than an album a year, whether solo, with his touring band, alongside fellow Cali collaborator Mikal Cronin. Segall released two solo albums on Chicago’s Drag City label — Hair and the possible career-best Twins — as well as a the Ty Segall Band album Slaughterhouse on Los Angeles’ In the Red, a label also re-released Segall & Cronin’s 2009, previously vinyl-only Reverse Shark Attack, this week. Earlier in his propulsive career, Segall released two albums — 2009’s Lemons and 2010’s Melted — for Memphis’ Goner Records.
Here Segall is, making his national television debut, last fall on Conan O’Brien, tearing up the studio with “Thank God for Sinners,” the lead track from Twins:
A collaboration between Goner Records and Live From Memphis — two do-it-yourself organizations that have done as much for Memphis music as anyone over the past few years — Gonerfest 2: Electric Goneroo DVD/CD is a really impressive two-disc, two-hour collection that captures the garage-rock and punk chaos that ensued when like-minded bands (and like-minded fans) from all over descended on Memphis last September for the multi-day, multi-venue music festival organized by the Cooper-Young record store.
The DVD contains 26 performances from 18 bands while the CD contains 27 performances from 27 bands — captured at the Hi-Tone Café, the Buccaneer, and the Goner store — with very little performance overlap between the two discs.
I’ve always been leery of live albums since, as pure aural art, they’re rarely as interesting or sound as good as the studio recordings of the same bands. They’re snapshots of an immediate experience with the immediacy removed. So, as good as the audio disc is, I’m more impressed by the DVD, which inherently brings you a step closer to the actual experience. And it helps that this concert film is so well put together.
The Gonerfest 2 DVD was directed, produced, and shot by Sarah Fleming and Christopher Reyes of Live From Memphis and edited by Reyes and Claudia Salzig. And it isn’t rooted in the stale, dim stationary camera visuals you might expect. The crew uses multiple hand-held cameras to capture different angles and perspectives on the same performances and bring you so close to the action you sometimes feel yourself heaving along with the crowds.
The editing is sharp and witty and frequently as dynamic as the music without ever being incoherently overactive. And, in a very smart move, the Live From Memphis crew veers into the crowd and outside the clubs (or the Goner store’s hot-dog cookout) between performances for a sort of Gonerfest version of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. The disc could have even used more of this material.
Musically, there are no outright weak links on either disc, but I’m pretty confident it’s not just a local bias that makes the Memphis (or Memphis-connected) bands stand out. The local bands are the ones most likely to push through the bare basics of noise and energy and attitude into something more substantial. (Biggest non-Memphis exception: Probably Killer’s Kiss, whose “Shine It” brings a Byrds-y vibe to the garage-rock template.)
Playing songs on both the DVD and CD with his band Knaughty Knights, former Oblivian Jack Yarber conveys a wisdom, sardonic sense of humor, and emotional depth few performers here can touch. And if it wasn’t already clear, Yarber’s old bandmate Greg Cartwright is some kind of rock-and-roll savant. Opening and closing the DVD with performances of “We Repel Each Other” and “Bad Man,” Cartwright’s the Reigning Sound is fierce and soulful, but they may the one band that’s even better on the audio disc: It’s almost unfair to the 24 bands who come before that they have to share disc space with the Reigning Sound blasting through the whiplash rock-and-roll of Too Much Guitar‘s “I’ll Cry.” On a collection that pays loving testament to a musical genre and cultural scene, this band transcends both.
Other Memphis-connected highlights abound: The Persuaders, with Memphian Scott Rogers on guitar, boast a seductive, menacing, bluesy low-end guitar roar, especially on “Hot Stix.” And though an onlooker raves about Jay Lindsey’s Reatards at the Hi-Tone (“the only real punk show I’ve seen in 10 years,” he proclaims, marveling that he got hit in the head with a full bottle of beer), his poppier band the Angry Angles are more impressive with an electric set at the Buccaneer. The Memphis band that relies the most on noise, energy, and attitude, the Final Solutions, also make the most of those qualities, barely holding together the anthemic “This Is Memphis Underground” and “I’m a Punk” before a surging, joyous crowd at the club.
Other Memphis acts here push the boundaries of the Goner musical continuum: Harlan T. Bobo’s more reserved songcraft and Impala’s instrumental, atmospheric movie music. (Both, sadly, are missing from the DVD.)
— Chris Herrington
Grade: A-
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Goner Goes International
With France’s Cheveu, England’s Hipshakes, Japan’s Rockin’ Enocky one-man band, German guitarist Roman Aul (who will front a Memphis-meets-Oxford, Mississippi supergroup called The Brand New Love Affairs), and Canadian duo The Leather Uppers (who made their debut on Goner Records with the release of their Bright Lights album in June), this weekend’s Goner Fest 3 is shaping up as a garage-rock world summit.
“The stars aligned, and a few of these foreign bands were able to make it, which has got us really excited,” says Goner Records co-owner Zac Ives, who booked the three-day music festival along with the label and retail store’s founder, Eric Friedl.
Rockin’ Enocky — a member of the Japanese rockabilly trio Jackie & the Cedrics and a friend of Friedl’s for more than a decade — is traveling the farthest, some 6,600 miles from Tokyo to Memphis. Yet it’s his second trip to the Bluff City in less than six months — he turned up at the Ponderosa Stomp last May.
Experimental French rockers Cheveu are traveling 4,500 miles to get here, which barely beats out Sheffield, England, trio the Hipshakes. But Cheveu has a three-week stateside tour planned, while the Hipshakes are flying 8,600 miles round-trip to play just one set in Memphis.
“We were surprised and happy to get the Goner Fest invitation. It’s given us a lot of energy,” says Cheveu’s Olivier, who explains that they’ve booked shows in other cites before and after their Gonerfest appearance.
“It’s worked out great,” says Friedl. “I think Cheveu wanted to tour the U.S., and [Goner Fest] gave them a good excuse to do it.
“The Hipshakes are crazy. There’s no reason for them to come over for one show, other than the fact that they’re young and they want to do it,” he adds.
Although he’d be the last to admit it, Friedl is the number-one reason that these musicians are traveling so far. His former group The Oblivians (which also featured Jack Yarber and Greg Cartwright) are a “mythic band” in Europe, says Olivier, who lists Memphians like Yarber and Jeffrey Evans along with local bands Viva L’American Death Ray Music and The Cool Jerks among his favorite performers.
“We first heard the Oblivians on a compilation in a crap metal magazine [that] had been put together by The Hives,” says Hipshakes bassist Andrew Anderson, who cites the Memphis band as a major influence.
While they performed at Chicago’s Horizontal Action Blackout Fest last May, the Oblivians aren’t on the roster for Goner Fest 3. The band, which officially called it quits at the end of the 1990s after releasing six albums, last played in Memphis on Halloween 2003; today, Cartwright lives in Asheville, North Carolina, which makes odds for an impromptu reunion highly unlikely.
“In a way, that Oblivians reunion was the start of all this,” says Friedl. “After we booked that Halloween show at the Hi-Tone, we realized that all of these people were coming to town, so another night [of entertainment] was added, with The Final Solutions and a bunch of other bands. It was so much fun that we decided to set up a legitimate festival.”
“It also has a lot to do with the Goner Records Web site and message board, which really fosters a community,” Ives says. “We’re constantly surprised by the gung-ho attitudes of Goners around the world.”
More than 300 people a night packed the Hi-Tone Café for Goner Fest 2 last September; this weekend, Goner Records, Live From Memphis, and Rocket Science Audio are releasing a DVD of that experience.
“People come because there are so many bands on the bill they want to see,” Ives says. “It’s about the crew you go with and meeting friends at the shows. Spending three days in Memphis, you get to do Stax and Sun, eat barbecue and fried chicken, and hopefully get a little more out of it than getting your head kicked in by a bunch of bands.”
According to Olivier, Cheveu plan to eat plenty of barbecue, tour Graceland, and visit Al Green’s church during their weekend in Memphis. The Hipshakes’ Anderson says simply, “We’ll have to have the most fun ever — there’s no choice.”
Goner Fest 3 kicks off with a performance from the King Louie One Man Band at Goner Records on Thursday, September 28th. Other events will be held at the Hi-Tone Café, the Buccaneer, and Sun Studio. For a complete line-up, go to www.Goner-Records.com/Gonerfest.html.