Tag: Hi-Tone Cafe

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Mudhoney Does Memphis

Mudhoney (Credit: Emily Rieman)

Feeling a bit like a stringer for Rolling Stone, I leapt at the chance to talk with Mark Arm of Mudhoney, a rock band among rock bands, a band that’s kept largely the same personnel and certainly the same aesthetic in sharp, punk-primed focus for over three decades. With the same disbelief, I had to pinch myself when I heard the band would be playing Memphis, a city so often missed in tours by such well-established bands. But there it was: Mudhoney and Hooveriii, playing the Hi Tone this Friday, November 3rd.

Yet if Mudhoney is established, they most certainly are not establishment, still embodying the punk credo of the ’80s, also embraced by Jim Dickinson, that “corporate rock sucks.” Words to live by, and worth reiterating with this band, so often lumped with “grunge” but more lively and not as salable as those mega-grunge bands of yore. Even the albums Mudhoney has done with big-name producers (including Dickinson) have kept at their heart a rawness that should make any grit-n-grind Memphis punk feel at home.

Catching up with Arm as the group arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, I jumped in by asking what it takes to keep things surprising and a little unhinged even in a band with such longevity.

Memphis Flyer: You have a 35-year long catalog of songs to draw from. How do you and the rest of the band approach that and keep it fresh?

Mark Arm: It’s true, we tend to play some of the older stuff — that we can remember. Occasionally, we’ll dust off some some weird thing that no one’s heard for a while. And people respond well to them. So it’s like a feedback loop. You can feed off that energy and that keeps the song fresh.

Listening to various records of yours over the years, it seems like you guys strike this beautiful balance between evolving and keeping things fresh, yet staying true to a certain aesthetic of really thick, sick guitar tones and great riffs.

I appreciate that a lot. You see a lot of bands chasing something — they might start out initially kind of cool, but then they’re like trying to catch up with whatever they think is trendy. And by the time their record comes out, it’s two years too late.

Meanwhile, you guys could give fuck-all about the trends.

I don’t even know what they are. I mean, even if we were to, God forbid, do an unplugged album, it would still sound like us. That whole notion of the unplugged album was like, you can really tell a good song if it’s stripped down to its bare essentials and played acoustically. It’s like, ‘No! the whole point of the song — the way we recorded it — was the guitar sound.’ That’s it!

And there is a real cornucopia of guitar tones in your albums over the years. Do you think of that in any particular way, like saying, ‘Okay, this song has got to have a Black Sabbath kind of tone’ or something like that?

Not in terms of trying to exactly emulate something, but I did get an Sabbra Cadabra pedal that sounds like you’re going through a Laney [amplifier] from the ’70s. You know, it doesn’t quite but it’s a very cool pedal.

Certainly diving into the possibilities of the guitar. I’ve been listening to the latest album, Plastic Eternity. Did that mark the first use of a synthesizer on a Mudhoney album?

No, no — we have done things like a fake Hawkwind song. [laughs] And on Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew, we re-did “Make It Now Again,” and and I think there’s also a song called “No Song III” on that. They both have synth noise or chords in the background. And actually the first time we played in Asheville we went to the Moog factory. That put Guy [Maddison] on a path of starting up an all-synthesizer band called The Beauty Hunters with an old friend of his. It’s actually a three piece but the third person does projections. And they would do these really cool shows in places that don’t normally host shows, like a generator under a bridge or in some weird park or something. And that was always a really cool thing to go see. Obviously Guy moved to Australia, so that isn’t quite happening anymore, but Guy’s put synthesizer on a couple of songs on Digital Garbage and on this record. And he actually learned his way around it. It wasn’t like what we did in the 90s, where it was just like, “Arrgh, let’s make noise!” It was a more considered approach.

So Guy, your bassist, lives in Australia now, and rejoins you guys for tours like this?

He moved to Australia in the summer of 2022. And this is our third tour since he’s moved to Australia. This time Guy just came to Seattle before the tour. We had a couple practices and now by the fourth show into the tour we’re firing and all cylinders. By now, Guy’s been in the band for more than twice as long as Matt [Lukin] was.

I wanted to ask you a second about working with Jim Dickinson. Some people say it’s sort of your blues rock album, and I don’t really hear it that way.

I don’t hear it that way either. I mean, there’s always been a hint of blues but it’s not actual blues. And hopefully it’s not like Blues Hammer in that Ghost World movie. But it’s kind of taking a blues structure, not quite 12 bar or whatever, but with two lines of the same line and the third line’s a different line.

Did Dickinson draw out anything in the band when producing you?

It’s hard to say, it was so long ago. But I have really fond memories of working with Jim. That was a weird period, because the way that deal with Reprise was structured, on the third record, we wouldn’t be able to keep the back end of the recording budget, so whatever we spent was spent. We could kind of feel the end [with Reprise] was coming, and this would be our last chance to actually work with a quote unquote “producer.” We were wracking our brains, trying to think of like who would we even want to work with, and Jim Dickinson was the only person that we thought would be great. And he was.

I just love the fucking looseness of Like Flies on Sherbert. Obviously, he wasn’t gonna be like, “You need to clean that shit up.” Right? He’s gonna let whatever happens happen. He wasn’t living in a music industrial town like LA or New York. He was just living in his house in North Mississippi.

Has the band come through Memphis much over the years?

Not often enough! I mean, the last time we played there was a Gonerfest. Fucking a blast! And I generally don’t enjoy festivals that much, especially the bigger kind. I would never go to one. There’s no way I would just like pitch a tent in the mud somewhere. But Gonerfest is definitely different. It’s got a different aesthetic than most festivals. It’s the only time I’ve been able to see Human Eye!

Well, Memphis welcomes you. I’ll just say that on behalf of the city.

We expect a giant key!

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Music Music Blog

Not Hanging Back: Atlanta Trio The Coathangers Returns!

CREDIT: Jeff Forney

Jeff Forney

The Coathangers

The last time Atlanta garage-punk trio The Coathangers played Memphis, they ended their set at the old Hi-Tone with a merch manager – their drummer’s then-boyfriend – that barely had his arm attached to his body.

“His elbow was dislocated, it didn’t even look like it was connected,” bassist Meredith Franco tells the Memphis Flyer of the 2013 gig. “We just kept playing. He sat behind the merch booth the whole time and was like ‘nah, I’m okay.’ It looked like [his arm] was hanging on by a string.”

Though it was a simple stumble that caused the dislocation, and sheer belligerence that kept it that way, it’s definitely was a punk rock moment typical of The Coathangers’ long, energetic journey that will see them play Bluff City once again at the Hi-Tone this
Wednesday. They’ll be supported by Philadelphia punk trio Control Top and local heroes
Hash Redactor.

Formed in 2006, the band’s first gig was at an Atlanta house party where mastery of their
instruments – “I’d never even played bass before this band,” Franco says – was secondary to the performance itself. After their self-titled 2007 debut, put out through Rob’s House Records and Die Slaughterhaus, The Coathangers begun a long relationship with Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze Records – early backers of Elliott Smith and Modest Mouse – that has seen them release five albums in the last ten years.

“[Suicide Squeeze owner] David [Dickinson] is our number one fan, and we’re his number
one fans,” Franco says. “He really gives us a lot of freedom, whatever we want to do, he
supports us basically.”

Their most recent offering, The Devil You Know, released in March, shows a band that
haven’t taken a step backward from their devil-may-care roots during what has been a
tumultuous time – both politically and socially – in recent American history. With songs like
‘Hey Buddy’, addressing street harassment, and ‘F the NRA’, The Coathangers – named for a DIY abortion technique – was always going to come armed with a response to it.
“Yeah – especially a song like F the NRA,” Franco says. “It’s not like we’ve not ever been ‘not political’, but I think in the past we didn’t want to be [too] preachy. But why not? This is our way to express how we feel, why wouldn’t we write something we believe in? If someone doesn’t like it, fuck off – don’t listen to it.

“[With F the NRA], some people were worried that it was going to get negative [press] and
people who are all about guns were going to like come after us, I don’t know. People were
worried, but we were like, the reason we do what we do is to say what we want. Isn’t that the whole point of music in general? If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it.”

Though Atlanta was the starting point, The Coathangers now find themselves in three
different corners of America. Franco moved back home to Massachusetts to care for her
ailing father (who she wrote ‘Memories’ for), lead singer Julia Kugel-Montoya relocated to
Long Beach while drummer Stephanie Luke remained in Atlanta.

The Memphis connection doesn’t just end with an ex-boyfriend of a drummer who dislocated his elbow, though. The Coathangers were good friends with Memphis punk legend Jay Reatard, dedicating their 2011 track ‘Jaybird’ to his memory.

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Music Music Blog

Gonerfest 16 Recap: Thursday

CREDIT: Anton Jackson

Alex Greene

Limes

“Usually, Thursdays are the slowest part of Gonerfest, but I don’t think that’s the case now!” remarked scenester and overall Gonerfest facilitator Gally Sheedy as she surveyed the packed crowd at the Hi-Tone Cafe last night. It was the only night of the festival that was not sold out, but any uncertainty over attendance was put to rest by the crowds packed in for the opening salvo.
Chris Squire / Allison Greene

Quintron and Miss Pussycat

It all began as music fans congregated near the Goner HQ in Cooper-Young, sampling the free beer and browsing for hard copies of their favorite records. Those checking in at the store received a free copy of The Happy Castle of Goblinburg, a special-edition audio play EP, chock full of synth skronks and other sound effects, produced by Miss Pussycat, longtime collaborator with Mr. Quintron. The New Orleans-based team are here in force for the weekend, with Quintron slated to join the Oblivians onstage tonight. Meanwhile, Miss Pussycat is opening an art exhibit focused on her inventive puppetry, The Puppet Worlds of Miss Pussycat, with the opening party tonight, 6:00-9:00 pm, at the Crosstown Arts gallery on Cleveland Street. The opening features a live performances of her puppet show “The History of Ancient Egypt,” including the music of synth-primitivist BÊNNÍ.

Just down the street from the Goner store, the festival’s thrusters fired up in the Cooper-Young gazebo with the music of Limes, led by singer/songwriter Shawn Cripps. Their mesh of crunchy guitar tones, sharp rock rhythms, and Cripps’ acerbic lyrics were a perfect kickoff to the weekend’s offerings. A sizable crowd flooded the corner, as Cripps quipped, “Gonerfest has really grown over the years. This feels like one of the better ones.”

Later, fans gathered at the Hi-Tone Cafe for the opening night’s lineup. The party spilled out of both the front and back doors, with the sea of humanity surging back into the club when each band’s set began. By all accounts, Green/Blue and the Hussy got things going with slamming sets. Your faithful correspondent arrived just before some hometown favorites, Sweet Knives, took the stage. Their blend of off-kilter riffs, synth hooks, pounding rhythms, and razor-sharp harmonies from Lori McStay and Alicja Trout inspired the crowd to bounce and head-bob with abandon.  Alex Greene

Sweet Knives

Trampoline Team, from New Orleans, offered some serious thrashing to bring things back to the basics of slam and speed. Then, MC Bob McDonald set up the set by Simply Saucers by taking us back to their very beginnings in 1973. “Back then, there was no punk. It’s Devo and it’s them.” And the band then launched into a remarkably eclectic set that was a vital reminder of proto-punk’s anything-goes attitude.

Simply Saucers

Much as when John D. Morton’s band X__X was showcased at Gonerfest 14, spotlighting Simply Saucers confirmed the strong historical perspective at work in Gonerfest’s curation. From silky folk-rock harmony interludes, to pounding rock verging on Northern Soul, all built on an alt-rock chassis not unlike a harder-rocking early Brian Eno, Simply Saucer offered musical delights aplenty and kept the beats pounding.

Then Eric Friedl, aka Eric Oblivian, took to the stage to testify that following the night’s closing act, as the Oblivians once had to do, was an impossible task. “Nobody can follow the King Brothers!” he declared, and, as the trio took to the stage, one member in a hockey mask, the club was filled with the sense that a terrible and beautiful storm was about to be unleashed.
Alex Greene

King Brothers

Indeed it was, as soon as they took to the mic. “Are you REAAAAAADY??” screamed lead singer Keizo, before spitting out the words, “ALL NIGHT KING BROTHERS GO WILD PLAY SOME ROCK N ROLL!!”, as the band launched into a ferocious onslaught. With riffs sometimes echoing old rock ‘n’ roll grooves, run through a sludge machine of fuzz guitar, the highlight was the non-stop drumming combined with shrieks and howls that made one’s hair stand on end. Keizo displayed uncanny crowd-surfing skills, standing aloft and delivering piercing screams from near the ceiling. Inexplicably carrying this jet-fueled calamity for nearly an hour, the King Brothers shut down the Hi-Tone with aplomb.  Anton Jackson

King Brothers

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Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Jeremiah Matthews

Santa didn’t realize how boss he was when he brought Jeremiah Matthews a drum set for Christmas 21 years ago.

“I thought drums were the coolest things when I was a kid,” said Matthews, 27. “I still do to this day. I just think they dictate the whole song. They’re the ones just kind of guiding everything. If music’s a train, then the drums are the wheels. They’re the ones that are actually getting you from point A to B.”

Matthews, a graphic designer at the Memphis Flyer, also is an experimental singer/songwriter. He describes his performances as “a live show that’s just me and a guitar. I have a drum machine attached to my guitar that I run through loopers. So, it’s a lot of looping, a lot of ambient, weird stuff. I have several different loop pedals running at the same time. A lot of feedback. A lot of ambient reverb noise.”

Drums, which eventually led to keyboards, were “more like a foundation of music theory,” Matthews said.
“When I started with drums, it was like, ‘This is how rhythm works. Breaking down into fours or threes. This is how time signatures work.’ And that kind of thing. And then when I got to keyboards, it was like, ‘This is how a music scale works.’’’

His mother died when he was 10, said Matthews, who was born near Houston, Texas. “I was a really angry kid for a while. Everyone kind of had that impression of me.”

His dad, guitarist Freddie Matthews, who was in bands, kept music going around the house for Matthews and two of his brothers living at home. He played records by the Beatles, Bob Seger, and others.

“I was that really lame kid that always had his big old book of CDs on the school bus. That kind of thing. Eventually, I got an iPad and I was like, ‘This is amazing.’”



Matthews picked up the bass when he was 14. “I didn’t have a lot of really close friends or active friends so I would just stay home and practice all the time. Eventually, I just started playing bass with my dad. When I was like 15 or 16 my dad made me learn the bass line to ‘Something’ by the Beatles, which is still the hardest bass line.”

Matthews joined his dad on stage at times and played bass on “Johnny B. Goode.”

He joined his first band as lead guitarist after his family moved to San Angelo, Texas. “I had moved from bass to guitar because it’s a pretty natural slide.”

Asked the name of the band, Matthews said, “It might been like ‘Running on Empty’ or something lame like that.”

He remembered playing with the band at a festival. “People were cheering and stuff and I was like, ‘This is not cheer-worthy. I’m terrible.’”

Matthews joined a contemporary alternative band when he moved to Cleveland, Mississippi. He also became a nicer guy. “When I moved to Mississippi, nobody knew who I was, so I got to kind of reinvent myself and make some friends. I think overnight I went from being this angsty little teenager to this actually OK-to-be-around dude.”

His father bought him some recording hardware. “I had already downloaded Audacity, which is like a free recording software, and was messing with that. I had this old four-track tape recorder that I would run though as an interface into my computer through the audio input. I would just record all these songs myself. I was really into Mars Volta at the time, so I would make all these crazy, trippy songs. I’ve gone back and listened to them and they are terrible. They are super-trebly.”

Matthews, who double majored in graphic design and audio technology at Delta State, was more fascinated with recording music than playing it. If he wrote a riff, he would say, “This is a cool riff. I‘m going to record it into my computer.”

He began putting his compositions on MySpace and ReverbNation using the moniker “Winston the Crime-Fighting Office Manager.’”

Matthews, who played “real simple instrumentals, but with weird guitar solos,” began writing songs when he took a business of songwriting class. “I always overproduced my stuff. I would have MIDI drums all over it. I would have keyboards, guitar, bass, multiple vocals with harmonies. LIke everything.”

Overproducing was because of “a lack of self confidence. I wasn’t confident enough in my writing ability or my singing ability or one specific area to just let it rest on that. I was like, ‘If this guitar solo isn’t that good,’ or, ‘I don’t know if these lyrics are any good, I need to make everything else good enough to distract from that.’”

He joined his friend’s band, The Belts, as bass player. “I got comfortable enough with them to where I was like, ‘I have all these songs I’ve written and I have recorded and I have up online to listen to. Do you guys want to help me make a live band out of it?’”

The result was “The Ellie Badge,” which was his pseudonym. He got the name from “that Disney Pixar movie, ‘Up.’ I was like 20 at the time and thought it was super cool and romantic.”

When the band broke up, Matthews began performing his original songs, which he described as “sad and emotional,” in coffee houses.

He graduated with a degree in studio art with an emphasis on graphic design. He then moved to Memphis, where he got his masters degree in graphic design at University of Memphis. “I spent three years at U of M and kind of worked on an album in the background. It was a lot more super overproduced. I was just like, ‘I don’t have a band right now. I’m going to make the craziest conceptual record I can.’”

The album, “The Ellie Badge vs. all Your Problems,” was based on a “really bad breakup” that had taken place before Matthews moved to Memphis. “There’s a song called ‘500 Days of Bummer’ that I thought was really good. I’m really proud of that song. That’s the one everybody kind of latched onto.”

The album, he said, is “very pop-punk energetic kind of stuff. There’s a lot of indie influence, a lot of mallcore mid 2000s influence. But then there’s a lot of 8-bit stuff on there, too. I did a lot of really bit-crushed drums and video game theme stuff. All the art is very nerd-culture based.”

“…Again,” his latest album, is a “time-based concept about repetition. I tried to make one song for each season.”

Describing his one-man-show, Matthews, who performs about once a week at various venues, said, “I have a drum machine attached to my guitar. I start a loop and make the drumbeat on my guitar. I have a lot of kill switches and stuff to turn the signals off and on and just start and change the signal afterward. My guitar goes through my pedal board, splits into three signals, goes through a bunch of delays and reverbs and then to my amp.

“There is also a second and third pickup on my guitar that only picks up the bottom E and A string and goes through a kill switch and then goes straight to a bass amp. Basically, I can lay down a guitar lead, lay down a drum thing on two different loops. And then I can kill the signal post loop to kind of change the way it sounds. And then run a distortion after on the drums. Stuff like that. When I need it, I can turn the bass on and just have this really deep big sound for choruses and things like that.”

As far as he knows, Matthews say, “I’m the only person that has the duophonic pickup around here. People have been using loops forever, but I think I’m the only person who thought of doing it this way. I like to think I have my own little niche, but I probably don’t.”

Matthews recently bought a Thinline telecaster body. “I’m building another guitar with the same set up.”

He usually plays “a weird hybrid” Squire guitar. “It’s Frankensteined with a new neck, new parts and everything, but the intonation is off because that specific guitar was made with a conversion neck. The intonation is messed up permanently. I’m building one that’s going to have better intonation.”

Matthews constantly searches for just the right sound. “I buy new pedals a lot. I’m probably going to buy a new amp eventually. I have way too much gear.”

Jeremiah Matthews will perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 12 at the HI-Tone. Also appearing are Alex Fraser, Kake and the 0.* and Sequoia. Tickets: $5.

'The Road to Judecca' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Jeremiah Matthews

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Music Music Blog

Torche and Nothing at the Hi-Tone Thursday

Torche

Bring your earplugs to the Hi-Tone Thursday because it’s going to get loud. Real loud.  Florida’s Torche return to Memphis with premier shoegaze band Nothing, along with support from Wrong and GRYSCL. Check out video’s from Torche and Nothing below, and then make plans to be at The Hi-Tone Cafe by 9:00 p.m. on Thursday. $12 gets your face melted.

Torche and Nothing at the Hi-Tone Thursday

Torche and Nothing at the Hi-Tone Thursday (2)

Torche and Nothing at the Hi-Tone Thursday (3)

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Music Music Blog

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone Wednesday

Destruction Unit

We already gave you the low down on Destruction Unit playing the Hi-Tone Wednesday night, but in case you forgot or you weren’t paying attention, here is your official reminder. Destruction Unit. At the Hi-Tone. Wednesday night. Be there by 9. Check out the Cali Dewitt directed video below, plus some other choice songs from Destruction Unit’s catalog.

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone Wednesday

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone Wednesday (3)

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone Wednesday (4)

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone Wednesday (2)

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Music Music Features

Destruction Unit at the Hi-Tone

CREDIT: Sam Monkarsh Cable

Arizona’s Destruction Unit plays the Hi-Tone next Wednesday night, returning to Memphis after a triumphant performance at Goner Fest 10 two years ago. Memphians may remember another Destruction Unit (featuring Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout) playing around town in the early 2000s, but founding member Ryan Rousseau took the moniker with him when he relocated to Arizona and reformed the band into a psychedelic powerhouse.

Destruction Unit now features members of the Ascetic House Collective, a group of individuals who mostly release cassette tapes and zines (all of which are available for free to those who are incarcerated) and might be slowly forming a nationwide cult of psychedelic psychos. While it’s not mandatory to be on drugs to enjoy the noise created by Destruction Unit, I’m told it certainly helps.

Sam Monkarsh Cable

Destruction Unit

One of the more interesting things about the band is how active their members are with other projects, despite Destruction Unit’s grueling tour schedule. Drummer Michael Flores has a highly regarded electronic project called Jock Club, and guitarist Nick Nappa is in Marshstepper, a band whose live show incorporates performance art and can only be accurately described as insane. It makes sense then that when all these creative forces combine something special happens. And Destruction Unit is a group that knows how powerful they can be, with slogans like “The New American Heavy Underground” and “Destruction Unit: Better Than Food” proudly displayed on their merchandise. After releasing the highly regarded Deep Trip LP, the band took a short break to focus on some of the projects mentioned earlier, but with this upcoming tour and a new album that’s currently in production, it seems as if Destruction Unit is ready to take the world by storm once again.

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Music Music Blog

David Bronson at the Hi-Tone Cafe

New York City songwriter David Bronson will perform in the Hi-Tone small room tonight, touring in support of his latest album Questions. Check out the video for “Day by Day” below, then get to the Hi-Tone by 9:00 p.m. tonight. 

David Bronson at the Hi-Tone Cafe

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Flyer Flashback News

Death/Rebirth

When the Flyer first reported on its website in December 2012 that local rock club the Hi-Tone Café was closing, you would have thought we broke the news that Midtown itself had shut down.

Before his early 2013 cover story on Hi-Tone’s last night in business, former Flyer music editor Chris Herrington put up a simple post that confirmed the Hi-Tone’s Poplar location would be closing its doors. Some of our readers’ reactions were more than a little dramatic.

The sign from the old Hi-Tone

“It is time that we wake up and realize the truth. Memphis is a dying city, and its music scene is dying along with the rest of it. Our leadership has probably waited too late to reverse the trend, but if there is to be any hope at all, action must be taken now. The city should enact significant discounts on license fees and local taxes for businesses that routinely book live music, as opposed to DJs,” said a commenter by the name Progressive Memphis.

Dogrell3000 also weighed in: “It is unfortunately true. Memphis is dying and so is the Memphis music scene. This is a sign of the times. Unless you are Atlanta, Nashville, or New Orleans (major southern cities), your city is dying along with the death of the middle class.”

It seemed a harsh reaction, but when Herrington profiled the last night at the Hi-Tone for a cover story in February 2013, his story made it clear that the club was more than just a rock-and-roll club. It was a Midtown institution.  

New Hi-Tone in Crosstown

After recapping a show that showed the strength of what the Hi-Tone was capable of, Herrington pointed out some of the problems that led to its closure. The building’s unreliable cooling made it notoriously hot in the summer, which discouraged some touring bands.

“Heating/air was obviously a big, big issue,” said Hi-Tone owner Jonathan Kiersky. “With the lease [issues], I wasn’t really interested in spending more money on someone else’s building on a constant basis.”

“That building is pretty old and beat up,” said Chris Walker, who currently helps run audio/visual for the NBA’s Houston Rockets but who has operated Memphis clubs, such as Barristers and Last Place on Earth, and has booked shows at many other local venues, including the Hi-Tone. “I think the roof was giving [Kiersky] problems. It’s hard to have climate control in there.”

The size of the club and the difficulties of the Memphis market also complicated things.

“One of the issues with being right in the middle of the country is you’re going to get a million booking requests. On any given day, we’d get anywhere from five to 80. What that ends up meaning, if you’re going to be a 350-days-a-year rock venue, is putting a lot of stuff in your club that you’re not that interested in doing or maybe it doesn’t make financial sense to do a certain band on a Tuesday,” Kiersky says. “In Memphis, the seven-shows-a-week concept is really, really hard. There were very few weeks where we could have six good shows in a week and actually hit our numbers on all of them.”

Toward the end of the cover story, Herrington hints that Kiersky was close to signing a lease on two bays in the Crosstown Shoppes strip on Cleveland, with the hopes of creating one 4,500-square-foot venue. Luckily for the Memphis music scene, the deal went through. Kiersky reopened the new Hi-Tone on May 6th.

And while this Hi-Tone doesn’t have $2 slices of pizza or the famed Hi-Tone brunch, it’s safe to say that Kiersky has picked up right where he left off. He’s added a BBQ chef, and, perhaps most importantly, the shows have kept on coming.

So far in 2014, Kiersky has brought dozens of bands to the Hi-Tone, including Future Islands, the Zombies, and the Flamin’ Groovies. So much for the Memphis music scene never recovering.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Hi-Tone Set to Return

Hi-Tone Café owner Jonathan Kiersky announced on Facebook today that he’s signed a lease at 412 and 414 N. Cleveland to open a new live-music venue to replace the former Hi-Tone on Popular, which closed last month.

This deal was in the works when we reported on the Hi-Tone’s closure in a recent cover story, which outlined Kiersky’s tentative plans for the new space:

Kiersky was approached by Chris Miner, co-founder of the nonprofit Crosstown Arts, about space available as part of a strip of storefronts on Cleveland that are being rehabbed as a component of the neighborhood’s ambitious redevelopment as an arts district. The Cleveland locale already houses a gallery and exhibition space for Miner’s organization. As of press time, Kiersky was close to signing a lease on two adjacent bays there.

If the deal goes through, Kiersky plans to knock out a wall separating the two bays to create one 4,500-square-foot space, with higher ceilings and much better HVAC.

“It will be about the same size as the [original] Hi-Tone, but, with the ability to remake the space, it’s going to allow for a larger capacity,” says Kiersky, estimating a 600-person capacity, which might allow for booking bands that had outgrown the Poplar location.

Kiersky is attracted to the idea of being able to design his own club.

“It just got to the point where the building itself was something I couldn’t deal with,” he says. “One of the exciting parts about this new space is we’ll have a blank chalkboard. We can do whatever we want.”

Along those lines, Kiersky envisions a slightly larger stage at the back of the club, rather than the Hi-Tone’s odd small stage in the front corner. He imagines a bar in the middle of the room to reduce congestion. He plans on a separate smoking lounge to reduce in-and-out traffic and give patrons a place to watch a Grizzlies game even while bands are playing.

What he doesn’t envision is a full-time kitchen — he says the new club would be called the Hi-Tone, sans “Café” — or booking bands every night. He sees the bar/lounge open every day, with the rest of the venue holding concerts four to five days a week. And he’s excited about the potential for integration with other tenants, especially the Crosstown Arts space, which has already booked no-alcohol/all-ages shows with a 125- to 150-person capacity.

“There are a lot of bands that I really enjoy that in Memphis on a Tuesday might draw 30 people. Doing it in a 600-person room makes it look really dead to the band and to us,” Kiersky says. “Having a smaller space that’s a two-second walk down and still having the lounge space will be great.”