Three local heavyweights will join forces this Friday for a blowout to remember at The Buccaneer. While The Sheiks and James and the Ultrasounds have been playing consistently for sometime now, a rare appearance by The Warble should make for a memorable evening. Check out videos from each band playing below, and make sure you get to The Buccaneer on Friday the 13th with $5 bucks in your hand by 9 p.m.
Those looking for a summer anthem to serve as the soundtrack to late night parties and questionable decision making need look no further than “Tip Top,” the new single from local garage rockers The Sheiks. We recently profiled Frank McLallen for all the hard work he puts into the local music scene, and he told us that despite being as busy as he is, The Shieks are his main focus. Head over to Black Lodge Video tonight to catch The Sheiks in person, and be sure to pick up the Tip Top single that is officially out today to take a piece of the party home with you.
The Sheiks, Moving Finger and Thelma and The Sleaze play Black Lodge Video, Friday April 11, 9pm doors, Free Admission.
For the Flyer‘s “Bright Ideas” issue, we asked nine Memphians this question: If you were given carte blanche to make whatever changes in Memphis you thought were needed, what would you do?
First up is local blogger and Internet radio host Rachel Hurley, who has a thought or two on college radio.
“WUMR 91.7 FM is the radio station run by the University of Memphis. At present, it has an all-jazz format. I may be going out on a limb here, but I have doubts that the station is very popular among the school’s students.
“If I had the power, I would change WUMR to a station with a more eclectic format. I would keep some of the programming but would update the majority of it to music genres more popular with the school’s student demographic.
I’ve been told time and time again that the lack of a college radio station with any kind of finger on the pulse of the local or national independent music scene hinders us, not only in bringing acts to the area (college radio playlists are often used to forecast the popularity of musicians before they book their tour), but it leaves the entire region to be influenced only by the bland, uninspiring, over-programmed corporate radio that crowds our dials now. Shouldn’t we expect a little bit more from our university station?
“This city screams to the world at every opportunity that we are the ‘birthplace of rock-and-roll’ and ‘home of the blues,’ but it rarely works toward instilling the pride that should come along with that into its own citizens.
“Maybe our student population is a good place to start. Every time I come across a Daily Helmsman (the U of M’s student newspaper), I see 18 stories about the Tigers, but rarely do I see three words written about any type of music going on in Memphis. The median age of the people I come into contact with at local rock shows is 30. The 18- to 24-year-olds who should be filling these shows seem to be uninformed about the great venues and local talent that flood this city.
“There was a study released not too long ago that revealed three major growth markets in Memphis. One was distribution, another was biotech, and the last was music.
“A well-programmed, well-connected station run by students with a passion for our homegrown music could have an exponential effect. When it comes to the business of music in our fair city, Memphis needs to go back to school. “
Because Memphis music is so consumed by its roots heritage — blues, soul, rockabilly, garage-rock, alt-country — creative success can often be had by fighting against those expectations. In recent years, artists such as Snowglobe, The Coach and Four, Lost Sounds, and Jay Reatard (among others) have made some of the most exciting local music outside the boundaries of what most listeners immediately associate with Memphis music. And so it is with The Third Man.
The Third Man is composed of multi-instrumentalists Jake Vest and elder brother Toby Vest, guitarist/keyboardist Jeff Schmidtke, bassist/keyboardist/trombonist Dirk Kitterlin, and drummer Preston Todd. At this juncture, the band is probably better known to local music fans by its original name: Augustine.
“There is a Hawaiian nü-metal band called Augustine,” says Jake Vest, explaining the name change. “They sound like P.O.D. or Disturbed and sent us a few e-mails that stated they were about to go on tour and if we didn’t change our name, they would take us to court.” Something else also helped the band with their decision: “All of their e-mails were in all-caps, and I don’t like it when people send us e-mails in all-caps,” Vest says.
Along with a name taken from the classic 1949 film that stars Orson Welles, another noticeable change came with the sound of the band’s new album, Among the Wolves.
When they were known as Augustine, these local faves probably deserved a few of the Radiohead comparisons with which they were saddled. But, as the Third Man, the band has dialed down that frame of reference with an incredibly realized, catchy blend of ’70s hard rock, bluesy boogie, and ’60s psychedelia. This bevy of interesting influences does wonders with the band’s lingering indie-rock elements, emerging as a best-case scenario of what might happen if Scandinavian cult favorites Dungen were, well, from the South.
“The Stones’ Exile on Main Street was a big influence on the making of this record, as was the Love, Peace, and Poetry series of compilations, especially the Brazilian one,” explains Jake Vest. Each volume of the Love, Peace, and Poetry compilations, released by Normal Records, showcases a selection of late-’60s/early-’70s garage/psychedelic tracks from a particular country or continent. But a local influence in the same vein also provided inspiration for the Third Man’s current direction: underground Memphis rock band Moloch.
“I love that self-titled album by Moloch from ’69,” says Vest, a longtime friend of Ben Baker, son of the late Moloch guitarist and Memphis music legend Lee Baker.
The Third Man is a team effort (all of the members are in their early-to-mid 20s), though the Vest brothers form the songwriting core. “At this point, my brother and I come up with the basic ideas for the songs, which we then bring to the band for everyone to work out,” Jake says.
Keyboards, a Mellotron, and a 12-string acoustic guitar are among the instruments that take a front seat on Among the Wolves. “We were going with a more organic sound with this record, but it’s a natural progression,” Jake continues. “You can hear those instruments creeping in on the Augustine album.”
Augustine’s 2005 debut Broadcast was released to local critical acclaim on the Makeshift Music imprint and was recorded at Easley/McCain Studios. Among the Wolves will be self-released and was recorded at Young Avenue Sound. Continuing with the band’s DIY approach, the Third Man plans on self-releasing future albums, and they are in the midst of constructing their own practice space and studio.
To support Among the Wolves, the band plans on organizing a tour in early 2008 around a performance at Austin’s South By Southwest Music Festival.
The Morning End
Rusty Lemon
(Sour Music)
This six-song, 20-minute EP from popular Midtown bar band Rusty Lemon (you can find them frequently at the Blue Monkey) follows up last year’s eponymous LP but is really a reinvention. For record number two, frontman Rusty Lemmon has recruited an entirely new batch of bandmates, most notably guitar hotshot Kirk Smithhart (a former Albert King Award winner for “most promising guitarist” at the Blues Foundation’s annual International Blues Challenge). Lemmon indulges in the kind of love-’em-or-hate-’em big rock vocals that have put post-grunge hard-rock bands such Nickelback and Creed on the radio, and Smithhart gives the band a big rock guitar sound to match. This record also expands the band’s arena-rock palette. Smithhart provides a hooky riff on “Changes of Mind,” a vaguely bluesy, vaguely “Southern rock” number that evokes the Black Crowes. And Lemmon’s vocals on “Second Chance” veer into more soul-oriented, near-falsetto territory that evokes Maroon 5 or Jeff Buckley. (“Don’t Let Me Down”)
— Chris Herrington
Grade: B
Rusty Lemon plays a CD-release party forThe Morning End Saturday, November 18th, at the Complex. The United and Further Down open.
Hot Girl in the Limo
For Her And The Snow
(Shangri-La Projects)
Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter Joe Pesti would seem to be an odd choice to be featured on the first collection of new material released by local label Shangri-La in years. But this debut album from Pesti’s band For Her And The Snow is a batch of melodic, twisty indie-rock that sounds something like a poppier, possibly less brainy variant on the style of onetime Shangri-La artist David Shouse (Grifters, Those Bastard Souls, Bloodthirsty Lovers). Recorded locally at Ardent Studios with Doug Easley at the helm and Memphis musicians such as Steve Selvidge, Paul Buchignani, and Rick Steff lending support. (“Parking Garage,” “Waiting for You,” “Pastel Shapes in the Sky”) — CH
Grade: B+
Greg Hisky and His
Dixie Whisky Flyers
Greg Hisky and His
Dixie Whisky Flyers
(self-released)
Greg Hisky is a longtime local rock veteran who dons rhinestones and cowboys boots each year for a Hank Williams tribute concert at the P&H Café. Here, with a band that includes local guitar ace Jim Duckworth, Hisky delves further into the classic country catalog on a cover album that roams from beloved standards such as “Crazy Arms” and “Walkin’ the Floor Over You” to more obscure early country and rockabilly gems. The band seems to be pursuing an echo-y, old-timey sound that evokes the ’50s-era music they’re covering, but instead it more likely evokes the way that music is heard over the radio in nostalgic movies, such as The Last Picture Show. Rather than endearing, the sonics here are too often distracting. This 15-song album is half studio recordings, half live performances at the Buccaneer. The live stuff is more immediate and suggests what a good time Hisky and his band must be in the flesh. (“Lonesome Me,” “Cash on the Barrelhead,” “Walkin’ the Floor Over You”) — CH
Grade: B
Fried Glass Onions Vol. 3:
Memphis Rocks the Beatles
Various Artists
(Inside Sounds)
Local label Inside Sounds goes to the well one more time in its Fried Glass Onions series, which records Memphis artists covering Beatles songs. Where the first two volumes featured primarily blues and roots acts blending the Memphis sound into Lennon-McCartney copyrights, this volume is more straightforward, with primarily local rock acts taking more straightforward stabs (or sometimes not — see Candice Ivory’s arty slow-jam version of “Eight Days a Week” or Tim Simmons’ speed metal “Eleanor Rigby”) at classic material. One terrific exception is David Brookings’ take on the early-period gem “I’ll Cry Instead.” With Amy LaVere doing her best Bill Black on upright bass and Paul Taylor playing D.J. Fontana and Scotty Moore on drums and lead guitar, respectively, Brookings’ version locates the Sun influence at the core of the Beatles’ early sound. (“I’ll Cry Instead” — David Brookings; “She Said, She Said” — Steve Selvidge) — CH
Grade: B+