Tag: Murphy’s

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Evil Endurance

CREDIT: Don Perry

Few bands have helped shape the landscape of Memphis metal over the past years like Evil Army. As the landlord of the Armory, Rob Wilkerson opened up the one-car garage in his house to bands that likely weren’t welcome anywhere else. Evil Army were on nearly every bill. And while the Armory closed long ago, its rough-around-the-edges spirit lives on in Evil Army. After dropping their incredible self-titled record in 2006 through Get Revenge Records, Evil Army gained a national following, one that grew even greater when Hells Headbangers rereleased the album to a much larger audience.

That’s when things got weird. After a few run-ins with the law and a questionable record deal offered by Housecore Records (Phil Anselmo’s vanity label), Evil Army sort of disappeared. The band never broke up, but they certainly took a hiatus, occasionally selling homemade CD-Rs and singles in between sporadic live performances. I caught up with Wilkerson to learn more about the history between the band and Housecore Records, and to shed some light on the release show for the band’s first non-single release in nine years, the aptly titled Violence and War EP.

The Memphis Flyer: Other than a couple limited singles, there hasn’t been an Evil Army 12-inch release since 2006. Why has it taken so long for you to put out another?

Rob Wilkerson: I’m not legally allowed to release another full-length unless Phil Anselmo releases it, because of the contract I signed. That’s the only reason we haven’t released another album. We have plenty of new songs to record, and we’ve been trying to get out of that contract for years. The first label that put out our record was called Get Revenge, and that guy helped us get a few shows on the West Coast, but when it came time to re-press it, he said he would rather give it to Hells Headbangers instead of re-pressing it himself.

So that’s how you linked up with the label Hells Headbangers from Cleveland. How is it OK for you to work with them if you’re still under contract at Housecore?

Legally, I’m not supposed to do anything with another label, but I don’t think either label is worried about it, honestly. I’ve emailed Phil [Anselmo] plenty of times being like “let’s do the record, we are ready,” but I never hear back from him. Last time I heard from him, I was buying copies of our first album from him, and I told him that my brother was out of jail now and wanted to do the record, but he just ignored that part. Hells Headbangers is a great label, and if I can ever get out from under this contract with Phil, they will do a proper full-length.

How many full-lengths was Phil Anselmo supposed to get from Evil Army?

The contract was only for one record, but it still hasn’t been completed. I only signed that contract because I was in a position where I really needed the money. It was supposed to be a one-album deal, but when Hells Headbangers re-pressed the first record, Phil told me we had breached the contract. He’s been holding that over my head ever since, even though he told me originally that it was cool. I’m hoping to get out of the contract. I have lawyers looking at it right now. I mean, one of the guys who signed that contract is dead now.

We actually attempted to record the full-length for Housecore long ago. We went down to Folsom, Louisiana, to record, and a hurricane hit, and we had to cancel recording the album. Then about a month later, our bassist, Bones, died.

So the record could have been done, and all this could have been behind you if it wasn’t for a hurricane?

We were only down there for a couple days recording for Housecore when we had to stop. Hurricane Gustav wasn’t supposed to be that bad, but we ended up having to evacuate the city. We haven’t been back down there since then.

How many records have you done with Hells Headbangers at this point?

Well, they have re-pressed the first full-length like three or four times, and they did the “Under Attack” seven-inch and the “I, Commander” seven-inch. I think that’s all, but we also have those first two singles that Alicja Trout put out.

You’ve been recording a lot of the newer Evil Army stuff yourself, did you record Violence and War?

Yep, I’ve been recording everything myself for a while now. It might not sound as good as going to a professional studio, but I also know exactly what I want to get out of a recording. I’m definitely getting better, but I still have a lot to learn. I learned a lot from Jay [Reatard] when he was still alive, but I never really knew how tiring recording could be until I started doing it myself.

Now that the new record is out, how often are you trying to tour?

We were pretty much just waiting on the new record to come out before hitting the road again. We played Hells Headbash Part 2, and that was really cool. There were metal bands there from all over the world. That was in September, when Violence and War was supposed to come out, but our record got pushed back because every pressing plant in the world is backed up right now. I’m working on a Midwest and East Coast tour, and I have someone working on a West Coast tour. I didn’t want to book all these shows on just a seven-inch, but now with the new EP out, we are ready to hit the road.

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Spray Paint Live at Murphy’s

Austin, Texas noise rockers return to Memphis this Thursday night for a show with locals NOTS and Strengths. Spray Paint are no strangers to Memphis (or Murphy’s for that matter), having played here multiple times including their memorable performance at Gonerfest 11. The Austin band often gets compared to UK post-punk pioneers Wire, which is a fine comparison, even if Spray Paint’s drummer Chris Stephenson hits the skins way harder than Robert “Gotobed” Grey (Wire’s drummer) ever did. The band has been around for the past few years, cranking out records for labels like Upset! the Rhythm and 12XU (run by Matador Records founder Gerald Cosloy) before settling with Monofonus Press for their second record of 2015, Dopers. The album will be officially released on October 23rd.

Recorded in California by Chris Woodhouse (The Blind Shake, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall), Dopers features eight tracks of noise-infused punk, and the recently premiered second track “Signal Master” indicated that Dopers could be a sleeper for one of the last great punk albums released this year. Thursday night’s show is the start of an East Coast tour for Spray Paint in support of the new album, and hopefully the band will have copies of Dopers for sale at the show.

Also on the bill is NOTS, who are about to go on a relatively long East Coast tour. The band recently had their breakout album We Are Nots re-released in the UK by Heavenly Recordings, and they plan to head to England sometime before the end of the year. Opening up the show is Strengths, a new-ish noise-rock band featuring Alyssa Moore, who was recently voted best sound person in Memphis in the staff picks of our “Best Of” issue.

Spray Paint, NOTS, Strengths, Thursday, October 8th, at Murphy’s, 9 p.m. $8.

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Music Music Blog

Solid Attitude at Murphy’s

Solid Attitude plays Murphy’s tonight.

Shake off your crappy Monday with a night of music from Solid Attitude, Toxie and Data Drums! Murphy’s is the place to be tonight, unless you’re one of those football types, in which case you can probably watch the game at Murphy’s before the show starts. Everybody wins! Check out music from all three bands below, then get to Murphy’s by 10 p.m. tonight with $5 in your hand. 

Solid Attitude at Murphy’s

Solid Attitude at Murphy’s (2)

Solid Attitude at Murphy’s (3)

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Music Music Features

GROOMS live at Murphy’s

Brooklyn’s noise-pop rockers GROOMS play Murphy’s on September 7th, as part of an extensive tour that takes the band into Canada and eventually through Europe. The band was conceived at the legendary (and now-defunct) Williamsburg venue Death By Audio, and they went through a couple of name-changes while honing their skills before settling on the name GROOMS. Like many bands that last past the five-year mark, GROOMS has gone through line-up changes, but that didn’t stop them from releasing their critically acclaimed Comb the Feelings Through Your Hair album last year. While “noise-pop from Brooklyn” might sound pretentious, there is an authenticity in the music made by founder Travis Johnson, Jay Heiselmann and Steve Levine (the actor from Better Call Saul) that recalls ’90s indie rock bands like Pavement, as well as cotemporary avant-garde artists like Mac DeMarco, and maybe even a little Ariel Pink (especially on their song “Cross Off”).

GROOMS

Locals China Gate will join GROOMS at Monday’s show, marking the second show in just over two weeks for the young indie rockers. China Gate features Conner Booth of Gimp Teeth, but don’t expect any pummeling hardcore from this relatively new Memphis band. Instead, China Gate play straightforward indie rock, with plenty of impressive guitar work bursting through each song. New-ish local hardcore band Kiljoy open the show.

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Music Music Features

Danny Kroha Live at Murphy’s

CREDIT: Danny Kroha

Danny Kroha of the ’90s garage-rock legends The Gories will play Murphy’s this Friday night. His latest album Angels Watching Over Me (released on Jack White’s Third Man Records) is a complete change in direction from the stomping garage rock that made The Gories one of the torchbearers of ’90s garage rock (along with Memphis’ own Oblivians). On Angels Watching Over Me, Kroha tries his hand at the banjo, dulcimer, diddley bow, washtub bass, jug, and mouth organ for his first release under his own name. Recorded in an 100-year-old vacant house in Detroit, Angels Watching Over Me features songs by Son House, I.D. Stamper, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Brother Will Hairston.

Danny Kroha

Danny Kroha

Also on the bill is Mississippi native Jake Xerxes Fussell, who released his debut album earlier this year on Paradise of Bachelors. Produced by William Tyler, Fussell’s first release is a 10-song collection of folk songs rife with storytelling techniques similar to Hiss Golden Messenger or George Daniel. Fussell has toured with Reverend John Wilkins (a Goner Fest favorite) and met up with William Tyler last year to begin working on his debut album.

Rounding out the evening is Shawn Cripps, the Memphis mastermind behind the Limes and frequent collaborator with Harlan T. Bobo and Time’s Chris Owen. Cripps has been scarce on the live-music scene lately, but his albums Tarantula and Rhinestone River (released on Goner Records) are proof that Cripps deserves attention whenever he decides to make a local appearance. Friday’s show should be on your radar for a number of different reasons, and we recommend getting to the gig early to catch Cripps do his thing. Advanced tickets are available at Goner Records for a reduced price. Otherwise, $8 gets you in.

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Music Music Blog

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus

Martin Savage Gang

There is a garage rock show every night this week in Memphis, and Murphy’s in Midtown is hosting most of them. The Blind Shake along with Nots and The Shieks drew a large crowd that you might expect on a weekend, but probably not on a Monday night.  Tonight, White Mystery, Hectors Pets, Dirty Fences, Loser Vision and Johnny Lowebow will take the stage, and tomorrow Martin Savage Gang (all the way from Stockholm) plays with MAMA, The James Godwin Situation and The Sueves. Check out some music from most of the acts playing over the next couple of days, and plan on spending the next two nights at Murphy’s. Both shows start at 9 p.m. sharp.

White Mystery:

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (2)

Hectors Pets:

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (3)

Dirty Fences:

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (4)

Martin Savage Gang:

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (4)

MAMA:


Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (5)

The Sueves:


NitetrotterTV Sessions///The Sueves from Deep Cover on Vimeo.

Murphy’s Brings the Ruckus (6)

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Music Music Features

The Blind Shake at Murphy’s

Minneapolis garage rockers the Blind Shake return to Memphis next week, just in time to celebrate the band’s new album that was released on Goner Records earlier this month. Led by brothers Jim and Mike Blaha, the Blind Shake have been riding the line between noise-rock and catchy punk for years. With six full-length albums and a smattering of singles under their belt from some of the biggest labels in the genre (Slovenly, Goner, Castle Face), the Blaha brothers aren’t just making noise for the hell of it, and a full U.S. tour last year with Thee Oh Sees solidified their place in the upper ranks of the garage rock genre. The Blind Shake have also collaborated on albums with psych rock royalty Michael Yonkers, and the band announced earlier this month that a collaboration in the form of a surf-rock album is currently in the works with John Reis of Drive Like Jehu and the Hot Snakes.

The Blind Shake

Also on the bill is the all-girl punk band Nots, who will be returning from their first tour across the eastern United States. Nots also have a new album out on Goner Records, but the band had to settle for “bootleg” LPs to bring on their tour as the record release date has been postponed until December. With or without physical copies of We Are Nots (the band’s debut record), Nots have been a force to be reckoned with lately, getting rave reviews from a whole list of underground music website that hipsters pretend not to check every few hours. Monday’s gig with the Blind Shake serves as a homecoming for the female four-piece, as the band is touring through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Rounding out the Monday night rock show are the Sheiks, who seem to be the go-to band these days to get a party started (or keep one going). Since moving out of their house and recording studio the Burgundy Ballroom, the Sheiks went on a two-month European tour with Jack Oblivian, and drummer Graham Winchester is preparing to have his debut solo record come out this winter.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Peek Into Bars’ Lost and Founds

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

So, apparently, one night or day (who knows?) somebody up and left their shoes at the Buccaneer. Interestingly enough, the shoes abandoned at the Bucc are Bucks, in classic taupe. The owner may have been drunk. Maybe he had flip flops on and was going to change into the Bucks. Maybe he was the one who brought the pillow in and left his bike helmet, too. Justin Fox Burks suggests that the pillow was for a drum set, but I like to imagine something far less logical.

All of this, of course, is mere speculation, gathered from the beery anthropology pit of the bar’s lost and found box, which in this case is a lost and found booth as well as a lost and found closet/office (“cloffice,” we are told).

Justin Fox Burks

Candice Corum at the Buccaneer in the “cloffice”

A couple weeks ago I lost my wallet, and then I found my wallet. Somewhere in between, I called the Blue Monkey where I had lunch and am told they don’t have it. Desperately, I described the wallet, as if mere adjectives will conjure it up. “Oh, honey,” the woman on the phone told me, “all we’ve got are sunglasses and car keys.” This made me laugh because I figured this was true of all lost and found boxes. So I decided to check.

And, yes indeed, there are a lot of glasses (the Bayou has the most stylish) and car keys. (We even had reports of cars “lost” at two places.) Somebody left meds at Alex’s (nothing fun, we checked) and yet another person left a full cosmetics bag. If you can’t find your phone charger or music stand, you might check Murphy’s.

Justin Fox Burks

Benny Carter at Murphy’s

But mostly, it’s clothes — an array of shirts and jackets and sweaters and scarves. There is a swell tie with whales on it at Alex’s. At the Buccaneer, beyond the shoes, we unearth sweaters and jackets and a sweet-looking scarf. At Murphy’s, there’s a cool vintage leather jacket, a North Face jacket, and tons of sweaters and shirts.

It was also at Murphy’s where we witness an amazing reunion. “That’s my umbrella,” a man says. But then he comes over to the pile of lost and found stuff and picks up the umbrella, looks it over, and decides, “That’s not mine.”

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Music Music Features

Thursday Night Thrash

Over the past few months, the weeknight show has made a heavy comeback, with some of the biggest shows in the underground music community taking place during the week and not on the traditional Friday and Saturday nights. This week is no different, as Murphy’s is offering up a pre-music fest gig that boasts two impressive punk bands, Nots and Buldgers, opening for New Orleans’ garage punkers Babes.

Googling a band called Babes proves almost impossible, which puts them in a category with other internet-proof bands like Girls and Merchandise. But if the name leaves a shroud of mystery, the music certainly does not. Babes play fast and fun punk rock-and-roll, and there’s definitely a nod to the Memphis and New Orleans super group the Bad Times in their sound. There are no frills or hang-ups here, just the same riffs blasted over and over on top of a primitive beat. It’s a formula that’s worked for everyone from the Ramones to the Reatards, and it works here, too.

While it’s fair to call Nots and Buldgers punk music, it should be pointed out that they come from two very different sides of the genre. While Buldgers bludgeon the listener with fast and heavy hardcore riffs, Nots rely on the same tactics that bands like Rakketax perfected in the 1970s. With sharp guitar stabs and repetitive vocals, Nots don’t take the same hardcore approach to song writing that Buldgers do, but the songs still feature a jagged edge and enough snot to fill a tissue. Buldgers also have some familiar faces in the hardcore scene, with members who have played in No Comply and Hosoi Bros. — Chris Shaw

Nots, Buldgers, and Babes will perform at Murphy’s, Thursday, May 1st.

Doors open at 9 p.m. $5.

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Music Music Features

Just Passing Through

CREDIT: Monique Crabb

In a few weeks, thousands of bands will descend upon Austin, Texas, like vultures on something freshly dead. The streets will run rampant with skinny jeans and Pabst Blue Ribbon, and no one within a five-mile radius of downtown Austin will be safe from the number of musicians, photographers, promoters, and music business hot shots lurking on the streets.

Started in 1987 as a small music festival with the goal of exposing the music industry to unsigned talent, South by Southwest (SXSW) has turned into the mother of all live-music spectacles, with thousands of bands expected to perform this year.

Luckily for music fans, the city of Memphis serves as a pit stop for many coming to and from SXSW, meaning that many of the festival’s acts will be performing in familiar local venues. While this list is in no way comprehensive, here’s a run-down of some of the shows happening in Memphis over the next week.

Hi-Tone, Monday, March 10th, 8 p.m. $8: The week of shows in Memphis starts off Monday night at the Hi-Tone, as Ohio’s Swearing’ at Motorists take the stage. Around for more than 15 years, this two-piece has been playing “low-fi” music since before it was cool, and fans of the Grifters or Pavement should take note. Also playing are the Shine Brothers, a band that has been touring seemingly non-stop since their album Hello Griefbirds was released in 2013. The Shine Brothers also feature ex-members of Indie heavyweights the Black Angels.

Hi-Tone Small Room, Tuesday, March 11th, 10 p.m. $7: Headlining the first ever show in the Hi-Tone’s back room is Cleveland’s Lamont Thomas under his noise rock alias Obnox. Also joining the fray is Columbus, Ohio, noisemakers Unholy Two, along with locals Manateees and recent Goner-Records signees the Nots.

The Buccaneer Lounge, Tuesday, March 11th, 8 p.m. $5: Comprised of Kelley Deal (of the Breeders,) and Mike Montgomery (of Ampline), R. Ring boasts a super-group lineup that probably won’t be playing in such intimate spaces like The Buccaneer for very long. Also on the bill are locals Toxie, along with singer-songwriter Dave Cousar and Pittsburgh’s Go To Beds.

Hi-Tone, Wednesday, March 12th, 8 p.m., $10: While Chuck Mosley might not be a household name, his resume of playing in heavy bands like the Bad Brains and Faith No More is second to none. With his group the Vanduls Ugainst Alliteracy, Mosley has been preaching the rap-rock gospel across the nation.

Hi-Tone, Thursday, March 13th, 8 p.m. $8: Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires return to Memphis Thursday night. A nice compliment to the roots rock scene in Memphis that features Valerie June and Amy LaVere, Lee Bains III sounds like he could have cooked up any of his southern hymns in Memphis instead of his hometown of Birmingham. Label mates the Dirty Streets are also on the bill.

Murphy’s, Friday, March 14th, 8 p.m. $5: If you find yourself begging for more touring band action, Mouth Reader and Stale Phish will be performing at Murphy’s along with locals Gimp Teeth and Special Victims Unit. Although they’re not on tour for SXSW, Mouth Reader still puts on a hell of a live show, and Murphy’s seems like the perfect venue for such an occasion.

Hi-Tone, Saturday, March 15th, 5 p.m. $15: Around since the early ’90s, Clenched Fist put Memphis hardcore punk on the map along with bands like Raid and Copout. The band’s first show in quite some time also boasts new locals Reserving Dirtnaps and a lineup of national hardcore bands: Lifeless, Criminal Instinct, Chaos Order, Bad Habits, Nothing Til Death, and Bail.

Hi-Tone, Sunday March 16th, 8 p.m. $10: On tour in support of their new album, Singles, Future Islands is also scheduled to make an appearance at Coachella this year, making the Hi-Tone gig a cheap opportunity to see this buzz band.