Tag: Rocket Science Audio

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Music Music Blog

Rocket Science Variety Show #29

It could be argued that the Memphis underground music scene has never enjoyed as consistent and long-running a booster as the Rocket Science Audio Variety Show. Thursday night will mark the 29th time Robin Pack has assembled his long-running and resilient labor of love (for local music) in the form of a multi-format showcase and free online “webisode”. Any local entity that creates 29 of ANYTHING for the benefit of artistic/creative posterity should be applauded. The variety show has survived early-2016 rumors of a possible hiatus (or end to the production altogether) and has diligently powered through the scaling-down to an episode every 2 – 3 months, as opposed to what must have been a stressful and challenging monthly schedule that defined much of the show’s history up to #24/#25 late last year. Thursday night’s extravaganza will feature Secret Service, Chickasaw Mound, comedian Hunter Sandlin, puppets, magic with Mitchell, and Pickle TV.

Justice Naczycz’s Secret Service was formed during the early part of the last decade when he was concurrently occupying the guitarist slot in Jay Reatard’s best known and busiest “side project” – the onstage catastrophe known as the Final Solutions. The Secret Service’s economic arena-garage-butt-rock was omnipresent on local bills for much of the 00s before going quiet in recent years, but the reemergence of Naczycz’s power-trio should be cause for celebration and there should be plenty of onstage energy at hand.

Profiled via a Flyer feature just a couple of months ago in May, Jesse Davis’ (son of local rock stalwart, Jimmie Davis) Chickasaw Mound is a shambling, sugary, reverb-loving and sometimes melancholy DIY pop-rock package that brings to mind the more classically melody-oriented corner of the contemporary garage-pop/punk underground. Featuring a sort of local super-group-as-backing band in drummer Ben Bauermeister (Magic Kids/A55 Conductor/Toxie), Keith Cooper (The Sheiks), Coletrane Duckworth (Aquarian Blood and son of Memphis legend, Jim Duckworth) and a focus on Davis’ soulful (“Soul-Rock” is an oft bandied-about term) pipes, the band has an undeniable Memphis feel to it. But to hint at a distinctly non-Memphis influence, look no further than the name of track three on the Chickasaw Mound’s Bandcamp-only album, Magic Sounds of Our Sanctuary: “I Wish My Girlfriend Was Belinda Butcher” (look her up in lieu of further exposition). Points for that one on title alone. This release was made available almost a year and a half ago, but Chickasaw Mound should now have a self-released 7” in the works to serve as a proper debut.
   
Local funny man Hunter Sandlin’s variety of inspired, over-the-top self-deprecating sad sack stand-up will be a fine addition to the evening, as should RSVS staples “Magic with Mitchell”, the show’s resident puppets and their problems, plus of course, Pickle TV’s mindf*** montage intermissions of heavily-altered (obscure to household name) TV commercials, programs and stock footage. Episode 27’s segment that begins with “Offensive Cat Commercial” (posted below and about as workplace appropriate as blasting the dialogue from Scarface) and morphs into a period-confused country club advertisement is highly recommended to anyone with a soul, as this near-perfect below-the-belt marriage of stupid and brilliant recently had this writer laughing obnoxiously at the computer screen and rewinding incessantly.

RSVS has always operated as a free event and has boasted a level of production quality (especially regarding the live music performances….which makes sense considering who’s behind the show) that beats the hell out of most if not all of what one might come across on cable-access. To assist with making each hour-plus package happen, the proverbial hat was passed to give the bands and comedians a little something to take home, but Thursday’s event will have a $5 cover charge; a more-than-fair asking price for what you get and insurance towards a future of further episodes.

$5 cover, arrive at Rocket Science Audio studio no later than 8:50. Broadcast begins at 9:00 pm prompt. Free on the internet here.

Rocket Science Variety Show #29

Rocket Science Variety Show #29 (2)

Rocket Science Variety Show #29 (3)

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Music Music Blog

Manateees at Rocket Science Audio

Abe White of the Manateees

Rocket Science Audio will stream their 24th variety show tomorrow (Thursday, August 27th). If you’re not familiar with what Rocket Science Audio has been doing over the last two years, read our stories on the recording studio and show space here and here. The Manateees will be appearing on the show along with the Rickey and Aimee band, and a comedian by the name of Paper Sack Brown. The show is free to attend, but space is limited so get there early. As always, the show can be viewed as it happens at rocketscienceaudio.com. Check out the creepy Manateees video below.

Manateees at Rocket Science Audio

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Music Music Blog

Mark Edgar Stuart and Toy Trucks at Rocket Science Audio

Mark Edgar Stuart plays Rocket Science Audio Thursday night.

Rocket Science Audio will premier their 21st episode this week, with performances by Mark E. Stuart and Toy Trucks, and comedy by William Montgomery. The premise of Rocket Science Audio is simple, pick two bands that normally wouldn’t play together, throw them in a live recording studio with 50 of their closest friends, and then stream the whole experience live on the internet. Check out a song from Mark Edgar Stuart below, then watch online this Thursday or attend the concert in person, but remember, seating is limited.

Mark Edgar Stuart and Toy Trucks at Rocket Science Audio

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Opinion Viewpoint

Played Out

It has been obvious to anyone who takes a moment to look that funding the Memphis Music Commission has been a waste of money for some time.

The biggest problem with the commission is that it treats other Memphis music organizations like competition and duplicates their efforts in an attempt to appear relevant. The best example is the fact that they think they need to provide local musicians with performance opportunities. There are plenty of clubs, house shows, and organizations, such as Rocket Science Audio, Goner Records, Ardent Studios, Memphis Rap, and Ditty TV that are better equipped to accomplish that mission and have a greater reach.

The commission’s amateurish performance videos have a very low number of views on YouTube, which are tangible, measurable stats for what these programs are contributing to Memphis music. They have no platform, fans, or following. Who do they think they are helping? 

To put it into perspective, my former organization, LiveFromMemphis.com, has been dormant for three years. In our time, we filmed and recorded thousands of Memphis music performances. The content we created is still generating views on our YouTube channel. Around 1.4 million views and counting. If Live From Memphis had been granted $250,000 a year (the Music Commission’s annual budget from the city), we could have more than quadrupled our output, as well as our reach. Can you imagine what would happen if MemphisRap.com, Goner Records, or RocketScienceAudio.com were similarly funded?

Then there was the not-for-profit Memphis Music Foundation, which, over four or five years, provided many of the same services as the Music Commission while blowing through somewhere around $4 million of private funds. Can anyone tell us what those funds did for the local music industry?

As for Councilman Jim Strickland’s proposal to fund Memphis Music Town, how will they be different? While I agree with Strickland that the Memphis Music Commission, in its current state of over-paid staff and lack of any measurable accountability, should not continue to receive funding, I fail to see how simply shifting tax dollars to a not-for-profit organization solves the problem. One glimpse at the Memphis Music Town web presence tells me that it’s a bureaucratic bad idea.

Why continue to provide educational resources to musicians when there’s no infrastructure for success? What’s the point of equipping musicians with industry knowledge when very few opportunities to put that knowledge to use exist? Without a focus on developing local industry, we are simply better preparing our musicians for when they eventually leave town in search of opportunity.

Memphis musicians don’t need another resource center that teaches them how to manage a MySpace account or to sign them up for antiquated organizations such as NARAS. Memphis certainly does not need to turn over its only source of music funds to an organization serving only one genre of music.

Memphis musicians need innovation. They need a way to be seen and heard beyond local showcases at the Hard Rock Cafe. They need an army of online content creators with as many avenues to get their music out to the world as possible. There are shows going on in all parts of the city. Go film them. Go record them. Help them get their stuff on the internet, where fans discover music today.

Don’t give millions of dollars to one organization. Instead, fund smaller, grassroots content creators, because you never know when one of those may blow up into something bigger. Maybe if Darius Benson (a 20-something content creator and the cover story subject of the Flyer’s May 7th issue) had received local funding or had an infrastructure to help move his career forward, he’d be staying in Memphis instead of heading to Los Angeles in search of greener pastures.

Fans don’t get behind an educational institution. They get behind artists, their favorite bloggers, records labels, studios, and TV/web shows. It takes a lot less capital to fund these kinds of style-curators and content producers and raises the community as a whole.

Please don’t throw money away on old industry or a not-for-profit educational model. Fund excellence, fund risk takers, fund innovators. The Music Commission, Music Foundation, Memphis Music Town or whatever they may call themselves in the future, are the old guard from a dying industry model. Getting rid of them is a no-brainer. Fold Memphis music and film into business and economic development and quit treating music like a charity case.

Instead, invest in its development by putting money in the hands of artists, content developers, and the infrastructure that directly supports them.

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Music Music Features

Rocket Science Audio Lives On

CREDIT: Chris Shaw

There are people involved in the Memphis music scene who do things simply because they need to be done. Robin Pack and Kyle Johnson are those types of people. No one asked them to start live streaming and archiving concerts in Memphis, but you’d be hard-pressed to attend a big local show in Memphis and not see Kyle, Robin, and their dedicated crew running sound, streaming the concert, or both.

Since starting their variety show two years ago, some of the biggest names in local music have played their studio (the Oblivians, Grifters, Gringos), with each iconic performance streamed live and then archived for music fans across the globe to enjoy. We caught up with Rocket Science Audio co-founder Robin Pack to get a little bit of the backstory of his company and to learn more about what the Midtown recording studio has planned for its 20th episode.

Chris Shaw

Rocket Science Audio headquarters on Madison Avenue

Flyer: First off, can you talk about how the variety show has evolved since it started two years ago?

Robin Pack: When we first started the variety show we didn’t have any pre-recorded segments or skits. The idea was to just have live music and that’s it. When we started introducing the skits and different pre-recorded segments, people didn’t really know how to respond to it, I guess because they were under the impression that they were only going to be seeing live music. It got to be so awkward that we decided to cut down on the comedian segments and focus more on the music. But since we needed to fill up time, we started making our own clips and segments to throw in there too. It’s a variety show, so we try to include everything from puppet shows to magicians, and the segments have evolved into people talking about there jobs, which is very similar to the kind of small talk that goes on at local shows.

So the segments are almost like
an extension of meeting people at a local show?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, inevitably everyone ends up talking about work when you are at a show and waiting for the next band to play. The idea for those segments is just to give someone a few beers and let them talk, and we usually get some pretty good footage out of it.

You guys have been on a short break after doing the variety show almost every month for the past two years. What do you have planned for your 20th episode?

We are constantly trying to do new stuff with the show, and having Mancontrol here will be really fun because we’ve never had a band like them play our space. It’s basically become ADD theater at this point, and we are still trying to book bands that would otherwise never play together. The goal moving forward is to expose every part of the Memphis music scene fairly, even if a band isn’t our particular cup of tea. Everyone making music in Memphis deserves to be put out there. We’ve been talking about trying to have a one-man band show, and instead of having the traditional two bands we’d have four or five one-man bands. We also want to bring more out-of-town bands in. We’ve done that a little bit, but I would like to get a lot more touring bands through.

Who is on the 20th episode?

Nots is playing, and they are a band we’ve wanted to get on here for a long time. They’ve been touring so much lately that it’s been hard to get them nailed down. We were hoping to get them in last month but because of South By Southwest it just didn’t work out. They are a band that we’ve been excited about for a long time, so we are stoked that they are playing. We’ve done some stuff for them before like transferring stuff from a cassette tape and making tracks digital, but they put on an amazing performance that I think people will be excited to see.

I think this show also does a good job of showing how incestuous the Memphis music scene is, as well. Bill Curry [local drummer] has been on this show three times in three different bands, and Dave Shouse from Mancontrol has also played the show with his other band the Grifters. It’s also important to recognize the comedians that come through because they are really important to what we do here. The whole point of a variety show is to expose people to a bunch of different stuff, so I always tell people that if they don’t like something that’s on, just wait five minutes and something completely different will be on camera. Comedians have been assaulted by full beer cans here. They’ve had to put up with a lot, but it’s important for them to have another venue where they can come and perform.

How does Rocket Science Audio compare to local podcasts and streaming services that focus on Memphis music?

One of the comedians who will be coming on the 20th anniversary show is Gil Worth, who also runs the popular OAM podcasts. The only real difference I guess is that our stuff is always 100 percent live. We don’t go back and edit anything, and that gives you a very authentic feel. There are places that do live streaming like Ditty TV, but they aren’t a recording studio. We are trying to do something that hasn’t been done in Memphis, and that means there will be a lot of trial and error. We are always trying to do one more thing.

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Music Music Blog

Jack Oblivian at the Buccaneer Saturday Night

CREDIT: Don Perry

Don Perry

Jack Oblivian returns to a familiar place this Saturday when he performs with Data Drums and the Tennessee Screamers at the Buccaneer. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 20 years, Jack Oblivian got his start in The End (Punk from Corinth, MS) before doing time in the Compulsive Gamblers, The Knaughty Knights, The Oblivians and about 50 other bands. Jack practically has the keys to the city at this point and shouldn’t be missed, but make sure to get to the Buccaneer early to check out Data Drums (featuring Chuck Vicious of the Oscars) and The Tennessee Screamers. $5 gets you in.  The video below from Rocket Science Audio should hold you over until its time to rock.

Jack Oblivian at the Buccaneer Saturday Night

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Gonerfest 11: Blood, Sweat, and Beers

The 11th edition of Gonerfest roared into Midtown last weekend, with punk, garage, power pop, noise, and just plain weird bands from all over the world converged on the Bluff City in an annual gathering of the tribes that has gotten bigger and more exciting each year. Festivities kicked off in the Cooper-Young Gazebo with New York’s Paul Collins Beat. 

Gonerfest 11: Blood, Sweat, and Beers

I spent the weekend embedded with the Rocket Science Audio crew, who were live streaming the performances to people from as far away as Australia watching on the web. I’ve done this for several years, formerly with Live From Memphis, and this year we brought the full, multi-camera experience to the audience. It’s a lot of fun, in that I get to be up close and focused on the music, but also quite grueling. 

The Rocket Science Audio van outside Goner Records.

The highlights of Thursday night at the Hi Tone were Ross Johnson, Gail Clifton, Jeff Evans, Steve Selvidge, Alex Greene, and a host of others playing songs from Alex Chilton’s chaotically beautiful 1979 solo album Like Flies On Sherbert. The mixture of old school Memphis punks who had played on the album and the best of the current generation of Memphis music made for an incredible listening experience.

The Grifters’ Dave Shouse on the Rocket Science Audio livestream.

Thursday night’s headliners were 90s Memphis lo-fi masters The Grifters. Recently reunited after more than a decade of inactivity, Dave Shouse, Scott Taylor, Trip Lamkins, and Stan Galimore have their groove back. At the Hi Tone, they even sounded—dare I say it—rehearsed. 

I couldn’t make Friday night due to another commitment, but Friday afternoon at The Buccaneer hosted a great collection of bands, starting off with a blast from Memphis hardcore outfit Gimp Teeth. 

Cole Wheeler fronts Gimp Teeth at the Buccaneer.

Next was one of the highlights of the festival: The return of Red Sneakers. Back at Gonerfest 5, the duo from Nara, Japan showed up unnannounced wanting to play the big show. When Jay Reatard cancelled, they got their chance and blew the roof off of Murphy’s in front of an unsuspecting crowd. This year, they did it again, only they were invited, and they substituted a soulful “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” cover for the smoking “Cold Turkey” they did five years ago. 

Yosei of Red Sneakers about to take the stage.

Afterwards, returning to the Rocket Science Audio van, we found that one of Red Sneakers’ drum sticks had flown over the fence and embedded itself into the earth. No one dared touch it. 

 

Red Sneakers drum stick, fully erect.

Buldgerz

Hardcore Memphis vets Buldgerz played a sweaty and confrontational set of hard and fast punk nuggets, followed by Mississippi’s Wild Emotions. 

The weather cooperated again the next day for a memorable afternoon show at Murphy’s. Two stages, one inside and one outside, alternated throughout the afternoon. 

Roy from Auckland, New Zealand’s Cool Runnings plays the indoor stage at Murphy’s under the old Antenna sign.

Goner Records co-owner Zach Ives sings with Sons Of Vom, as seen from the Rocket Science Audio webcast monitor.

There were many great performances on Saturday afternoon, but the most incredible was Weather Warlock, an experimental heavy noise act centered around a light-controlled synthesizer custom built by New Orleans’ mad genius Quintron. The cacuphony rose and fell as the light changed with the sunset, and Quintron and co-conspirator Gary Wong swirled around it with guitars and theremin, while a plume of smoke rose over the stage. 

Photographer Don Perry, AKA Bully Rook, dressed for Gonerfest.

Gonerfesters stumbled into the Hi Tone Saturday night, a little bleary from three days of rock, but with a lot of amazing music ahead of them. 

DJ Useless Eater keeps the crowd hopping at the Hi Tone.

Obnox

The highlight of the show for me was Nots. Fronted by steely-eyed, ex-Ex-Cult bassist Natalie Hoffman, the four piece arrived with something to prove. And prove it they did, with punishing, athletic songs delivered amid a shower of balloons and waves of reverb. 

The Nots, Charlotte Watson, Natalie Hoffman, Allie Eastburn, and Madison Farmer, backstage at the Hi Tone.

Austin, Texas No Wavers Spray Paint on the monitor Saturday night.

Detroit, Michigan’s Protomartyr on the Hi Tone stage.

English guitarist, songwriter, and ranter The Rebel delivers a solo set to a packed house.

Ken Highland and Rich Coffee of The Gizmos get bunny ears from their drummer after a celebratory closing set at Gonerfest 11.

The crowd, the largest I’ve ever seen at the Hi Tone, never flagged throughout the night, which ended with a reunion of The Gizmos, a seminal American band that developed something like punk in 1977 in the isolation of Bloomington, Indiana. The playing was loose, the mood buoyant, and the band vowed to not stay away for so long. And after a Gonerfest as great as this one, next year can’t come soon enough. 

[Ed Note: The first edition of this story incorrectly identified The Nerves “Hanging On The Telephone” as being written by Blondie.]

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Rocket Science Audio Rock for Love Telethon

Tonight at 8 pm Rocket Science Audio will be hosting a telethon to benefit the Church Health Center and Rock For Love Eight. Staying true to the theme that Rocket Science Audio has developed over the last two years, there will be comedy, live music and “all around tom foolery,” according to Rocket Science co-founder Robin Pack. visit www.rocketscienceaudio.com to stream the entire telethon for free. To get a feel for what’s in store for tonight, check out Rocket Science Audio performances by Memphis’ own Time and The Oblivians in the videos below.

Here’s the complete list of tonight’s performers and special guests:

Nick KnowledgeNick Hicks, The McStays featuring Lori and Jared McStay, Benny Elbows, Katrina Coleman, Joshua McLane, SUPER WITCH, J.D. Reager, Mark Stuart, Faith Ruch, Jason Pulley, Harry Koniditsiotis, vi, Ross Johnson ,and Many More! The telethon wil be hosted by Stephen and Michael Kline.