Tag: Shangri-La

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Music Record Reviews

Datadrums Celebrate LP Release At Shangri-La’s Sweat Fest 5 on Saturday

“I try to read it too deeply, everything becomes absurd,” intones local guitarist and singer Chuck Vicious on asyndeta, the new record by his band Datadrums, before ramping up to double-time: “Absurdity! It’s how you feel! It’s how you think! It’s how you believe!” It’s on the last track of the album, but could have easily been the first, summing up as it does the feel of the entire work.

“You know I like it when you hollow out my soul,” as one song announces. This is an LP that simultaneously laughs and rages at the arbitrary nature of existence. Conjuring up a sound and attitude reminiscent of the the Fall’s Mark E. Smith fronting the Stooges, with a bit of Clash-style chanting and rave-ups thrown in, the band rocks both earnestly and sardonically.

“Twenty! Twenty! Twenty! Twenty! Nine! Nine! Nine! Nine!” sings Vicious, as the band pounds away. Somehow it works, with the Da-Da lyrics setting up an anything-goes atmosphere that promises and delivers surprises.

Datadrums has been around for fourteen years  now, and the power of this record is a testament to the staying power of the classic lineup of bass, drums and dual guitars. The band makes the most of such instrumentation, with perfectly dialed-in, crunchy guitar tones, all with the spontaneous energy that comes from being recorded live. There are occasional flourishes of synth or walkie-talkie vocals, as on “Robot Repair,” but this affair is grounded in a kick ass rock band.

The band’s rock solid 70s hard rock sound, complemented by oblique lyrics and an unfussy recording and production style, is a perfect setup for the wry observations that do cut through the murk.  Perhaps keeping the band’s sounds relevant over such a stretch of years lies behind the lyrics of “Vacuume Sealed,” both a desperate demand and a plea:  “Please don’t throw me away. I’ll be fresh another day…”

asyndeta by Datadrums is out now on Also Tapered Records. Release party at Shangri-La Record’s Sweat Fest 5, Saturday, August 24 at 2 pm. Other bands include The Sheiks, The Heels, Louise Page, Risky Whispers, the Tennessee Screamers, and James Walker.

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Music Music Features

Holding On: Don Lifted Rises Above His Pain With “Alero”

CREDIT: Jarvis Hughes

The album that Memphis hip-hop artist Don Lifted drops this Thursday has been a long time in the making. Named after the car he drove when living through a particularly harrowing time, Alero will provide him no small measure of catharsis. After nearly seven years, Don Lifted will finally be able to exhale.

With neither the broad social commentary of Marco Pavé nor the street life debauchery of Yo Gotti, Don Lifted, aka Lawrence Matthews, takes his lyrics to a personal place to fashion a work of art-as-therapy. The album details a stressful period when Matthews and his high school girlfriend ventured east for college and they confronted the challenges of living away from home.

“The story takes place from September 2010 and into 2011. It was six months, but it felt like two years,” he recalls. “We just were clashing. But also it was just being thrown into the world, adulthood, alone. We both were going through a kind of hell. I slept in the car a lot. I was sick a lot, so I’d take cough medicine so I could record music, instead of being sniffly; so I could go to class, go to work.”

The car became a kind of sanctuary for Matthews. “Kappa, Sigma, Omega, Alpha, Kappa, them Deltas/ Futures, degrees and shelters and I am only a nigga/ Carpetbagger from Memphis, they’ll never see me as bigger/ I’m clapping, but I’m pretending, depression down to my tendons, these terrors, they cloud my vision.” So goes the first verse of the first song. And it’s all downhill from there.

Along the way, he struggles with his relationship, his boss, his school, and poverty. But he makes it clear that his hometown was no picnic either. “Family became opponents, all they repping is Memphis/ It offers nothing to poets, offers nothing to loners/ Wasn’t born in the system of 3-6, Elvis, and Jordans.”

Jarvis Hughes

Don Lifted

The struggles evoked in Alero also came as he tried to developed his musical skills. “I was trying to record a record in the closet of my dorm,” he says. “And my plan was to spend six months making the record, finish the record, then spend the next six months going back and forth to New York. I was gonna get on, get connections, meet people. And I got kicked outta school, so I didn’t get to do any of that.”

Instead, he returned home. But it wasn’t until much later that he could reflect on the experience creatively. In the intervening years, he found his voice as an artist, earning a degree from the University of Memphis. “My major was Studio Arts … but my main focus when I came out of college was painting. Now, it’s photography and video work.” Degree in hand, he turned inward to create Alero.
“I started the first song in November 2014, and I finished writing, recording, and producing it by the middle of 2015. And then spent the rest of 2015 just sitting on it, mixing it, being very meticulous.” This period was heavily influenced by his listening habits. “I’m attracted to Kanye West, Common, J Dilla’s production. … But the album I was listening to a lot around the album’s creation was Coldplay’s Ghost Stories. It was about his divorce. Very minimal. And there was a record by Dawn Golden, who I sampled twice.”

Performing such personal material now can still be difficult for Matthews, though he feels he’s gained some perspective on the pain. Listeners need not resign themselves to utter despair. By the final cut, “Holding On,” Matthews finds room for hope. “We’re not holding on for nothing” rings the track’s chorus, and at last it seems Don Lifted has drawn strength from his exile.
Alero will be available for download September 14th. The CD, including a deluxe booklet of lyrics and original photographs, is for sale exclusively at Shangri-La and Goner Records.

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Music Music Features

Being Good Pays Off

Roughly six years ago, former Memphian Jameson Schwieger was thumbing through the cassette bin at a thrift store on Summer Avenue. Along the way, one item in particular — an obviously homemade tape by the largely unknown local gospel/blues artist Johnnie Frierson — caught his eye.

“I went there a few times and bought random tapes,” says Schwieger, who is now a professional DJ and record dealer in Mankato, in addition to being a borderline obsessive record collector. “Because I buy so many random tapes, I actively chose not to buy this particular one.”

Instead, Schwieger chose to place the tape “on display” in a prominent position on the shelf, so that someone else might purchase it. But when he returned a few months later, it was still sitting where he left it.

“I saw it exactly where I placed it and knew I needed to buy it,” he says. “I can’t believe I ever thought twice about spending 50 cents for it.”

And that’s because when Schwieger got Have You Been Good to Yourself home and listened to it, he instantly realized he’d struck gold.

“On first listen I was amazed,” he says. “When you are digging that deep, this is exactly what you look for. Pure soul music.”

For those who don’t know, Johnnie Frierson was a longtime, hard-working Memphis musician who passed away in 2010. As a member of the Drapels, along with Marianne Brittenum, Wilbur Mondie, and his little sister, Mary Frierson — later to be known as Wendy Rene — he got his real break, cutting two largely unheard singles for Stax in the early ’60s. Neither really caught on, but the Friersons and company did. The group provided backing vocals on cuts by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, and Frierson penned songs for the Soulful Seven, Ollie & the Nightingales, and his kid sister.

Frierson also did some work at Willie Mitchell’s Royal Studios, even (credited as James Fry) fronting the legendary Hi Rhythm Section for the single “Tumbling Down,” which was released on Hi Records in 1968. But in 1970, Frierson was drafted into the United States Army and sent to Vietnam. By all accounts, the experience changed him, and not for the better — he struggled with mental health issues for the rest of his life.

Throughout the rest of his career, Frierson worked more sporadically. His last major project was a short-lived gospel group called Whole Truth, which he formed in 1975 with a pair of friends from high school. After that, he essentially worked musical odd jobs — he gigged around occasionally, sometimes sitting in with the Blues Alley Orchestra, hosted a gospel show on WEVL, and distributed his homemade cassette tapes (some released under his given name, some under the name Khafele Ajanaku).

A few years after discovering that copy of Have You Been Good to Yourself, Schwieger was working behind the counter at Shangri-La Records when a mutual acquaintance introduced him to Light in the Attic Records’ founder Matt Sullivan. (Light in the Attic is an imprint known for re-releasing lost and/or forgotten treasures. In 2012, the label was responsible for issuing a tremendous anthology on Frierson’s sister Wendy Rene.) Sullivan and Schwieger hit it off, and the two made plans to hang out and listen to records later back at Schwieger’s house.

“Jameson pulled out his cassette of Have You Been Good to Yourself, and everything changed,” Sullivan says. “[I was] mesmerized. I was immediately hooked.”

From there, it took very little convincing to get Sullivan and Light in the Attic behind the seven-song album, which was transferred and re-mastered from Schwieger’s single cassette copy for worldwide release on August 19th. It will mark the first time the material has been available on LP or in digital formats.

“No doubt this is one of my favorite things in our catalog,” Sullivan says.  “It’s one of those special albums where you feel like you’re in the room with the man, almost eavesdropping on an incredibly personal moment. He’s singing from the bottom of his heart and soul. Personally, it doesn’t get better than this.”

To celebrate the re-release of Have You Been Good to Yourself, Shangri-La Records is staging a free, in-store listening party this Friday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., hosted by local writer and Brooks Museum Associate Curator Andria Lisle. Lisle, who wrote the liner notes for both the Wendy Rene and Johnnie Frierson Light in the Attic releases, is as avid a supporter of Frierson’s music as anyone.

“Jameson scored big-time when he found this cassette. I got chill bumps listening to it for the first time, and still get [them],” she says. “Johnnie’s home recordings are so laid-back, yet so commanding. Matt and I talk quite a bit about other cassettes that Johnnie recorded and self-released in the 1990s. They’re out there somewhere!”

Have You Been Good to Yourself is out on Friday, August 19th.

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Music Music Features

Blasts of Static

Earlier this month, Fat Possum Records announced that the label would grant a long-overdue reissue campaign to the second and third Grifters full-lengths, 1993’s One Sock Missing and 1994’s Crappin’ You Negative (title taken from one of the best lines in Raising Arizona). Both albums, along with a slew of related 7″s and an EP, were originally released by our own Shangri-La Records but had fallen out of print during the post-millennial years, especially on vinyl.

The Grifters, formed by Stan Gallimore (drums), Tripp Lamkins (bass), Dave Shouse (vocals, guitar), and Scott Taylor (vocals, guitar) in 1990 out of the ashes of A Band Called Bud, had already hit the road hard and built a small nationwide following after the release of their 1992 debut So Happy Together. When they dropped sophomore effort One Sock Missing in 1993, the band garnered its next level of attention. Either unfairly lumped into the then-exploding Lo-Fi scene or the deconstructionist blues leanings of the also popular Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Grifters really sounded like very few of their contemporaries.

Dark, heavy, extremely noisy, fatalist, and often very catchy, the band made the absolute most out of the economical accommodations provided by Easley Studios, creating layer upon layer of noise pop in which there was actually quite a bit going on to the attentive ear. Printing Easley’s phone number in all of their liner notes was also a huge driving force in making the studio a major destination (Pavement, Sonic Youth, etc.) as the middle of the decade played out.

It could also be argued that this era of the Grifters played a big hand in spreading Ohio’s Guided by Voices to a larger underground audience, as both bands often found themselves touring together. One Sock Missing contains veritable Grifters’ classics “Bummer,” “She Blows Blasts of Static” (also a stand-alone 7″ on Shangri-La), “Corolla Hoist,” the brooding urban-psych nightmare of “Just Passing Out,” and wailing emotional catastrophe, “Encrusted,” among many others.

1994’s Crappin’ You Negative was a noticeable step forward and capitalized on the momentum achieved by slightly scaling back on the abstract dissonance and songs that just fell apart out of nowhere. Local shows had become capacity affairs at the Antenna and Barristers, and the Grifters were getting a ton of great press nationwide. Crappin’ You Negative, also recorded at Easley, kicks off with the bulldozing “Rats” and, like its predecessors, isn’t afraid to delve into the darker, more depressed enclaves of early ’90s indie rock with songs like “Dead Already,” “Junkie Blood,” and “Black Fuel Incinerator.” Each album side closes with one of the Grifters’ great sleeper “hits”; the plodding-but-beautiful dirge of “Felt Tipped Over” on the A-side and the stumbling power-pop brilliance of “Cinnamon.”

Live shows, of which quite a few serve as formative memories for this writer, could be a total mess or could be transcendent but were always worth seeing as the Grifters really made one proud to claim Memphis as a home base. As mentioned above, the band was getting noticed outside of town in magazines like Spin, and following a set at CBGB in NYC in 1994, The New York Times wrote:

“Beneath the fuzz and the clatter, the secrets of the band’s underground allure lay intact. The guitars were dipped deep in the blues tradition of their hometown, and the rhythm section often took detours into jazz. Mr. Shouse had a sixth sense for pop melody that made the audience work to retrieve the perfect pop pearl that lay inside cracked new rockers.”

Fat Possum’s release date for the two reissues is August 12th. Record label head honcho Bruce Watson explained that this project was a long time in the making.

“I’d always been a big fan, and we started talks with the band and Sherman (Willmott, of Shangri-La Projects/Records) around the turn of the year, and everyone came to an agreement about us buying the masters and making this stuff available on vinyl again,” Watson said.

“There isn’t any bonus material, because I don’t think any existed really, but each album will have great liner notes by Andria Lisle.”

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Music Music Features

Record Store Day 2016

CREDIT: Chris Shaw

For Shangri-La Records, prepping for Saturday’s 9th annual Record Store Day means opening a few hours early.

“We said 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but usually we open a little earlier because of the big line of people. As soon as we’re ready, we let them in. I think last year we opened at 8:30 a.m.,” Shrangri-La Records owner Jared McStay says.

Bolstering the lot of official Record Store Day titles Shangri-La plans to have on hand Saturday will be a major increase in the rest of the store’s stock of new vinyl.

“We’ve done a lot of other ordering and will have more new inventory than we’ve ever had,” explains McStay.

“We ordered direct from Sundazed, Matador Records, Merge Records, a few one-stops, and a cool import wholesale house, to name a few distributors. I’m making a big bet on Record Store Day this year, as we pretty much over-ordered, but it’s usually a good day. I don’t know if you’d call it a store-wide sale, per se, like our ‘Purgefest’, but we’ll also be putting out bins of good discount records that we’ve never had out before.”

After “excuse me,” “can I squeeze in there?” and “sorry” have been politely uttered into an ambient drone for five or six hours, a veritable parking lot mini-festival will commence at 2 p.m. with Toy Trucks, followed by Fresh Flesh, and Jana Misener — formerly of the Memphis Dawls. Next up will be Tim Prudhomme’s recently conceived band, Dimplebones. Headlining the afternoon will be James and the Ultrasounds, the band’s first local appearance since returning from a European tour.

Wedged in between Prudhomme’s Dimplebones and the latter is the reunited original lineup of McStay’s primary musical endeavor, the Simpletones. One of the true gems to come out of the Memphis underground scene of the ’90s, the first incarnation of the trio featured McStay on guitar and vocals, Jim McDermott on bass, and Mark Miller on drums. This version released the Joe’s Cool Sign demo tape and a clutch of fidelity-challenged but fantastic 7″s between 1991 and 1994 before switching monikers to the less litigious “The Simple Ones.”

“We’ve been practicing most of what’s on the Joe’s Cool Sign demo tape and a lot of what’s on our three 7″s that came out before our Shangri-La releases for what will hopefully be a good 30-minute set,” McStay says. Last but not least, Shangri-La’s parking lot Record Store Day extravaganza is dubbed “Jughead Fest” due to its falling on McStay’s birthday (origins of the nickname are unclear).

Chris Shaw

It will be no sweat to split one’s afternoon between Shangri-La and what’s planned a mere 1.6 Midtown miles away at Goner Records. Timed with cross-rocking between the two destinations in mind, Goner will be presenting a three-band bill at the Cooper-Young Gazebo that kicks off at 1 p.m. with Austin, Texas’ Nameless Frames, a garage-y, post-punkish trio with a debut, self-titled full-length on Super Secret Records released this past February.

At 2 p.m. will be the live experience that is Aquarian Blood, the extra-Ex-Cult project of J.B. Horrell and his wife Laurel that not only debuted on vinyl with a 7″ that was Goner’s official Record Store Day 2015 release but, more importantly, had its first full-length scheduled for release on the label later this year.

Then, at 3 p.m., the venerable Tyler Keith & the Apostles will rock the Cooper-Young intersection an hour closer to its future Sunday morning hangover. Regarding the hours leading up to the music, Goner will be accenting their Record Store Day haul (which will in turn be YOUR haul, or part of it) with a bulking up of store stock, which means more of the best prices on great used vinyl that one could hope to find on a nationwide level.

Oxford, Mississippi’s participating venue, End of All Music, is giving goodie bags (of limited edition store-related swag) to customers who purchase records throughout the day and will certainly be stocking nearby Fat Possum Records’ three Record Store Day titles: the 10th anniversary edition of Jay Reatard’s amazing Blood Visions LP on white vinyl (also includes a 7″ of Blood Visions demos), a 12″ EP of a Daft Punk edit medley of five Junior Kimbrough songs into one 15-minute piece of music (the b-side is etched), and the Junior Kimbrough Tribute LP featuring Iggy Pop, the Black Keys, Spiritualized, and others (on clear vinyl). For other End of All Music-related Record Store Day news, make sure to check out the store’s blog.

For a list of all Record Store Day releases, visit www.recordstoreday.com

Record Store Day at Goner Records with Aquarian Blood, Nameless Frames, and Tyler Keith, Saturday, April 16th at 9 a.m. Free.

Record Store Day at Shangri-La Records with Fresh Flesh, Simpletones, Dimple Bones, and James and the Ultrasounds, Saturday, April 16th at 8:30 a.m. Free.

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Music Music Features

Persistence Pays for Star and Micey

Star and Micey have been on a tear since recently releasing their new album produced by Grammy award-winner Mark Neill. I caught up with Nick Redmond and Joshua Cosby before they play a free show at Shangri-La this Friday to talk more about their new album and the process that led up to the creation of Get ‘Em Next Time. — Chris Shaw

The Memphis Flyer: How was Mark Neill involved with the recording of your latest album, Get ‘Em Next Time?

Joshua Cosby: Neill produced the song “I Can’t Wait” at Royal Studios, and then we did the rest of the record at his place in Valdosta, Georgia.

Nick Redmond: It was a 30-day process in southern Georgia.

What was Valdosta like? Thirty days seems like a long time to record an album in such a small place.

Nick: The studio was called Soil of the South Studios, and it’s a one-room studio modeled after Sun Studio. It’s an old ballet studio, and when you walk in there, it looks like you’re walking into 1955. The place had rotary telephones, old Coke machines, and all the microphones were super old; it just feels like you enter a different time when you enter that room. We loved working with Mark because he’s wonderful and out of his mind.

Joshua: He dresses in black every day, with a little cross pin in his shirt. And it looks like he’s always wearing the same pair of clothes. He has the Roy Orbison outfit down, and I think he actually has Roy Orbison’s sunglasses that he wears every day.

How’d you guys land the music spot on the Memphis CVB commercial?

Nick: To be honest with you, Chris, I don’t really know. The only way it could have happened is if they approached us, but I don’t really remember how it all went down. We said yes, of course, because it was an honor. But honestly I don’t remember who was having lunch to make that happen for us.

Joshua: I think it came from the Grizzlies connection that we have. We played one of those Grizzlies games where you play on the balcony during a game. That may have opened the door. That commercial has been running for like three years now, but they just keep putting us on.

What was your reaction the first time you saw the commercial?

Nick: I heard about the commercial from friends and family, but it was a year or so before I actually saw it, because I didn’t have a television at the time. I have a television now, but no cable. But don’t worry about me, I’m not just sitting alone in my apartment. I’m doing fine.

Joshua: I felt excited about it but also insecure at the same time. I feel better about it when little kids like my nieces or the kids I’ve taught at the School of Rock come up to me and tell me they saw me on TV. It’s still an honor.

Would you say that the commercial has helped you guys in terms of exposure?

Nick: To be honest, man, we had toured for six years at that point, even quitting our jobs so we could just tour full-time. Without ever leaving the couch, that commercial has done more for us than any of that touring combined. The opportunities that came after that commercial spot have been crazy.

Yeah, there are times when I’m watching a Grizzlies game and that commercial comes on four or five times.

Nick: My brother says the same thing, and he lives in Texas. I’ve honestly never seen it live. My dad taped it and showed it to me once.

Joshua: I should probably add that now I mute it when I see it.

This new album was six years in the making. What took so long? Were you just touring constantly?

Joshua: I feel like it’s okay to talk about this now. We were in a record contract with Ardent, and it got real muddled up and tied up, and we were unable to release new music. In a nutshell, that’s the nicest way to say it. It just about drove us mad; we almost gave up. When you’re writing songs and songs and you can’t release them, it’s frustrating. But we love Ardent records, and we hope they do well.

Nick: Sometimes things just come to an end, and luckily [the record label] Thirty Tigers swept in and fixed everything.

How would you describe the emotions that are at play on the new album?

Joshua: I think a big part of what’s conveyed on the album is a product of being with each other and the producer for 30 days straight. It got to be heavy. We started to miss our families, and we were forced to come together in that room. There was a bit of a dirge, but we just played through the pain.

When you go on tour, you normally try to spend some time alone, but there was basically one coffee shop in Valdosta, so we always wound up at the same place. Being in the middle of nowhere in Georgia was also a factor.

At this point would you consider yourself a touring band based in Memphis, or a local band?

Nick: We will always be a local band, but we are a local band that had to go on tour to stay together.

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Purgefest at Shangri-La

CREDIT: Chris Shaw

Shangri-La’s annual Purgefest is once again here, and the record store will be giving away thousands of LPs and CDs for the reasonable price of one whole dollar. Because the record store has a constant flow of used singles, LPs, CDs, tapes, magazines, speakers, and turntables coming through their doors, a purge is necessary to keep the store’s content where it needs to be.

Chris Shaw

To celebrate the annual clear-out, Shangri-La has enlisted some of the best locals around with Richard James & the Special Riders, blues band Southern Avenue, and Billie Dove.

Richard James has been making noise in Memphis for years, and his weekly gigs at the Cove and the Buccaneer are as unpredictable as they are entertaining. Mixing elements of rockabilly, garage rock, and punk, James is the working man’s Tav Falco, and his sets are everything but dull.

Southern Avenue might qualify as a supergroup, having taken the 2016 International Blues Challenge by storm, in addition to playing regularly at places such as Lafayette’s Music Room.

Southern Avenue guitarist Ori Naftaly has an interesting story, having first come to Memphis from his home country of Israel to participate in the 2013 International Blues Challenge. Naftaly ended up in the semifinals of that challenge, making him the first person from his country to place that well in the competition. Naftaly now calls Memphis home, and his band also features sisters Tierinii and Tikyra Jackson, and bassist extraordinaire Daniel McKee.

Rounding out the bill is Billie Dove, a roots-rock group that features longtime Memphis rocker Jim Duckworth.

Purgefest, Saturday, March 26th at Shangri-La Records, 11 a.m. 

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The Purgening at Shangri-La Records

Longstanding local independent record shop Shangri-La Records has developed into a landmark of sorts in recent years, receiving ringing endorsements from national media sources such as Rolling Stone, Esquire, Paste, and The New York Times. Thanks to both the newfound attention and a well-earned reputation for quality among hardcore record collectors, the store is currently a popular destination for tourists and Memphians alike.

This Saturday, Shangri-La will host the second of its bi-annual purge events, this time cheekily titled “The Purgening.” The event will feature a store-wide sale, free live music, and an outdoor garage sale featuring various memorabilia, furniture, clothes, and, yes, even more records.

Shangri-La

According to Shangri-La owner Jared McStay, the need to stage this sort of sale twice a year arises from the incredible number of LPs, 45s, and CDs that flood into the store every single day.

“We get lots of new inventory daily,” he says. “Obviously, we keep the best stuff for the store. But we always get good records in collections that maybe aren’t up to our standards, condition-wise, but these records still have life in them, and people can buy them at this sale for a buck or less. Folks get good, cheap records, and we get to reclaim some of the dwindling space in our backroom. Everybody wins.”

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Music Record Reviews

Record Reviews

Giorgio Murderer

Primitive World

Goner Records

Robert Watson had a breakout year in 2013 with his solo project Buck Biloxi and the F***s, playing numerous garage rock festivals around the country and releasing a handful of singles in the process. With his latest project Giorgio Murderer, Watson has progressed, but he hasn’t exactly matured. The title track, “Primitive World,” is a mid-tempo garage rock thumper, covered in synthesizer and clocking in at just over a minute. There are three more songs on the EP, but “Primitive World” is definitely the breadwinner on this slab, although the song “Nobody Likes You” is also a fine piece of garage punk songwriting. This is how home recordings should sound, and if Watson is approaching this project with the same drive he’s put toward Buck Biloxi, we will probably be seeing more soon from Giorgio Murderer. Fans of Angry Angles, Digital Leather, or the Lost Sounds should seek this one out. Extra points for coming up with a “so stupid it’s genius” band name. — Chris Shaw

The Switchblade Kid

Switchblade Kid 3

Jukebox Records

The Switchblade Kid has been playing in Memphis for a few years now, led by local music-scene veteran Harry Koniditsiotis. Koniditsiotis told the Flyer earlier this year that last year he focused a lot on music videos, and this year he was planning on ramping up his recorded output. The “Switchblade Kid 3” single that was just released on Jukebox Records is some of the band’s best work, with the A side featuring two extremely well-written garage rock songs. “Switchblade 3” is a classic Memphis garage rock song while “Sore Subjects” is a full on power-pop crusher, and though the songs sound different, they fit perfectly together. The B side, “I’m a Hog for you Baby” is a cover of the Coasters classic and Switchblade Kid nails it, adding some female backup vocals for good measure. Housed in a full-color Jukebox Records sleeve and on clear red vinyl, this thing looks as great as it sounds and is in serious contention for local single of the summer. — Chris Shaw

Heavy Eyes and Werwulf

Split 7″

Soul Patch Records

Heavy Eyes won the coin toss and take Side A in this split release from Soul Patch Records. Framed by a chorus of Memphis bugs, Heavy Eyes’ “Shadow Shaker” tends the eternal verities of proto rock: wooly humbucker guitars through fuzz and tubes, stripped-down riffs — the works. They get so much right: the vocals, that gnarly upper-mid-range, Geezer Butler bass sound, the vinyl. All the good factors are in place. Once the drummer takes that ride cymbal and throws the damn thing in the river, this band will make a perfect record. I look forward to that. Werwulf’s “Howl at the Moon” gets the flip side. Werwulf takes a more psychedelic approach in the manner of Slade. A reliable (cymbal-free) beat kicks the track into gear and is soon followed by a garage-y guitar that rolls in on a cloud of reverb over a properly sludged-out bass sound. The bass sound is what keeps this track out of the Jack White playbook. The guitar break is a fine example of post-serious-guitar-solo soloing. The Midnight Rambler beat change between swing and straight might be accidental, but is something every rock band needs to master. Heavy Eyes and Werwulf are upstanding members of Memphis’ rich bong-metal community. — Joe Boone

Lucero

Live from Atlanta

Liberty and Lament

It’s too easy to make recordings now. So many releases amount to internal dialogues enabled by relentless multi-tracking on a computer. It’s best not to think how many people are accustomed to the digital click setting the beat. What’s lost is the sound of a band playing together. The energy of humans working together is absent in the layering. You can still find that energy in live music. If that band has been on the road, then look out. That vitality is immediately apparent in Lucero’s Live from Atlanta, which is out this week. Lucero bothered me for a long time. It took them a while to dry and spread their wings. Adding Jim Spake on saxophone and the musically omnivorous Rick Steff to the mix changed the game. Ben still sounds like he’s going to shout himself to death at any second, but that’s part of his charm. And Roy Berry. Normally live records have an atmospheric tone that sounds thin compared to a studio mix. This record keeps it’s mics close enough for the rhythm section to punch like it should. Any Memphis musician who has played up North is shocked to see a bill with five acts playing 45-minute sets. Memphians are used to playing for hours. Lucero keeps it River City, filling up two CDs of material from three nights in November 2013. Anybody who says hard work doesn’t pay off for Memphis musicians needs to rethink that position. Lucero earned a serious following through continuous improvement for more than a decade. This album is testament to that discipline and talent that created it. — Joe Boone

Grace Askew

Scaredy Cat

Self-released

Speaking of people working together to make records, Grace Askew has earned a cornucopia of good responses for her Scaredy Cat. We recently interviewed Askew before the release of this record, which was cut at the newly refurbed Sun Studio with engineer Matt Ross-Spang. She cut the tracks live in the spooky air of the old room with lead guitarist Logan Hanna. You can hear the balance of the room and the magic of the microphones. Musical workhorses Mark Stuart (bass), Kell Kellum (pedal steel), and Adam Woodard (piano and accordion) added carefully placed accompaniment over the original live tracks. The tracks support the air and the vocal without interfering acoustically or compositionally. In light of the sound of contemporary pop and country records, this record firmly establishes the less-is-more thesis. The space in the arrangement is left for Askew’s voice, which took her just far enough in The Voice to show the whole worlds that she’s not kidding when she takes on a vocal. Her independence is fascinating. There are times when her persona seems a little contrived. But, like Jimbo Mathus, that is part of a process that lets musicians explore music that comes naturally from culture rather than chasing the market. — Joe Boone

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Shangri-La’s Purge Fest

Shangri-La Records

When you’re in the business of buying and selling vinyl, there comes a time when you need to clear the shelves to make room for new collectible LPs and 45s. And while you probably won’t find that super-rare Beatles record you’ve always been looking for at Shangri-La’s Purge Fest, you will find great deals on records, books, and CDs all for a dollar or less. Shangri-La shop manager Jared McStay says that the purge is necessary to keep the 21-year-old record store up to date.

“We don’t do a purge annually, but every few years our store gets so overwhelmed with awesome stuff that we set something like this up to get ready for all the new stuff that’s constantly coming in,” McStay says.

In addition to extremely low prices, Purge Fest will also feature music from the Switchblade Kid, James and the Ultrasounds, Hartle Road, and the Sheiks.