Tag: Subteens

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The Subteens Level Up

The Subteens (Photo: Chris Reyes)

The resurgence of vinyl records has not only brought a plethora of new material sporting colorful platters and beautiful cover art, it’s given a second life to albums that were originally released when CDs were king. The vagaries of time having winnowed the wheat from the chaff, albums from decades past that have only taken on more artistic value can now be elevated to a more perfect medium: vinyl.

None are more deserving than the Subteens’ 1999 CD-only debut, Burn Your Cardigan, freshly reissued on wax by Back to the Light Records last month. Recorded just after seminal punk/indie drummer John “Bubba” Bonds joined the group, it revealed what a perfect complement he was to the visions of co-founders Mark Akin (guitar and vocals) and Jay Hines (bass), and established the Subteens, with their mastery of adrenaline-charged pop-punk originals, as one of the best Memphis groups at the turn of the 21st century.

Yet, as Hines relates today, Bonds was nervous about the sessions. On the first day of recording, Hines says, “We had to go find him, and it was raining really hard. He was down at the South End or somewhere, and we had to go get him, get his drums, and then go by Buster’s to get him a fifth of Jack or something. Then we went back to the studio and got busy.”

Album Cover Artwork: Mike McCarthy

Not that any of them were plastered as they recorded. They took the album very seriously. “We were just trying to get him to relax a little bit,” says Hines. “He didn’t get sloppy or anything — he played to a click track on a lot of that. But that made him nervous. Also, he had just joined the group. We had had maybe one practice and maybe one show with him at that point. But he just nailed it. Most of those [songs] were done in one or two takes. So miraculous!”

Also seemingly miraculous at the time was the studio’s proximity to cheap eats. The sessions were booked at Robbie Pickens’ Nu-Star Studio, not a well-known recording destination even then. “It was over off Summer behind Sonic. You could literally walk out of the studio, climb over his back fence, and be at Sonic. So that was amazing,” Akin recalls today.

“Robbie was not a typical person that a Midtown fan would seek for help producing a record, you know?” notes Akin. “I can’t remember why we ended up with him. Maybe he was just cheap. But for whatever reason, the stars aligned. Robbie really understood the punk that we were coming from. But I think he also understood that we wanted a little bit of gloss on it, a little bit of pop sensibility. Robbie was able to have a foot in both of those worlds and bring it together. I just can’t overstate enough how helpful Robbie was.”

Surprisingly, for a band that seems to have had great guitar sounds dialed in from the start, the crunchy riffs of Burn Your Cardigan came down to Pickens’ production skills. “I could not get the guitar sound right,” says Akin. “And finally, Robbie was like, ‘Mark, leave. Go to Sonic! I’m going to get your guitar sound.’ Later, he calls me to come back in and listen to it, but he won’t let me see what he’s done. And it sounds fantastic. Then he said, ‘Okay, let me show you how I got it.’ He had put a really small amp, like a Pignose, in this tiny closet, and had somehow gotten this magical guitar tone out of it.”

The end result was indeed a perfect blend of noisy punk attitude and the band’s unmistakable pop instincts. “Even our favorite punk bands are really pop bands at heart, or at least my favorite punk bands,” says Akin. “The Sex Pistols, the Ramones … And Jay’s really into the Buzzcocks, Sham 69. I’m really an AC/DC [fan]. That’s all hooky pop, just with harder rock guitar tones and different tempos. And every single one of those songs are arranged with a purpose and they’re arranged in a sensible, linear way.”

The ultimate statement of this approach may be Side One’s closer, Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right,” thrashed out with complete sincerity as if it were the latest track by the Clash. There’s a defiance to the track that helps one understand the band’s historical context. The late ’90s were trending away from the punk/pop axis, toward more introspective, watery styles like “shoegaze.” Shoegaze bands, it must be said, often ditched the rock-and-roll threads of jeans and a T-shirt in favor of … sweaters.

“The title of the album was totally Mark,” says Hines. “This was back when he was working at the Memphis Pizza Café, and I came in and he had this funny look on his face. He said, ‘What would you think about …’ — and he sort of hesitated, I guess because he thought I would laugh at it — ‘Burn Your Cardigan?’ And once I realized where he was coming from, I thought it was perfect.”

No shoegazing was going on with these guys. As Akin remembers, “When we first came out, we weren’t super well received. I feel like people didn’t quite know what to make of us at first because we wrote songs with beginnings, middles, and ends. We tried to have a chorus that got in your head and we tried to make the songs short. We would just go to play 10 songs and get the hell offstage. But then when that record came out, I think it really represented what we were all about. ‘This is what we are!’ And we started getting more people at the shows, and that never stopped. It’s always fun to have people come and watch you play.”

The Subteens cap off the Record Fair at Soul & Spirits Brewery on Saturday, June 15th, and will celebrate the reissue of Burn Your Cardigan with the River City Tanlines at Bar DKDC on Saturday, July 6th.

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Rock Against Racism Rises Again

The Subteens

For those who came of age in the first blush of punk rock, before it was codified into a “sound,” the movement known as “Rock Against Racism” was a clarion call of the new aesthetic. Even as it coalesced into a series of concerts in London’s East End, it sprang from a broader social movement that challenged and inspired bands to inject more political awareness into their sound. Nonetheless, it certainly was triggered by a musical event: Eric Clapton, during a 1976 show in Birmingham, launched into an anti-immigrant rant and endorsed U.K. ultra-nationalist Enoch Powell. It was the death knell, in a way, for any claim that classic rock had on the music’s original rebellious spirit. Taking up the mantle, and filled with disgust at the entitlement that Clapton expressed, was a new guard of punks and activists.

In my teenage years, as all this was going down, Rock Against Racism was more abstract, but I knew it fomented some great compilation albums, featuring the likes of the Mekons, Elvis Costello, X-Ray Spex, the Specials, or, maybe my favorite at the time, the Stiff Little Fingers. It grew into a conceptual concert series that spanned multiple years and multiple genres, as the first wave of rebellion splintered into a thousand different styles.

For many years afterward, RAR seemed an artifact of its time, as politically subversive music ebbed away and the splintering of genres continued apace into the new century. But with the current climate of rabid nationalism and bigotry, epitomized by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and other American “alt right” groups, emboldened by a bullying loudmouth who fulfills their most garish fantasies of authoritarianism, Rock Against Racism is relevant again.

Cue the indie Memphis rock scene, who will gather at the Hi Tone this Saturday to bring Rock Against Racism into the 21st Century. Making use of both stages at the venue, the gathering will bring together The Subteens, Pezz, The Gloryholes, Negro Terror, Arizona Akin & The Hoodrat Hyenas, who will donate all door proceeds to Bridges USA. 
Michael Donahue

Negro Terror at Our Scene United

The nonprofit’s mission states: “In greater Memphis, young people’s day-to-day interactions and relationships are racially, ethnically, socially, economically and/or religiously segregated. These are huge divides that block collaboration, trust-building, mutual understanding and empathy. Our intensive training teaches not only respect for diversity and inclusion, but it also builds skills for the 21st Century like creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, effective citizenship and social responsibility.”

Such a radically inclusive vision is sorely needed today, according to co-organizer and Subteen member Mark Akin. “I work about a block from immigration court and have for the last seven years,” he says. And all of a sudden, in the last three or four months, every day there are families of brown people, all dressed up and looking slightly anxious, making their way to immigration court, mostly Hispanic and Middle Eastern. The Subteens has never been a political band, ever. It’s just never really been our thing. But it seems like now, you almost have to pick a side. Anybody that disagrees with what the current administration is doing has to stand up and say ‘I disagree.’ The luxury days are over now. The luxury of keeping your mouth shut and your head down doesn’t exist anymore. Those of us with a conscience have a responsibility to do something. And this is something we can do. To donate the money to Bridges is a very useful endeavor.”

Pezz has long been on the more political side of the local hardcore scene. Negro Terror packs a political punch simply by virtue of being one of the few African American hardcore bands on the scene. Others, like the Subteens, simply want to rock and roll. But all are committing themselves to a larger vision of justice and inclusiveness. The original activists behind Rock Against Racism would surely approve, though Eric Clapton might still take some convincing.

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Music Music Features

20 Years of the Subteens

CREDIT: Christopher Reyes

This Saturday, one of Memphis’ most underrated bands in recent memory will celebrate their 20th year with a reunion concert at the Levitt Shell. In their heyday, the Subteens were one of the biggest draws in town, but for a myriad of reasons, both personal and professional, they eventually fizzled out, unceremoniously leaving behind a legacy of two rock-solid albums and a host of “Do you remember when?” memories for those who were lucky enough to catch one of the band’s frenetic live shows.

I first saw the Subteens in 1996 at either Bartlett Park or at a club on Highland, I can’t remember which came first. The group’s sound hadn’t fully evolved into what I think of as “the Subteens” at that time. It was a bit more polished and “college rock-y” back then.

“I was influenced by British punk bands like the Jam and the Sex Pistols, and Kram (Mark Akin) was influenced by punk bands and AC/DC,” Jay Hines, the group’s bass player from 1995-2002, and again briefly in 2007, says.

“Sean (Lee, the original drummer) was more into bands like the Church and Buffalo Tom. The common denominator for all three of us was the Replacements.”

A string of temporary and fill-in drummers followed as Hines and Akin honed their songwriting and started to attract a following. But the pieces never quite fit together perfectly until the emergence of a new, permanent drummer came in 1999 — longtime Memphis music veteran John “Bubba” Bonds.

“I’d like to think I helped them get things together, but it was an easy band to join,” Bonds says. “Most of the songs were already written. They just needed a drummer.”

“[Bonds] was literally like a god in my eyes,” Akin says. “In my mind he was a rock star. He said, ‘I’ll play with you, Subteens,’ and Jay and I looked at each other like, ‘Holy shit, really?'”

Almost instantly, the newly solidified trio was holed up at Robbie Pickens’ studio NuStar Audio, cutting the tracks for what would become the band’s debut, Burn Your Cardigan.

“I had played one show and had exactly one practice with the band before they called me up to record the album,” Bonds says. “I think we did all the drum tracks in about three hours.”

Say what you will about So That’s What the Kids Are Calling It being a better-sounding or more cohesive album. For my money, Burn Your Cardigan is the definitive Subteens statement.

“I’m proud of it. We worked our asses off on that record, and I think it holds up pretty well,” Hines says.

Of course, Burn Your Cardigan attracted more than just my attention. Rave national reviews soon followed in Billboard and in CMJ, and the band toured the U.S. extensively. By 2000, the Subteens were one of the biggest bands in Memphis. It was around that time that they added a fourth member, Terrence Bishop, on second guitar.

“Terrence used to hang out with us all the time. He would road-trip it with us and just sort of be around,” Akin says. “I really, really wanted a second guitar player in the band.  It just sort of hit me — why don’t we ask him? The whole thing took like two minutes.”

The Subteens played as a quartet for roughly two years. Bishop took some of the pressure of playing guitar off of Akin, which freed him up to be an even more dynamic bandleader. Unfortunately, the four-piece line-up was to be short-lived. Hines quite the band in 2002.

“I’d finished grad school, gotten a real job, and my wife and I had had our first baby,” he says. “The Subteens had been plugging away for seven years and it was time for me to make a decision. I could keep stumbling home at three in the morning, smelling like a greasy ashtray, or I could be a responsible husband and dad. No choice, really.”

Another factor in Hines’ decision was Akin’s growing drug problem.

“I was really starting to party a lot, and I think he didn’t like being around it, understandably,” Akin says. “Some things got easier, like traveling and practicing.  No one in the band had a real job, so we could all basically do whatever we wanted. We definitely travelled more, but without Jay to keep us centered, we sort of came off the rails a little.”

Two years after Hines’ departure (which led to Bishop’s switching over to bass), the band was effectively done. Yes, they released So That’s What the Kids Are Calling It in 2004, but the spark was gone. The band had blown several big opportunities, including a European tour, and Akin started not showing up for gigs. The Subteens, more or less, just disappeared.

“Bubba and Terrence got sick of it, so they quit,” Akin says. “That’s pretty much it. I think those guys would have pretty much put up with anything except flaking on gigs.”

In 2007, the band started doing the occasional reunion show, once with Hines on bass, other times with Bishop.

None of those mostly one-off reunions lasted very long, which brings us to the present. The Subteens are celebrating 20 years of history together. Bishop won’t be there because of scheduling conflicts, but the trio of Akin, Hines, and Bonds will suffice.

“I feel so ridiculously lucky,” says Akin, who is now drug-free and has been for several years. “If people keep coming, we’ll keep playing.”

The Subteens and the Secret Service at the Levitt Shell, Saturday, October 10th at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

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Music Music Features

In Search of the Subteens

What makes a popular band just disappear?

“You want to hear about me sitting alone in a room doing coke and listening to the phone ring?” asks Mark Akin, the lanky guitarist and charismatic frontman for the Subteens, a hard-rocking trio (and sometimes quartet) that spent nearly a decade earning a reputation as Midtown’s best bar band before vanishing without a trace. “I was doing a considerable amount of drugs, and that became more important than everything else,” Akin confesses. “Obviously, I never expected that to happen. But nobody ever does.”

The Subteens story sounds a lot like a Subteens song. Although the band’s reunion on Saturday, April 28th, at Young Avenue Deli will likely draw a considerable crowd, when the band formed in 1995, nobody paid them much attention. During their first four years, the Subteens went through drummers like Spinal Tap and played in almost total obscurity to an audience the band describes as “girlfriends and bartenders.”

“The running gag was that we were too stupid to quit,” says bassist Jay Hines, who calls the Subteens “a band built for self-destruction.” But stupid is as stupid does, and the Subteens stupid fortunes began to change for the better when drummer and vocalist Christene Kings from the all-girl California duo the Chubbies joined the group in 1998.

“That’s when I first started noticing people showing up for shows,” Akin recalls. “And that’s also when we started putting boobs on the flyers we’d put on telephone poles.” The band wasn’t any better, he says, just better looking.

By the time Kings was replaced on drums with John “Bubba” Bonds (previously with Kenny Brown and the Verbs), the Subteens were drawing enthusiastic crowds. In 2000, the group released Burn Your Cardigan, a modish nine-song rocker that one critic accurately described as “harkening back to the days when the Clash could share a stage with the Jam.” Buried amid Akin’s originals, which vividly chronicle such tried-and-true subjects as beer, Midtown melodrama, and suburban malaise, was an unlikely cover of Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right.” Although the Subteens would crank out many more originals and cover more obvious material such as AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie” and the Ramones’ “Chinese Rocks,” “You May Be Right” became the band’s standby and a rallying cry for fans who thought Akin was just the lunatic they were looking for.

“I always thought it was fun to play a song that everybody would immediately dismiss as dorky,” Akin says of the song, which turned out to be less dorky than prophetic. As the Subteens’ popularity grew, so did Akin’s ego and habits.

“I got my head up my ass a whole lot more,” he says. “I was somewhere backstage dumping out piles of my favorite party favor. The guy I was doing it with was in the opening band, and he looked at me and said, ‘Man, what do you think you’re in — Aerosmith or something?’

“I wanted to live that [rock-star] life,” Akin says. And when people started showing up [to our shows], I took that as permission to start behaving like a jackass without the whole part of selling millions of records.”

As Akin sank deeper into his habits, Subteens sets became shorter and more unpredictable. The band might pull off a brilliant show or Akin might throw up on himself. “Either way, it was entertaining,” he says. And no show was over until Akin had stripped down to nothing but his guitar and a drunken grin.

“I think I may have started performing to strip buck-naked rather than to play the music,” Akin admits. “My idea of what a Subteens show was was debauchery, nudity, and alcohol. That’s fun, but you’ve got to put the music first.”

Things got worse.

“I pawned my girlfriend’s guitar — as all good stories start,” Akin recalls. “She had been bearing down on me to return it, but someone else had bought it. [The Subteens] were playing at Young Avenue Deli, and she lived around the corner. I remember calling her on the phone from backstage and telling her what happened. She understandably freaked. The place was filling up, and the opening band was playing. I left the Deli and walked to her house and found her standing on the porch smashing plates.”

Shortly after the release of the band’s second (and much better) album, So That’s What the Kids Are Calling It, Akin stopped showing up for shows. Instead, he sat alone in his room doing coke and listening to the phone ring.

Akin isn’t worried about returning to the stage mostly clothed and fully sober, although his last attempt at playing it straight left him feeling a little awkward.

“I’d been off drugs for maybe two or three months of a five-year coke bender [at the time of the band’s last show a few years ago]. Your head’s still pretty twisted. Usually I was half-drunk and half-naked and babbling all kinds of insane stuff to the crowd. But immediately I was more self-conscious.”

Whether or not this show is a one-time-only event for the band’s fans, who never got to say a proper goodbye, or the beginning of a new, more responsible chapter in Subteens history, depends largely on the show. “If we can get through this show without anybody getting arrested or divorced, we’ll talk about it,” Akin says.

“It’s probably a one-off,” Hines concludes, pointing out that he’s the only member of the band who is still married.

The Subteens Reunion Show

Young Avenue Deli

Saturday, April 28th

Door opens at 9 p.m.; admission $10