Back in 1990, after I'd returned from Japan and needed to stimulate both brain and wallet, I did some substitute teaching (supply teaching for UK readers) in the Memphis City Schools. Some of this consisted of gigs at my alma mater, Central High School, which was a strange experience, having not set foot in the building in nine years, and now returning as "The Man". It was in this context that I first met a teenage Steve Selvidge, who still refers to me as a substitute teacher.
On my first morning I was signing in in the office when I saw in the corner of my eye one Elizabeth "Libby" Williams, the Spanish teacher that I and many of my friends had teased and generally tormented for three years. I smiled at her, but she completely blanked me, walked across the room to punch her time card, and back turned, said loudly amid the buzz of teachers and students, "They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel on substitutes these days." Then she turned, strode towards me and said, "I hope they give you hell," then abruptly walked off. I approached her with caution later in the break room, but she smiled and explained that she had only sought to deliver a small fraction of the payback I was due. We actually developed something of a friendship over the next few days while I was there.
One other place I did substituting was at Sheffield High, which was a hub for English-as-a-second-language instruction, which was something I was interested in and vaguely suited for, having just spent two years doing it, or attempting to do it when so allowed, in Japan. Most of the kids in the classes were from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, countries Memphis had seen steady immigration from since 1975, when Fort Chaffee, Arkansas was converted to being a processing and relocation center for refugees from the war. The kids in this class were later arrivals, and some of them were of mixed parentage (local with black or white G.I.) and had probably seen and experienced things which don't bear much thinking about. There was a Cambodian kid in one class who seemed a bit older than the others (my guess was 19 or 20), and had a couple of tattoos, which were not fashion statements among most teenagers in Memphis in 1990. His English was also much better than the others', because he had come through Thailand and then Hong Kong, where he obviously had a chance to learn some English. He was very outgoing and told me that as a young boy he had swum across the Mekong River in his escape from Cambodia - a feat comparable to swimming across the Mississippi at Memphis, not to be advised. I wonder what ever became of him.
I've always been fascinated by Cambodian musical culture since first encountering it, particularly the lost cousin of the blues now epitomized by Kong Nay, who appears in the excellent film "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," which I saw recently and highly recommend. I recently stumbled across this gem from 1965, the Royal Ballet of Cambodia performing at Angkor Wat, which is amazing, if a little long-winded. A reminder of the time before everything went so spectacularly and savagely wrong.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Flotsam, jetsam, diamonds and dregs
As Hank Williams used to be fond of saying, "If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise," two weeks from this Friday night I'll be playing my first live gig in about 15 years, with Linda Heck and The Train Wreck reconstituted, along with some special guests. To say that I am looking forward to it would be an understatement of epic proportion.
Those of you who have been kind enough to follow this blog so far will have noticed that the vast majority of what I've written so far has been in the nostalgic memoir vein, casting an eye back to a time and place long gone - the Memphis music scene in the 1980s and early 1990s - and my involvement in it. It was never my intention that this blog should be entirely devoted to documenting the past, but it seemed like a good place to start, and I certainly needed to get these memories and anecdotes down, for a variety of reasons. It was something I had been promising myself I would do for a long time, and I have very nearly completed the task.
However, the posts I've made so far have really covered the deeper and more enduring musical relationships I enjoyed/endured. There were many, many more which were fleeting, tenuous, short-lived by design, or some combination of all of the above. I think it's fitting to put this walk down memory lane to bed as we approach a new year and I prepare to re-enter the Memphis music present, if only fleetingly. This post is a mostly chronological round-up of other bands and recording projects with whom I had some involvement over the years. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. There are no innocent.
Barking Dog - Prior to my friend Mark Edwards and I meeting Linda Heck and forming Pseudobop, probably late 1981/early 1982, I received an invitation to audition as second guitarist for the then-popular Barking Dog, comprising Davis McCain on guitar and vocals, Deck Rees on bass, and Robert Bruce on drums. I still had the shitty little amp which I had received with my first el-cheapo Stratocaster copy when I was 14, and it proved to be inaudible to the rest of the band. They liked me but made the fair criticism that I needed to be heard. This was my inspiration to go out and buy a largely troublesome Fender Super Reverb amp, but they ultimately decided to opt for a keyboard player - the excellent Keith Tomes, who is now married to the sister of my schoolmate Greg King. Wise choices all around!
Shock Opera - One of the many bass players in Pseudobop, Sean Kerr, formed a band around 1984 called Shock Opera (not these guys), with David Skypeck on drums, a keyboard player named Hugh, and a guitarist whose name I can't remember, and whom they apparently wanted to get rid of (which explains my presence in the story). They had somehow gotten a budget together to go into the studio and make a record, with Richard Rosebrough (whom I always liked) engineering and Busta Jones producing. We laid down some basic tracks ("Happy Ending" and "African Telephones" are the only titles I can recall) at Phillips Recording, which was my first time in that amazing place. We later did a long session at Mastercraft Studio on Cleveland the night before I had a final exam. I remember sitting in the corner behind my amp reviewing my notes and textbook while Busta Jones (who seemed to be milking his recent association with Talking Heads) insisted on the most exhaustive drum miking/baffling/sound-checking in the history of recorded music. At one point he went out for some reason, and we actually cut something. When he returned, with a girlfriend in tow, he was most unhappy that anyone had done anything in his absence. I was most unhappy with the way things were progressing, or not, as it were, and subsequently declined further participation. The record eventually came out (I even had a copy at one point), but I think most of my guitar parts were wiped, and Kye Kennedy (my junior high classmate) was drafted in to play some proper guitar.
Satan's Bedpan - This was a name I stole from Ross Johnson, rather shamelessly, but it was just too good to allow to lie dormant, or so the younger me thought. In retrospect, it was probably a little out of order to appropriate it, but after all, it was only for one night in 1985. Ross played drums, Jones Rutledge played bass, and I played guitar and sang - the only time I have played lone front man. We did all covers, a mixture of things like Talking Heads' "Heaven," The Velvet Underground's "Candy Says," The Beatles' "If I Needed Someone," The Doors' "Five to One," and Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced." I had my horrible multi-effects box in full, uh, effect, and it was noisy and a bit silly at times, but not at all bad. We were opening for Chris Lea and the Moonlight Syncopators on a weeknight at The Antenna.
Possible Fossils - Back in the latter days of Four Neat Guys (1985), John McClure and I had a mutual friend named Rusty Smith (with whom I have completely lost contact - if you're out there, give me a shout), who in turn had another friend named Jeff Denson, a guitarist. Rusty had some lyrics and melody ideas, which we put together into a small batch of original songs. I think we only played a couple of shows - one at a party at my girlfriend's house, and another at the old Prince Mongo's Planet on Front Street. My brother also played there a number of times with his high school band. It was a very strange venue, with the stage up in the gallery above the ground floor, so the band was only visible to people standing right at the back of the bar near the exit, and the audience was largely invisible to the band. We had one or two songs which were fairly good, one of which I made a demo of with Rusty on vocals, and me on guitar, bass, drums, and harmony vocals. I believe it was called "27 Years," but I have always thought of it in terms of its tag line "She's got a new set of dreams."
Harris and the Hepsters - (This memory is classified as a stub - you can help improve it by pointing out any missing info/errors.) The inimitable and irrepressible Harris Scheuner fronted a couple of bands in the late 80's, Los Pimpin' and Harris and the Hepsters. I occasionally played drums with the latter. Other members I can recall included bassists Dave Wiggins, David Pound and John McClure (not all at once), and guitarists Randy Reinke and Mark Harrison (am I imagining this?). I remember gigs at Fred's Hideout and one outside in front of a dry cleaner's or hair salon of some sort on Union Avenue near Overton Square.
Big Mouth Bass - This was a one-night-only outfit sometime around the same period, fronted by Belinda Killough on vocals, with Harris on drums, an odd dual-bass pairing of Linda Heck and me, with John McClure on guitar, and I think Randy Reinke too. An opening gig for someone else at the Antenna, my only recollections are that Belinda had a bottle of wine shaped like a fish, and we played Gene Pitney's "It Hurts to be in Love" and "Fight the Power" by the Isley Brothers.
The Marilyns - I was never in this group, but I was a huge fan and friend of the band, and made a quick-and-dirty four-track recording of them at Jim Duckworth's house in 1988, before I left for Japan. The band at that point had a triple guitar lineup - Cheryl, Leigh Anne, and Marilyn Albert (then Duckworth), all of whom sang, along with Jeannie Tomlinson on bass and vocals, Betsy Elias on keyboards, and the late Thomas Smith on drums. The recording we made was very basic, but I liked the feel of it, because it captured the real sound of the band. It was all recorded live, with a few vocal overdubs added. The cassette was "released" on a fairly limited basis, and once again, I once had a copy, somewhere. I think there were about eight songs, of which I can only remember "Libertyland" (an ode to Memphis' white trash attempt at a theme park), "Quit" (which was like a cheerleader routine - "Quit, quit, q-u-i-t"), "Nutbush City Limits," "I'll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind" (a Boyce and Hart song which had featured in an episode of "Bewitched") and a haunting love song called "Back from the Grave."
The Menstrels - Upon my return from Japan in 1990, I was much more musically promiscuous than before, probably because there was more happening on "the scene," and also because I knew more people. I could be wrong, but I think one of the first things I got involved in was at a Hell on Earth show in 1990. I came back from Japan with a beard, and I kept it for a while, which was a bit awkward given that this was a drag band. Mike Cupp (a.k.a. Mick Cock) and Geoff Marsh, both formerly of Four Neat Guys and now of the spectacular Whateverdude, Randy Reinke, also of Four Neat Guys, and I appeared as "The Menstrels" (spelling?). The three front men were fully decked out, including heels and fright wigs, but I, as the drummer, decided to pay homage to one of Memphis' legendary female drummers, Misty White, of Hellcats and Alluring Strange fame. Back during those days, I frequently remember seeing Misty in a black turtleneck, cut off army fatigue trousers, and wing-tip brogue shoes, all of which I had in my own wardrobe. So I arrived at Hell on Earth in all of the above, with a long blonde wig, plus a rock tied around my neck with some twine (instead of a crystal). It was a pretty perfect rendition, except for the beard, of course. Misty's twin sister Kristi walked up to me and asked, "Who are you supposed to be?" I asked her to take a step back and think about it. She burst into incredulous laughter and told me I was a wicked man. I seem to remember Misty actually liked it, and there may photos somewhere of us together
Slaw - Another project I got involved with was Slaw, which featured the double-threat of Marilyn Albert and Elizabeth Pritchartt on guitars and vocals, the wonderful Greg Easterly on bass and occasional violin, and me on drums. I think we only played one or two shows, and I can't recall any of the songs apart from "Captain of Your Ship." I particularly liked the idea of being in a band where the members had absurd names, mine being "The Slaw," a title I still fiercely defend to this day.
Snakehips/Compulsive Gamblers/The Grifters - My largely painful forays into the tenor saxophone with The Grundies and The Bumnotes generated a surprising level of interest from other bands looking to add some shitty, unstable and skronky horns to their sound. Among them, I occasionally played live with both Snakehips and Compulsive Gamblers, and recorded evidence (incriminating or otherwise) can be found on "Walk Down the Street" on the Snakehips album "Lit," and "Bad Taste" by the Gamblers, which appears on Shangri-La Records' "A History Of Memphis Garage Rock: The '90s." I also played in the skronky horn section with Fields Trimble, Jack Adcock and Robert Gordon on the song "I Arise" from the Grifters' album "One Sock Missing." This track, unusually, was recorded in the back room of a flower shop on Poplar, where David Shouse worked at the time.
Feisty Javelinas - Another side project where I played drums, The Feisty Javelinas, was a short-lived band comprising Randy Reinke and culinary genius John Pearson on guitars and vocals, Alex Greene (of Big Ass Truck and Reigning Sound fame) on keyboards and vocals, David Pound on bass, and me. The material was a refreshing melange of slightly offbeat country music, including "White Line Fever" (one of my favorite Merle Haggard songs), George Jones' "Developing My Pictures," and a lot of other interesting tunes which I can't remember at the moment. I can only remember one or two shows with this band, but I do recall that Cheryl Paine made the front men some very ornate (but I assumed ironic) Nudie's-style western shirts, which they wore with pride.
Bob's Lead Hyena - One of Memphis' best bands of the early '90s, the original lineup was former Odd Jobs co-front Stoten Outlan on vocals, Mark Gooch (also an Odd Jobs alumnus) and Jim Duckworth on guitars, Roy Berry on drums, and a guy I only ever knew as Hippie Johnny on bass. They pretty much emerged at the same time as The Grundies, and we all knew and liked one another. I thought their song "Jelly" was particularly fine. At some point Hippie Johnny, who was a pretty formidable bass player, decided to move back to, I think, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the band needed a bass player. By this time Jim Duckworth had also left. I knew their songs from having seen them live and also listened obsessively to a tape of them playing live on WEVL, so I floated the idea of at least filling in. We rehearsed a couple of times and sounded pretty decent, and I think there was an impromptu small gig at Mark Gooch's Sad Pad. However, there were clear expectations from Mark that I should focus on one band (his), but I thought musical monogamy was overrated, and still do, so I withdrew.
An All-Gourd Band - Strictly speaking, this was a mostly gourd band, not an all-gourd band. Mark Gooch and my friend Jack Adcock both made instruments from gourds, often sourced from Jeff Green's backyard, where he had a large patch on the go at the time (1993 or thereabouts). I had a gourd saxophone and a gourd spike fiddle made by Jack, and Mark had made a very nice flute, sax, and also an upright bass (from a calabash) with a proper neck attached. The band itself was Mark on gourd flute and sax, me on gourd spike fiddle, Craig Shindler on gourd bass, Lee Swets on Fender bass, and the spectacular Roy Berry on drums. We played one gig as far as I can recall, at some wealthy person's house in East Memphis, who booked us as a "wacky novelty" and looked vaguely uncomfortable when the rag-tag mob actually turned up. We also made a recording, "O My Calabash," which can be found on the Loverly Records compilation. While the band churns away in a pseudo-jazz vamp, Trey recites a Polynesian poem, an ode to a calabash, which was used as a navigation instrument: "My calabash turns over and over on the crested waves/Oh my calabash, revealing the naked wisdom of the stars/Oh my calabash, bringing me a brother's life-saving love!"
Whew, I think that may be it, just maybe. It may not have all been good, but it was all fun, at least for a little while, sometimes longer. If you can think of anything or anyone I have left out, let me know. I'm really pleased to have reached the end of my nostalgia tour before heading back to Memphis to embrace the musical present/future on 01/01/10. Hope to see you there.
Those of you who have been kind enough to follow this blog so far will have noticed that the vast majority of what I've written so far has been in the nostalgic memoir vein, casting an eye back to a time and place long gone - the Memphis music scene in the 1980s and early 1990s - and my involvement in it. It was never my intention that this blog should be entirely devoted to documenting the past, but it seemed like a good place to start, and I certainly needed to get these memories and anecdotes down, for a variety of reasons. It was something I had been promising myself I would do for a long time, and I have very nearly completed the task.
However, the posts I've made so far have really covered the deeper and more enduring musical relationships I enjoyed/endured. There were many, many more which were fleeting, tenuous, short-lived by design, or some combination of all of the above. I think it's fitting to put this walk down memory lane to bed as we approach a new year and I prepare to re-enter the Memphis music present, if only fleetingly. This post is a mostly chronological round-up of other bands and recording projects with whom I had some involvement over the years. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. There are no innocent.
Barking Dog - Prior to my friend Mark Edwards and I meeting Linda Heck and forming Pseudobop, probably late 1981/early 1982, I received an invitation to audition as second guitarist for the then-popular Barking Dog, comprising Davis McCain on guitar and vocals, Deck Rees on bass, and Robert Bruce on drums. I still had the shitty little amp which I had received with my first el-cheapo Stratocaster copy when I was 14, and it proved to be inaudible to the rest of the band. They liked me but made the fair criticism that I needed to be heard. This was my inspiration to go out and buy a largely troublesome Fender Super Reverb amp, but they ultimately decided to opt for a keyboard player - the excellent Keith Tomes, who is now married to the sister of my schoolmate Greg King. Wise choices all around!
Shock Opera - One of the many bass players in Pseudobop, Sean Kerr, formed a band around 1984 called Shock Opera (not these guys), with David Skypeck on drums, a keyboard player named Hugh, and a guitarist whose name I can't remember, and whom they apparently wanted to get rid of (which explains my presence in the story). They had somehow gotten a budget together to go into the studio and make a record, with Richard Rosebrough (whom I always liked) engineering and Busta Jones producing. We laid down some basic tracks ("Happy Ending" and "African Telephones" are the only titles I can recall) at Phillips Recording, which was my first time in that amazing place. We later did a long session at Mastercraft Studio on Cleveland the night before I had a final exam. I remember sitting in the corner behind my amp reviewing my notes and textbook while Busta Jones (who seemed to be milking his recent association with Talking Heads) insisted on the most exhaustive drum miking/baffling/sound-checking in the history of recorded music. At one point he went out for some reason, and we actually cut something. When he returned, with a girlfriend in tow, he was most unhappy that anyone had done anything in his absence. I was most unhappy with the way things were progressing, or not, as it were, and subsequently declined further participation. The record eventually came out (I even had a copy at one point), but I think most of my guitar parts were wiped, and Kye Kennedy (my junior high classmate) was drafted in to play some proper guitar.
Satan's Bedpan - This was a name I stole from Ross Johnson, rather shamelessly, but it was just too good to allow to lie dormant, or so the younger me thought. In retrospect, it was probably a little out of order to appropriate it, but after all, it was only for one night in 1985. Ross played drums, Jones Rutledge played bass, and I played guitar and sang - the only time I have played lone front man. We did all covers, a mixture of things like Talking Heads' "Heaven," The Velvet Underground's "Candy Says," The Beatles' "If I Needed Someone," The Doors' "Five to One," and Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced." I had my horrible multi-effects box in full, uh, effect, and it was noisy and a bit silly at times, but not at all bad. We were opening for Chris Lea and the Moonlight Syncopators on a weeknight at The Antenna.
Possible Fossils - Back in the latter days of Four Neat Guys (1985), John McClure and I had a mutual friend named Rusty Smith (with whom I have completely lost contact - if you're out there, give me a shout), who in turn had another friend named Jeff Denson, a guitarist. Rusty had some lyrics and melody ideas, which we put together into a small batch of original songs. I think we only played a couple of shows - one at a party at my girlfriend's house, and another at the old Prince Mongo's Planet on Front Street. My brother also played there a number of times with his high school band. It was a very strange venue, with the stage up in the gallery above the ground floor, so the band was only visible to people standing right at the back of the bar near the exit, and the audience was largely invisible to the band. We had one or two songs which were fairly good, one of which I made a demo of with Rusty on vocals, and me on guitar, bass, drums, and harmony vocals. I believe it was called "27 Years," but I have always thought of it in terms of its tag line "She's got a new set of dreams."
Harris and the Hepsters - (This memory is classified as a stub - you can help improve it by pointing out any missing info/errors.) The inimitable and irrepressible Harris Scheuner fronted a couple of bands in the late 80's, Los Pimpin' and Harris and the Hepsters. I occasionally played drums with the latter. Other members I can recall included bassists Dave Wiggins, David Pound and John McClure (not all at once), and guitarists Randy Reinke and Mark Harrison (am I imagining this?). I remember gigs at Fred's Hideout and one outside in front of a dry cleaner's or hair salon of some sort on Union Avenue near Overton Square.
Big Mouth Bass - This was a one-night-only outfit sometime around the same period, fronted by Belinda Killough on vocals, with Harris on drums, an odd dual-bass pairing of Linda Heck and me, with John McClure on guitar, and I think Randy Reinke too. An opening gig for someone else at the Antenna, my only recollections are that Belinda had a bottle of wine shaped like a fish, and we played Gene Pitney's "It Hurts to be in Love" and "Fight the Power" by the Isley Brothers.
The Marilyns - I was never in this group, but I was a huge fan and friend of the band, and made a quick-and-dirty four-track recording of them at Jim Duckworth's house in 1988, before I left for Japan. The band at that point had a triple guitar lineup - Cheryl, Leigh Anne, and Marilyn Albert (then Duckworth), all of whom sang, along with Jeannie Tomlinson on bass and vocals, Betsy Elias on keyboards, and the late Thomas Smith on drums. The recording we made was very basic, but I liked the feel of it, because it captured the real sound of the band. It was all recorded live, with a few vocal overdubs added. The cassette was "released" on a fairly limited basis, and once again, I once had a copy, somewhere. I think there were about eight songs, of which I can only remember "Libertyland" (an ode to Memphis' white trash attempt at a theme park), "Quit" (which was like a cheerleader routine - "Quit, quit, q-u-i-t"), "Nutbush City Limits," "I'll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind" (a Boyce and Hart song which had featured in an episode of "Bewitched") and a haunting love song called "Back from the Grave."
The Menstrels - Upon my return from Japan in 1990, I was much more musically promiscuous than before, probably because there was more happening on "the scene," and also because I knew more people. I could be wrong, but I think one of the first things I got involved in was at a Hell on Earth show in 1990. I came back from Japan with a beard, and I kept it for a while, which was a bit awkward given that this was a drag band. Mike Cupp (a.k.a. Mick Cock) and Geoff Marsh, both formerly of Four Neat Guys and now of the spectacular Whateverdude, Randy Reinke, also of Four Neat Guys, and I appeared as "The Menstrels" (spelling?). The three front men were fully decked out, including heels and fright wigs, but I, as the drummer, decided to pay homage to one of Memphis' legendary female drummers, Misty White, of Hellcats and Alluring Strange fame. Back during those days, I frequently remember seeing Misty in a black turtleneck, cut off army fatigue trousers, and wing-tip brogue shoes, all of which I had in my own wardrobe. So I arrived at Hell on Earth in all of the above, with a long blonde wig, plus a rock tied around my neck with some twine (instead of a crystal). It was a pretty perfect rendition, except for the beard, of course. Misty's twin sister Kristi walked up to me and asked, "Who are you supposed to be?" I asked her to take a step back and think about it. She burst into incredulous laughter and told me I was a wicked man. I seem to remember Misty actually liked it, and there may photos somewhere of us together
Slaw - Another project I got involved with was Slaw, which featured the double-threat of Marilyn Albert and Elizabeth Pritchartt on guitars and vocals, the wonderful Greg Easterly on bass and occasional violin, and me on drums. I think we only played one or two shows, and I can't recall any of the songs apart from "Captain of Your Ship." I particularly liked the idea of being in a band where the members had absurd names, mine being "The Slaw," a title I still fiercely defend to this day.
Snakehips/Compulsive Gamblers/The Grifters - My largely painful forays into the tenor saxophone with The Grundies and The Bumnotes generated a surprising level of interest from other bands looking to add some shitty, unstable and skronky horns to their sound. Among them, I occasionally played live with both Snakehips and Compulsive Gamblers, and recorded evidence (incriminating or otherwise) can be found on "Walk Down the Street" on the Snakehips album "Lit," and "Bad Taste" by the Gamblers, which appears on Shangri-La Records' "A History Of Memphis Garage Rock: The '90s." I also played in the skronky horn section with Fields Trimble, Jack Adcock and Robert Gordon on the song "I Arise" from the Grifters' album "One Sock Missing." This track, unusually, was recorded in the back room of a flower shop on Poplar, where David Shouse worked at the time.
Feisty Javelinas - Another side project where I played drums, The Feisty Javelinas, was a short-lived band comprising Randy Reinke and culinary genius John Pearson on guitars and vocals, Alex Greene (of Big Ass Truck and Reigning Sound fame) on keyboards and vocals, David Pound on bass, and me. The material was a refreshing melange of slightly offbeat country music, including "White Line Fever" (one of my favorite Merle Haggard songs), George Jones' "Developing My Pictures," and a lot of other interesting tunes which I can't remember at the moment. I can only remember one or two shows with this band, but I do recall that Cheryl Paine made the front men some very ornate (but I assumed ironic) Nudie's-style western shirts, which they wore with pride.
Bob's Lead Hyena - One of Memphis' best bands of the early '90s, the original lineup was former Odd Jobs co-front Stoten Outlan on vocals, Mark Gooch (also an Odd Jobs alumnus) and Jim Duckworth on guitars, Roy Berry on drums, and a guy I only ever knew as Hippie Johnny on bass. They pretty much emerged at the same time as The Grundies, and we all knew and liked one another. I thought their song "Jelly" was particularly fine. At some point Hippie Johnny, who was a pretty formidable bass player, decided to move back to, I think, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the band needed a bass player. By this time Jim Duckworth had also left. I knew their songs from having seen them live and also listened obsessively to a tape of them playing live on WEVL, so I floated the idea of at least filling in. We rehearsed a couple of times and sounded pretty decent, and I think there was an impromptu small gig at Mark Gooch's Sad Pad. However, there were clear expectations from Mark that I should focus on one band (his), but I thought musical monogamy was overrated, and still do, so I withdrew.
An All-Gourd Band - Strictly speaking, this was a mostly gourd band, not an all-gourd band. Mark Gooch and my friend Jack Adcock both made instruments from gourds, often sourced from Jeff Green's backyard, where he had a large patch on the go at the time (1993 or thereabouts). I had a gourd saxophone and a gourd spike fiddle made by Jack, and Mark had made a very nice flute, sax, and also an upright bass (from a calabash) with a proper neck attached. The band itself was Mark on gourd flute and sax, me on gourd spike fiddle, Craig Shindler on gourd bass, Lee Swets on Fender bass, and the spectacular Roy Berry on drums. We played one gig as far as I can recall, at some wealthy person's house in East Memphis, who booked us as a "wacky novelty" and looked vaguely uncomfortable when the rag-tag mob actually turned up. We also made a recording, "O My Calabash," which can be found on the Loverly Records compilation. While the band churns away in a pseudo-jazz vamp, Trey recites a Polynesian poem, an ode to a calabash, which was used as a navigation instrument: "My calabash turns over and over on the crested waves/Oh my calabash, revealing the naked wisdom of the stars/Oh my calabash, bringing me a brother's life-saving love!"
Whew, I think that may be it, just maybe. It may not have all been good, but it was all fun, at least for a little while, sometimes longer. If you can think of anything or anyone I have left out, let me know. I'm really pleased to have reached the end of my nostalgia tour before heading back to Memphis to embrace the musical present/future on 01/01/10. Hope to see you there.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Life, Libertyland and the pursuit of happiness
I used to love the Fairgrounds and Libertyland, and I wasn't alone. Formidable Memphis band The Marilyns had a great song dedicated to our shabby little theme park. The Zippin Pippin in particular was a delight (hell, Elvis liked it), certainly one of the world's great historic roller coaster experiences, and the subject of this tribute by the inimitable Misty White. However, in my humble opinion, one of the finest-ever moments of the Mid-South Fair was the unveiling of a life-size statue of Dolly Parton, sculpted entirely in butter. The old ways are dying...
Thursday, 3 December 2009
London life meets Memphis life
Looking forward to this more than I can say. Jimi Inc is my nom de plectrum. The venue used to be known as Fred's Hideout, which has appeared in previous posts. Lots of history in the background, but this show will really be about the present, and the future. Hope to see you there.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Monday, 30 November 2009
Today
"Happiness is within you, and it can be today." Hot damn, Linda Heck Trio (Linda Heck, John McClure bass, Kurt Ruleman drums) with special guest Jim Duckworth live at Nocturnal (The Antenna Club) Memphis, 28 November, 2009. Wish I'd been there. This was always one of my favorite songs to play, and the only way it could possibly be better is if I'd been singing harmony. And Linda moves now - she didn't move before...
Friday, 27 November 2009
My grandad's W.P.A. joke
I wrote previously about my maternal grandfather's personality change later in life, and the fact that while it ultimately led to a sad place, the journey itself contained quite a lot of humor. Last night I remembered another joke he told during this period. I got the impression from listening to him talk about life during the Depression that there was a lot of satire around the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), which, no doubt, did an awful lot of good work, but also seems to have been regarded as being prone to overstaffing - for obvious reasons. My grandad's joke was an example of what must have been a much wider tendency to poke fun at the W.P.A. during the New Deal.
An old man with a large front lawn looked out his window and realised that the grass in his yard was nearly knee-high. Because he was old with a weak heart, he didn't want to risk cutting it himself. His neighbor suggested that he call the W.P.A. to see if they had someone who could do it.
"Hello, is that the W.P.A.?"
"Yessir."
"I was wondering if you could send someone over to cut the grass in my front yard. It's gotten out of control."
"Sure, give me your address and we'll send over four men and a Johnny-on-the-job."
"Four men and a Johnny-on-the-job? What do I need all that for?"
"Well, sir, that's one comin', one goin', one restin', and one mowin'."
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Thank You Friends
My fourteenth year of fish and chips on Turkey Day. A happy Thanksgiving to you and your'n!
Monday, 23 November 2009
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
The Bumnotes/drum circle/Skronkadelic: 1990 - 1994
When I returned from my second stay in Japan in late summer 1990, I was thinner than when I left and had a pretty full beard, which I had insisted on growing in my second year on the JET Programme, mainly to piss off some of the conservative ideologues in the local office which had hired me. We're not talking ZZ Top, but nevertheless a respectable beard. I think I had only been back in Memphis a day or two when I went to see a band, I believe it was K9 Arts, at The Pyramid Club on Madison downtown. The Pyramid was a venue which had sprung up in my absence, about which I had heard varying reports, and my sense of displacement when I got there was heightened by the fact that my beard seemed to make me unrecognizable to a large number of people I had known for years. I decided to just roll with it, as a kind of experiment, and for most of that night, I felt like I was in some sort of parallel universe where I did not exist. Like George Bailey, or some sort of ghost.
It had never previously occurred to me that only two years away from Memphis would make re-entry such a strange experience. Time may flow slowly in Memphis, but it flows nevertheless, much like the Mississippi, which appears placid at the surface, but deceptively hides violent churning currents beneath. When you take yourself out of it, you may think that you can return to the place you left and dive back in, but it doesn't work that way. At least not for me, it didn't. As an older man, I now take all this for granted, but the younger me found it all a bit jarring.
Familiar music venues had gone, and new ones sprung up. There was the scene taking shape around Shangri-La and its emerging aspirations as a record label. The trio A Band Called Bud, which I had seen at Skateland Summer during my summer visit in 1989, had been threatened with legal action by Anheuser-Busch and had since become a quartet known as The Grifters. There was a definite sense of momentum building in the music scene, of ferment of some sort taking place. New bands, new people, a different vibe. Most of the musical projects I had been connected with were either on hold, defunct, or only required sporadic input from me. I would have to explore something different.
The Grundies and the revitalized Linda Heck phase was yet to come, and I started hanging out with my old friends Jack Adcock and Amy Blumenthal (now Adcock), who at that time lived in an oddly shaped building in an oddly shaped part of town - the forlorn virtual no-man's land between Union and Madison west of Forrest Park downtown. This area had seen widespread property accumulation in the 1970s and 1980s by some of Memphis' most prominent real estate speculators, in anticipation of some sort of boom which never materialized.
Jack and Amy lived on Marshall, around the corner from both Sun and Phillips Studios, and just down the street from the Bluff City Body Shop where the early Hell on Earth events took place. The body shop itself was adjacent to another locus of music making and band formation, Mark Gooch's loft space, also known by many as "The Sad Pad." Mark was the guitarist in legendary 1980s Memphis band The Odd Jobs, and also in the fantastic, but far too short-lived early 1990's band Bob's Lead Hyena, the drummer of which was Sad Pad resident Roy Berry, now of Lucero, and certainly one of the most interesting and refined drummers I have ever had the pleasure of hearing and playing with.
Mark Gooch also had one of the greatest guitar anecdotes I have ever heard. As I recall it, he had, as a teenager, owned a Gibson SG, which was stolen sometime in the 1970s in a burglary. Sometime in the early 1990s, he had walked past a pawn shop and seen an SG hanging on the wall through the window. Feeling nostalgic, he went in and had a look at it. Realizing that it was, in fact, his long lost guitar, he informed the pawn shop owner, went home to find the original purchase receipt with serial number, involved the police, returned to the shop, and reclaimed his guitar.
Anyway, back to Jack and Amy. I had known Amy since my university days, and I had met Jack back during the early days of Linda Heck and The Train Wreck. They had gotten together personally and musically, and their oddly-shaped apartment on Marshall had a sizable rehearsal room for the various things they were involved in. One of these was The Bumnotes, which had formed some time earlier, I don't know exactly when, how or why. However, the lineup during my involvement with the band was usually Jack on percussion and occasional drums, Amy on bass, Randy Uhlig also on bass, the incredible Bob Elbrecht on guitar, Wally Hall on vocals, slide guitar, and keyboards, Joey Pegram on drums, Brian Collins (who had played with Jack in 611, the first band to release a single on Shangri-La Records) on guitar and vocals, and me on tenor sax, percussion, guitar, or drums.
The mention of Randy Uhlig indirectly brings to mind another amusing anecdote. Randy, who has been involved in the production of many Memphis films, also played the A&R man in the Roy Barnes film "Gone Down South," which features the Hellcats. Besides contributing an awful faux speed metal song to the soundtrack, which Randy's A&R man character plays for the Hellcats as an example of the kind of music he produces, I also contributed some sound effects for the film. These included a radio DJ voiceover used in the film, featuring WEVL announcer Catman, a German rockabilly enthusiast and tour promoter who was married to Barbara Pittman. (I never knew Catman's real name, but in writing this piece I have discovered it is/was Willie Gutt.) Catman was to come to my apartment on Forrest one evening to record the voiceover, and Roy arrived earlier to work on some sound effects with me first. My downstairs neighbor at the time was a very straight-laced and highly strung young woman, and unfortunately, Catman had gotten the apartment number wrong and knocked on her door first. She opened her door to find a fairly muscular German with greased-back hair, leather jacket, and motorcycle boots, whose first words to her were, "I'm looking for a guy named Barnes. He's makin' a movie." She apparently said, "Leave now or I'll call the police." God knows what she thought was about to take place upstairs, but it was nothing more exotic than Catman standing in my closet while he recited his DJ rap into a mic.
But alas, I once again digress. The Bumnotes used to rehearse at Jack and Amy's place every Monday evening, which made a nice start to the week after a first day back at work. We played gigs mostly at The Loose End/Epicenter Lounge, Antenna, and Barristers, and our material consisted of a roughly equal split between improvised psychedelic/ambient instrumental jams and psychedelic and blues covers. I recall we also once played a gig in the heat of the midday sun during the summer, on Mud Island (beside the River Walk model, not in the amphitheater, sadly). Jack, who is originally from Louisiana and has a wide range of unusual sayings, was suffering in the heat, and in a quiet moment blurted out, "I'm sweatin' like a whore in church!"
It had never previously occurred to me that only two years away from Memphis would make re-entry such a strange experience. Time may flow slowly in Memphis, but it flows nevertheless, much like the Mississippi, which appears placid at the surface, but deceptively hides violent churning currents beneath. When you take yourself out of it, you may think that you can return to the place you left and dive back in, but it doesn't work that way. At least not for me, it didn't. As an older man, I now take all this for granted, but the younger me found it all a bit jarring.
Familiar music venues had gone, and new ones sprung up. There was the scene taking shape around Shangri-La and its emerging aspirations as a record label. The trio A Band Called Bud, which I had seen at Skateland Summer during my summer visit in 1989, had been threatened with legal action by Anheuser-Busch and had since become a quartet known as The Grifters. There was a definite sense of momentum building in the music scene, of ferment of some sort taking place. New bands, new people, a different vibe. Most of the musical projects I had been connected with were either on hold, defunct, or only required sporadic input from me. I would have to explore something different.
The Grundies and the revitalized Linda Heck phase was yet to come, and I started hanging out with my old friends Jack Adcock and Amy Blumenthal (now Adcock), who at that time lived in an oddly shaped building in an oddly shaped part of town - the forlorn virtual no-man's land between Union and Madison west of Forrest Park downtown. This area had seen widespread property accumulation in the 1970s and 1980s by some of Memphis' most prominent real estate speculators, in anticipation of some sort of boom which never materialized.
Jack and Amy lived on Marshall, around the corner from both Sun and Phillips Studios, and just down the street from the Bluff City Body Shop where the early Hell on Earth events took place. The body shop itself was adjacent to another locus of music making and band formation, Mark Gooch's loft space, also known by many as "The Sad Pad." Mark was the guitarist in legendary 1980s Memphis band The Odd Jobs, and also in the fantastic, but far too short-lived early 1990's band Bob's Lead Hyena, the drummer of which was Sad Pad resident Roy Berry, now of Lucero, and certainly one of the most interesting and refined drummers I have ever had the pleasure of hearing and playing with.
Mark Gooch also had one of the greatest guitar anecdotes I have ever heard. As I recall it, he had, as a teenager, owned a Gibson SG, which was stolen sometime in the 1970s in a burglary. Sometime in the early 1990s, he had walked past a pawn shop and seen an SG hanging on the wall through the window. Feeling nostalgic, he went in and had a look at it. Realizing that it was, in fact, his long lost guitar, he informed the pawn shop owner, went home to find the original purchase receipt with serial number, involved the police, returned to the shop, and reclaimed his guitar.
Anyway, back to Jack and Amy. I had known Amy since my university days, and I had met Jack back during the early days of Linda Heck and The Train Wreck. They had gotten together personally and musically, and their oddly-shaped apartment on Marshall had a sizable rehearsal room for the various things they were involved in. One of these was The Bumnotes, which had formed some time earlier, I don't know exactly when, how or why. However, the lineup during my involvement with the band was usually Jack on percussion and occasional drums, Amy on bass, Randy Uhlig also on bass, the incredible Bob Elbrecht on guitar, Wally Hall on vocals, slide guitar, and keyboards, Joey Pegram on drums, Brian Collins (who had played with Jack in 611, the first band to release a single on Shangri-La Records) on guitar and vocals, and me on tenor sax, percussion, guitar, or drums.
The mention of Randy Uhlig indirectly brings to mind another amusing anecdote. Randy, who has been involved in the production of many Memphis films, also played the A&R man in the Roy Barnes film "Gone Down South," which features the Hellcats. Besides contributing an awful faux speed metal song to the soundtrack, which Randy's A&R man character plays for the Hellcats as an example of the kind of music he produces, I also contributed some sound effects for the film. These included a radio DJ voiceover used in the film, featuring WEVL announcer Catman, a German rockabilly enthusiast and tour promoter who was married to Barbara Pittman. (I never knew Catman's real name, but in writing this piece I have discovered it is/was Willie Gutt.) Catman was to come to my apartment on Forrest one evening to record the voiceover, and Roy arrived earlier to work on some sound effects with me first. My downstairs neighbor at the time was a very straight-laced and highly strung young woman, and unfortunately, Catman had gotten the apartment number wrong and knocked on her door first. She opened her door to find a fairly muscular German with greased-back hair, leather jacket, and motorcycle boots, whose first words to her were, "I'm looking for a guy named Barnes. He's makin' a movie." She apparently said, "Leave now or I'll call the police." God knows what she thought was about to take place upstairs, but it was nothing more exotic than Catman standing in my closet while he recited his DJ rap into a mic.
But alas, I once again digress. The Bumnotes used to rehearse at Jack and Amy's place every Monday evening, which made a nice start to the week after a first day back at work. We played gigs mostly at The Loose End/Epicenter Lounge, Antenna, and Barristers, and our material consisted of a roughly equal split between improvised psychedelic/ambient instrumental jams and psychedelic and blues covers. I recall we also once played a gig in the heat of the midday sun during the summer, on Mud Island (beside the River Walk model, not in the amphitheater, sadly). Jack, who is originally from Louisiana and has a wide range of unusual sayings, was suffering in the heat, and in a quiet moment blurted out, "I'm sweatin' like a whore in church!"
Most of the band's material escapes my recall, but I remember we had a great version of Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" which featured Bob's scintillating guitar playing and Wally on vocals. There is also recorded evidence in the form of a number of live recordings I have on cassette but have not listened to recently, as well as two tracks recorded at Easley-McCain for the Loverly Records compilation: a Yoko Ono song called "Move on Fast," with vocals by Brian Collins, on which I play sax; and Butch Hancock's "Boxcars," with vocals by Wally Hall, on which I for some mysterious reason ended up playing Hammond organ, and it sounds surprisingly good.
I think it was sometime around 1992 that Jack and Amy moved to a house on South Cox in the pre-gentrification Cooper-Young neighborhood, and I began joining in with their Sunday afternoon percussion group, which typically featured them, Joey Pegram, Amy's brother Mike, Memphis artist David Hall, and sometimes the amazing Richard Graham, who in addition to being a very talented percussionist, is also a serious scholar of Latin percussion traditions. We played a variety of traditional African, Asian and Latin instruments, but Jack, who was always a very enthusiastic and energetic experimenter, had also made a variety of instruments, including berimbau, spike fiddles with gourd resonators, slit drums, a diddly bow, a kora, and a peculiar instrument called The Hell Harp, which consisted of the gas tank from a pickup truck with a metal arch welded on, from which a number of guitar strings were strung and anchored in the gas can resonator. It was played with a bow, and genuinely sounded like something from the bowels of Hades. Joey Pegram and I had both learned to throat sing around the same time, and I have some recordings made at the house which feature this along with the unusual mix of instruments on hand at the time.
The drum circle, which never had a proper name, played a number of public shows, all of which were organized by Richard Graham. One was during the dinner hour at the refectory at Rhodes College, wherein we marched around tables of very unimpressed frat boys and sorority girls playing our miniature version of a Brazilian batucada ensemble. This lineup was also featured in a performance in Handy Park on Beale Street, during the Memphis in May festival in 1994, when we accompanied a large steel band from Trinidad on a version of "Brazil." We also played at the Overton Park Shell opening for a children's percussion and dance ensemble called "Watoto d'Afrique."
In early 1991, I decided to create a free-jazz big band for one performance. I had for some time thought about this, and had earmarked the name Skronkadelic for such an event - a combination of Funkadelic and the word "skronk," which I had heard Robert Palmer use to describe the less melodic sounds produced by wind instruments. I managed to convince about 20 people to join me in this enterprise - most of them amateur or non-horn players, but with John McClure on bass and I think both Ross Johnson and Keith Padgett on drums, Jack and Amy on percussion, and accomplished alto sax player John Ingle joining as well. I came up with some suggestive titles and general instructions to give the players, and we just played, with me playing tenor and attempting to guide/conduct them. Some of the horn players thought the point was to play as cacophonously as possible throughout, but the others got the idea as we went along. It was fairly chaotic, as I had expected, but there were moments of beauty.
As the flier states, our performance of February 2, 1991 was to be a debut/farewell performance, which was my intention and recollection. However, I recently came across a second flier, from an apparent second show in April of that year, of which I have no recollection. It could be that what I recall as the single show is an amalgamation of memories from both. If anyone out there took part in either and can clarify what went on and who else was there, I will amend the post accordingly. (UPDATE: Jill Johnson has pinged me to remind me that a scaled down version of Skronkadelic played with the drum circle at her apartment during a Cheap Art event. I think the lineup was me, John Ingle and Fields Trimble on horns, with Jack, Amy, Joey and David Hall (?) on percussion.)
Jack and Amy remain good friends across the Atlantic in coastal Virginia. I always highly valued their companionship and generosity during my time back in Memphis, and our various musical adventures and misadventures. They also turned me on to some great music along the way.
I think it was sometime around 1992 that Jack and Amy moved to a house on South Cox in the pre-gentrification Cooper-Young neighborhood, and I began joining in with their Sunday afternoon percussion group, which typically featured them, Joey Pegram, Amy's brother Mike, Memphis artist David Hall, and sometimes the amazing Richard Graham, who in addition to being a very talented percussionist, is also a serious scholar of Latin percussion traditions. We played a variety of traditional African, Asian and Latin instruments, but Jack, who was always a very enthusiastic and energetic experimenter, had also made a variety of instruments, including berimbau, spike fiddles with gourd resonators, slit drums, a diddly bow, a kora, and a peculiar instrument called The Hell Harp, which consisted of the gas tank from a pickup truck with a metal arch welded on, from which a number of guitar strings were strung and anchored in the gas can resonator. It was played with a bow, and genuinely sounded like something from the bowels of Hades. Joey Pegram and I had both learned to throat sing around the same time, and I have some recordings made at the house which feature this along with the unusual mix of instruments on hand at the time.
The drum circle, which never had a proper name, played a number of public shows, all of which were organized by Richard Graham. One was during the dinner hour at the refectory at Rhodes College, wherein we marched around tables of very unimpressed frat boys and sorority girls playing our miniature version of a Brazilian batucada ensemble. This lineup was also featured in a performance in Handy Park on Beale Street, during the Memphis in May festival in 1994, when we accompanied a large steel band from Trinidad on a version of "Brazil." We also played at the Overton Park Shell opening for a children's percussion and dance ensemble called "Watoto d'Afrique."
In early 1991, I decided to create a free-jazz big band for one performance. I had for some time thought about this, and had earmarked the name Skronkadelic for such an event - a combination of Funkadelic and the word "skronk," which I had heard Robert Palmer use to describe the less melodic sounds produced by wind instruments. I managed to convince about 20 people to join me in this enterprise - most of them amateur or non-horn players, but with John McClure on bass and I think both Ross Johnson and Keith Padgett on drums, Jack and Amy on percussion, and accomplished alto sax player John Ingle joining as well. I came up with some suggestive titles and general instructions to give the players, and we just played, with me playing tenor and attempting to guide/conduct them. Some of the horn players thought the point was to play as cacophonously as possible throughout, but the others got the idea as we went along. It was fairly chaotic, as I had expected, but there were moments of beauty.
As the flier states, our performance of February 2, 1991 was to be a debut/farewell performance, which was my intention and recollection. However, I recently came across a second flier, from an apparent second show in April of that year, of which I have no recollection. It could be that what I recall as the single show is an amalgamation of memories from both. If anyone out there took part in either and can clarify what went on and who else was there, I will amend the post accordingly. (UPDATE: Jill Johnson has pinged me to remind me that a scaled down version of Skronkadelic played with the drum circle at her apartment during a Cheap Art event. I think the lineup was me, John Ingle and Fields Trimble on horns, with Jack, Amy, Joey and David Hall (?) on percussion.)
Jack and Amy remain good friends across the Atlantic in coastal Virginia. I always highly valued their companionship and generosity during my time back in Memphis, and our various musical adventures and misadventures. They also turned me on to some great music along the way.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Friday, 13 November 2009
Drivin' Nails in My Coffin
God, I used to love seeing The Country Rockers live, and I listened to this album obsessively when I was in Japan in 1988 - 90. Doug Easley had kindly sent me a copy of it (it was recorded at his studio, of course) on cassette, and on the flip-side was an interview Robert Gordon had conducted with the band, mainly Sam Baird (guitar, vocals) and Gaius Farnham, a.k.a. Ringo (drums, vocals). As I recall, Sam spent some considerable time talking about how wrestling was probably fake, while Gaius complained about the sizes of buttons on his shirts - he had very short fingers, which is where the nickname "Ringo" apparently came from, way before the lovable Liverpudlian - or so it was claimed. There was more to it than that, but those are my stand-out memories. I also recall Ron Easley (a.k.a. Durand Mysterion, bass, vocals, guitar) recounting how he had discovered Sam and Gaius (who I think was about 74 at the time this track was recorded) playing in some strange bar in South Memphis somewhere, and decided to take them under his wing. Thank God he did, because they were an absolute delight. This was about as real and elemental as music has ever come, in my book. Sam played a strange, cheap, generic electric guitar which I think I can recall seeing in the pages of a Fred P. Gattas catalogue as a kid, and apparently used to cut his guitar picks out of the tops of the plastic lids on Folgers Coffee cans. Gaius once told me he hadn't changed the heads on his drums (which were sheepskin) since the early 1960s. "There Stands the Glass" and "Barrooms to Bedrooms" were always my favorites, but this will more than do - even better that the TV Sam is watching in the video belonged to my friend John McClure. (The notes to the video on the YouTube site are enlightening. It turns out that the young Oriental women seen with the band sporadically in the closing seconds of the video, backstage at CBGB's, are none other than Shonen Knife.)
Monday, 9 November 2009
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