The Other Side of Nashville

The material posted here on the Anarchy In The Music City website was largely taken from my 2012 book The Other Side of Nashville, "An Incomplete History & Discography of the Nashville Rock Underground 1976-2006." The book covers the growth and evolution of Nashville's non-country music scene as seen by the Rev. Keith A. Gordon, who was there on the street in the 1980s and '90s as it happened. The final tally for the book is 500+ artists/bands listed and around 540 photos of bands, CD and LP covers, posters, and such in this profusely-illustrated volume.

This website's namesake book, Anarchy In The Music City!, is an oral history of the origins and evolution of Nashville's alternative music scene as told by the pioneers that made the music. Using artist interviews culled from the pages of Rev. Keith A. Gordon's critically-acclaimed book The Other Side of Nashville, this illustrated volume includes conversations with both well-known music-makers like Jason & the Scorchers, Webb Wilder, Tony Gerber, David Olney, and Chagall Guevara as well as regional cult rockers like Tommy Womack, the Dusters, Donna Frost, and Aashid Himons, among many others. 

Scorched Earth: A Jason & the Scorchers Scrapbook offers up interviews with Jason Ringenberg, Warner Hodges, and manager Jack Emerson from across the band's lengthy career (1984 through 2010) as well as an illustrated discography and reviews of all the band's albums, including releases from Farmer Jason and the Bluefields. Scorched Earth was created for the dedicated Scorchers fan and includes editorial content from Gordon's The Other Side of Nashville book alongside long out-of-print material from several obscure publications. 

If you like what you've read on this website, or are interested in knowing more about Nashville's early non-country music scene, please consider buying one of these books. 

Memories: The Lost Liner Notes for Return To Elliston Square CD

Anybody who was “there” at the time knows that the Nashville rock music scene – circa 1980s – was an exhilarating, exciting time to be alive. Bands were doing interesting things, making incredible music as they were forming a local scene for the first time. A.J. Schaefer of local indie Spat! Records agrees, and his label has recently released the ultra-groovy compilation disc Return To Elliston Square, 1979-1989. The CD features 22 songs by a wealth of bands, including rare tracks from folks like Cloverbottom, the Ratz, and, yes, even the Enemy’s “Jesus Rides A U.F.O.”

At the label’s request, the Reverend wrote up some nice liner notes for Return To Elliston Square, outlining each band with a brief history, etc for each. Unfortunately, budget restraints prevented Spat! from using the full notes – they just used the intro section on the CD insert – so I thought that I’d post them here for the world to read. You can see the album’s full tracklist on the Spat! Records website, but here are the liner notes that you won’t get to read anywhere else!

The Lost Liner Notes for the Return To Elliston Square CD

It’s hard to believe, but at one time there were no local rock bands to speak of in Nashville. That’s right – no Kings Of Leon, no Pink Spiders, no Paramore splashed all over magazine covers nationwide. Back in the mid-‘70s there was just R. Stevie Moore and his pal Victor Lovera, writing songs and recording music down in the basement.

By the end of the decade, a new creative wind had started blowing across the Music City, inspiring a generation of young musicians. Some say it was the Ramones’ Exit/In show in January ‘79, some say it was the 1976 release of Stevie Moore’s Phonography, the city’s first entirely homegrown original rock album. Regardless, bands like Cloverbottom, the Smashers, Dave Olney & the X-Rays, and the Actuals began to pop up looking for places to play, a situation remedied by Rick Champion at the legendary Phrank ‘n’ Steins. Soon thereafter came the White Animals, Factual, the Ratz, and Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, opening the floodgates to a thousand and one bands. Andy Anderson’s Nashville Intelligence Report zine documented the growing scene and Vanderbilt’s WRVU-FM (91 Rock) played the music.

What you have in your hands is a collection of some of the best and brightest of Nashville’s first wave of rock bands, circa the ‘80s, when the local scene was still defining itself. There are a lot of deserving bands that didn’t make this volume, talented folks like Afrikan Dreamland, 69 Tribe, Chapel of Roses, Burning Hearts, Radio One, the Bunnies, and too many others to list. The bands that are represented here were not alone in creating a local rock scene that had never existed before in Nashville, but they are among the most interesting. Check ‘em out and hear for yourself where the fertile local rock scene of today began.

– Rev. Keith A. Gordon, curmudgeon and critic

Cloverbottom
In early-to-late-‘70s Nashville, the name “Cloverbottom” was a pejorative term, used to ridicule the person on the receiving end. Named for the city’s notorious center for the mentally retarded, Nashville’s first punk band was also one of the city’s first original rock bands. Booked by Rick Champion at the legendary Phrank ‘n’ Steins, the band played a few original tunes sprinkled in-between Buzzcocks and Stranglers covers. Cloverbottom’s core line-up of Rock Strata, Johnny Hollywood, and Bryan D’Beane recorded only one lone three-song EP, 1980’s Anarchy In The Music City, but those three songs still kick ass almost 30 years later!

Actuals
Too far ahead of its time, Nashville’s Actuals…later evolving into Actuel…stood alone as one of the city’s few electronic bands. The duo of vocalist/guitarist Steve Anderson and bassist Gary Rabasca made up the band’s core, pursuing a vision of high-tech music that was unique for the states at that time, and uniquely alien for the Music City audience. Under the Actuel name, the band released a couple of 12” EPs which, along with a 91 Rock benefit show appearance, won them a loyal local following. Dessau’s John Elliott and Factual’s Robb Earls were both members at one time.

Factual
Keyboard wizard Robb Earl was one of a handful of visionary local musicians in the early ‘80s, his band Factual combining keyboards/synth-driven new wave pop with strong rhythms to make what the band called “intelligent dance music.” Primarily a live outfit, Factual nevertheless appeared on both the Never In Nashville and London Side Of Nashville compilations as well as releasing a couple of 45s. Earls would go on to form Warm Dark Pocket and later open Sound Vortex studios, while guitarist Skot Nelson would play with Guilt and Dessau; Factual also included bassist Johnny Hollywood and powerful drummer Bones Brown.

Practical Stylists

 

Practical Stylists
Nashville’s power-pop kings are still fondly-remembered by early ‘80s Nashville fans as an entertaining live band with talent, guts and a unique guitar-driven melodic pop sound. When guitarist David Russell left, vocalist/bassist Scott Sullivant and drummer Jim Hodgkins recruited singer/songwriter/guitarist Bill Lloyd, fresh-off-the-bus-from-Bowling Green, to take his place, adding yet another dimension to the band’s already impressively deep sound. Although the Stylists’ recorded legacy is sparse…only a couple of now-collectible 45s…the band’s manager, Allen Sullivant, has managed to keep the flame alive with a seemingly endless vault of live tracks and video clips.

The Movement
One of the Music City’s most criminally-overlooked power-pop outfits, the Movement rocked local clubs like nobody’s business. Frontman Ritchie Owens was a veteran of bands like the Resistors, and original bassist Greg Herston earned his bones with Basic Static; along with guitarist Bob Ocker and drummer Bongo (Lerry Reynolds later replaced Herston), the Movement crafted a lively pop-rock sound that was British to the bone but fell right in line with turn-of-the-decade major label bands like the Shoes or Pezband, who all mostly took their cues from the Raspberries and Cheap Trick, anyways. The Movement, tho’, were really something special.

The White Animals
Depending on who you ask, the White Animals were either the second or third most popular live band in town during the early-to-mid-‘80s. Although nobody could touch Afrikan Dreamland onstage, the White Animals held their own with an original mix of garage-rock and ‘60s-styled psychedelic-pop with dub overtones. Over the course of half-dozen albums, released on the band’s indie Dread Beat Records label, the White Animals refined their sound and matured into a great rock band both on the stage and on vinyl. Why they never got a major label deal is one of the great mysteries of the decade…

The Young Nashvillians
The Young Nashvillians were, hands down, the most entertaining local band of the ‘80s! While other bands made great music, the Young Nashvillians were never about anything other than F-U-N. Formed in 1982 as a summer project, a four-track basement tape of songs made its way to Kevin Gray of the White Animals, who subsequently released the tape on Dread Beat as Metropolitan Summer in 1983. The band followed with The Young Nashvillians Are Here the next year before the members headed for school and careers. For a couple of glorious summers, tho’, the Young Nashvillians ruled the WRVU airwaves!

The Ratz
Although they presented as old school punks, from this late day, the Ratz sound like a new wave power-pop band to these ears. Regardless, one 7-incher was all that Nashville would get from the ultra-cool foursome, one of the first of a swelling wave of Nashville rock bands, and one of the restless best. Fronted by “Les Rat” (Les Shields) and “Joey Offbeat” (a/k/a Joey Blanton) with bassist “Randy Rodent” and big-beat skinman “Bone,” the Ratz lit up local clubs for an all-too-brief time. Next stop: Blanton to the Enemy, Shields to Raging Fire by way of Go Jimmy Dub.

The Enemy
Written by the Reverend back in 1985 (in Nashville Intelligence Report): “Formed in October 1984 by guitarists Joey Offbeat and Lee Carr, the Enemy chose to ignore the emerging undercurrent of a country punk/C&W revival by performing a daring mixture of hardcore, powerpop and metal-edged, drop-forged instrumentation. Trendy, unfair pigeonhole labels such as thrash or ‘three-chord rock’ fall before the Enemy’s twin scythes of energy and humour.” Hell, sounds good to me. Best known for the novel “Jesus Rides A UFO,” written by Nashville’s homeless poet laureate Gregory Mauberret, in truth, the Enemy was much better than most remember.

Shadow 15
When people talk about ‘80s-era Nashville rock, the name Shadow 15 inevitably crops up. Adored by just about everybody on the scene, the band’s meager recorded output, combined with the consistent quality of their music, has made them all the more legendary. It helps that the band’s adrenalin-fueled sound was complimented by a strong vocalist in Scott Feinstein, incredible guitarist Shannon Ligon, underrated bassist Barry Nelson and explosive drummer Chris Feinstein. They called their sound “garage rock,” but in reality Shadow 15 distilled the best of punk fervor and “shoegazer” rock with Sky Saxon’s reckless spirit, creating something entirely new and exciting.

Raging Fire
Originally known ‘round town as “Ring of Fire,” changing their name when it conflicted with another band, as Raging Fire these roots-rockers blazed a trail across the SE circuit like Sherman duck-walking through Atlanta. Fronted by the fiery Melora Zaner and driven by Michael Godsey’s wildneck guitar, which channeled Link Wray’s six-string mojo every night, Raging Fire quickly earned a national rep for their excitable live show. They coulda been big, they woulda been big, they shoulda been big – Raging Fire walked the walk with a sound that mixed Buddy Holly pop with X’s punk fervor and Hank’s lonesome heart.

Young Grey Ruins
Local writer and musician Allen Green (Suburban Baroque), in the pages of Andy Anderson’s Nashville Intelligence Report, described the music of Young Grey Ruins as “Psychedelic Furs gone garage or Ziggy Stardust gone punk…take your pick.” Allen wasn’t far from the mark, as this long-lost band’s sound was fresh, original, and unlikely, mixing three-chord overdrive with new wavish pop and blasts of sax in a shot for underground cred. YGR was short-lived, tho’, playing local dives (even opening for the Gun Club), and is mostly remembered for sending guitarist Shannon Ligon and bassist Barry Nelson to our beloved Shadow 15.

Government Cheese
Not strictly a local band per se, Bowling Green’s Government Cheese nevertheless orbited the Nashville club circuit like a red-hot comet. The band’s intelligent pop-punk sound was created by a tight-knit chemistry, talented musicians and the band’s charismatic frontman and primary songwriter, Tommy Womack. A couple of 12” EPs, a vinyl album, and a single CD – combined with constant touring and memorable live shows – sealed Government Cheese’s legacy as one of the region’s most popular and creative outfits. Womack’s memoir of the era, The Cheese Chronicles, remains the best book about a touring rock band that’s been written. Ever.

Walk The West
Walking a Morricone soundtrack across a lonesome, tumbleweed-scattered punk rock landscape, Walk The West – vocalist/guitarist/teen heartthrob Paul Kirby, the Goleman Brothers (Will on geetar, John on bass, respectively) and drummer Richard Ice – recorded a lone, lost album for Capitol/EMI before evolving into the Cactus Brothers. With a darker, earthier sound than Jason & the Scorchers, Walk The West rocked their roots hard, with just enough twang to show that they came from Nashville. Definitely one of the great unheralded alt-country bands, Walk The West was a good ten years ahead of its time.

Clockhammer
The odd man out among an ever-evolving late-80s local rock scene dominated by hard rock/metal, Clockhammer made fans and won critical acclaim everywhere but at home. Go figure. Could have been because the band’s sound – an inspired mix of metal, melody, and prog-rock elements – didn’t fit anywhere in the Nashville rock landscape. The trio of Byron Bailey, Matt Swanson, and Ken Coomer had mad musical chops and were crazy creative, and continue to be mentioned in whispered tones alongside other misunderstood geniuses like King’s X. Swanson still gigs around town, Bailey disappeared, and Coomer, well…he joined a band called Wilco.

The Shakers
Oscar Rice and Robert Logue were members of Royal Court of China, but when that band drifted towards becoming a nerf-metal caricature, the two split for the greener creative pastures of their side project, the Shakers. In Rebecca Stout they found a kindred soul and a unique voice that complimented the duo’s original folk-rock leanings. Truth is, professionally and musically, the Shakers were playing on an entirely different field than most other local bands, and they would have fit just as easily with ‘60s-era British bands like the Strawbs or the Incredible String Band as they did in late ‘80s Nashville.

Jet Black Factory
If I would have had to pick one late ‘80s Nashville band to play under the “Big Top,” I would have chosen Jet Black Factory without hesitation. JBF had a sound and vibe that stood apart from most of the region’s bands and, in Dave Willie, they had a charismatic frontman and gifted songwriter. JBF kicked serious ass, and could have easily mopped the floor with any of the Seattle bands that came a couple of years later…yes, Nirvana included. They didn’t make it big, of course, but their dark-hued guitar-drone and intelligent lyrics made for some excellent music to remember.

F.U.C.T.
There may have been local bands that rocked harder than Forever Ungratical Corinaric Technikilation (F.U.C.T.), but none did it with the zeal and unflagging spirit of Nashville’s hardcore heroes. In their day, F.U.C.T. would pull ‘em in from all over the south, and all ages. It helped that the band was mostly as young as its audience – and as rowdy – and singer Clay Brocker’s fierce onstage presence and natural charisma, along with the blistering metallic onslaught of the band’s songs, earned them a significant following that remembers F.U.C.T. fondly, even today. Uncompromising and influential, the band still plays live occasionally.

Dessau
A veteran of music scenes in both Nashville and Chicago by the early-80s, John Elliott had a particular vision and the foresight to predict, early in the game, the rise of industrial dance music. Beneath the crashing metallic rhythms and hard-chromed Sturm und Drang of the Dessau sound, a mechanical heart was steered by a strong creative hand. Often working with underground ghetto superstars like producer Martin Hannett and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker, Elliott and bandmates like Skot (and Barry) Nelson, Mike Orr and Norm Ray…er, Rau forged a sound that was heard on dancefloors around the globe.

Word Uprising
They only lasted about a year, but had they stuck around, Word Uprising had the talent and songs to go somewhere beyond Elliston Square. Another band o’ veterans, including Faith Like Guillotine drummer Mark Beasley and Jet Black Factory’s David Jones (on guitar), with MTSU students Fred Greene (vox) and Bill McLaurine (bass), Word Uprising quickly built a local buzz with a buzzing mix of screaming NWOBHM fretwork and blasting cap drumbeats that would leave your head ringing (in a good way). They wanted to fuse ‘70s-style hard rock with ‘80s alt-pop and, for a while, they did just that.

Alien In The Land of Our Birth
Long before Today Is The Day, there was Alien In The Land of Our Birth, an experimental rock band that fused avant-noise with hardcore punk, taking Pere Ubu’s sonic madness to its illogical extremes and blasting Nashville audiences out of their shoes. Guitarist Steve Austin came late to the party, which started with drummer Brad Elrod, guitarist Billy Loffler III, and bassist Leo Granados, perhaps Nashville’s first Hispanic rocker. The band garnered significant radio airplay on 91 Rock and won a Nashville Music Award before splintering off into, most notably, acclaimed noisemakers Today Is The Today with Austin and Elrod.

The Grinning Plowman
For a few short years, the Grinning Plowman – Nashville’s favorite cult band – dominated the scene with a sound that was as avant-unusual as anything the city’s dark corners ever produced. Plodding, like a stoner-rock band, with tribal rhythms and razor-sharp fretwork…kinda like the Doors-meet-Candlemass with a dash of Killing Joke. Guitarist Keith Barton tore off some meaty riffs while Janet Ake and Derek Greene kept the heart beating and vocalist Michael Ake bravely sojourned across the band’s sludge-rock horizon. Another “coulda, woulda, shoulda” Nashville band, the Grinning Plowman’s Carlyle label stuff stands among the best the era has to offer.

(Correction: John Elliott of Dessau got in touch to let me know that he was the drummer on Cloverbottom’s Anarchy In The Music City EP. Sorry ‘bout that, folks...)

Tribute: Aashid Himons a/k/a Little Archie

Afrikan Dreamland: Aashid Himons, Darrell Rose & Mustafa Abdul-Aleen

 

With his groundbreaking band Afrikan Dreamland, Aashid Himons was an early pioneer of Nashville’s growing late ‘70s rock scene. His death in 2011 robbed the city of an enormous and prolific talent whose presence on the scene helped it achieve greater heights. The Reverend wrote the following obituary, which was published on the About.com Blues website…

Archie “Aashid” Himons, an integral part of Nashville’s non-country music scene for better than three decades, passed away on Saturday, March 19th, 2011 after a brief illness. Himons was 68 years old at the time of his death.

A musical innovator that fused traditional country blues with reggae and world music during the late 1970s, Aashid, as he is known to his many fans, is best known for his popular “blu-reggae” band Afrikan Dreamland, which put Himons’ myriad of musical influences into play in creating an energetic and unique sound. With bandmates Darrell Rose and Mustafa Abdul Aleem, the trio recorded six albums and became the first reggae-oriented band to receive airplay on MTV. Himons’ roots ran deep, though, and included a formative background in blues and soul music.

Himons was born in rural West Virginia in 1942, learning the piano by age three and the drums by five years old. Like many blues artists of the era, Himons sang in the church, and the talented youngster subsequently appeared on several radio and television shows, including The Today Show with Dave Garroway. Himons left home as a teen, hitchhiking to New York City, and later joining the army.

After serving his stint with the military, Himons settled into the Washington, D.C. music scene, forming the R&B group Little Archie & the Majestics. During the 1960s, Himons recorded a number of sides for various labels and with different bands, but it was a 1966 deal with Dial Records that would result in a pair of singles – “All I Have To Do” and “You Can’t Tie Me Down” – that became known as classics of “northern soul” music and highly collectible, especially by British aficionados of the genre.

During the late 1960s, Himons worked throughout the country as a blues musician, performing coffeehouses and street corners as “West Virginia Slim.” He landed in Toronto in 1969, forming the short-lived duo God & I with musician and actor Jim Byrnes. Himons’ restless spirit led him to Mexico City, where he performed with a local blues band, but it was during a trip to the Honduras in 1972, where Himons experienced a performance by Count Ossie & the Mystical Revelation of Rastafari, that he had a musical and spiritual epiphany that led to his conversion to Rastafarianism and the creation of his “blu-reggae” style.

A hybrid of country blues, R&B, and reggae that was influenced by Count Ossie’s mesmerizing nyabinghi rhythms and the Jamaican style popularized by Bob Marley, blu-reggae would later influence contemporary blues artists like Corey Harris. Himons landed in Nashville during the late 1970s; now known as “Aashid,” he formed Afrikan Dreamland with Rose and Aleem. The trio quickly became one of the Music City’s most popular bands, Afrikan Dreamland helping kickstart an original local music scene that had little to do with the city’s country music tradition.

Mostly written by Himons, Afrikan Dreamland’s positive lyrics preached a philosophy of peace and love, and triumph over adversity, whether caused by economic or social injustice…a thread that would carry through Aashid’s entire career. Aside from their popular recordings and seemingly ubiquitous performances, Aashid and Afrikan Dreamland used their drawing power to help young bands, and many of Nashville’s early rock ‘n’ roll talents got their start opening for Afrikan Dreamland.

Aashid Himons & The New Dream

After the break-up of Afrikan Dreamland in 1987, Aashid embarked on a lengthy and varied musical journey that saw the gifted artist applying his talents to blues, gospel, country, reggae, dub, ambient, and space music. Recording both as a solo artist and with a number of bands like the Pyramid Underground, the Blu-Reggae Underground, Akasha, and Aashid & the New Dream, Himons collaborated with a number of Nashville’s most adventurous musicians, talents like Tony Gerber, Giles Reaves, Ross Smith, Gary Serkin, and Kirby Shelstad, among many others. Prolific to a fault, Himons became one of the most popular artists on mp3.com during the 1990s as his musical collaborations resulted in dozens of albums that captured a worldwide audience for Aashid’s unique musical vision.

In 1995, Aashid reunited with his former bandmates Rose and Aleem, as well as a number of his more recent collaborators, under the Afrikan Dreamland name to release the two-CD set The Leaders, which further explored the blu-reggae sound. In the late 1990s, Aashid formed the Mountain Soul Band to experiment with country blues and Appalachian-inspired hillbilly music. Working again with friends like Reaves, Gerber, and Shelstad, the Mountain Soul Band also included the talents of brothers Victor and Reggie Wooten, and multi-instrumentalists Jody Lentz and Tramp, then of the Nashville trio Bonepony. This collaboration resulted in a pair of critically-acclaimed albums, 1998’s studio release Mountain Soul and the live West Virginia Hills, released a year later.

Himons continued to make music during the 2000s, albeit slowed down by recurring problems with his health. The definition of the DIY artist, Himons utilized cutting-edge technology to record and edit complex, textured, and thought-provoking music on his trusty iMac computer. While not well-known outside of the Southeast, Himons nevertheless has thousands of fans worldwide that have been touched by his positive message, exciting music, and indomitable spirit.

Tribute: Max Vague

Nashville rocker Max Vague passed away in August 2005 but left behind an enormous musical legacy. The following tribute was originally published by the Reverend’s Alt.Culture.Guide zine…

It is with great sadness that we report the death by suicide of an old friend and one of our favorite musicians, Max Vague. A multi-talented musician and producer as well as an enormously skilled graphic artist, Max was a leading figure in the Nashville rock music scene for over a decade. Although relatively unknown to the music world outside of the southeastern U.S., Max nevertheless recorded and released six albums without any label resources and, with various bands, toured the region relentlessly.

Max’s musical career began back in the early ‘80s in Monterey, California. He taught himself to play keyboards and, known by his birth name – William Hearn – played with a number of popular local bands, including Bill Hearn and the Freeze. In 1984 he packed his bags and headed to Los Angeles where he supported himself as a freelance graphic artist and musician, writing the scores for several documentary films, including a special on the GM Sunraycer. While in LA he changed his name to “Max Vague” and began an incredibly prolific period of songwriting and recording. In 1992, Max recorded his first album, Love In A Thousand Faces, moving later that year to Nashville with his debut disc tucked beneath his arm.

Max made an immediate splash in the Music City. This critic, writing about Love In A Thousand Faces in Nashville’s Metro music magazine, said “the songs presented here – hard-edged pop/rock replete with melodic experimentation – evoke a variety of influences: the Beatles, Peter Gabriel, many electric British folkies, but are freshly original and completely uncategorizable.” Shortly after arriving in Nashville, Vague recorded his sophomore effort, S.O.S. The Party’s Over.

Produced in his home studio, Max contributed nearly all of the instrumentation for this solid collection of songs. “Imaginative, colorful and intriguing, the songs on S.O.S. are like a puzzle box whose solution awaits discovery,” I wrote in December ‘93 in R.A.D! Review And Discussion of Rock & Roll. Support for Max came from unlikely places, such as from NASA Space Shuttle Captain Michael Baker, who carried Max’s CDs with him on two trips into space, subsequently mentioning Vague when interviewed by MTV’s Tabitha Soren for the cable network’s ‘Week In Rock’ show.

Over the course of the next twelve years, Vague recorded and released four more critically acclaimed albums, each more musically complex and rewarding than the previous. With The Field CD, released in 1995, Max began recording with a full band that included guitarist Steve Green, bassist Ross Smith, and drummer Robert Kamm. Two years later Vague recorded the Timing LP with Smith and drummer Buddy Gibbons. It was with the addition of Music City rock veteran Kenny Wright to his band, however, that Max would hit his creative peak, the trio of Vague, Smith and Wright recording the powerful Kill The Giant album in 1998. Together, these three toured the southeast and drove home Vague’s immense talents to appreciative audiences. Max’s work received airplay on local and regional radio stations and accolades poured in from publications like the industry trade paper Cash Box, Bone Music Magazine, and the Nashville Scene alternative newsweekly.

In 2002, Vague returned to the studio to record the self-titled maxvague CD, his darkest and most personal effort yet. A solitary figure in the studio, Max carefully crafted the songs, playing nearly all the instruments while engineering and producing the album himself. Of maxvague the album, this critic wrote, “there’s no denying the power of his music, Vague’s gift of artistic expression and his instrumental prowess making him the most consistently interesting and intriguing artist working in the American underground today.” A masterful collection of songs, the album nevertheless went largely unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative press alike.

After the release of this self-titled album, Max retreated from music somewhat, supporting himself as a graphic artist. He never stopped writing songs, however, and before his death had nearly completed work on what would have been his seventh album, titled Drive. Max and Kenny contributed a track, “Oh Well, Okay” to the memorial CD A Tribute To Elliot Smith, released earlier this year by Double D Records. Max had found new love, was beginning a new company, and was seemingly looking towards the future when he came to the decision that he had accomplished everything that he had set out to do.

Sometime in the early morning of August 13th, Max took his own life at the too-young age of 44, leaving behind his fiance Danni, his mother Gay Cameron, his sister Lynda Cameron, and brother Jim “Spyder” Hearn. At a memorial service held at The Basement club in Nashville on Sunday night, August 28th, a packed room of family, friends and fans heard Max’s siblings Lynda and Jim share their memories of their brother. Former bandmates Ross Smith, Kenny Wright and Steve Green also spoke as did Ben Mabry, one of Max’s oldest friends and biggest fan and the Rev. Keith A. Gordon, who presided over the memorial service. Mike “Grimey” Grimes, co-owner of Grimey’s Music and booker for The Basement graciously provided the club for Max’s memorial.

An intelligent, complex, multi-faceted and extremely talented artist and musician, Max Vague’s work will live on long after his tragic death. As a friend and champion of his music, I’ll miss Max and look forward to meeting again on the other side.

Archive Interview: Jack Emerson / E Squared Records

Jack Emerson (center) with Jason & the Scorchers

Introduction: Jack Emerson’s influence on late ‘80s southern rock is immeasurable. He formed Praxis International, an indie label and artist management company, at the age of 22 with friend and partner Andy McLenon. Praxis started with just one band – Jason & the Nashville Scorchers – but soon steered the careers of bands like the Georgia Satellites, the Questionnaires, and Tim Krekel & the Sluggers. Emerson later worked with John Hiatt, Sonny Landreth, and Steve Forbert and his support of mid-’80s “college rock” bands like R.E.M. and the dB’s would lead them to greater successes.

After the Scorchers broke up, Emerson moved Praxis further into the alt-country field with important early ‘90s releases from Billy Joe Shaver and Webb Wilder. By 1995, however, Praxis had run its course and Emerson formed E Squared Records with friend Steve Earle. In 1999, Emerson brokered a deal between the label and Artemis Records that largely removed him from running the business side, freeing him up to pursue other projects. Sadly, Emerson died in November 2003 at the young age of 43. This interview with Emerson took place in 1996 and originally appeared in Nashville Business In Review.  
    
People who claim to know a lot about these sort of things use words like “dynamics” or “synergy” when describing the inner workings of a volatile industry like the music biz. Perhaps it’s time we added two new words to the industry lexicon – “experience” and “evolution,” or, if you will, E2.
    
It’s no coincidence that these two words pretty much sum up the careers of Jack Emerson and Steve Earle, the two “E’s” behind the newly formed E2 Records. Both are well-known in the local music community, Emerson as the former head of Praxis International and Earle as a critically-acclaimed performer and songwriter. Together they have created an indie label that may well rewrite the way that things are done on Music Row.        
    
Praxis was Nashville’s first independent rock ‘n’ roll record label, a vital part of the Music City’s early ‘80s non-country music scene. Home to Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, Praxis released the band’s early recordings and would act as their management through most of the decade. Along with friends and fellow Scorcher fans Andy McLenon and Kay Clary, Emerson would build a respected organization that was as professional as it was hard-working and creative.  
    
Although the Scorchers never received the kind of commercial acceptance that they deserved, another Praxis band, the Georgia Satellites, hit it big with their first album. The success of the Satellites gained Emerson and the gang at Praxis a reputation in the industry as ace talent scouts. A subsequent deal with BMG subsidiary Zoo Records led to Praxis developing artists like Webb Wilder, Mark Germino, Sonny Landreth, and Billy Joe Shaver.
    
Steve Earle came to Nashville in the early ‘70s at the age of nineteen, a talented but struggling songwriter. Influenced by writers like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, Earle developed a heady story-telling style that owed as much to rock as it did country music. Hits by several country artists with Earle-written songs led to a deal with MCA Records, Earle’s first album, Guitar Town, taking the industry by storm. Shooting to number one on the country charts, the album won critical acclaim from sources as diverse as Country Music magazine and Rolling Stone.
    
Subsequent releases would showcase Earle’s evolution as a songwriter, often drawing favorable comparisons with artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. As he incorporated heavier rock influences into his music, however, the country music establishment didn’t quite know what to do with an artist of Earle’s talents and vision. Earle moved to MCA’s Uni Records subsidiary in New York for the last albums of his contract, a move that weakened his local industry support. Problems with drugs and alcohol hastened the decline of his career, inevitably leading to an arrest and a prison sentence for possession.
    
The formation of E2 was to be part of a natural evolution for both Emerson and Earle. “After about 15 years of Praxis,” says Emerson, “when we ended our Bertelsman/Zoo agreement....things had gotten a little stale. Kay was real interested in starting her own company and working out of her house. I couldn’t imagine trying to run that place without her there. Andy was questioning what he wanted to do and I was questioning what I wanted to do. We were all a little burned out...so it was a natural time to close things down.”
    
With Praxis a part of the past, Emerson was open to new opportunities. “We’d all kept in touch with Steve, because we were all really big fans.” In the latter years, there “wasn’t that much to keep in touch with, musically,” says Emerson of Earle, “because he was going through the whole period of sobriety, working through the prison system.” After Earle’s release, says Emerson, “he knew that he had to stay busy...and he’s always been interested in the business side, always been a producer as well as a songwriter. The more that I talked with him, the more it made sense for us to try and do something together.”
    
After recording a well-received acoustic album for Nashville’s Winter Harvest label, Earle was ready to return to his former rocking style of playing for his next album. Clean and sober for almost two years, he had stared into the abyss and emerged a stronger artist than ever. “He was looking for a solid compadre who could represent his talent at the major label side,” says Emerson. “After investigating all of our possible alliances, Warner Brothers seemed to make the most sense.”
    
The newly formed E2 label signed a deal providing Warner Brothers the opportunity for worldwide distribution of their releases, with the exception of England, where they hooked up with Transatlantic/Castle. In return, Warner provided start-up funding for the label. Non-Warner releases will be distributed through the Alternative Distribution Alliance, a group of indie labels that works to place product in non-traditional, non-mainstream retail outlets.
    
E2 has received a lot of moral support from their major label sponsors. “In essence, we’ve got a deal that’s spread between the New York office, the L.A. office and the Nashville office,” Emerson explains, citing Warner executives like Joe McKuen, Bob Merlis and Nancy Stein as being advocates of the young label. “Jim Ed Norman deserves a lot of credit,” says Emerson, referring to the local label chief’s recognition of Nashville’s potential. “Warner Brothers understood what we wanted to do,” says Emerson, “not only with Steve’s records, but with the records that we wanted to make, whether Steve was producing or whatever.”
    
The pairing of Emerson and Earle has proven to be a marriage made in heaven. “We were able to sit down and work out a complex but functional situation where Steve could help make and produce records and I’d be in the office on a daily basis to kind of glue the thing together,” says Emerson. The first E2 release was Earle’s rocking I’m Alright, a wonderful return to form for this talented artist. The label has also signed two new acts, Knoxville’s V-Roys and Ross Rice, former member of the popular Memphis band Human Radio. Both have albums planned for August release.  
    
E2 has retained control over the entire A & R process. “We have total autonomy, creatively,” says Emerson, E2 shouldering the responsibility of discovering and signing new artists, and producing their recorded efforts. “Our attitude is that if Steve and I are both over the top about something, we’ll do it. If one of us is not thrilled, ready to climb over broken glass, then we won’t do it.” There’s no pressure on the pair from anybody to crank out product, so E2 will release fewer records than a lot of indie labels, but they’ll be  hand-picked by the combination management/creative team at the top of the label.
    
There are three things, says Emerson, that the label is looking for in an artist. “A lot of originality, which doesn’t mean they don’t have a good sense of the past,” he says, “but rather a good sense of what they want to do, a unique sound. The second element would be songs, and not necessarily in a classic sense. With Steve, he can he detect and help young writers with what they want to do, answer their questions. The third thing would be a certain timeless element. Most of the records that I listen to and that Steve listens to have been things that we enjoy as much now as when they were released.”
     
After a record is made, says Emerson, “we get Warner Brothers and the act together, sit down and decide whether or not something is better served going out through the independent system or going out through the Warner Brothers system. What this means is that sometimes a young band that we think has a great record may spend the first six months on ADA without Warner Brothers, the machine, getting involved. If everybody agrees that’s the best way to go, we may do it for two records, we may do it for three records, or we may go straight to Warner Brothers.”
    
“We’re trying to make productive use out of a strong multi-national company and still give the artist as much control as possible in terms of their own destiny,” concludes Emerson. For Steve Earle and Jack Emerson, the two sides of E2 Records, their own destinies will be built on both the sum of their previous experience and the result of their personal evolutions, a formula for success than may well become known in the future as simply E2.

Vintage Review: Intruder's Psycho Savant (1991)

Intelligence, talent, desire, insight and straight-up balls…Intruder is, without a doubt, the finest thrash outfit on the planet today, bar none. With the impending release of Psycho Savant, their third LP (with a fine EP also under their belts), the rest of the world will soon discover what Nashville area Intruder fans already know all too well: Intruder kicks ass!

Psycho Savant showcases the band at its fierce best, opening with a literal kick in the teeth called “Face of Hate,” an eye-opening look at the ignorance and hatred of past generations which still wreaks havoc in society today. The rest of the disc is equally powerful and poetic. Beneath the lightning-quick riffs which fall from Arthur Vinnett’s six string like so many drops of acid rain, Jimmy Hamilton’s growling vocals and the pounding rhythm section of guitarist Greg Messick, bassist Todd Nelson, and big-beat drummer extraordinaire John Pieroni, lies the heart of the band’s success: their impressive social awareness.

Though the music will appeal to any fan of loud and fast thrash metal, Intruder’s lyrical penchant for real-world concerns and their ability to relate their insights in words sets them above the current wave of thrashers. Songs like “Geri’s Lament (When),” “Traitor of the Living” (about the government’s Mount Weather facility), and “Final Word” will appeal to one’s intellect as well as your rock and roll soul. Muscular, aggressive and though-provoking…need I say more? (Metal Blade Records)

Review originally published The Metro, 1991