Monthly Archive for: ‘August, 2010’

Seventeen days remain before Churchkey Records takes over the Tir Na Nog during Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival. Keeping up with our weekly interview series, today we had Kevin Lincoln from Recess, the weekly arts and entertainment section of Duke’s Chronicle newspaper, sit down with Dan McGee, lead singer of Chapel Hill’s garage-rocking Spider Bags. Check out the section and also keep up with the section’s Playground blog. Enjoy the interview and check back next week for the next entry.

Recess: So, you guys released your first few records on Birdman, which is based out of San Francisco. Now you’re on Churchkey, which is obviously a Durham label, and home to some of the area’s most interesting bands, like Hammer No More the Fingers and the Dry Heathens. What led to the change in labels?

Dan McGee: Oh, I didn’t change labels. The way the record world works these days is, it’s not like it used to be where you’d be an artist for Columbia or something like that—there’s a lot of different niche labels, what do they call them, boutique labels, and what’s good and interesting about the music industry these days is that you can release on a variety of different labels. I was looking to do some singles this summer, and it just so happens that there are, in this area, a bunch of really great lables starting up: we did one with Odessa, out of Chapel Hill, and we did one with Chaz at Bull City Records, and I was talking to Kyle, it was like a year ago I was talking to Kyle, and I was telling him that this year I wanted to do a bunch of singles, and he was like, yeah, you know, whenever you want. I see Kyle and Steve around town a lot, we have similar taste in music and go to shows a lot. I just like the idea of doing singles with different labels, and I also like the idea of doing releases with local labels. So I haven’t changed labels—I’ll probably do another full-length with Birdman eventually—but I just like making music, and spreading it around is a little easier than waiting for one person to put something out, you know.

Recess: That makes sense. Ok, next question: I’ve seen you guys referred to as North Carolina natives, which I know is not true, because I’ve also seen writers mention you guys as New Jersey natives transplanted to the Triangle, the Churchkey site talks about you being down here and then you were working a truck-driving job and then you weren’t working it so you started living down here. So, North Carolina, New Jersey, both obviously play a role, but what do you guys think of yourselves in terms of the North Carolina-New Jersey connections, and how do you think this affects your music?

DM: Well, I don‘t know, it’s not something I really think about. I grew up in New Jersey, and I think I was shaped more by New Jersey than I have been—I’ve only lived in North Carolina for three years. I feel like a New Jersey person; when people ask me where I’m from I say New Jersey. As far as how it changes my music, I couldn’t tell you, I don’t know what the environmental factors are that go into the music I make. I don‘t think I’m shaped all that much by the state that I live in: it changes as you get older, and your music changes, and your environment changes. I don’t write about the same things I wrote about three years ago. It’s not something that I feel, you know?

Recess: Yeah, I couldn’t believe when I read this thing and it said you were North Carolina natives. You guys do have an identity as a band from the Triangle, though.

DM: Yeah, the band was born here. Even though I was living in New Jersey when we recorded the first record, we recorded it here—it doesn’t bother me if somebody says that.

Recess: With the New Jersey thing comes the Titus Andronicus connection—when I saw them play live Patrick Stickles called you his favorite band. How did you end up on The Monitor, which I thought was a pretty cool cameo?

DM: Patrick and I go back pretty far. He and a couple other guys—there’s this guy Sam who played drums on the “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah” single—those guys I knew in New York. I was in a band called the DC Snipers and they used to come to our shows and hang out. I liked all those kids, they’re really genuine, you know? And they obviously have a real genuine like of music, and I enjoyed talking to them. When they started the band Titus Andronicus and I got that single, it really blew my mind, and I was really happy. They liked Spider Bags from the beginning: they came through here and played “Waking Up Drunk” at one of their concerts, some people were telling me about it. Patrick sent me an e-mail when they were getting ready to record the record, and he was like, I really want you to be a part of this record, and I was kind of flattered. I thought he was gonna want me to play guitar or something on it. I ended up driving up to New York, and I didn’t know what I was going to do on the record until I got there. I got there at like, midnight. I don’t like to drive alone, especially in the dark, so I was drinking tequila (laughs). I got there about midnight, and he was like, I want you to sing this part. There are a lot of words in his songs, and the cadences are a lot different than what I’m used to, so I stayed up to until like two or so, and did this thing, and I finally got it right. Then I woke up the next morning and drove back to North Carolina.

In less than a month downtown Raleigh will be inundated with the three-day onslaught of the first-ever Hopscotch Music Festival, and in the middle of the hub bub we here at Churchkey Records will have our third birthday party. They grow up so fast, don’t they? Here to get everyone excited about our Churchkey Three day party is another installment in our interview series. This week Triangle Music sat down with Churchkey’s newest act, the rowdy garage-rock trio Last Year’s Men.

Next month will mark the arrival of the Hopscotch Music Festival, a three-day musical buffet featuring artists ranging from Public Enemy to Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. If you can’t make some of the evening festivities, don’t worry. There are already several promising Hopscotch-centric parties scheduled during the day.

Durham-based Churchkey Records will host Churchkey III in honor of their third birthday. It’s a free event on Saturday, September 11, at Tir na nOg and will (naturally) feature some of the label’s fantastic artists.

Included in this great line-up is Churchkey’s newest addition, Last Year’s Men. They’re Churchkey’s youngest band—drummer Ian Rose is only 17, and guitarists Ben Carr and Geoff Schilling are 18 and 21, respectively. Ben and Geoff recently took a break from their full-time work schedules to talk to Triangle Music about just a few of the many things they have going on right now.

How did you end up with Churchkey Records?

Ben Carr (BC): Steve [Jones], who runs it with Kyle [Miller], was at a show, I guess it was at BCHQ, with some really lovely bands. He heard it and he liked it apparently, and we were unloading all of our shit from the stage–“stage,” quote, unquote—and he was like, “Well, you guys want to meet up for coffee some time, or we”ll sit down and have a meal and we’ll talk about this,” and we were like, “All right, awesome! That’s great, because we need a hand,” so…yeah. They’ve been great.
As it came time to begin work on their first record, the question of who to produce it came up. The guys got lucky, and landed in the hands of Spider Bags’ Dan McGee.

How did you get started working with Dan?

BC: That also came from Churchkey. I had a meeting with Steve and Kyle right when we first got signed, and we were talking about different ways to actually record the album, actually get the music onto a piece of something, y’know, like a piece of media. They were trying to send us to various places, and I was like, “Well I don’t really want to do them because of blah blah blah, I don’t want to record the full album with blah blah blah,” and they were like, “Well we just signed Spider Bags for a seven inch, do you want to work with Dan?” And I was like, “Well, yeah.” I’ve been listening to Spider Bags for years. I was in the car with Geoff right right after I bought my first Spider Bags record and I was super-stoked on it for like a year. So, yeah, we hooked up with Dan for that, and we ended up recording with Andy…

Ben whispers to Geoff for help, struggling to remember the name. He means Andy Magowan, leader of Durham jazz group D-Town Brass.

BC: But yeah, he’s this really amazing big band leader, but he also does some recording on the side, and he had a tape reel. So we recorded all of our tracks onto two inch tape, so we got a really cool tape hiss throughout the record. But Dan then got really into it and totally signed on as being the producer, as in like setting up all of our recording dates for us, and calling me at whatever time at night being like, “Dude, I was listening to this song, and I think you need to add this here and take away this here, it’s gonna be awesome, just trust me

Today we’re launching ‘The Congregation’, a free club for fans of the bands on Churchkey Records.

The Congregation is a way to ensure that you’re in the loop on the latest Churchkey Records happenings: new releases, big shows, and special events. In order to make sure you’re the first to know about these things, we’re asking for your email address and mailing address (and we absolutely will not share them with anyone else.) We don’t like receiving unwanted emails any more than you do, so The Congregation is much more than a mailing list. First of all, we’ll only send you emails when we have something important to share with you. When we do send you an email, we’ll include a private download link to live and/or rare tracks from Churchkey Records bands that aren’t available elsewhere.

In addition to these emails and free downloads, congregation members will also get our yearly “Churchkey Christmas” release in the mail. These holiday releases are not available elsewhere, and have previously been available only to a small group of friends and colleagues.

Members of The Congregation will also be able to pre-order Churchkey Records releases before the general public, and download the pre-ordered release immediately.

But wait—there’s more!

Be one of the first 50 people to join the congregation, and get a free download of an entire album of your choice! Choose from any of our CD releases, listed on the form below.

Sound good? You can sign up below:

If you ever decide to leave The Congregation, just email congregation-at-churchkeyrecords.com and tell us you’d like to delete your information.

In the third week of our Churchkey Three interview series, Karen Mann from Raleigh blog Mann’s World sits down with Eddie Taylor from rowdy garage duo The Loners. Enjoy the article, and check back next week when Triangle Music talks with Last Year’s Men.

The free day party action at Hopscotch is going to be almost as good as the main event. Case in point: The Churchkey Three Day Party taking place at noon on Saturday (Sept. 11) at Tir na Nog. The name is a celebration of this indie label’s third anniversary, and the line-up is a great one: Dirty Little Heaters, Free Electric State, Last Year’s Men, The Dry Heathens and Hammer No More the Fingers. To get everyone in the mood for the party, various local blogs are posting interviews with bands on the Churchkey roster over the next few weeks.

I chose to interview Eddie Taylor from The Loners because I’ve known him for ages, and think he’s a great musician and all-around swell guy. I can’t tell you how much fun I had during this interview.

This interview began and ended — and was briefly punctuated in the middle — with a round of shots. That’s how yours truly found out that Eddie really isn’t one for tequila or Jaeger. If he’s going to do a shot, which isn’t often, he says, he’d prefer to do something “girly” like a Lemondrop. That was the one in the middle.

I also found out that Eddie, one of the friendliest and most gregarious people I know, doesn’t much like talking about himself. In fact, he’s downright shy at times. Sitting in a dark booth at the newly opened Neptunes, with ska in the background, we downed that first round of 1800, and I tweeted that I was about to interview him. The Love Language immediately replied “tell eddie we said hey!!” He seemed flattered and almost a little embarrassed that his name was being thrown about on Twitter. That’s the sort of thing associated with rock stars, or people who think they’re rock stars, and Eddie definitely doesn’t want to be a rock star.

“I don’t like rock stars,” he says. “I don’t like seeing friend get changed into something they aren’t. I like them the way they were. I have a friend who did a video game. He’s making bank. I’ve had a lot of friends who have become real successful, and they’re not the same as they were after that.”

Really? Even if being a rock star meant that he, as a newly single dad, would have women throwing themselves at him, plus a nice nest egg for his daughter?

“It’s an integrity factor that gets lost in all that,” he says. “There are very few that hold on to that integrity. Neil Young has always held on to that integrity. There’s a lot of people I respect that have been able to granted they’re great, they’re famous, but they haven’t lost touch with where they came from.”

He doesn’t even care that much about playing anywhere other than the Triangle.

“I’d like to go out and play more in other places but I can’t dump money into that, get to that town and play for five people who don’t really give a fuck,” he says. “I just can’t do that, cause I’ve done it. If someone offers us something in New York, and have a weekend in New York and go play at WFMU, I’m there. But playing to nobody? I can practice and do that!“

Despite, or perhaps because of, this total lack of giving a damn, The Loners have gained a reputation around town as the band that you don’t miss. If you want people to come out and see your band, you make sure to get a show with The Loners. It doesn’t really matter if they play Slim’s three times in the same week. People will go see them, and will love them, all three times. That’s been especially true since they reformed in 2007 (at the goodbye party for the first Kings) after breaking up for several years. During their first incarnation, they were known for putting on shows that might be great and might be crap, but were always entertaining. Now they’re solid every single time.

The Loners formed out of the ashes of Big Joe, Eddie’s alt-country band that moved to Raleigh from Tucson (via Kentucky) after being invited to play the SPITTLE Fest at the Brewery. He struck up a friendship with popular local drummer Chris Jones, who shared his love of ‘60s garage and psychedelic music as well as ‘80s hardcore.

“Chris Jones is one of my heroes,” he says. “I have the utmost respect for that person. I like the fact that I’ve heard us referred to as a Raleigh tradition. That’s a nice feeling. we’re not a national act. we don’t tour. we are what we are.

The band’s sound has changed a little bit over time, he says, but still retains those two influences, but still retains a healthy dose of ‘70s punk and arena rock. That’s fitting because his first concert, back in Murray, Ken., was Rush, Angel and Blue Oyster Cult. He was 15 and tripping his balls off. His main memories are that he accidentally ripped up his own ticket, and the members of Rush wore silk outfits and appeared to over over a massive shag carpet on the stage.

Eddie says he’s had more time to write lately and that he’s been listening to a lot of Guided by Voices. One of his old pals has an “Eraserhead-meets-’50s-Sci Fi” film that will debut at the Fright Night festival in Louisville, and a couple of Loners songs are in the movie. There are a couple of other things in the works too, but he doesn’t want to jinx them by talking about them prematurely. Buy him a Lemondrop and maybe he’ll spill his guts to you.

Just barely more than five weeks before Churchkey Records takes to the Hopscotch Music Festival to celebrate its third birthday, and it’s time for the second entry in our interview series. This week Chaz Martenstein from from Durham’s amazing Bull City Records talked with Hammer No More The Fingers for his WNnG blog. Check out part one of the interview below, and make sure to come back next week when Raleigh blog Mann’s World sits down with The Loners.

After I had just moved to town, my first group of regulars was a loyal bunch of bored kids from Durham School of the Arts. I was new to the area, so any kind of repeat action and conversation in the record shop was beyond welcome. A name kept getting dropped here and there…I was told I really needed to hear the Droogies. “What? You haven’t heard the Droogies?? Oh Man!” was something along the lines of the regular excited local band chatter. These kids were proud of this small group of guys who had slipped out of the dry, every day high school life to dive headlong into the daunting “local music scene.” Honestly, when you live in an area that is so fertile with music and community, how do you just step outside your garage door and hope to be picked up and accepted by it? I can’t think of a more daunting, scary task for a young band. Turns out it really wasn’t an easy task at all. The band went their separate ways for a good long time until they pieced it back together and decided to start fresh again.

A band popped up. Their name was Hammer No More the Fingers. I remember when the band seemed to just charge around the corner out of nowhere. How can I specifically remember this? Don’t bands pop up everyday? Well, yes. Bands do pop up every day. However. It’s not often that a band pops up with such a strange name that you actually remember not quite feeling the urge to rush out to check them out. Should I really spend my night tonight going to see a band whose name implies a cheesy blues-rock, bar jam band that’s probably from a nameless freshman dorm on Duke’s East Campus? Nah, I’ll be good jamming my Air Supply LP at home tonight. Thanks.

Whoops. Turns out I totally misread that one.

I was relieved, surprised, thrilled, enamored, embarrassed…

DUNCAN: We had a four song demo and a show booked at the now defunct 305 South before we decided on Hammer No More the Fingers. We were really tired of coming up with dumb band names, so we kind of just kept the last dumb band name that any of us thought of.

The name comes from this cheap, chinese made, red plastic pair of pliers that holds a nail in place so you don’t accidentally hammer your thumb. The product is called “Guide Nails.” I think my grandpa picked it up at Lowes and gave it to my dad years ago as a gag. It still remains unopened. The Chinese to English translation on the package is so whacky. Hammer No More the Fingers is one of the more comprehensible sentences. One day I will give “Guide Nails” to my son. I think the name came out of necessity since we had a demo and were trying to book shows, but we all kind of liked the quirkiness of it. I like the name more and more as time goes by.

I kinda wanted to ask why they didn’t just go for the name Guide Nails. Instead, I wanted to probe a little bit and go slightly deeper into the band name process.

DUNCAN: We had a few really offensively bad band names before we decided on Hammer No More the Fingers. I think ‘Amputee’ was in the running. As was ‘Preesh Leatherson’ and ‘Pantera Bread.’

Since I’d heard so much about the earlier bands and many sidetracks that lead down the path to Hammer, I really wanted examples. After pestering the band just enough, I was somehow able to finagle old recordings out of them dating back to their elusive (and probably almost forgotten) high school years.

JOE: Hammer No More the Fingers has gone through several incarnations since Jeff and I started playing music together in the fourth grade. That was around 1993.  Our first performance was at the sixth grade talent show where we covered Green Day’s “When I Come Around.”  I met Duncan at DSA a couple of years later and joined his band Slippery Chicken. We played the Duke Coffeehouse, the Skylight Exchange (now the Nightlight), and various garages throughout the Triangle.  We recorded a 7 song tape with Mitch Marlow (now of Warrior Sound) in 1997 and a full length CD out in the boondocks of Orange County in 1998, which included the hits Power Gods of Utah Part IV the Legacy and Butt Demons from Denmark.

Slippery Chicken – Power Gods of Utah, Part IV the Legacy
Slippery Chicken – Butt Demons from Denmark