LIVE FROM MEMPHIS

Times New Viking, The Axemen, Royal Bangs

Venue: The Hi-Tone Cafe http://www.hitonememphis.com/calendar.php

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Doors Open: 8:00 PM

Starts: 9:00 PM

Age Restriction: 18+ Ages

$7.00 / Day of Show Price: $10.00 General Admission 

Royal Bangs | 10:00 PM

http://www.myspace.com/royalbangs

Insound Staff Pick - 2008! Royal Bangs are a five-piece rock band from Knoxville, Tennessee. We Breed Champions is the band’s first full-length offering on Audio Eagle Records. Angular, dueling guitar melodies dance around manic, start-stop rhythms and are crowned by the earnest, pushed-to-the-breaking-point vocals of frontman Ryan Schaeffer. Or whatever. They have been compared to Modest Mouse, TV on the Radio, Architecture in Helsinki, etc, etc.

The Axemen | 11:00 PM

http://www.myspace.com/nemexa

The Axemen is a New Zealand band formed around 1981 in protest against the South African Springbok rugby team tour of New Zealand, a tour which created great controversy, especially as was in contradiction to New Zealand’s obligations under the Gleneagles Agreement.

The Axemen played in Chch Cathedral 1981 in response to the Springbok tour.

They also played at the protests for homosexual law reform in 1983, with member Little Stevie McCabe being severely beaten up in the Cathedral Square, Christchurch, toilets.

The Axemen’s founding members, Bob Brannigan, Little Stevie McCabe and Stu Kawowski had played in various bands, apart and together, in the South Island cities of Christchurch and Dunedin, but cohesed in reaction to Sprinkbok rugby tour.

Before Bob Brannigan and Steve McCabe met, Steve was playing in a two-piece band at Cashmere High School called The Gorillas with Peter Rees, evolving comix maestro and classical guitarist.

Brannigan and McCabe met through a mutual friend and played gigs in Christchurch and Dunedin under many names including The Whining Plums, Hey, We’re Wolves and The Twins in the early ’80s. It was at a Twins gig at the notorious Empire Tavern in Dunedin in 1983 where Stu Kawowski was first unable to control himself and leapt on stage to commandeer the bongoes, instantly adding another dimension to the unit.

Art School Photography graduate, photography guru, filmmaker, artist [1] , promotional maverick and explosives expert Kawowski was playing drums with Above Ground, Bill Direen’s band at the time he met the other members of the Axemen and soon ’joined’ the Axemen as a permanent fixture.

Brannigan, McCabe and Kawowski remain to this day the ’core’ of the Axemen, however many New Zealand musicians played with them over the years as guest / transient / semi-permanent members, making their influence and the influences they assimilated (like the borg) an important breeding ground and virtual swap-meet of ideas and influence in Kiwi music circles.

In February 2009, US record label Siltbreeze re-released the Axemen’s 1984 protest album :Big Cheap Motel" [2] on 12" vinyl. Originally the album was released as a cassette packaged in a small bubble-sleeve with a straw, mimicking the milk drink "Big M" that the album was aimed at. The Axemen were invited to play at Christchurch’s "Summertimes" Festival in January 1984, a public music stage set up in Hagley Park. The band was shocked by the large-scale sexist "Big M" advertising surrounding the main stage, and decided to write a suite of protest songs about how the Christchurch City Council had "sold out" to the "Big M" sexist marketing. The Axemen recorded the concert, as well as studio versions of their songs and released a 45 min cassette entitled, "Big Cheap Motel"

Times New Viking | 12:00 PM

http://www.myspace.com/timesnewviking

Much like ’90s indie darlings Guided By Voices, Times New Viking are a noisy, lo-fi indie rock band from Ohio who made the leap from the long-running indie Siltbreeze Records to the higher profile Matador label. Unlike Guided By Voices, whose hissy, distortion-heavy sound masked a knack for traditional ’60s-influenced pop hooks and surreal lyrical wordplay, this Columbus trio favor a more purely noisy and punk derived sound and minimalist, deliberately repetitive lyrics. Times New Viking (the band name an obscure and meaningless pun on the name of the popular typeface Times New Roman) formed in Columbus in 2004, when art school students Adam Elliott, Beth Murphy and Jared Phillips spontaneously decided to form a band while hanging out in a local rock club. Murphy and Phillips, who had no musical training between them, took over keyboards and guitar respectively, while the marginally more skilled Elliott played drums. (Elliott and Murphy both sing, often together though rarely in harmony.) Debut album Dig Yourself was released on Siltbreeze in 2005, followed by Times New Viking Present the Paisley Reich in 2007. (The CD version of this album includes the six tracks from a pair of limited edition vinyl-only EPs released prior to the album.) Generally approving reviews and regular touring, including a stint opening for Yo La Tengo and performances at indie cred-builder festivals Coachella and SXSW, raised the band’s profile, and they made the jump from Siltbreeze to Matador for 2008’s Rip It Off, 16 breathless tracks in less than 31 minutes produced by Ohio noise-rock godfather Mike Hummel of Mike Rep and the Quotas.