The Murfreesboro independent label Spongebath has only a handful of employees, and it was founded by young label head Richard Williams in his apartment less than two years ago. Nevertheless, the label has maximized its modest resources, organizing package shows of its acts, spending a year with each signee in artist development, and inking a distribution deal with BMG through a partnership with Zoo Entertainment. The first Zoo/Spongebath release, the debut album by Murfreesboro art-pop wunderkind Matt Mahaffey’s group Self, continues to receive airplay at college and alternative radio.
The latest Spongebath package show reaches the Exit/In Thursday night at 9 p.m. Described by Spongebath’s Lisa Lacour as “a cleaner Pavement,” the Features are a quintet hailing from Sparta, where the band members (average age: 19) practice in chief songwriter Matt Phelan’s treehouse. Andrew Conley of Jack loves them, and we can offer no higher recommendation. The Roaries, a Nashville power-pop quartet that claims influences ranging from Sebadoh to Charlie Parker, will release their Spongebath debut this fall; they were signed by the label after a Spongebath rep heard a few of their songs in background noise over the phone. Rounding out the bill is Murfreesboro’s Fluid Oz., anchored by the droll wordplay and fiendishly catchy melodies of keyboardist/singer Seth Timbs.
Meanwhile, in other Spongebath news, the label will release an album by the Chapel Hill band Gumption in May, with an album by the Features to follow this fall. As for Self, the band recently met in New York with hot video director Jesse Peretz (the Foo Fighters) to discuss an upcoming project. When it comes to good fortune, Spongebath just soaks it up.
Spongebath artist Leah Paxton will perform with her electric band Sweet Pea at Friday night’s all-night all-right Girls & Boys Do It Nice concert at Hayes House. Described only half-jokingly by an organizer as “a WWF event,” the evening features 13 bands playing half-hour sets in a multitude of genres. Folk fans are directed to the highly promising lineup of Some Awful Bridge, Folk Noise Syndicate and the Cherry Blossoms from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; from there the evening careens from the “improvised noise guitar” of Brian Miles to the ambient noise of Hallucination Guillotine, who close the show at 1 a.m.
Among the acts to watch for: the Frothy Shakes, a riotous, confrontational group known to hurl its drum kit at unresponsive patrons; the Tony Guides, who combine theater and percussive ethno-rock; Murfreesboro “noise merchants” Chrome Finger Revival; and Salida, which features former members of Buzzkill and F.U.C.T. A special tip of the cap goes to Formula, described in the event’s press release as “Clockhammer’s corpse, exhumed and fondled by local necrophiles.” Bring the family. Also on the bill are Pieces of 8 and Procestarops.
British singer Frank White, best known for his 1994 Kingfish Records CD Dog It!, has been recording tracks here in town with producer Rick Beresford for an upcoming overseas release this autumn. White, whose gritty white-soul vocals call to mind a cross between Sting and Joe Cocker, says that he’s “listened to every song Hank Williams ever wrote,” and for years he’s wanted to record an album that gives an R&B treatment to classic country. “I want to mix the soul of these two different types of music,” he says. If you’re interested in contacting White, call Linda Dotson of Dotson-Wooley Entertainment at 824-1947.
Elliptical dispatches: Former Government Cheese/Bis-quits songwriter Tommy Womack, whose Cheese Chronicles book is still being passed all over town from musician to musician, performs with his new band the Geniuses at the Hard Rock Cafe on Tuesday night. The band includes former Bis-quits drummer Tommy Meyer, former Questionnaires guitarist Doug Lancio, and keyboardist Jack Irwin from Collin Wade Monk’s band. The opening act is King Apple. Womack and roots-rock songwriter John Sieger (who opened for his pals the Violent Femmes at Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring concert last weekend) were seen in the audience at Phil Lee and Kent Agee’s terrific show a few weeks ago at the Sutler....
During the late 1950s and early ’60s, when Sam Phillips hoped to make him his next Johnny Cash or Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich recorded a series of singles for the Sun label that fused rockabilly, R&B, jazz and country into a hybrid like nothing else on the label, a soul-steeped sound that filtered the music of fields, honky-tonks and backwoods juke joints through a uniquely cosmopolitan sensibility. The best of these recordings are collected on Lonely Weekends: Best of the Sun Years, an outstanding new AVI Entertainment compilation that includes the title hit along with such classic cuts as “Sittin’ and Thinkin’,” “There Won’t Be Anymore” and the indescribable “Don’t Put No Headstone on My Grave.” Check local record stores.
