The Features circa 2016
On Jan. 12, a recording that acts as a snapshot of a pivotal time in Middle Tennessee music will be widely available for the first time. Michael Eades’ YK Records will release The Mahaffey Sessions 1999, a full-length record by beloved rock outfit The Features that was finished five years before their major-label debut Exhibit A. For members of the hard-earned fan base that the band still enjoys — even though they’ve been mostly quiet for the past six years — it’s like a time traveler getting a chance to correct a great cosmic error. But maybe this is the first you’ve heard of The Features, so a little context is helpful.
The explosion of alternative rock and independent labels in the wake of Nirvana, grunge and Sub Pop left the music industry throwing darts at maps, looking for the next Seattle. In 1997, the suits discovered a little bit of the Emerald City spirit just 45 minutes from Nashville, when Billboard ran Chet Flippo’s Aug. 9 cover story heralding the arrival of Murfreesboro, Tenn. The nation’s biggest music-biz rag was championing Middle Tennessee State University’s recording industry program, rock clubs like Sebastian’s and Main Street and the community of bands that sprang up amid it all. Right in the first column of print was the logo for Spongebath Records, the flagship indie label that bubbled up from the ebullient scene, whose goal was developing talent with the intent of landing bigger deals later on. The label was born of a partnership between two prominent musicians and a business guy: producer and Self mastermind Matt Mahaffey, singer-songwriter-pianist Seth Timbs of Fluid Ounces and artist manager Rick Williams. Alongside Self and Fluid Ounces, the label released records from promising young groups like pop-rockers The Katies and groundbreaking MC and producer Count Bass D — as well as a CD EP and a 10-inch single by a high-octane, pop-schooled outfit called The Features.
“Seth Timbs was really stoked on The Features,” recalls Mahaffey in an email. ”He took me to a show at Chameleon Cafe when they first started playing around the ’Boro. At the time, they weren’t quite yet the band we all came to know and love, but it was all there.”
By 1999, The Katies and Self had deals with major labels. The Features, while also beloved locally, were still looking for a way to reach new ears. And they were at an inflection point: Their original drummer Jason Taylor and second guitarist Don Sergio had left the band, and singer-guitarist Matt Pelham, keyboardist Parrish Yaw and bassist Roger Dabbs were pressing on with new drummer Rollum Haas. The time had come to make a full-length statement of an album, and Mahaffey brought them into his home studio. The band had recorded before, but this was an earnest attempt at putting their music in front of a broader audience than what Nashville and Murfreesboro had to offer.
The Features at Exit/In, 2/5/2010
Mahaffey has some fond memories of the sessions. “I remember teaching Matt Pelham basic functions in Pro Tools so he could track his own vocals and experiment without prejudice,” he says. “I would just go play video games and he would come upstairs and say, ‘I think I got it?’ I’d go downstairs and listen. It was perfect every time, and I’ve since incorporated that method for a lot of artists.”
Working in a home studio did come with some downsides. “Mahaffey’s Dalmatians were on a vegetarian diet and letting out these noxious farts that would fill the entire studio,” Haas remembers. “I was relatively experienced for my age, but it was my first time being in a studio where there was time to screw around with ideas and sounds.”
Shortly after tracking was finished, Mahaffey moved from Murfreesboro to Los Angeles. Once he’d had a couple of weeks to settle in, he invited Pelham out for mixing sessions in the vicinity of the fabled Laurel Canyon. The result was something to be proud of — 10 tracks of snarling, grooving, emotionally complex rock ’n’ roll that recall Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Split Enz at their loudest.
According to Pelham’s admittedly hazy memory from this time in his mid-20s, the plan was that Spongebath would pay for the recording and then shop the album around until a bigger label partnered with them on the manufacturing and distribution. But even with the record nearly complete, there was turbulence ahead.
“Spongebath kind of collapsed at that point,” says Pelham. “So Rick wasn’t really involved with us — The Features — anymore.” The band’s manager Rory Daigle sent the recordings around to some press, but ultimately a proper release never materialized. “That was about it,” Pelham says with an almost-audible shrug. “I think they were shopped a little bit, but I don’t think anyone really got it. And we were really bad about second-guessing stuff.”
The Features chose to move on and leave the recordings on the shelf. Their trajectory included a brief stint with a major label in the mid-Aughts, a kind of renaissance with Kings of Leon championing the band in the early 2010s and then dormancy following 2015’s Sunset Rock. Members have gone on to various projects; in the post-quarantine era, Haas has been touring the world as Soccer Mommy’s drummer. But the songs from the dates with Mahaffey remained in the band’s repertoire, and bootlegged versions of the album have circulated among Features fans for years, burned onto CD-Rs zipped safely away in CaseLogic folders that live under the driver’s seat.
“I heard a rumor that some of that came out through an undisclosed band member trading CD-Rs for dime bags to a fan,” says Haas. “I’ve never confirmed it, but I’d bet good money at least one or two members are guilty.”
One fan never forgot. Cut to Michael Eades, who was Spongebath’s webmaster back when that was a strange thing for a label to have, and went on to launch YK as a home for music that deserves to be presented beautifully whether or not it’s likely to have huge commercial success.
The Features at Exit/In for Elliston Place Street Fest, 7/23/2016
“Fast-forward 22 years, YK Records was encroaching on its 100th release, and I knew I wanted to do something special and unexpected,” says Eades. “I shot an email to Matt Pelham as a total Hail Mary to see if he would be interested in releasing the record after all this time, and he shockingly said yes.”
Eades then reached out to Mahaffey, who luckily still had the ADAT digital tape with the final mixes in his archive. To complete the package, the YK boss recruited some fellow fans and longtime local rock-scene champions: John Baldwin mastered the album and Sam Smith did the artwork.
“The Features had such a fantastic discography throughout their career,” Eades says, “but I always felt like The Mahaffey Sessions 1999 were a bit of a missing piece to their story.”
It’s a document of a transitional period, just a little more than half an hour of music from a time when The Features were deciding how they wanted to enter the world stage. The Mahaffey Sessions 1999 will be released digitally and on vinyl on Thursday — if you’re one of those fans still holding onto a scratched-up Maxell disc, you can now properly complete your Features catalog. While the band doesn’t currently have plans to play, you’ll be able to hear the record played in full at Grimey’s at 5 p.m. on Saturday the 14th.
