Golden Nuggets: Clockhammer Rocks for 91 Rock

With the official sign-on of WXNA coming this weekend, marking the rebuilding of a beloved cultural institution that went by the wayside when WRVU cut out community DJs and went online-and-HD-radio-only, it's a good time to look back at a period when Nashville's rock scene was working to build something new on a platform erected the decade prior.

In the early '90s, after the tide of national attention for bands like Jason and the Scorchers and Raging Fire had rolled out, one of the shining stars in the local-rock constellation was as unlikely as you could imagine in a place that some outsiders still think of primarily as a country music town: jazz-metal/proggy-pop trio Clockhammer, whose best-known lineup featured Byron Bailey, Matt Swanson (later of Lambchop) and Ken Coomer (later of Wilco).

Former Scene music editor and Cream founder Tracy Moore picked "Nullify," from the group's second album Klinefelter, as one of our Best Local Rock Songs Ever, pointing out that more than a few bands worked in this territory, but they were were trailblazers in this neck of the woods, blowing the minds of a generation of local rockers with something brand new, leaving a permanent impression.

Not much performance footage of Clockhammer exists, but the YouTube archive of Tom George's Twitch Records (which also includes footage of Asschapel (whose whole discography is about to get reissued) at The Red Rose, a few choice Dave Cloud tunes and more) has several brilliant — albeit blown out — clips, including some from an WRVU benefit show in March 1990 where the band gets a response of near-Diarrhea-Planet-at-Exit/In proportions. YouTuber David Clark has a clip of "Mother Truth" which appears to be from the same show.

Check them all out below (and check out this hippiecommune.com BBS archive for lots more Clockhammer ephemera).