Grifters: C er D?

naw, Columbia was always a bright spot on tour.

from what i can remember.

xpost

The analogy I always use to describe it is... it's like a girlfriend you use to have. The sex was incredible and it was a wild time BUT you fought a lot and she was always flirting with other guys. So you break up and it's a nasty break-up.
But a couple of years later you run into each other and enough time has passed that really all you remember is the great sex and it turns out you're both available at the time so you jump back in the sack and give things another try. Then sure enough, a week later you realize you have all the same problems you use to have and you kick yourself for being stupid enough to get back together.

did you move to NYC with all the other Columbians?

xpost

KCOU KCOU 88.1 BIG STAR ALEX CHILTON JODY STEPHENS GRIFTERS MEMPHIS GREG DULLI VAN DYKE PARKS ROAD TRIP TO CHICAGO ROLLERBLADES KCOU JEFF BREEZE UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER.

And nah, Tripp. It was up in the rafters of the Blue Note while Seam was playing. Grifters are still in my top five Memphis bands.

yeah, the Clears were Alicia Trout and Shelby Bryant and Brad.... something.

Alicia is like the queen of memphis now. she's awesome.
if you go to myspace look for River City Tanlines or Contaminated Records.

Shelby put out some stuff on Steve Shelly's label . Look for
Cloud Wow Music.

but yeah, FBP is sorely lacking in the chaos department.

LPOE? If so, yeah that was on time. I tried to make the Murphy's show w/ Wallendas the other night, but was road worn. (Juicy J was, up until a couple of months ago, my boss. I know S. from when Yvonne B used to make me go to yoga with her. Ok, she didn't make me.)

Kristen found me via the grifters myspace page so that was cool.

Stan's 15 year old son runs the grifters page but I give him stuff for it all the time.

I'll try to put up that live version of Crashing Jet sometime.

Also, if you look on our friends list and go to Flecton Big Sky that's our old friend Miche Jette. the songs on his page are from his record that features der grifters backing him up (as well as Califone). Those recordings represent the last time the grifters recorded together.

we did record 2 songs later that year but the tape was lost forever so the Flecton recordings are it.

rad ... I will check that out

I saw Kristen a couple years ago at (drumroll) ... an nyc Bloodthirsty Lovers show. ha.

I still see Tim whenever Califone's in town. Which is never enough for me.

http://www.myspace.com/dragoonmemphis

Also, if you frequent the BOB page, right now I'm kind of posting stuff from our tenth grade year (1982 or so) but pretty quickly it'll get into our eh.. less-goofy years and you can start to hear me and Stan find our footing as musicians.

still works.

you have to be a huge nerd to give a shit.

I'm sorry I broke up your black panther party.

I've made a huge mistake.

Is this the Goner board!??! AW SHIT!!

somewhere i still have awesome 4 track cassette recording of that show at barking legs in chattanooga (also known as the one where ***kicked*** that exercise ball into the overhead light, and better known to me personally as the first date with my ex-wife).

speaking of wives, when stan jokingly introduced me to his wife as "the fifth grifter," i was so totally weirdly elated by that. hah.

Used to talk to your little brother sometimes but it's durn good to hear from you. When's the new Yeti coming out?

Piddlebach is the coolest fucking song ever recorded.

I am done here.

Bardo Pond's done pretty good for themselves, eh?
We had a collective band-crush on Isobel.

ALSO I listened the hell out of the Shelby Bryant album after a friend picked it up by chance on emusic and loved it, and it just seemed so totally out there that I don't know if I'm excited to read that he was in other bands or if I don't want to hear them in case he begins to make sense. It tickles pretty much the opposite neurons to the Grifters for me though, just as a warning to anyone who might scratch their heads at my excitement.

everyone should own the Clears' first (only?) cd.

Every single track is fantastic AND it was recorded in my old apartment (by Roy Berry)

and have we mentioned the simple ones yet? that's kinda mandatory with a grifters/memphis/indie thread.

this is a band I played with from late 98 to 2001.
I wasn't doing too much musically after the grifters'
initial demise so I was elated when my friends Stu Sikes
and Brian McKay called and asked me to join.

Initially the band was the 2 of them with Max Tepper.
Max moved back to NYC and started the band Natural History
but we carried on with some guest guitarists. One of whom was
Tim Prudhomme who lived in Mempho for about 5 years.

If you listen to the song Song In F you can hear pretty much
every guitarist who ever played in the band. It was a song Max
kinda started, then he left. In fact, when Max he announced it
to me first and the first thing out of my mouth was "Can we keep
Song in F?!"

So Max wrote a good chunk of the verse, Brian wrote the chorus
and I more or less came up with the bridge (bridges are my specialty)
and on the bridge you can hear Max's guitar, Brian's, Tim's, Jared McStay's, and Jerome's. (as well as my bass and I also laid down all the electric piano and mellotron.) So that one part of the song features performances recorded over the course of a year and a half.

It was pretty sweet being in a band with Stu because it meant we got to practice at Easley/McCain's. And record there for free basically.

If you like what you hear you can order it from Shangri-La.

http://www.shangri.com/cd_memphisindie.html

ALSO I should mention that Max left us Song In F before any lyrics were written so we all took a try at writing them but ultimately we took a poem my wife wrote and rearranged it slightly. Then Jerome and Lori McStay sang it.

My wife cried just a little bit the first time she heard it.

Already happened. Video at http://www.rocketscienceaudio.com/ (you have to register)

Yeah but... I want to see them on the east coast :(

Wandering Boy Poet - thanks so much for the almighty link.

Given that they won't be visiting Ol' blighty again, any clues as to how to save this vid in case it walks?

It's some annoying new format. I've grabbed the (literally) 1000 or so fragments, but the methods for joining them don't seem to work for me (& I haven't got anything that'll play the fragments). Need to get back onto researching it.

Cheers WBT. please keep me updated. Not been lazy there, I'm just not tech and too fucking burnt out to learn

I haven't tried it, but the Firefox "Download Helper" add-on might work. It doesn't catch on to every web player but you can get lucky.

Evan. Thanks. Hopefully you have e mail?

i just dug out the eureka ep for the first time in…a decade?

some observations just because i wonder what this sounds like to other people almost 20 years on

eureka iv -- i still like this song, although what was up with gold boys and ray guns in the 90s? it sounds weird now.
his jesus song -- awesome, still love this and i would not mind being in this band
x-ray hip -- what the fucking fuck is going on with the singing/lyrics in this song. awful. otherwise it's fine but not memorable
there's also a song that sounds like an alex chilton impersonator

i guess part of it held up ok. that's not bad! the only song i could really get into was his jesus song. this video is pretty awesome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=995hAm-wcys

Relistened to it, still think it's their most solid release, though other albums contain some better songs.

I've always linked Eureka with Urge Overkill's Stull EP from a few years previous. Comes right between the promising/catchy/eccentric minor league album and the major label jump. Features an eclectic bunch of stuff, some much more accessible than anything previous, some out-there. Like a last-minute housecleaning before getting more focused. Actually there's a bit of similarity between the two bands' career arcs, probably due to the state of the music business at the time more than anything else, I'd guess. Especially:

Supersonic Storybook/Crappin You Negative
Eureka/Stull
Ain't My Lookout/Saturation
Full Blown Possession/Exit The Dragon

One Sock Missing is my favorite Grifters album, and one of my favorite albums from the 90's.

I only saw them once at a small bar around '95? They were good and sloppy or sloppy good I guess.

I still remember some drunk from the back kept yelling out, "Rolling Stones!"

I guess I could see them covering a couple of the 'Exile' songs.

mmhmm

Grifters show in September at Gonerfest and two in November in NYC

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2014/08/memphis_legends.html

drudgesiren.gif

got my tickets for Glasslands already. thinkin I'll go to both of the new york ones. one of my favorite live bands of all time.

see u at mercury lounge

high five

I need to get on this.

awesome, got glasslands tickets.

I just saw this, and it was too great not to mention. Bunch of blue-collar guys just jamming on the street. I'm guessing they'll do a Bad Company cover...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL6ctSaNQVg

Oh, to be, the state of the art, of boho/alt

nobody loves babies in bars
better than yourself

Still salty I missed the NYC show in 2014.

Cool jerk
No particular slogan
Signs are for the bottomless pit
Where nobody's going

love that song so much

i am

the mambo king

― mookieproof, Monday, April 19, 2010 1:31 AM (twelve years ago)

Wrapped tight in my tarantula skin

― CaptainLorax, Monday, April 19, 2010 2:45 AM (twelve years ago)

The situation's growing hopelеss
So I pretended not to noticе