RECOMMENDED
There are a few figures still kicking around the American underground who can and should rightly be credited as independent artists who can do just about whatever they want outside the major-label system. Over a career that’s spanned several decades, Jack Yarber has recorded in a slew of different genres, turned over garage’s rotting corpse, cranked up some party music and slowly allowed music most would associate with his Southern upbringing to flood new recordings. Beginning with the Compulsive Gamblers, which didn’t garner too much attention during its initial run in the early nineties, Yarber hooked up with Eric Friedl, a Memphis denizen and took along Greg Cartwright (The Reigning Sound) from his then-current ensemble to form the Oblivians. That was 1993. In just five years, the trio issued a handful of singles, in part collected on “The Sympathy Sessions,” and three studio long-players. At its most reductive, the group’s music is garage-based. But by the time “…Play 9 Songs With Mr. Quintron” rolled around, there were enough gospel and classic country sounds added in to point toward a breaking point. The 1998 disc was to be the Oblivians’ last proper release, with Yarber going on to work with Tav Falco and putting time in on the Limes project, something of a well-kept Memphis secret. He also put together the Tennessee Tearjerkers, the band Yarber tours and records with most frequently of late. Efforts like 2006’s “The Flip Side Kid” slow down pacings substantially from the Oblivians’ heyday, but the same sort of drunk, staggering blues remain the base of Yarber’s tunes. There’s just more twang on “John Holmes Blues” than punkier songs like the decade-old “Memphis Creep” could handle. So whether or not Yarber shows up in Chicago with a brimmed hat hanging down over his eyes while he moans out some drinkin’ songs, every punk and garage band working to put out low-rent singles from their apartment owes this guy a debt of gratitude. (Dave Cantor)
June 29 at Township, 2200-2202 North California, (773)384-1865, 10pm. $10.
Related Stories
Shock Value: A Preview of Last Fantastic Nasty at Quenchers I get the sense that Last Fantastic Nasty are still in that “figuring who we are” phase, where you’ve realized you can get attention by shocking people, but you start thinking long and hard about whether or not you want to. And they do have the musical chops to do well: the songs are metallic and complicated and compelling, even…- Match Set: A Preview of Tennis at Metro Moore and Riley have defined an identity that—while still built upon sounds and styles of decades past—now leans in a more timeless direction.
- Do It Again: A Preview of Brian Wilson at Horseshoe Hammond While today former bandmate Mike Love leads a group calling itself the Beach Boys, that band features no Brian Wilson. Wilson’s group, on the other hand, includes original Beach Boys member Al Jardine as well as late-prime-era Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin, and is jaw-droppingly facile at recreating the Beach Boys sound.
- Never Give Up: A Preview of Fantastic Negrito at Martyrs' When Fantastic Negrito emerged onto the music scene in 2015, he looked to all the world like a new, emerging artist. In fact the man born Xavier Dphrepaulezz—winner of that year’s Tiny Desk Contest for his song and video “Lost in a Crowd,” which showcase a sound that builds upon the blues, but didn’t conform to most people’s ideas about…
- "Rumours" Has It: A Preview of "Say You Love Me" at Davenport's Cabaret The performers process arena-rock anthems through their own cabaret-honed sensibilities.
