Waxed
The Continental Way
scum stats: who knows?
As high schoolers Waxed played the parking lot in front of Third Man on Record Store Day and just last year they impressed many opening for Jack White at the Pinnacle here in Nashville. And now…this full length delights purely.
Starting the album with a brilliantly contrasting, jazz-inflection that towers into power chord fist slamming...it's a nuance that indicates these dudes are wise, possibly even subversive with acoustic flourishes, downbeat subsonic bass reverence in line with "Lividity" informed beyond the wildest dreams of anyone twenty years older, unique and original impossible to be mistaken for anyone else…respectfully indebted to the three-tiered altar of Les Paul wielding iconoclasts….Zakk Wylde, Paul Stanley and Buzz Osbourne.
Here's a little story I like to tell about Davis, guitar player in Waxed
There was a private tour scheduled at Third Man a few months back, I didn't know much about the group, but they were dropping a pretty penny to get an exquisite behind-the-scenes look from yours truly. It was twenty or so folks, they were quite looking forward to the experience, and at the last minute...they decided they wanted to see a direct-to-acetate recording.
Now, when we do a direct-to-acetate recording for eventual vinyl release, those things can take a good six months of planning and coordinating to make happen. In this instance, I had a handful of weeks to pull it together. Out of sheer frustration, I message to the tour operator that the cost to add-in the recording process would be prohibitively expensive...I think I said it would be triple the cost they were already paying.
They responded "We have no problem paying, thanks for your accommodation."
Having to put their money where my mouth was, I hit up Davis. I apprised him of the situation and said "If I pay you handsomely, will you go onstage and just shred direct-to-acetate guitar solos for five minutes? Shirt optional."
I may be paraphrasing slightly, but I recall his response as "Fuck yeah, I'm gonna use that money to buy tickets to see ZZ Top in Vegas on Halloween."
So that's exactly what happened. (while he wore a shirt)
To win a copy of this…tell a story in the comments, preferably truthful, where you had to throw a crazy number (crazy idea?) out there and you were actually able to follow through on. Get it posted by midnight central time on Thursday April 9th to be considered. Rock on.
Most of my life is one big “Hmm… can’t believe that worked!”
I was at a local band show in Philly. My friend and I were up close and personal with the bands. She got herself a new camera and was trying to take pictures (pre iPhone days). But, she didn’t know how to work it and got frustrated. Cut to her tossing the camera at me and asking me to give it a shot (no pun intended). This was the first time I ever shot a live show. I loved it, and got some pretty decent shots, even though I was a complete novice with no clue what I was doing. I went out and got my own camera and started shooting concerts and anything else I could. Since then, I’ve jumped at opportunities to showcase my work. Sometimes I soar, other times I crash and burn. But what a ride either way!
I wish I knew the Detroit music scene better
I was in a tiny studio my friend owned at 2 a.m. trying to work on some new music.
The session was going nowhere. Everything we made sounded slightly familiar or we were just bored by it.
So I threw out a dumb idea:
“Let’s record a song using only sounds from a broken vending machine.” (My buddy had one in the studio that didn’t cool anything anymore)
We first just laughed it off, then figured what the hell.
We dragged an old machine into the booth—coin jams, buzzing lights, the whole thing. I started hitting buttons, shaking it, feeding it coins it wouldn’t take. They mic’d everything: the clunk of rejected quarters, the hum of dying circuitry, the metallic snap of the spiral coils, the cans falling (and one exploding once it fell)
It sounded terrible, until it didn’t.
They chopped the noises, looped the hum into a bassline, turned the coin clatter into percussion, added some half baked riffs. By sunrise, we had something that felt new and different. It was messy, chaotic, mechanical, weirdly emotional.
They looked at me and said, “No one will believe how this was made.”
I said, “Good.”
My buddy was a DJ and would mix this recording in to some of his sets at times, and we loved playing it at random times when we felt stuck.
And every time someone asked how it was made, I’d just say:
“Loose change and bad ideas.”
Took my dad’s old Nikkormat to the roof over TMR Detroit to take a bunch of b&w film shots of WSU, Cass Ave & surrounding area. If you want to see them you know what to do!
I wanted to see if Jack White would show up for an Olivia Jean show and I wore my TMR shirt just in case. He not only showed up, but while she was playing a cover “Sail Away” by Enya he saw the shirt, pointed at it, and gave me a fist bump. No words were spoken.
OK, I once threw out a crazy idea and, I guess, was actually able to follow through on it, since my crazy idea wasn’t needed. See, back in the early 1990s I think it was, Earthfest was happening on the grounds of Riverland Amusement Park in Utica, Michigan. Now Earthfest was a celebration of activism done by consciously picking people on both sides of the issues. For instance, we had Ted Nugent’s Bowhunters at a table while we also had PETA at a table. Get it? And while attendees milled about and, hopefully, broadened their minds, bands played. I was this year a volunteer coordinator and rode around on my bicycle with my crazy idea that if in this hotbed of conflicting opinions if it looked like a potentially dangerous and maybe even violent interaction happened, I would cycle directly to it, put my bicycle between the people and try to defuse the situation while every available volunteer seeing me doing this could come help. Crazy right? Well, in this position I had the opportunity to invite someone. I knew of this guy that paraded up and down lines of people trying to get into heavy converts. He wheeled around a PVC cross and talked of fire and brimstone. I am an atheist, but I admired his verve and invited him to the event. He gave me a homemade tee that said “Satan Sucks” in iron-on felt letters! So, back to the bands. One I know were avowed Satanists. I saw from across the way the cross-toter and the Satanist vocalist tête-à-tête. Certainly, this was trouble! I sped over there, rudely inserted myself between them and thus alerted many to potential trouble. Were they about to engage in fisticuffs! No, they were exchanging tips on how to get a reaction from a crowd! Then, I realized the crazy idea wasn’t my plan to preempt arguments but the very premise of Earthfest – introducing people of opposing views can easily lead to them finding common ground on their own.
I read that a group I’ve been into for a long time was playing in Germany. I asked my buddy if he had any interest, and basically said we had to do this. Bought tickets to the concert and then it was up to me to figure out the travel to Munich
Oh man, I don’t have any stories as exciting as this, but when I was a young community health nurse I asked my boss if we could rent a double decker pontoon boat and dress up as pirates and pass out free sunscreen to fellow boaters for skin cancer awareness/prevention and the higher-ups approved it.
You know, you know well enough-
I’ve got to hear these guys. The openers on last years tour were amazing here in Austin. Became a fan of Gus Baldwin.