Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current, October 12, 2011, Image 20
Xh tusin9astep - b ^'- h -^ world to pick up a pain, brush and C rea£ T^'" 9 Pe ° P ' e 8 " ° ver the take home at the end of a fun filled evening atTpTn^ 'Y * h * W '" $5-00 Off Your Next Class! Bring this coupon in to redeem. \ Valid only at the Athens location. May not be combined with any other offer/ discounts. Some restrictions may apply Expires: 10/31/2011. Check out our other special offerings! Private Parties Bachelorette Parties Birthday Parties Sorority Parties Kidz Art Camps Bridal Events • Saturday Kidz Classes Sat. 10/15-Bar opens at 9am UGA <§> VANDERBILT KICKOFF AT 7 PAA $3 BLOODY MARY BAR' Serving BBQ sandwiches, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, Polish and Italian Sausages and Miss Vickie’s Chips. Athens PopFest Special 10% OFF any purchase if wearing a PopFest wristband. it 1 HENS Pop&eft Major League Playoffs Tigers vs Texas Rangers Tues, Wed, Thurs & Sat. \ Watch on our 5 BIG \ 7 SCREEN TVs, indoors or out. Celebrate Oktoberfest with us all week! -i Come enjoy our German! beers and sausages. Saturday 10/29: Halloween Party Drink specials. Costume contest. 254 W. Clayton Street Athens, GA 30601 • 91/ ' i 8S60 AMPLE PARKING AVAILABLE 10% OFF Tattoo or Body Piercing WWW.AMERICANCLASSICTAnOO.NET 1035a Baxter St. W 706-543-7628 ^ 20 FLAGPOLE COM OCTOBER 12. 2011 POPFEST continued from p. 17 nine years, this week's PopFest offers music fans an opportunity to see one of our city's more prominent purveyors of jubilantly tuneful melodies... possibly for the last time. Masters of the Hemisphere, whose members have been scattered across the country since the early 2000s, reunited last year at the behest of drummer (and beloved local come dian/bartender) Jeff Griggs to record a brand- new album. The resulting release, the group's first in 10 years, is the delightfully lush and cohesive Maybe These Are the Breaks. fundraising website Kickstarter, is "temporar ily stalled due to life, but just around the corner—a few clicks away from being mixed." As to the fate of The Masters of * Hemisphere, that future is less certain. The band is, in Rawls' words, "a very unknown beast... Not sure if we will make another album. Not sure if we will ever play another show beyond this upcoming tour. Whatever Jeff calls us up and asks us to do, I guess." Thematically, Maybe These Are the Breaks reflects that uncertainly. "[Multi instrumentalist] Adrian [Finch] is convinced that the entire album is a break-up album," says Rawls. "Breaking up of a relationship, or "[Griggs] thought we should secretly make a new album, just for kicks—maybe not even officially release it necessarily," singer Sean Rawls explains. "Several years later, we finally got around to recording it, and we shocked ourselves with how much we liked it." That opinion has been echoed elsewhere, with fans and press hailing the record, released by storied local label Kindercore Records, as a "return to form." In celebration of the quartet's return, the tape label Modern Country will also be issuing a cassette box set of Masters of the Hemisphere's three prior albums, along with unreleased bonus tracks. "It's basically every single thing we ever recorded," says Rawls. "We've dug up a few things over the years that never had a proper release, and now people will hear just how bad we could be. Nothing too embarrassing, I guess." Though Rawls describes his band's vault clearing release modestly, his ambitions and those of his bandmates have remained high even during the Masters' hiatus. Along with fellow singer/songwriter Bren Mead, Rawls has been working dutifully in Still Flyin', a dance- rock band based in San Francisco that just wrapped up a national tour and has plans to release a new record early next year. Mead also plans on releasing a record from his solo proj ect, Vetran. The album, financed by Internet the end of a life in a certain place and start ing one new somewhere else. You could read into it that it's about me and Bren moving across the country; now I'm the only one that doesn't live in Georgia." All things considered, this week's PopFest appearance potentially could be Athens' final chance to catch Masters of the Hemisphere live in concert... but a future collaboration is never totally out of the question, especially considering how much fun the band had put ting together this last album. "It was great recording [Maybe These Are the Breaks]. Personally, it was the first time since I moved away in 2003 that I'd spent a significant amount of time in Athens," says Rawls. "It was very nostalgic and felt perfect for the Masters vibe: hanging out with old friends too late at night and then getting up and walking to the studio in blazing humid ity." [Brian Veysey] "We went to a shopping mall and laughed at all the shoppers/ Security guards trailed us to a record shop/ We asked for Mojo Nixon/ They said 'He don't work here'/ We said, 'If you don't got Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin?" AHUM