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Living History
THE 8H0UTER8 AND SKILLET LICKLR8 PAY HOMAGE TO THE PAST
Ward jokes about the recording process
for their first three records: the “Modern
Times” 7-inch, Big Cats Can Swim and
Crunch. Those were tracked primarily on
Ward’s laptop with Pro Tools, using simple
stage microphones. “When we did Big Cats,
we didn’t even have mic stands,” Ward
recalls, listing off Athens street names and
the corresponding houses that served as
recording locales for each release. “I remem
ber we had to take down a curtain rod and
crudely have the curtain rod hanging off the
end of the couch.”
The experience was aggravating in a
logistical sense, but it was all the more
frustrating given the root of the problem:
money. “Since we could only have two mics
going at the same time and we only had so
much input, we would have Marie play with
headphones onto my amp so that my amp
wasn’t really making any noise, and then
we’d record all the drums. Then I would go
through and record everything on top of
that,” Ward says. “We didn’t really have a
choice in doing that, because we didn’t have
any money. We were super broke.”
“By Crunch, we had bought a mic stand,”
Uhler chimes in lightheartedly. “Still not
enough to buy a new computer or any
thing,” she clarifies.
“New microphones, even,” Ward adds.
Eureka California made the best with
what they had, working multiple jobs at
once to fund their endeavors. But good
fortune was on its
way. Over the sum
mer of 2015, the band
embarked on a UK
tour booked by Turner,
with plans during its
final week to record
a new album with Leeds producer MJ at
his Suburban Home Studios. With a CV
that includes credits on records by Leeds
post-punks Eagulls and Welsh noise-pop
band Joanna Gruesome, MJ’s involvement
seemed ideal. Turner and MJ shared a
mutual friend in HHBTM artist Jonathan
Nash, who had played Eureka’s previous
records for the Brit; likewise, Turner had
played MJ’s records for the band. Both par
ties quickly became distant admirers.
With the songs well-rehearsed and road-
tested by the tour’s end, the band managed
to knock out recording in roughly three and
a half days, mixing for just another one and
a half. “It was really efficient,” says Uhler of
the experience, noting how well the band’s
personality matched with MJ’s. “With the
wrong type of personality, there’s pressure,”
she says.
“He was just really professional and
really efficient and knew what he was
doing,” Ward adds. “I mean, compared to
how we were doing it before, it was like
night and day. I remember so many times
when we were recording, we would talk
to each other and be like, ‘This is so much
easier.’”
Steering clear of substances also made
the process a smoother one. “We’re pretty
mild. We don’t really drink,” says Uhler. “I
mean, we used to do that stuff. And I know
some people just do that all the time, like
it’s their vacation, but we treat [touring]
more like we’re going to work.”
“Yeah, it’s more like a job,” agrees Ward,
who’s stopped drinking altogether.
Songs like “Everybody Had a Hard Year”
and “Sober Sister” portray a newfound per
spective, a look back on a life left behind.
The former is a short acoustic number in
which Ward reflects on personal hardships
before making a final broad appeal, finish
ing the song with its titular line: “I grew
a beard to hide my sins/ I spent all last
year lonely and soaked in gin/ But I never
thought to disappear/ Everybody had a
hard year.”
The latter is a blistering track that could
easily be passed off as a party anthem.
Ward’s six-string is channeled through both
guitar and bass amps as Uhler keeps the
song from veering off course. The song’s
breakneck pace easily buries Ward’s under
lying concern, as he belts: “And it’s so sad
that you never got the chance to see/ All
of the beautiful things you could have seen
in me/ Just before the start of the season/
I would drink them away for no apparent
reason.”
Indeed, much of the new record sounds
like a jet-fueled lamentation of the stag
nation one can feel working and aging in
Athens. But rather than cloaking those
fears and regrets in dismissive one-liners,
Ward lays them out plainly.
“I think with this record, more so than
the other ones, I was really trying to write
from an honest place and just be maybe
more blunt than I had been in the past, or
maybe more vulnerable on some songs,”
he says. “I think, given Big Cats and then
Crunch, the songs were always moving in
that direction.”
The approach reveals a band more
grounded than before—so much so that
all involved are fixed in
a state of firm realism.
“Everything’s kind of
moving forward in a
natural progression in
a way that’s really com
fortable and really nice,”
Turner says, taking a break from screen
printing T-shirts during his day off from
Wuxtry. With many things coming togeth
er—a one-week, pre-release tour; slick
posters for their release show; and filming
underway for another music video—the
pieces are in place for Eureka California’s
biggest splash yet.
“I try not to put any [pressure] on
records in that way,” says Turner, though he
says he’s pleased with the band’s progress.
“I like the pace that it’s happening [at],” he
adds, before parting to work on some press
emails for the band.
As focused as Eureka California is on the
lead-up to Versus, gears are also in motion
for out-of-state shows in April, a tour with
label mates Witching Waves in May and
a return to the UK this fall. Now, it’s just
a matter of covering all the bases. “It is
harder, the older we get and the more jobs
we have, to take off huge chunks of time,”
says Uhler, as the nearby tables become a
little less noisy and the two finish up their
meal.
Regardless of where they’ve been or
where they’re going, Eureka California will
always be a band to rally behind, a genu
ine pair of people who have never asked
for much. “We’ve always, I think, tried to
maintain that we’re the same exact people
offstage as we are onstage,” says Ward. “It
really is consistent.” ©
WHO: Eureka California,
Feather Trade, Outer Sea
WHERE: Little Kings Shuffle Club
WHEN: Friday, Mar. 25, 9 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $5
By Kat Khoury music@flagpole.com
W hen you hear the word “shout,”
you think of a loud sound from
deep in the throat. But the term
used by descendants of slaves in coastal
Georgia, on the mainland near St. Simons
Island, is derived from the Afro-Arabic term
“saut,” the counterclockwise dance around
Mecca, according to Art Rosenbaum, a folk
lorist, musician, artist, author and teacher
in Athens. Rosenbaum, who is well-versed
in Southern folklore, explains the history
and meaning behind the shout as per
formed by the McIntosh County Shouters.
The shout isn’t a dance, and the shouters
don’t refer to it as one. A dance is secular,
while the shout is a series of movements
with no crossing of the legs, and it typi
cally has very deep religious connotations.
A family tradition that has been passed on
since today’s shouters’ ancestors were kept
as slaves, the shout honors the original
shouters, who had to shout in fields and
in secret in wooden houses, using sticks as
drums. Drums were banned by slave own
ers because they were thought to be used to
signal and start slave rebellions.
Beginning the shout, the leader, who
knows the songs, will start at a slow pace.
“Basers” respond to the lead singer; the
style is similar to call-and-response gospel
singing, though the shout is much older.
Percussive hands quicken the pace and
then the sticks begin, beating tirelessly on
a wooden floor. A narrator explains the
songs to the audience. Though tradition and
honoring of ancestors is an important part
of the shout, personal variation is encour
aged, and high standards of performance
are desired.
Most songs are religious, and some tell
stories going back to the days of slavery.
“Daniel” is about a slave of the same name
who was caught stealing meat. The song
urges him to go away, to run from the mas
ter’s whip.
The shout is about movement. Members
add their own variations, which range from
“eagle,” demonstrated by outstretched
arms, to “rock,” portrayed by a rocking
motion of the body, to “run away,” as used
in “Daniel,” in which the shouters reverse
their counterclockwise rotation.
While the McIntosh County Shouters
exaggerate some movements for audiences
and display a little more showmanship
and costumery, they strive to maintain
authenticity. The songs and movements are
embedded in history and evocative of a cer
tain era; the group wears similar clothing to
that of their enslaved ancestors, with their
dignity in mind.
On Tuesday, Mar. 29, the shouters will
perform in Athens for the second time,
gracing the stage of the Morton Theatre
downtown along with another group
whose roots run deep: the Skillet Lickers,
a Georgia string band that started in the
1920s. Four generations ago, Gid Tanner,
a Georgia chicken farmer, was hired by
Columbia Records to record the Skillet
Lickers’ “hillbilly” music, according to their
website’s biography. The record was phe
nomenally successful, and the band has
grown into an influential group still led by
the Tanner family.
Both the Shouters and the Skillet Lickers
represent folk, bluegrass, gospel and other
Southern styles of music. Though the styles
and content of each are vastly different—
strings and drinking songs versus sticks
and religion—both have survived thanks to
strong family ties.
Tuesday’s show will mark an impor
tant first: Though the McIntosh County
Shouters and the Skillet Lickers are both
native to Georgia, have historic beginnings
and were highly influential to the devel
opment of Southern music, the two have
never performed together. ©
WHO: McIntosh County Shouters,
Skillet Lickers
WHERE: Morton Theatre
WHEN: Tuesday, Mar. 29,7 p.m.
HOW MUCH: FREE! (ticket required)
We would talk to each
other and be like,
‘This is so much easier.
McIntosh County Shouters
MARCH 23, 2016 • FLAGPOLE.COM 11
SAVANNAH MUSIC FESTIVAL
