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C1!E> feature 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