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Welcome! So, somehow you found us? Weird. No one ever finds this site. But whatever. Enjoy your visit, and load up your iPod or phone with some tunes. Have we overlooked your favorite band? Drop us a line.
Credit for our cool site logo goes to artist Tim Shawl. The rest of this mess is strictly our fault.
Got Your Copy Yet?
Still Available! - "Return to Elliston Square -- 1979-1989" From Spat! Records -- 22 songs from 22 bands. Purchase here: Amazon eMusic Rhapsody
Subversive Music Links:
Bands with New Releases!
Jason & the Nashville Scorchers
Practical Stylists
Shadow 15
Raging Fire
The Ratz
Web Search
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The Young Nashvillians Story
If I remember correctly, it all started in the spring of 1982 with a series of circumstances that no one could have anticipated at the time would develop into one whole album, one half album, some assorted other songs and a smattering of performances. Norman, Jon's musical friend from Harvard was going to be in Nashville for a political internship of some sort and needed an extracurricular summer activity. Jon called Jerry, who he knew could play the guitar and write songs, shared his affinity for the Beatles and Jonathan Richman, and had brothers who also liked music. Jerry, who was just finishing high school, called me at college in Minnesota where I was a freshman and asked if I wanted to be in this band, despite (or perhaps because of) my profound inability to play an instrument. I was kind of hesitant at first but had nothing better to do, and when our younger brother Paul agreed to participate too, it looked like this family must somehow form a group. When Jon's tall high school friend Brad, also a fine guitarist, and our varsity soccer goalie and drummer Todd joined, the combo was complete. Now we needed a name.
A local bank was featuring a promotional campaign called "Young Nashvillians" that had an annoying jingle. We were young, most of us were Nashvillians, so, with a little tweaking, we appropriated their ad for our theme song and got a moniker in the process. So when summer arrived we began noodling around in Jon's basement with relatively unambitious goals. We'd write some songs, learn to play 'em, and maybe perform once or twice. Since Jon had a four track recording unit and we liked the songs we'd thought up, we also made some demo tapes to have as a keepsake and sell to friends. That probably would have been the end of the story had not Kevin Gray of the White Animals, arguably Nashville's most popular party band at the time, gotten ahold of our tape. For some reason he was enraptured by our rudimentary sound and insisted that we occasionally open for the White Animals. But it didn't stop there. Kevin wanted to release our tape as a record on his local Dread Beat record label, and that's how Metropolitan Summer came to be immortalized in vinyl.
Buoyed by the intense if isolated enthusiasm generated by that first summer, we decided to meet again at the next winter break and the following summer and make some more music. In the summer of 1983 we went into an actual recording studio on Nashville's Music Row and laid down the tracks for The Young Nashvillians are Here, which took up only one side of an album, thereby alleviating the listener's need to get up and turn the platter over (unless he or she wanted to gaze at our signatures etched into the other side). Despite some mild kudos from the local press ("goofy party rock" -Nashville Tennessean, "benign youthful energy" -Versus) the group disbanded after that second summer because: 1) we all had other fish to fry, and 2) we weren't really very good.
In the intervening 14 or 15 years, various combinations of us have jammed together and even made a few additional stabs at recording . Only two of us went on to continue to make music on a regular basis (Jerry and Norman), but we all look back at those years with agood deal of fondness and a little embarrassment.
David Lefkowitz, March 1997
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You can only stay drunk on the blood of Hank Williams for so long...
With this motto, Jet Black Factory formed in 1985, as a reaction to the rampant CowPunk groups that dominated the local Nashville music scene. The JBF sound was a blend of major and minor-key songs that emphasized moody, catchy melodies instead of hot musician chops, with intriguing lyrics that defied the standard clichs that the Music City is infamous for.
Following their live debut in summer 86, JBF soon developed a considerable local following and lots of local radio play, which they parlayed into studio time, which resulted in a 6-song EP, Days Like These, produced by local studio whiz Mike Poole and released on 391 Records in 1987, to very positive reviews. The following year, with a different line-up, they released another 6-song EP, Duality, again to very positive reviews and an encouraging amount of airplay on college stations across the nation, even breaking into the top 100 albums on the CMJ charts. 1990 saw the release of their first full-length album, House Blessing, also on CD, to positive reviews and another appearance in the top 100 on the CMJ charts. The following year saw the band signing to Core Records and re-releasing the CD with two new tracks as The Uncrossing.
Touring exposed the group to the bizarre underbelly of the Deep South and caused many fissures internally. While the core Willie-German-Dye axis remained constant up to the bands final show on Sept. 10 1992, other members came and went. Not all went quietly into the night: in 1991, as part of a plea-bargain to keep his ample rump out of the electric chair, former JBF second guitarist Roy Everett Anderson pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of a Mobile, Alabama club owner (see newspaper clipping below). Even more ominously, in that very same year, the band's guitar roadie shot and killed his wife and turned the gun on himself at Starwood Amphitheater after a Judas Priest concert. Cue in the proscribed happy ending...
Happily the other ex-JBFers went on to much more productive pastimes. Dave Willie formed the Nashville lounge combo Nine Parts Devil and makes silk-screen art that is sold regionally all over the South, Robert German now lives in Germany, somewhat appropriately, where he writes pulp novels under the pen name of Walter von Wegen, and Jim Dye still drums for local combos and does studio session work. Give him a call--operators are waiting...
Music:
Jason & the Nashville Scorchers --- "Take me Home, Country Roads" Recorded live at the Cat's Records Outdoor Show, Labor Day, 1982. Jason climbs the billboard!
Jason & the Nashville Scorchers --- "Broken Whiskey Glass" Recorded live at the Cat's Records Outdoor Show, Labor Day, 1982. "Some day you'll find a dentist's chair that reads 'Here lies Jason...."
Jason & the Nashville Scorchers - "Why Baby Why and Heartache by the Numbers" Recorded live at the Cat's Records Outdoor Show, Labor Day, 1982.
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Never in Nashville -- The Entire EP as One File (10.2Mb)
Track List in Original Order:
Factual --"Wound in Time"
No Art --- "English Boys"
USR --- "We the People"
Cloverbottom --- "Battery"
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WRVU's Local Heroes Cassette -- The Entire Album as One File (40.2Mb)
Side One:
Civic Duty --"New China"
Bill Lloyd --- "Feeling the Elephant"
Tim Krekel & the Sluggers --- "Livewire"
White Animals --- "Don't Care"
Wrong Band --- "I Live in My Car"
Jason & the Nashville Scorchers --- "Hot Nights in Georgia"
Side Two:
Practical Stylists --- "She's Got Lots"
The Basics --- "Born to Die"
Delta Hurricanes --- "White Trash"
Factual --- "Got Fun"
Afrikan Dreamland --- "The New Circle"
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City Without a Subway -- The Entire Album as One File (33Mb)
Side One:
Raging Fire --"Everything is Roses"
The Movement --- "Lost Horizon"
Tomorrow's World --- "All Alone"