Rick Champion Opened A Hot Dog Stand - Nashville Rock Post 1978 Part Two

I called up good friend and once local Middle Tennesse resident Dr. DD Blank and asked him to come up with a list of 20 great Nashville music artists of the last 27 years. I was to do the same. I would then combine the lists with commentary from both of us. Here is part two of the survey of Nashville Rock post 1978.

DD: The Shazam - Hands down the best band out of the city in perhaps a decade. They’ve been hailed by the British music press as one of the top 50 bands around. They may even be the best band in the country. Their power pop incorporates so many great influences that they never sound stale. The records are near perfect. Brad Jones deserves production Grammy’s for Godspeed The Shazam and Tomorrow The World alone. Don’t miss them before they are super-famous.

Wally: The Shazam! - Same band, I just like adding the exclamation point. Hans Rotenberry has a voice as sweet as Alex Chilton’s, Mick Wilson is the heir to Entwhistle, and Scott Ballew is Keith Moon and Dennis Wilson’s love child on drums. Together they are the finest Nashville band of the present. Beloved in England, it’s only a matter of time before they strike gold in their homeland. Little Steven from some backup group called the E-Street Band loves them. Check out their Not Lame releases and run, don’t walk to see them before they get so big they can only play arenas. Forebears are the Who, the Beatles, the Move, Cheap Trick, and ELO. Peers? None, although Jet seems to be working a similar territory all the way to super stardom in the pop narcotic.

BEST YEARS are NOW!!!

DD: No Art - I remember Riverdale High drama class hipster, Tim Davis, who had cool older brothers, telling me in about 1982 that No Art was the best band in Nashville and that he was trying to get them to play a dance at our school, or was that a party at his house. Who remembers anymore? I will always remember their song “English Boys.” They were a great new wave band when even new wave was considered cool.

Wally: No Art - That “English Boys” tune is on the Praxis record Never In Nashville. It features snotty vocals with a great line about “English Boys having suss”. It sounds quaint but still sort of charming after all these years.

BEST YEARS: early 80’s

DD: 69 Tribe - I remember first hearing of them in the fanzine N(ashville) I(ntelligence) R(eport). Then 91 Rock started playing “Bikers”. I never got a copy until I found one at Orpheus Records in Georgetown years later. I was jumping for joy.

WALLY: 69 Tribe - These guys escaped my notice during their heyday. It took William and Mary student DD finding “Bikers” to turn me on. Later, I had a German class under Knoxville punk legend Dennis Shockley (RIP) and one of my fellow students was a lady who was playing bass in the latest incarnation of the band. “Bikers….doing speed, doing ludes, taking chicks from their dudes”

BEST YEARS? Mid-80’s probably

DD: Walk The West - They sort of faltered toward the end. Some would say that they never had it. However, for a brief moment, they were fantastic. I saw a couple of great shows by them over a couple of summers. They were at their best when they were being goofy. Seriousness and hype ultimately were their enemies.

Wally: Walk The West - Paul Kirby dared to entice young girls with candy jellybeans but the “Sheriff of Love” never arrested him. Walk The West are yet another 91 Rock staple from the days when WRVU had just increased their wattage. Capitol Records jumped on the cow punk bandwagon and really pushed Walk The West, but they flopped miserably. They lived at night until their side gigs as the Cactus Brothers became more popular and then they stopped walking.

BEST YEARS: 1985-1987

DD: Chip and the Chiltons - I never got to see these guys live, but I bought their cassette at the Cat’s Records in Murfreesboro and wore it out for a few months. I might still have it somewhere in a shoebox. I wish that I knew what it sounded like again.

Wally: Chip and the Chiltons - I know what it sounds like!! It’s called Where’s My Cat? The cover has a photo of the band atop a table with shotgun shells scattered around. I guess we know what happened to the cat. The music is Southern power pop with a dash of blues thrown in for good measure. Who could forget songs like “Next State Line” or “She Said Yes”? Chip put out a second album, but it wasn’t as good as the homemade cassette that came first.

BEST YEARS: 1986-1987? Is anybody detecting a pattern on these best years? Whether it’s nostalgia or what, the mid 80’s was a rocking good time.

Wally: White Animals - I first saw the video to “Don’t Care” on a show called Saturday Night At The Video on M’boro’s Channel 39. . The WA’s combo of hippie chic and beat music was just what the 18-year-old punk rock poet I fancied myself to be needed, dichotomies be damned.Thanks to Saturday Night At The Video I was also exposed to Nick Lowe and The Style Council. A friend had a copy of the White Animals Ecstasy (I loaned him Kerouac’s On The Road and he loaned me the album) and I was soon in an ecstatic state. Saw them play at Cantrells in 1985 with Boulder, Colorado band The Diet Plan opening on a Sunday afternoon where later out back behind the graffiti drenched wall Kevin Gray talked about how the new album (which was to be a self tittled release variously referred to as Drums In Church or The Purple Album) was going to kick Huey Lewis and Billy Idol’s asses. They were humble and nice and helped to seal a life long romance with rock and roll.

DD: White Animals - They were the first Nashville new rock band that I ever saw live and they lived up to the hype and my expectations and they all even signed my copy of Ecstasy after the show. Hurrah for Nashville rock!

BEST YEARS: 1982-1987

Wally: The Young Nashvillians - Dreadbeat’s greatest recording artists since the White Animals, The Young Nashvillians were all about fun. The story goes that they gave Kevin Gray a homemade tape and that he insisted Dreadbeat release a record by them in addition to having them open shows for the WA’s. They were young college kids who later abandoned the bright lights of stardom for careers, but we’re lucky to have the memory of songs like “Vanderbilt In France”. A CD was issued in the late 90’s compiling their Dreadbeat release with their second self released EP. If you’re lucky you might find it.

DD: The Young Nashvillians - These guys stayed below my radar screen for the entire time that they were together. However, some years later I
finally heard the records and their youthful exuberance alone makes
them candidates for this list. It never hurts that they had the Kevin
Gray seal of approval.

BEST YEARS: 1983-1984

If your favorite hasn't showed up yet, maybe they'll make the next post. Look for part 3 in a week or so.