GOODBYE, MY FRIEND: It is with a very heavy heart that I must report Athens musician, MC and producer Matt Lahey died after a very long illness Sunday, Feb. 5. Matt had a history in rock and roll but was best known for his work in hip hop, vaporwave and other electronic styles. He worked professionally under the monikers Astroshaman and Bills Clinton. Matt had an intensely absurd sense of humor, a loving heart and a gentle nature. About a decade ago he was misdiagnosed as having gastroparesis, but what he actually had was Crohn’s disease. This led to years of ineffectual treatment, incredible amounts of physical suffering and his eventual death. He is survived by his loving mother and caretaker Gini Collins Addington. A fundraiser has been set up to help with burial costs and leftover medical expenses. If you’d like to donate, please see gofundme.com/f/4u7n2-matthew. If you’d like to explore Matthew’s music, please visit astroshaman.bandcamp.com. Matthew was my friend. I loved him, and I’m sure going to miss him. He was 31 years old.
WHITE DIRT REVISITED: Tickets are on sale now for the upcoming record release show for Athens’ own Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. The new album is named Fall Line; it will arrive courtesy of Strolling Bones Records, and the release show is Friday, Apr. 7 at the 40 Watt Club. Also on the bill this night are longtime Mudd Puppies compatriots Beggar Weeds as well as The Howdies. The new record has 13 songs, two of which (“Smokestack Monkey” and “Scale”) are 1990s-era recordings done by engineer-to-the-stars John Keane, who also mixed and mastered the whole thing. The first single, “Flatcar,” is out now and can be heard at chickasawmuddpuppies.bandcamp.com. You can pre-order the album there, too, or via strollingbonesrecords.com/fall-line. For tickets, head to 40watt.com, and for all other tidbits, miscellaneous scraps and soup stock please see facebook.com/ChickasawMuddPuppies.
REST IN PEACE: Former Athens musician Eric Agner died on Monday, Jan. 30. Agner was quite active in the Athens music scene beginning in the early 1980s with Banned 37 through his tenure with The Woggles, which ran from the group’s founding in 1987 through 1993, when he left town for the Washington, D.C. area. While he worked professionally as a graphic designer, he was still deeply involved in music and was a member of the groups The Judith Hour, The Racket and others. Agner enjoyed collaborating with others and dove head first into the mail-based-collaboration February Album Writing Month (FAWM) during which participants record their contributions on four-track cassettes and mail them to each other until the songs are completed. He is remembered lovingly by his friends as a standup guy, an awesome bandmate and great songwriter.
NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER: Guitarist and vocalist Te Cool (Sunspots) is joined by his old bandmates Greg McCoy (drums) and John Peters (keyboards) on the new album Have We Nothing In Common? by new group Super Fury out now on Cool’s own Branch Avenue Records and Atlanta’s Mystic Sun Records. Recorded at Full Moon Studios in August 2020, the album also features Julian Duncan (keyboards), John Neff (pedal steel) and engineer Jay Rogers (bass). Musically speaking, this isn’t terribly different from his work in Sunspots, although it does lift its face more toward a Springsteen-ish Americana. At any rate you’ve got 16 tracks here to figure out where you stand on it. Due to pandemic boredom and delays in releasing this, Cool recorded two albums and three EPs under his electronic project Miami Death Cult. At its best, that project sounds like Nick Cave meets Daft Punk, and at all other times sounds nothing really like that at all. He also made a ton of videos for this Miami Death Cult stuff, which you can view at youtube.com/@branchavenuerecordings1994/videos. Find the new album by Super Fury on Spotify, and look for physical copies (vinyl and compact disc) in April.
WEIRD ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: Musician and visual artist Will Eskridge cycled through two other project names in the past two years—Beach Punx and Fog After Dusk—but his newest full-length is under his own name. It’s titled Life in Timelapse, which is an appropriately Brian Eno-esque title for this, even though it doesn’t really contain any other Eno-isms. This taut collection of 10 tracks begins with the Kraftwerk-y boom-bap of “Shades Of Nothing,” which quickly moves into an Amen-break inspired second movement before closing itself out with a third movement of bebop jazz. The second and third tracks (“Backwards Pink” and “Whiskers,” respectively) are similarly structured and run over 20 minutes each. It’s not quite as jarring as it sounds, but it is somewhat so. The 31-seconds-long “I’ve Got An Accordion” appears to be sample-based hardcore punk, but I’m not 100% certain if that’s the case. All in all, it’s another compelling collection of work from Eskridge that works as well via headphones as it does driving around in the car. Listen in at beachpunx.bandcamp.com.
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