Walkie Talkie - First Year
Mark Jordan totally stole my interview with Walkie Talkie! While I was talking to young hopefuls last weekend, he attended the Makeshift Showcase at Shangrila Records and managed to walk away with the scoop! He also scooped me on The Strokes! When my server was down a couple of weeks ago, I had a request into their management to talk to them and couldn't make contact and so I lost the interview! Damn you Mark Jordan!
Oh, well, actually, it makes this review pretty easy, cause all I have to do is copy and paste his! Genius!
On an overcast but warm Saturday afternoon, Memphis orchestral pop band Walkie Talkie is set up under a flimsy canopy in the parking lot of Shangri-la Records on Madison Avenue. As a stiff wind threatens to blow their cover toward McLean Boulevard and trucks and cars go whizzing by, a thin whirling circus of sounds -- piano, klavier, guitar, bass, drums, vocal harmonies and lead singer Kate Crowder's pixie-ish voice -- pierces the din of the city like, well, a walkie talkie.
In a city dominated by boys in guitar bands -- whether it's metal, blues, or indie rock -- Walkie Talkie is unique. The band's sound is lush and layered both in the studio and on stage, and their songs are dense, often whimsical, and, in a tradition that runs from the Beach Boys through Neutral Milk Hotel, often structured like minisymphonies.
"Without (guitarist Andrew McColgan) my songs would sound more like standards or show tunes," says pianist and lead vocalist Kate Crowder. "He sort of rocks them out. And then his songs, I sort of pop them down."
It's that kind of collaborative spirit that characterizes this quintet, which also includes Crowder's husband, Corey, on bass, Memphis music scene veteran Joey Pegram on drums, and "the ultimate multitasker" Joe McClusky on various instruments, including guitar and glockenspiel. In fact, all the members of Walkie Talkie play various instruments, and everything that is Walkie Talkie is a true team effort right down to the illustrations on their debut CD Residential Llama, which features artwork from all the band members.
"(Our sound) is organic in the sense that it's the four of us individually coming together and this is what it would sound like if we train-wrecked and we all had our own pianos," says Kate.
The band came together four years ago when Kate joined her husband, the son of noted Memphis visual artist Tim Crowder, for some loose jamming with Andrew and Joey.
"When I say jamming, I don't even know what that means," she says. "I just mean they would be drinking, they'd just play, and a song would go on for like 10 minutes."
Though the Kansas City native had had vocal training since she was 9 -- singing in choirs, symphonies, opera, and studying musical theater briefly in college -- Kate had been playing keyboard only a few months. Still, with her addition, the loose group began to take on a distinct sound. Though Walkie Talkie is a band in every sense, it's clear that Kate sets the tone for the group.
"In practice, when she leaves the room, it changes the energy completely," observes McClusky, a law student at the University of Memphis.
It took some time for the normally hard-rocking archeologist McColgan to adjust to the new, more feminine sound of the group.
"For the most part I'm comfortable with what we're playing," he says, pointing to the ballad "Oregon Spider" as one track where he gets to let his inner guitar god shine through. "I'm able to release the same energies as I would with something heavier."
After practicing for about a year, the band finally took the show out of the house.
"We were just taking our time developing material," explains Pegram, a former member of 611, the Joint Chiefs and others, who also records and performs as Shabbadoo. "We weren't really planning on doing anything with (Walkie Talkie) at first. It was just fun. And then it started sounding really good and we just started playing out."
After overcoming Corey's stage fright ("We used to joke we'd have to run a guitar to the bathroom," jokes Kate), trying out two other members before settling on McColgan's brother-in-law McClusky as the fifth member, and being pegged early on as a bossa nova band thanks to the early song "Can You Boss A Nova?" last year the band decided to make their first CD.
Through other bands they found Unclaimed Recordings, the Midtown studio that has become the favored destination for many local indie bands, and through them they met Brad Postlethwaite, whose Makeshift Records is releasing Residential Llama.
The recording itself was like giving birth, in more ways than one. The sessions stretched over eight months due to various work and personal commitments, including Kate's giving birth to her second child.
"The day before I went into labor, I went in and cut a vocal," she says, remembering the army of babysitters that make her music career possible. "The only people we thanked on the CD, we thanked our financial backers and our babysitters."
Walkie Talkie CD release party
With Imagination Life
Tonight at Hi-Tone Cafe, 1913 Poplar.
Call 278-8663. hitonememphis.com
$5 cover
