{"id":23177,"date":"2022-06-21T05:30:19","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T09:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23177"},"modified":"2022-06-22T10:28:34","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T14:28:34","slug":"the-dbs-in-black-and-white-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/21\/the-dbs-in-black-and-white-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The dB’s in Black and White (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Four musicians from North Carolina came together in the 1970s as The dB\u2019s. Perennial critics\u2019 darlings, the group never hit the big time on the level of their friends, kindred spirits and fellow southerners R.E.M. But The dB\u2019s influenced a generation of indie rockers who would follow in their wake, and they left behind an impressive (if modestly-sized) body of work. A new compilation of previously unheard early recordings, I Thought You Wanted to Know<\/i> was released in October. On the occasion of its release, the four members \u2013 Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby and Gene Holder \u2013 look back on the group\u2019s history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his 2017 memoir A Spy in the House of Loud<\/i>, Stamey likens his musical journey to New York City to ones made previously by fellow North Carolinians Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Max Roach and Nina Simone. \u201cWhether we stayed for only a short time or never left,\u201d he writes, \u201cwe pilgrims in those heady, uncharted days were forever changed.\u201d And though all four core members of the band known as the dB\u2019s come from with city of Winston-Salem in the Tar Heel State, to a man they correct anyone who comments upon their Southern roots. \u201cWe\u2019re a New York band,\u201d they\u2019ll insist.<\/p>\n

Chris Stamey was the first to arrive in the Big Apple, in May 1975. But he wasn\u2019t a complete stranger to the city; he had visited New York nearly every summer with best friend and fellow musician Mitch Easter. But on this trip he was alone and broke. Selling his brand-new Fender Telecaster to an instrument dealer back home, he collected enough to money to survive \u2013 just. Following a recommendation he read in Rock Scene<\/i> magazine, he went to see a band play at a local dive bar.<\/p>\n

\"\"The band was Television; the venue was CBGB. Stamey was one of only a handful of people in the bar; he recognized two others as Patti Smith and Blue \u00d6yster Cult keyboardist Allen Lanier. But of greater importance was the music. Stamey\u2019s classical training meant that in the playing and songs of Television guitarists Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd he heard the influence of \u2013 or at least a kind of kinship with \u2013 Claude Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Ravel.<\/p>\n

He was hooked. He stayed for the band\u2019s second set, and returned the following night to see and hear them again. \u201cThe impact of that weekend changed my concept of what a rock band could be,\u201d he writes. \u201cand it also gradually changed my songwriting and guitar playing in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Stamey had already long since begun to take music far more seriously than the average teenage instrumentalist. With Easter, he had begun to explore the world of audio recording as early as 1965 when the two were still ten-year-olds. By his high school years, he was fully entranced by the thriving musical scene in Winston-Salem. Though then home to only 100,000 people, the North Carolina city built with tobacco fortunes was home to a vibrant rock and blues community. \u201cThe Winston-Salem rock scene was really small,\u201d says drummer Will Rigby. \u201cEverybody knew everybody, and a lot of us played in more than one band.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kings of the scene were a psychedelic combo called Captain Speed and the Fungi Electric Mothers. Easter, a musician whose skill belied his tender years, led a band called The Loyal Opposition; it soon morphed into to the more psychedelically-inclined Imperturbable Teutonic Griffin. Will Rigby laughs when these obscure bands are mentioned. \u201cNone of it would matter if [the people involved] hadn\u2019t gone on to make records,\u201d he says.\u201d By 1968 Stamey had joined a group called Soup; that featured another guitarist a year younger than him, Peter Holsapple. Like many teenage bands, it didn\u2019t get far. \u201cThere was perhaps one<\/i> gig,\u201d Stamey says, \u201cat the coffeehouse at Knollwood Baptist Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the fuse had been lit. By 1971 Stamey had organized a jam session featuring himself, Easter, Holsapple, local blues legend Sam Moss and future Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. Soon thereafter, Stamey, Easter and Holsapple started another group, Rittenhouse Square. It didn\u2019t last long, either; Stamey was more interested in diving deeper into multi-track recording, while Holsapple wanted to play live more than anything else.<\/p>\n

Stamey recorded extensively with Easter and the latter\u2019s then-girlfriend Faye Hunter, but those activities ended when Stamey made that trip which culminated in seeing Television at CBGB\u2019s. He returned home soon thereafter, launching another band, Sneakers. The drummer of that band was Will Rigby. Inspired by New York City-based Ork Records (the label that put out Television\u2019s 1975 debut single \u201cLittle Johnny Jewel\u201d), the band self-released a six-song self-titled EP in 1976. Mitch Easter wasn\u2019t an official group member at the time of the sessions, but he\u2019s on the recordings.<\/p>\n

One of Stamey\u2019s songs for the EP, \u201cCondition Red\u201d featured a lyric lifted from an inner-groove etching found on an obscure Memphis, Tennessee band\u2019s second album. That band was Big Star. Sneakers\u2019 proto-indie rock showed them to be kindred spirits with groups like Big Star and Television, even if their music was different. Stamey was restlessly ambitious, and by 1977 he had dispensed with visiting New York City, deciding instead to relocate there.<\/p>\n

\"\"Stamey connected with indie label owner Terry Ork, who asked Stamey to put together a rhythm section to back Alex Chilton. The former Box Tops and Big Star guitarist\/singer was planning to move to New York City as well, and he needed a band. On his arrival, Stamey says that Chilton \u2013 who was still reeling from the demise of Big Star and the end of a romantic relationship \u2013 was \u201cinvigorated by a new start in the big town.\u201d Stamey takes issue with characterizations of Chilton in that period that describe it as a \u201clost weekend\u201d of sorts. \u201cI recall things differently,\u201d he says, noting that they shared an optimism about the future. \u201cWe thought we were about to take the world by storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by mid \u201878, Chilton had returned to Memphis, beginning work on the wonderfully shambolic Like Flies on Sherbert<\/i> LP. Still in New York City, Stamey launched a new group, The dB\u2019s. The trio featured Stamey on guitar and vocals plus drummer Rigby and Gene Holder on bass. \u201cThe original concept was not necessarily to be a permanent band,\u201d says Rigby. \u201cChris hired Gene and me to come and do some shows with him, but it quickly became clear that it was going to take some time to build up a following.\u201d Within a month, the three decided to make the dB\u2019s an actual band.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four musicians from North Carolina came together in the 1970s as The dB\u2019s. Perennial critics\u2019 darlings, the group never hit the big time on the level of their friends, kindred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,62],"tags":[529,890,1692,2153,2375],"class_list":["post-23177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-chris-stamey","tag-gene-holder","tag-peter-holsapple","tag-the-dbs","tag-will-rigby","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23238,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23177\/revisions\/23238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}