The
Asylum Street Spankers, formed in
Austin, TexasAustin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 15th-largest in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation...
in 1994, is a band whose music is rooted in early 20th century
American musicAmerican Music can refer to:* American Music Records* American Music * the Music of the United States* Music of the Americas* A song by the Violent Femmes...
al forms. In fall 2006, the band's
anti-warThe term anti-war usually refers to the opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists...
satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
videoA music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the...
"Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV" garnered 380,000 views on
YouTubeYouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google...
within the first two months of its release, eventually exceeding one million views.
Founded by Guy Forsyth, Wammo and Christina Marrs at a legendary party at the famous Dabbs Hotel along the
Llano RiverThe Llano River is a tributary of the Colorado River, approximately 105 mi long, in central Texas in the United States. It drains part of the Edwards Plateau in Texas Hill Country northwest of Austin....
in
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
, the band began by
buskingBusking is the practice of performing in public places for tips and gratuities. People engaging in this practice are called buskers or street performers. Busking performances can be just about anything that people find entertaining...
on the streets of Austin and playing for tips in bars.
The
Asylum Street Spankers, formed in
Austin, TexasAustin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 15th-largest in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation...
in 1994, is a band whose music is rooted in early 20th century
American musicAmerican Music can refer to:* American Music Records* American Music * the Music of the United States* Music of the Americas* A song by the Violent Femmes...
al forms. In fall 2006, the band's
anti-warThe term anti-war usually refers to the opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists...
satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
videoA music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the...
"Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV" garnered 380,000 views on
YouTubeYouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google...
within the first two months of its release, eventually exceeding one million views.
History
Founded by Guy Forsyth, Wammo and Christina Marrs at a legendary party at the famous Dabbs Hotel along the
Llano RiverThe Llano River is a tributary of the Colorado River, approximately 105 mi long, in central Texas in the United States. It drains part of the Edwards Plateau in Texas Hill Country northwest of Austin....
in
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
, the band began by
buskingBusking is the practice of performing in public places for tips and gratuities. People engaging in this practice are called buskers or street performers. Busking performances can be just about anything that people find entertaining...
on the streets of Austin and playing for tips in bars. In their earliest days, the Spankers' repertoire consisted almost entirely of
countryCountry music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains...
,
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
,
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, swing and
Tin Pan AlleyTin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century....
songs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s with a particular emphasis on the 1920s and 1930s. While their tone was raucous and irreverent, the band was also known for its musicianship, theatricality and militant acousticism. Until 2004, they played the vast majority of their concerts without any amplification at all. Not only did this heighten the theatricality of their shows, it caused the musicians to develop inventive vocal and instrumental arrangements in order to constantly engage an audience in such a quiet performance. Several early members were actors and nearly all members have been multi-instrumentalists.
With the departure of Forsyth in 1997, the Spankers began playing more original songs, most written in the
rootsA roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound...
styles the band had already mastered. By 1999, only Marrs and Wammo remained of the line up that gained massive popularity in Austin and around Texas. Reconstructing the band under their leadership, Marrs and Wammo began to expand the act's boundaries to include more cross-genre experimentation, ever more intricate arrangements and vocal harmonies, and, most successfully, more humorous songs, sometimes with pointed social and cultural commentary. Many of their albums from 1999 on have been musically or lyrically thematic. Spanker Madness, primarily country blues music about
drug useRecreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes rather than for work, approved medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear ....
, is generally pro-marijuana, but several songs examine the negative side of drug use and incisively criticize the
War on DrugsThe War on Drugs refers to the controversial prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to...
. They have also released A Christmas Spanking; Mercurial, an album recorded live using technology and techniques of 1940s vintage; My Favorite Record, an album about their love of music; X-rated
EPsAn extended play is a vinyl record, CD, or music download which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as an LP. Usually, a CD single has around 10–28 minutes of music, an EP has up to 36 minutes, and an album generally has 30–80 minutes. Mini-LPs generally contain 20–30...
; and an album of songs about children and childhood heavily inspired by
Shel SilversteinSheldon Alan "Shel" Silverstein was an American poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children's books...
and
Maurice SendakMaurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
. The Spankers have covered songs by a wide range of artists including
PrincePrince Rogers Nelson is an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He performs under the mononym Prince but has also been known by various other names, most notably the unpronounceable symbol which he used as his stage name between 1993 and 2000...
,
Tom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
,
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet and painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was, at first, an informal chronicler and then an apparently reluctant figurehead of social unrest...
, The Beastie Boys,
The B-52'sThe B-52s originated is a New Wave rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, United States, in 1976. The B-52s' sound is marked by the vocals — the female harmonies of Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson, and the generally spoken-word or sprechgesang male vocal counterpoint of Fred Schneider, Ricky Wilson's...
,
Black FlagBlack Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established largely as the brainchild of Greg Ginn: the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes...
,
Louis ArmstrongLouis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
,
Bessie SmithBessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as "The Empress of the Blues", Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era, and along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on subsequent...
,
Harry NilssonHarry Edward Nilsson III was an American songwriter, singer, pianist, and guitarist who achieved the height of his fame during the 1960s and 1970s...
, The Jazz Butcher, The Violent Femmes,
George JonesGeorge Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....
,
NirvanaNirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
,
Nina SimoneEunice Kathleen Waymon, better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist....
,
Nine Inch NailsNine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
,
Otis ReddingOtis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer. Often called the "King of Soul", he is renowned for an ability to convey strong emotion through his voice...
,
Screamin' Jay HawkinsJalacy Hawkins, best known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an African-American musician, singer, and actor...
and
Johnny CashJohnny Cash , born J. R. Cash, was an American singer-songwriter and one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
. They are also known for throwing snatches of familiar songs into cut and paste sections of their own construction to form musical montages.
In 1999, Marrs and Wammo founded Spanks-a-Lot Records to release their music. Besides giving the group complete creative control, starting their own record label allowed the Spankers to increase the frequency of their releases, avoid the problems they had experienced with their three prior labels and keep a larger share of the profits derived from their recordings. This move was part of a trend amongst musicians allowed by the proliferation of digital recording technology and distribution. Spanks-a-Lot has released two
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
s documenting the group's live show, highlighting its musicianship and continually evolving theatricality.
Band name
The band derived its name from an Austin street where they would often busk that was nicknamed Asylum Street, now named Guadalupe Street, and the term "spanker" which is an old musician's term for "one who plays his instrument vigorously and proficiently". It was along Guadalupe that the group played a number of early shows; Asylum Street led to a state
asylumA psychiatric hospital, sometimes known as an asylum, is a hospital specializing in the treatment of serious mental illness, usually for relatively long-term inpatients....
.
Personnel
- Shawn Dean (The Unknown Wrestler)
- Mark Henne
- Nevada Newman
- Christina Marrs
- Morgan Patrick Thompson
- David Long
- Wammo
Former members
- Col. Josh Arnson
- Pops Bayless
- Leroy Biller
- Adam "Tiny" Booker
- Jakob Breitbach
- Garreth Broesche
- Jimmie Dean
- Mysterious John Dodson
- Jonathan Doyle
- Jake Erwin
- Guy Forsyth
- Olivier Giraud
- Reese Gray
- Westen Borghesi
- Mike Henry
- Josh Hoag
|
- Billy Horton
- Charlie King
- Scott Marcus
- Brent Martens
- Eamon McLaughlin
- Django Porter
- Charlie Rose
- Mark Rubin
- "Salty" John Salmon
- Paul Schlichting
- PB Shane
- Sick
- Korey Simeone
- Kevin Smith
- Stanley Smith
- Matt Weiner
|
Albums
- Live (1995, out of print)
- Spanks for the Memories (1996)
- Nasty Novelties (EP, 1997)
- Hot Lunch (1999)
- Spanker Madness (2000)
- A Christmas Spanking (2001)
- Dirty Ditties (EP, 2002)
- "Stinkin'" b/w "Goodbye Cousin Early" (single, 2002)
- My Favorite Record (2002)
- Strawberry (Live)(2003, recorded 1998)
- Mercurial (2004)
- Pussycat (2005)
- Mommy Says No! (2006)
- What? And Give Up Show Biz? (2 disk live set, 2008)
- God's Favorite Band (2009)
solo albums by members:
- Why Do it Right? (Nevada Newman)
- Lowriders On the Storm (Wammo)
- In the Land of Dreams (Stanley Smith)
- Faster Than the Speed of Suck (Wammo)
Videos
- Sideshow Fez (DVD)
- Re-Assembly (2005) (DVD)
- Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV
External links