Two Mixt A, Vol. 1 record release shows
Featuring the N.E.C., Grip Plyaz, the Balkans, A. Leon Craft. $10 (includes vinyl LP). 7 p.m. Thurs., May 7. Eyedrum, 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.
Featuring Stanza, Carnivores, Mums FP, Predator. Free. 3:30 p.m. Sun., May 10. Criminal Records, 1154-A Euclid Ave. 404-215-9511. www.criminal.com.
AUDIO
Punk rock is best when it strives to be more than blood, sweat and three noisy chords. Such is the case with Predator, the hard-hitting trio of Brannon Greene (guitar/vocals), Mike Beavers (bass/vocals) and John Necro (drums). In less than a year, the group’s perfected a balance of pummeling drums, distorted bass chops, motorik guitar hooks, and dual vocals that strike with visceral grit and minimalism.
— Chad Radford
When Predator first started, it was me and Dave Rahn from Carbonas playing bass and drums and Valery Lovely playing drums and singing. We got together — I drank six Sparks to get into the zone — and we recorded. Dave got really busy touring in Europe, so me and Mike and John got together and have been writing ever since. We still play some of the older songs, but what we’ve written since then has come together when someone comes to practice with a basic idea and we start building on it.
— Brannon Greene
Even if we write something out, when we bring it to practice you never know what’s going to happen with it. I usually like what we make happen together more than what I had in my head, so it’s kind of pointless to write something and stick to it. Brannon and I have been in bands together for a long time and we’ve always wanted to write different-sounding stuff, whether it be something a little slower or maybe much faster, but it always comes out sounding punk because that’s the only kind of band we’ve ever been in, and that’s what we know how to play.
On the way up here tonight, Brannon was playing The Year in 7”s compilation on Dischord and some of the later Minor Threat songs came on. That stuff still sounds really hardcore, but they were striving for something else. It was the first time I had listened to it since I’ve been in the band. It made me think about how we approach our songs from a punk and hardcore mind-set but are trying to do something different with them. It sounds lame, I know, because Minor Threat is so like what you listened to when you were a kid. But man, those guys wrote really cool music when they were like 16 years old.
— Mike Beavers
Mixtape Love: The Music Issue '09
Dedicated to Atlanta, a compilation of sounds and stories from some of our favorite artists
Grip Plyaz, "Fuck Dat Hipster Shit"
Basically, I grew up right there on the corner of Parkway and Ponce de Leon in the apartments that sit right across the street from the Taco Bell. So I grew up around the whole dope game. I learned that wasn’t the way to go growing up. I had to come up with a better plan. — Grip Plyaz
The Balkans, "Violent Girls"
Me and Brett were both in these little mall rat cults that hung out at Phipps and Lenox and caused trouble. We had a crew and we would hang out at the Publix by Phipps and try to get people to buy us beer and wine, and then we would go hang out in the stairwell at the mall and smoke cigarettes. — Woody Shortridge of the Balkans
Zoroaster, "White Dwarf"
We found out really quickly how the royalty checks work — they don’t! We never got a penny from our album sales. So we said, “Fuck it. Instead of handing our music over to someone else, let’s start our own label." — Dan Scanlan of Zoroaster
Mums FP, "Cause and Effect"
I feel like I’m flier than a lot of people. I may not just say it to their faces, ’cause I don’t know what kind of reaction that’s going to get out of a lot of people. So music is just where I kind of let that out. — Mums FP
Carnivores, "Shark Teeth"
I met Nathaniel and Tauseef in high school in Gainesville. Nathaniel went to a different school than me and Tauseef, but we hated everybody at both of our schools so we hung out and drank Hawaiian Punch, ate toast cheese crackers and played music. — Philip Frobos of Carnivores
A. Leon Craft, "Spaced Out"
Back then, we were just listening to booty-shake music and N.W.A. and stuff like that. Most of the music that was coming out of the South was more dance type, but when [OutKast] came out just rapping, we were like, “Aww man.” I remember I used to go to sleep listening to the ATLiens album every night in the little tape deck. — A. Leon Craft
Stanza, "A. Town Love"
My first introduction to hip-hop was when my cousin had 8Ball & MJG’s Comin’ Out Hard — when they still had the [Jheri] curls on the cover. I remember sitting in front of the stereo, just looking at the stereo, listening to it. And something about it caught me — Stanza
Anna Kramer & the Lost Cause, "I Can't Take It"
"I Can't Take It" just kind of came out of me. It's a pretty straight-up rocker and I didn't have to think about it, really. It's nice when a song flows like that and you can capture a feeling in a song; the initial feeling that you had when you wanted to write it in the first place. — Anna Kramer
The Ultimate Mixtape Playlists
To celebrate CL’s annual music issue we asked a random mix of Atlanta tastemakers, critics and promoters to share their greatest playlists.
