Wes Yoakam

Big Atomic

Big Atomic was founded in 1998. I was beginning to record a solo album with grammy winning producer Phil Tan for the short lived Annunaki record label, and I had a showcase at the Atlantis Music Conference to prepare for. Needing a band yesterday, I was fortunately introduced to “Tigger” Ferguson (of Athens’ seminal alternative /punk band 5-8) by the photographer taking my album cover shot, Tamara Rafkin. Tigger and I clicked right from the beginning, discussing politics, literature, world affairs, and the benefits of Apple computers. It turned out that Tigger’s wife just happened to be Jackie Ferguson, a fantastic bass player (and wonderful cook) most often decked out in combat boots, a dress, and killer tatoos. Jackie was in a band with wonderful singer/songwriter Sean Arington, who, once he realized I was stealing his band, approached me and said quite plainly that he wanted to be in my group. He never did audition I don’t think, we just started learning the set and writing songs together. Through Sean, I met world class pianist Damon Denton who really filled out the band with his textures, energy, great part writing, and mysterious exits. The group quickly gained momentum playing around Athens and Atlanta at the Cotton Club, Smith’s Olde Bar, the 40 Watt Club, and the Georgia Theatre. This resulted in some incredibly fun/slightly stressful, high profile appearances at Atlanta’s Music Midtown, 99X’s Big Day Out, and the Atlantis Music Festival.
Things were going well, we got a manager, an agent, recorded demos and worked with producers Andy Baker and Rick Beatto, but the dissolution of Jackie and Tigger’s relationship marked the creative end to the group. I had taken out significant loans (don’t tell the student loan people!) to record and press the cd “Four Star Explosion”, and now that the band was over, I was stuck with a thousand coasters with “Big Atomic” on them. To pay that off, I took my shiny new business degree that I had somehow received from UGA and started working for a cable television station in Atlanta. I was managing a computer network, which is sort of a feast or famine type of job. You’re either freaking out, checking data and screens to see if you should be freaking out, or you’re not doing much of anything. I worked the overnight shift by myself, so unbeknownest to the company, I snuck in a guitar and used the downtime to write songs and practice. I started meeting musicians, including drummer Marcus Petruska who was a fan of the Athens-based Big Atomic. He had actually left me an enthusiastic message on my voicemail about a Smith’s Olde Bar show in Atlanta 2 years before. (I never found out how he got my number back then!) He met and introduced me to Todd Weaver, a bass player/multi instrumentalist that had just come to town from Mississippi. We did an audition/rehearsal in my small apartment bedroom, and Todd didn’t say much, but he was clearly very good and the chemistry was there. The three of us became the core of a group that at times included Jason Salzman, Afredo Hertz, Aaron Thompson,and Hank Barbee. I wrote, and we recorded “Wrestling the Dragon and the Rat” while we all were living at “Casa Vidal”, a musician’s commune of sorts (gone now, R.I.P) that almost every steadily working musician in Atlanta had lived in at one point or another. We attracted a bunch of great fans and friends, recorded our music, and often played 9 gigs a week! On a typical weekend night, I’d play a solo gig in Decatur from 5:30pm -8:30pm, break down the PA, drive to Buckhead or Midtown, set up and play with Todd from 10:30pm til 2am. The two of us would break down and load out the PA, and I’d rush over to set up at the Riviera’s VIP room for a 2:30am start while Todd finished loading out his gear. I’d start playing, and when Todd and Marcus could make it from wherever they were, they’d join in and we’d play until 6:30am! We made some great music, but the crazy schedule and need to make it financially in Atlanta burned us out a bit. I moved to Vail for a year (but that’s another story…), and came back with a bunch of new material. Big Atomic was resurrected on the suggestion of bass player Sean McIntyre with drummer Greg Spencer (Marcus was/is on tour with Zac Brown and Corey Smith) and Hank Barbee, with Todd Weaver moving from bass to keyboards (that guy can do anything!). We’ve played 2 really great shows, and I’ve got a board tape to prove it…

Catfish Jenkins

Catfish Jenkins was my first full on successful band. Based out of Athens, GA ,home to literally hundreds of great solo artists and bands, Catfish was founded in the early 90’s, a period that was sort of a second renaissance for the music scene there. REM, Guadcanal Diary, Pylon, and the B52′s had either become world famous or dissolved, and a new generation of musicians had come to seek the oasis of music and art in the middle of Georgia farmland.

Widespread Panic, the Allgood Music Company, and White Buffalo were packing the newly renovated and beautiful Georgia Theatre, on the alternative side the recently enlarged and world famous 40 Watt, boasted the occasional secret REM show, fantastic local, regional, and even international acts. Music was everwhere, in every bar; almost a requirement to have any people show up to your club. One in four people were in a band, everyone had a couple of local friends in a band or two, and the streets buzzed with musicians encouraged by the success of the local music giants.

Into this scene, I came from Atlanta, determined to form a great band and tackle the music world. Inspired by my future friend Nathan Sheppard, a fantastic acoustic solo performer, I picked up a cheap acoustic guitar and started hitting open mic nights at The Flying Buffalo, a great music bar in an old train station on the outskirts of downtown. Great musicians were always around, and there I met future bandmate, guitarist Ian Brown. After playing gigs with a number of different bands, and musicians, and while learning to play and write songs, I placed an ad in Flagpole, the local arts and music paper and got only one call from a bassist named Jason Cameron. I invited Ian and Jason to a rehearsal in the dank basement of the house I was living in, and we never looked back. A search for a drummer began which resulted in the group gaining Chuck Lockwood and percussion player Brian two fine musicians that occasionally switched instrumental roles. We all moved into a millhouse in the Normaltown area of Athens, that featured walls that moved with the wind, flaky grey paint, a hole in the far corner of the ceiling where occasionally pine straw from the squirrel nests in the attic would fall into my room (that was tricked out with green streamers, handmade painted fish and other aquatic life suspended from the ceiling, like a scene out of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), not to mention the downstairs neighbor Sam, drummer for Athens hard, punk, very dark rockers “Porn Orchard”, that lived in the subterrenean apartment below that certainly and understandably hated us and our boisterous latenight party slash rehearsal schedule.

After about of year of playing every house party, club, and street festival we could get into around town, we finally got a call from the Georgia Theatre to come play a Summer Thursday night. Summers were slow then in preHOPE (the statewide college scholarship program financed by State Lottery dollars that increased competition for admission exponentially)Athens, but mirculously 250+ people showed up! More gigs were booked resulting in sold out shows of over 1200 people, so it was time to hit the road. After a hundred adventures and misadventures, a demo cassette, 3 booking agents, an accountant, a lawyer, two soundmen, two road managers, 300 shows (or more), and a full length cd recorded by legendary Athens producer John Keane later, we were approached after a show by Kudzu Records an indie record label out of Birmingham, AL.

Kudzu really got us rolling and soon we were touring the country in support of our first cd. Over the years we played with countless acts including Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, Vertical Horizon, The Verve Pipe, the Samples, Hootie and the Blowfish, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Cowboy Mouth, and played at major southeastern musical festivals including Birmingham’s City Stages and Atlanta’s Music Midtown. A featured appearance on the nationally successful AWARE 2 cd compilation of new acts garnered us some nationwide attention and AAA airplay, and we toured constantly, playing every club from Mississipi to Nantucket with occasional runs through the midwest and Colorado. Two years into touring we changed rythm sections and two of my high school classmates Bassist extrordinaire Brian Gillette and drummer Riley Smith took over. I wrote, and we recorded demos for a second album, but it wasn’t to be…at the beginning of a long contraction of the music industry that still hasn’t stopped, Kudzu Records went under. The band went on in pieces, adding and substituting members, underwent a name and direction change that resulted in a great demo under the name “PopCycle”, but ultimately we (and I) had run out of steam after a great run. We figured out that the four of us (plus roadies and soundmen) had spent 80% or more of the last few years within 50 feet of each other…and maybe that was enough!