Funeral Mountain, Feralette Records, 1990
Funeral Mountain walks a fine, ferocious line between full-blown hardcore assault and Southern twin-guitar psych-out jam, with some industrial percussion thrown in for good measure...These guys rock like their lives depended on it. - Robert Palmer, Rolling Stone
Funeral Mountain was recorded in one ten-hour session at Sixteenth Avenue Sound in Nashville, TN, in 1989 with the esteemed Rick Will manning the board and Price Harrison providing artistic direction. For a while it didn't look like we would leave Nashville with anything worthwhile to show for the trip. Starting around 10 AM, we were terrible. Every song we played sounded like garbage. Was it the early start time? We didn't know, but our frustrations were mounting with every weak take we tried. Sensing this, Price called over the talkback and suggested we break for lunch. Off to Wendy's we went, and we filled ourselves with fat and grease. For some reason that did the trick. When we returned to the studio, we turned on our amps and blasted out Funeral Mountain.
Through sewers and swamps, biker hang-outs and Death Valley, Joe Lapsley takes us on an intense and disturbing journey into the most sordid and seemy parts of America. With their debut release, Funeral Mountain, on the Nashville label Feralette, Neighborhood Texture Jam has already transcended the genre- stereotypes of Memphis bands and marked themselves as one of the most exciting new bands in the country. - Pop Culture Press
Steve's bass amp wasn't suitable for the studio so Rick brought in a smoldering rig and set it up in the bathroom down the hall. He wanted the reverb from the tiled floor to mix into the direct feed. When I say smoldering, I mean it. During a quick bathroom break I noticed the amp had wisps of smoke coming from the back.
For the snare Rick brought in a drum he referred to as "the snare of death." It was exceptionally crisp sounding and while Paul was in the studio getting levels, the sharp pop made us wince.
Murphy was delighted to find a Marshall half-stack already in place for his use. He immediately plugged up, turned it on, and started shredding before the rest of us had finished taking a look around.
Tee used his trusty Randall bass amp for the rhythm guitar, imparting the gutteral crunch that became our trademark guitar sound.
Greg was in observational mode during the tracking session, as texture was to be added in during the overdub/mixing session at MasterMix about a month later. He assisted Price and Rick with tonal suggestions and shot a few games of pool with Mark Harrison. There was only one cue and it was broken, so Greg and Mark insisted they play "Ellett Pool" with "Ellett Pool Rules." Rarely did I understand what they were talking about. That was no exception. Mark, an original Texture Jam member, was on hand to lay down that great lead guitar part on Looking For Heroin.
...this is a wild, fast-paced ride that never lets up. Highly recommended. - The Metro
A month later we assembled at MasterMix for overdubs and mixing with Derek Van Lynn and his trusty saxophone. We didn't have a clear idea of what we wanted him to do, or even which songs we wanted him to play on. As we listened back to the unmixed songs we occasionally piped up with "sax might sound good on this part." We wound up using his sax on Looking For Heroin and Don't Get Loud With Me, Bitch.
As for the texture, we primarily used the walls of one of the booths. You'll notice in the photo above that the walls were covered with metal slats - some kind of hi-tech baffling, I guess. According to Rick, they were very expensive and so we not only had to be careful when we scraped them with drum sticks, we also had to post a lookout in case any studio personel wandered by. They were used to great effect, most notably on Borax Factory.
...this disc reveals an intelligent band that has studied the past but is looking forward to the future. It's heavy shit. - Spin
The album release party was held at the Pyramid Club in Memphis, TN on February 11, 1990 - the same day Nelson Mandela was released from prison and Buster Douglas ko'd Mike Tyson. The club was on the second floor of a building that almost wasn't up to the task of hosting the event. We packed a few hundred sweating fans in, got them dancing, and floor started bouncing like a trampoline. About halfway through the show we started saying silent prayers, hoping the support beams would hold out a bit longer. Fortunately, they did.Neighborhood Texture Jam will be performing Funeral Mountain in its entirety at the Hi-Tone, Memphis, during the Antenna Reunion weekend: July 30, 2010. We hope to see you there!
Links:
Funeral Mountain Plus (remastered with extra tracks) on the Feralette Records site.
Funeral Mountain (original) on Amazon.com
Funeral Mountain mp3s on eMusic.com
Borax Factory video on YouTube.com