From their origins as a three-piece called BUD in 1989 through their two most recent 7" singles on Shangri-La Records, the GRIFTERS have been refining their music into a stubbornly individual sound undercut by a willful compulsion to subvert the obvious.
In the rebellious tradition of Memphis musicians, the GRIFTERS make no concessions to what is currently popular in the region: Blues revivalism, Southern rock jokers and Grateful Dead want-to-be-bands. THe GRIFTERS operate in isolation and opposition, reflecting the band's sense of an ensemble which has developed free of attempts to impress any local audience, uncanny in their innate ability to combine melody with a dense fog of noise and jarring rhythms to create memorable songs. If the GRIFTERS have any local precedent it is a cross of the ferocity of the early Sun rockabillies and the willful, yet tuneful wrongheadedness of Alex Chilton and Jim Dickinson on Big Star's 3rd L, and even more so, on the Like Flies On Sherbert LP.
Like Chilton on these LP's, the GRIFTERS possess a romanticism buried beneath layers of apparently haphazard sound. This band, however, strays far from any blues or straight rock & roll. And they don't sound like Big Star. At all. Their romanticism recalls the trailer park arsonist longing for a match and gasoline, or the drunkard sitting in his car waiting for his long gone girl to come back while the AM radio blurts blasts of fuzz between his thoughts. Vocal melodies and guitar parts fight in and around washes of feedback, ingeniously unlikely bass lines and brutal drum patters, building tension until finally exploding in crescendos that make other bands' whole sets pale in comparison.
The GRIFTERS take rock under the rug and find all sorts of loose bolts lying around down there. With these parts they've built a monster alternately full of rage, grace and wrongheaded notions. This beautiful frustration is what makes the GRIFTERS one of the most compelling bands of the 90's.
Scott Taylor - guitar, vocals
Tripp Lamkins - bass
David Shouse - guitar, vocals
Stan - drums