Thomas Peake R.I.P.
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Last week Creative Loafing was saddened to learn about the death of Atlanta music writer and DJ Tom Peake, who died from a fall on the Grand Canyon National Park Lava Falls Trail. His body was found on Sept. 22.
I only met Thomas in passing a few times over the years, but I learned a lot about what was going on in Atlanta before my time here from many of the stories and shorter pieces he wrote for CL. Our first real encounter was in April of 2000. We were both working as freelance music writers, both gunning to write about the Red Krayola show at the Earl. He got the feature story, I got the consolation prize of writing a review for CL’s long-gone trashy off-shoot paper, The Scene.
Over the last few days I’ve been scouring the paper’s archives and tracking down some of the stories he wrote for us, and I’veincluded a couple of my favorite ones here. Best of all is Thomas’ feature on Shellac when they played at the Clermont Lounge in ‘95, which I have scanned and placed at the very bottom of this post. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Creative Loafing Critic’s Poll
“Best Alternative Band of 1995″
Rumored proclivities aside, Smoke’s version of chamber country blues is still one of the most iconoclastic and enjoyable around. This all-star post-Opal aggregate enjoys a suprising amount of fame, given their interminably morbid style, but that probably says more about their audience than it does about their music, for Smoke certainly do not pander to anyone’s lowest-common-denominator expectations. Their second album should not only extend the musical boundaries they’ve been operating in, but also bring them notoriety far beyond their supplicants at the Point and Clermont.
A pre-post-rock parable
Thirty years later, indie rock catches up with the Red Krayola
By Thomas Peake
Published 04.22.2000
The much-maligned term post-rock is actually a fairly meaningful term that describes a largely Chicago-based rock often employing creative textures, unusual time signatures and experimental instrumentation in such a way that it may become something else entirely. Granted, it already carries more baggage than United Airlines. But it works as well as the taxonomies grunge, gangsta rap or ragtime ever did.
(more…)
Remember that scene from “Chappelle’s Show” when Charlie Murphy recalls the time when the late Rick James came to his brother Eddie’s pad and started jumping up and down all over the leather sofa with his muddy platform boots on, yelling “Fuck yo’ couch, nigga!” Well, that’s HOLLYWEERD to the nth degree. Take the lineup: a self-styled savant who goes by “the Dreamer,” two full-time tat artists (Tuki Carter and Chris “the Love Crusader” McAdoo) from City of Ink, and a jazz-sax journeyman who calls himself the mythical Stagolee. That ain’t no rap group, it’s a band of gypsies. Since materializing out of thin air nearly two years ago, the four-man crew has busily crafted its own unruly narrative. The three mixtapes released in the past 12 months showcase the group’s penchant for combining sweet indie-pop incarnations with self-indulgent fantasy funk. It’s a nutty mix. Yet somehow they’ve managed to turn their wild inconsistencies — from constantly evolving musical influences including OutKast and the Doors to hit-or-miss live performances — into the main attraction. Like a traveling freak show, Hollyweerd piques our curiosity. No matter how odd, we can’t turn away for fear of missing what might happen next. 
