Crib Notes

James Joyce, underground record keeper

A self-described librarian of rock, 33-year-old Joyce posts long-lost songs, photos, fliers and anecdotes from Atlanta’s underground music scene on his blog, Beyond Failure. He also has played with a bunch of Atlanta bands over the years — most recently with psych-funk collective Noot d’ Noot.

CL: How did you come up with the idea for Beyond Failure?

JJ: I’ve probably been in 20 bands or so. And I’m kind of by nature an archival person. I’m kind of a librarian.

That’s a rare combination for people in bands.

I think it’s because I’m a drummer. I’m just more systematic in the way I think and the way I organize myself. I’m more organized than a lot of my bandmates. Everyone has moved 100 times, and nobody has their old records, their old tapes, old flyers, old pictures. They started contacting me and asked if I had any of the old recordings, because theirs were all gone.

So I started digitizing all these old demo tapes, old records and seven-inches and stuff. And I started posting them up on this blog, rather than just emailing them to everybody.

Then I started posting stuff by bands I was friends with at that time, in the ’90s. I really like their music, and it’s really hard to find a lot of their stuff. Everything local is out of print. It’s good to just collect a lot of that stuff and make it available, for historical purposes. Because otherwise, you won’t be able to find it.

(Lots of links to long-lost recordings, after the jump.)

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Editor’s Note: Pick up Creative Loafing’s 2008 Best of Atlanta issue this week to get hip to the city’s best in music and nightlife. There was too much good stuff to print in the After Dark section, so we’ll be posting some of the critics’ picks here on Crib Notes for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned.

ADRON is a young, self-taught maestro with a nylon-stringed guitar. Her self-titled debut CD on New Street Records is a gorgeous reminder why it’s a shame that she up and left her old stomping grounds in late 2007 for the mean streets of Brooklyn. But her time away has served her well. Over the last year, her balance of quietude and quasi-Brazilian folk strumming has matured to a level that is far beyond her years. It’s due, no doubt, to her throwing herself into the mix of New York’s thriving musical environment. — Chad Radford www.adronmusic.com.

To view the complete 2008 Best of Atlanta/After Dark critics’ and readers picks, click here.

Photo by Perry Julien

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