Fresh Loaf

Curtis Clark is the bassist of Atlanta’s heavy metal karaoke band, Metalsome. The group, whose motto is “Everyone’s a rock star … no apologies,” performs behind brave-hearted karaoke enthusiasts every Monday, Friday and Saturday at the 10 High in Virginia-Highland.

Tell me about how and when Metalsome came about.

Metalsome started in 2003. A friend of the woman who used to book the club had gone to New York, and on a Monday night went through a club called Arlene’s Grocery. They were doing a thing called Punk Rock Karaoke. She approached me with the idea and said, “Well, what do you think about this?” I said, “Well, I think it’s cool.”

We started doing it in May of 2003, on Monday nights only. I think the first night we did it, there were roughly 30 people and we had about 20-something songs. It wasn’t long after that that we made contact with the people in New York, and talked to them and realized we were so much like them. It was really pretty strange. Now, every major city in the United States has a live band karaoke thing going.

How did you start in music in general?

You start like everybody else starts. It’s a hobby, and it’s a passion. It’s just a bad habit that you don’t fall out of. I had a friend who in ‘76 got his first guitar, and I started playing it because he didn’t play it. I sort of inherited it. Playing music is something that for some bizarre reason I’ve never quit doing. I’m into my forties now and still making a living, playing bass guitar. You see KISS and it inspires you. That’s what happened to me, and most of the guys in my band are the same way.

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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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