Hi everybody, Dennis Black here for Black and White Records. Welcome to the Black and
White Records podcast. Today, Memphis artist and filmmaker Mike McCarthy
interviews black and white artists Seth Moody and Graham Winchester of the
Turnstiles. Now here's Mike McCarthy.
Graham Winchester. It's the alt band, a title of Moody Winchester that I always
thought you guys should have went with because it sounds menacing. As long as Moody's first.
Moody Winchester. Yeah. Can't have the drummer last name first. I imagine like a salty guy
from the 1800s. It's Moody Winchester. Who founds Memphis in 1820. That's right. Yep.
With a general and a president. Are you related to James Winchester? I am. I am. Seriously. Yes.
Okay, tell me. He's a great great great great great granddad or something. So
you're a great great great great grandfather co-founded Memphis with John
Overton and Andrew Jackson. Yeah. Wow. His son Marcus was the first mayor. Marcus
Winchester. So how come I didn't hear about you until like maybe 13 years ago?
Because I'm not in the politics. Not yet. Not yet. That's right. I've been I've been encouraged
to run for like stuff but I've. By who? Declined. A lot of mid-towners. I don't want to name any names.
Just wait till you're 40. Just influential midtown people with money have approached me
about doing politics. Music is political enough for me. I'm good. Political drummer. Political
drama. To a different to a different drummer. I don't just keep sacrificing goats to the
devil in that yard. I'm just about to run out of goats. That's the real that's the footage
that I cut out of the dock. Oh yeah. Okay. So I was because then it doesn't work. Lucifer
does not reward those that flaunt his glory. And now we're now we're losing listeners. So
those three people are gone. Gaining them. All the goat sacrifice people are going to
love us. So you guys didn't need tequila before their podcast tonight. No. I didn't know we
had any. Just a bunch of pizza. I've got a lot of tequila now though because my birthday
was last week and the number one gift people brought were bottles of tequila. Because they'd
seen the dock. Yeah. Because they're mad and he's so young. Age. People. Yeah. You were
trying to kill it. You were 30. You're freshly 36. Looking rough. Graham to kill him because
he had 42 bottles of tequila. I'm wearing the Ninja Turtle shirt to combat my new aging
process and it's teal. It's teal. Tequila teal. Tequila teal. So I made a little documentary.
We'll just get that out of the way. Two weeks ago. Whatever you guys like it. I love it.
So it's fun. People think you're heavy drinkers now. I was a little worried about that. But
then I thought well what am I worried about. I thought the same and then I was like well
we're doing. We're filming a. Recording and playing and rocking together so why not have
to keep you. Only see us. You only see us taking two shots. It takes 24 to get me rolling.
Yeah. I mean I thought there was more than two. The same effect if we were doing everything
we did in the dog and the eating like crackers and drinking water. No. I mean we're not just
up ending the bottle and rolling around on the floor. Sacrificing goats. Oh. Graham
crap his pants. I guess we're not recording a song tonight. Well give me that tequila before
he gets crap on it. That's the new song Graham crap his pants. I think so. I guess so. Let's
make that. I mean it's just a couple little nips. You know it's more the going to get
it in. Yeah. Let's get our heads in the right place. Hey at least we got the driving done
before the drinking. You know we're going to be authentic Memphis. I've actually drawn
you filmed you played on stage with you are I saying on stage with you. There's a couple
more things you could do to make us really tight. I think we take a break. No I just
wonder what I'm getting invited over for dinner. Oh yeah. Right at this point or maybe a free
haircut. I know you don't really haircut. Do you like goat. I can give out free hair.
We'll have a goat roast. Yeah. If we were going to play a turn style song or maybe we
should play somebody else's songs. I don't know. But you sent over a couple turn styles
songs from turn styles to which we could talk about. We had to kill him when we were recording
those songs. Yeah. It was mostly during the pandemic. We were in a pod. Right. Graham
and my wife and I were working on those songs because we had nothing else to do in the basement.
We hold up most nights of each week really. Yeah. Whenever I did my vocals they would
sit to the side and drink the tequila and make fun of me. There was one night I got
so upset I just ran out of the house and like walked two blocks away and sat down on the
curb for about 20 minutes. I ran out of the basement now the house. I looked at Cocoa
you know eyes wider than we were just like OK maybe we waited for about 10 minutes he
didn't come back. OK let's go find Seth but he didn't walk down the street. You guys sound
I mean the record sounds fantastic. Well it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Heard
it at the listening lab. Thank you. Thanks. And I haven't and I knew you sent those songs
over today. Let's play one on the list. Why don't we do since we start our live shows
off lately with it dead surfer. Oh yeah. That was that's kind of one of the first ones we
recorded. All right. So here are the turnstiles off turnstiles to the double album with dead
surfer.
So
music
All right, that was Dead Surfer. Any stories behind that one? Is that why you're a two-piece?
That was mainly a Seth, you wrote that. Yeah, I wrote that. Actually, it's really old. I've
wrote it when I lived in Athens, Georgia, and lived in this crazy house called the Porn Orchard
house because the van that I lived with was called Porn Orchard. Anyway, I did it on the four track
and just kept it around and brought it back to try to keep up with Graham's songwriting. He
prowess. He spits them out. Like, oh my god, he's got four new songs. I only have two. So let me go
get this old one. So I pulled it from my archives and reworked it a little bit. I don't like to think
that I'm leaning on my younger self. But then there's Athens days, but then he's got Wilmington
days. He's got Texas days. Why don't we talk about those days? Seth's lived all over the country.
Where are you from and what are you all about? I don't know what I'm about yet, but I've lived in
Athens, Savannah, Georgia, Dallas, Texas, Kansas City. I've done about a bit of everything. I've done
the touring thing with this ridiculous thing called Billy Goat back in the early 90s. Yeah, I know.
Geez. It's all going full circle. I think I'm thinking. I'm gonna have to start sacrificing
rabbits now because I've outed the goat. Sacrificing rabbits sounds like an Athens band name. It does.
Athens was exhausting because it's so cool there. You can't like the scene if you're in Athens or
if you're a part of the scene, you hate it. So Athens is like the southern Austin? Yeah,
or it's got more of an eastern east coast vibe to it. It's like a southern Austin with a little
bit of Brooklyn. Yeah, Nose Riders and the Carvers in Wilmington, amongst other bands like Hawaiian
band and etc. Yeah, Athens, I was in a few punk bands because I was in Dallas, Texas before I
moved to Athens and learning jazz. What years are we talking? Yeah, late 80s. So I was going
through high school. I went through to an arts magnet school in Dallas. Yeah, learned music
theory and all that stuff. But then all the jazz cats as they got towards their senior year,
all their heroes were heroin users. So all of a sudden, you go to a party in high school,
and it's not a keg of beer, it's some guys doing smack in the bathroom. I'm not into that. I mean,
jazz is fun, but lower. John Coltrane did it though. Yeah, that's where he got inspired.
But I'm going to try it. Well, you're just like 18 at that point. Yeah, I know, the kids. I'm like,
what? No way. So I was into the rock and roll that I was into. I was a big fan of the B-52s,
you know, their early stuff and stuff like that. So I figured, fuck this jazz stuff, my parents
can get me in as a in state tuition in Athens. It has a great music scene in 1988. I saw the movie
Athens, Georgia Inside Out, remember that? And Dex, Rom Weber, all those cats. So I went there
and put down the upright bass and picked up an electric and prayed that the B-52s weren't
heroin addicts. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, they were they were long since left. What were they
into disco night? I mean, chemically. Oh, probably cocaine. You think? Really? Late 70s? Well,
okay. And you jammed with Dex Rom Weber and recorded with him, right? Yeah. Yeah. I played
sex with him. Fun, crazy guy. So you were in Athens when you were 1920, 21? Yep. Wow. 19,
20, 21 is when I left and I joined the band Billy Goat, who were stationed in Lawrence at that
point. Stationed. Yeah, they they were a touring band. They moved to a more central spot of the
U.S. to make touring easier. Did your parents realize that they had raised a musician who was
just going to hop around the United States? Oh, they hopped around. Did they? Okay. Why? How?
Tell me about that. Just divorces and whatnot. Not military. Just well, I just started dating
this guy and he moved to Dallas. So we're moving to Dallas. Well, your mom and dad were musicians.
My mother sang. My dad wanted to play the flute, but couldn't figure it out. But my grandfather was
a jazz pianist and my grandmother was a jazz singer. Then I, well, I got married and then
within two months of being married, I got a phone call from a guy who ended up playing with corn.
Speaking of, he called up and said, I'm in this band. We're on Warner Brothers. Our bass player
just quit. Can you be here by next Saturday? And I muted the phone and I said, honey. And
she's like, Oh, that sounds great. Go for it. So for the so for the next year and a half,
I toured around and with this was who Billy goat. Oh, this was Billy. You know,
Eddie Brackell and the new Bohemians. Yeah. The new Bohemians. When she got giant, they split off
and then one of their split offs. There's like a spinoff band was this, but it led you to where
you are. Some, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And then you went where I went back to where my
wife was in Augusta, Georgia, which was God awful. She was going to medical school there for physical
therapy. I didn't have anything to do other than wait or not. And he wait tables. I've washed dishes
in the restaurant and recorded stuff on a four track. I remember a New Year's Eve after I quit
that band. Usually, you know, on a New Year's Eve in the band like that, you're playing some high
profile gig, lots of money. Big woohoo. This New Year's Eve. I was in the kitchen eating bits of
filet mignon that people didn't finish off their plates and and drinking their leftover champagne.
Okay. So Augusta, then what? Then Wilmington. I went to Wilmington because they didn't have a
recording studio that was for normal people. They had like some kind of fancy pants, one that
recorded cover bands. So I figured, I know how to record me and a couple other musician friends
that lived in LA and Philadelphia at the time went in on some equipment. And I set up shop with my
wife and a commercial rental in Wilmington and did that for five years. Did you surf? Yeah, I
surfed not very well, but I did it because it's exercise and it's fun. Yeah, one morning, I was
out there like five o'clock in the morning, the sun wasn't even up and I was half awake. I'm
paddling around and you know, when you surf and you have a leash that you tie onto your ankle so
you don't, if the board goes flying, you stay, you don't lose it. So the leash was not attached to
my ankle. It was just floating behind the board and it was far enough away. I'm paddling around
and I saw something out of the corner of my eye and I look back, nothing. So I'm paddling around
again. I see something out of the corner of my eye and I look real quick and I see it go down
under the water. I thought, oh my God, but it was the leash. By God. So for like 10 minutes,
I'm going around in circles with my heart rate going up and up like, oh my, it's following me.
A lot of my recordings were just a terrible band. There was one band, the drummer, every
time he went to do a fill, he'd screw it all up. What would you step in and play tracks?
No, what I did was, let me hold onto this. Y'all come back next week and I'll play the mix. So
on all his fuck ups or mess ups, I would put like a sound effect, like a bowling ball or lightning.
And they were like a hard rock band. So they loved it. They were sitting on the floor with
their 40 ounce malt lickers like, whoa, did you hear that? It was a spaceship landing when you did
that fill. Next drum fill I messed up on the record. We're putting a UFO landing over it. Went to
Microsoft certified systems engineer training in Raleigh. To hell with music. I cut my hair short,
bought a ill fitting polo shirt and plaid pants. No, not plaid, khaki pants. Thanks for wearing
that over tonight, by the way. Oh yeah, you're welcome. Right off the golf course. So I, you know,
tried to grow up. Had you heard of all the things that had been happening in Memphis or
Graham? I mean, you were younger, but did you know of all the stuff that was happening with the
oblivions and I knew about Jack O Harlan, T Bobo, you knew about all that. I would see their names
in the paper, but you were too young to get into the shows. I was playing shows more East at like
newbies, Niels in Midtown would let us play an 8pm show. What band? Copper possum. That was
our, that was my band from sixth grade. Walker in the copper possum was a antique mall. As you make
your way through Mississippi down to Florida. Oh, it was an actual place. It was an actual place,
the copper possum antique mall. Sounds like death leper copper possum. Right. Yeah. And before
that we had named copper possum silent cow, which was a nickname for Calvin Coolidge. And there is
actual VHS tape. It's a worst band name. Silent cow. There's a little thank you for saying that
because there's a VHS tape of our first gig ever. We're doing like six originals break on through
by the doors, whatever. And you can hear our like it's our first show, first show I've ever played
in a venue is at Reed Meisters on Park, the daily planet, same building, same building. Yeah. But
it became Reed Meisters and whoa, the daily planet on Park Park and Highland basically, right, right.
It became Reed Meisters for like two couple years. Did not know that we played there and there's this
VHS tape. I was getting up there and my friend Ben Church who we still play with in various bands,
he was like, Hey, y'all, we're silent cow. And but COW, you know, silent cow play on words. And he
can hear my uncle Jay go, Did he say silent cow? That's the worst band name I've ever heard in my
life. That starts off the footage of my first show ever. So we needed a new name. Yeah, that's
really bad. My brother was like, call it copper possum because he saw the sign on the way to
Florida. So you were allowed to play in bars when you were 13 14. Yeah, they would clear, we'd play
at seven or eight and they would clear us all out by 10 and let all the drinkers come in and all
the parents would come pick up the kids. The parents didn't know we were all boozing in the
parking lot though. So there's there's like a whole Bonneroo lot going on outside of Neals. And
if a parent, we saw one of our parents or friends parents park, everybody would hide all the shit
and watch them walk into Neals and then start partying again. So my sister reminded me that I
got busted by my sister. I walked right past my mom, but it was the middle of July. And I had a
park on 98 degrees outside. And I've got this Columbia winter puff jacket on just stuffed with
like 24 natural lights. Oh my God. So like we're we're kind of we're kind of party. Was it a teal
park? Cherry red. So he grew up quick. That's probably why we make sense together. Yeah, I grew
up slow. I mean, when I was 13, I was listening to hauling oats in my bedroom, you know, playing
with Star Wars figure. Yeah, I had a chapstick collection. Did you? Yeah. They were all used
because I had to try them all out. An empty whiskey bottle collection. Yeah, it's really odd that two
of my launch pad venues both burned down. Buccaneer and Neals. Right. Those are like where I played
more gigs. But I think it's weird that the Buccaneer burned down. Right. The thing was waiting to go.
Yeah. The little bit of time I was in Nashville, I went one of the few times I went out to go see
a band. I went to the wrong basement. I spent $20 to get in there and then realize, oh wait,
oh, this isn't the wrong place. Oh, it's terrible. And then by the time I found on the other basement,
the band that I wanted to see was done. And I spent another cover. Bummer. Yeah. I guess that's
all my fault. I want to play another turnstile song here if I might. I mean, that's why we're
here for the kids to listen to the turnstiles. Yeah. What do you want to play next? It's a hit
in 30 countries. Rise of my tears. Baby, I've been losing bad. I feel a stifling chill in place
of love we have. Blinked my eyes goodbye you magic years. Feel the rise of my tears.
Feel the rise of my tears. I turn to see your blood. Then you walk away. Compromise my fears.
I feel the final cry you took away from me. From me. From me. Perpendicular dreams we had.
There was a tiny hell where all the songs were sad. Cigarettes, ash, and abandoned beers.
Feel the rise of my tears. Feel the rise of my tears. I turn to see your blood. Then you walk away.
Compromise my fears. I feel the final cry you took away from me. From me. From me.
Then found my four leaf clover from berries cloned. The fable's dead. Even though I know it's over, I can't shake.
The things you said. The things that you said to me. To me. To me.
Hiking left of west is tough. The spiteful look I sport. It just won't be enough.
What am I when I'm without my tears? Feel the rise of my tears. Feel the rise of my tears.
I turn to see your blood. Then you walk away. Compromise my fears. I feel the final cry you took away from me.
Feel the rise of my tears. I turn to see your blood. Then you walk away. Compromise my fears. I feel the final cry you took away from me. From me. From me.
That was Rise of My Tears by the Turnstiles written by Graham Winchester.
That was with a drum machine.
Kind of about like, you know, that thing in Memphis where it's like kind of a little big city. And if you like, it's kind of like a fictional account of like, you break up with somebody, but you still have to see them at all the same shows.
I grew up a big fan of the band who we were talking about earlier.
Oh, LeVon Helm. Yeah, and Robbie Robertson was so good at pen and lyrics that were as Dylan was, you know, like a story.
As good as Dylan, you say?
I think as far as painting the story, you know, like Take Even the Night They Dribbled Dixie Down, you know, he took information about the South that LeVon Helm had given him and wrote this fictional sort of like Civil War story, you know.
Where was Robertson from?
Canada.
Okay.
So he really put himself in the Southern Boy.
So he's further north than Dylan.
Right.
Or John Fogarty born on the Bayou.
California cat, right about the Bayou, you know, so just from Ohio.
And I try to do a similar thing where like, I'll sneak Easter eggs of personal, deeply personal stuff in.
We should try to write songs about being born like in Connecticut.
Right. Go Huskies.
Yeah.
Let's drop this Memphis stuff.
It's the Husky Rock.
I write a lot in major key, but a lot of my lyrics are really sad.
So it's a weird, bittersweet thing.
I mean, I think that's a very Paul McCartney-ish thing to do.
It's also a very Greg Cartwright-ish thing to do.
Yeah.
There's people that do it.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just, I've never done that.
How many instruments do you play?
Like you play more than just drums.
Yeah, I do drums, keys, bass and guitar in that order probably.
Have you ever recorded just everything all by yourself?
A solo record, I just did.
Definitely.
Okay. A solo record.
Oh, tell me about that.
And it's called Nobody Waters, the Flowers.
I did it during the pandemic.
Yeah.
That was in the major key probably, right?
But I put it out online and then this red curtain records label that Scott McEwan, Patrick
and Sean started out of Memphis Magnetic.
Okay.
They wanted to put it on vinyl and like, re-release it.
So we just did a release party for that.
Okay.
But it's been online and all that crap for over a year, but it's, but now it's a vinyl.
Dennis, can we get a link on that too?
Sure.
I can go to that.
Nobody Waters, the Flowers.
Yeah.
It's on Apple Music Spotify, my band.
I'll tell you one thing about the solo record.
I got a solo record, turnstiles record tie in.
They both start with my song Vampire and I didn't even mean for that to happen.
But, yeah, thank you my dear friends.
I just wanted to do one thing with you guys, one a day, nine times l 100 times, game a day
with these folks who went to school and I got two like nine, four萬 home.
I could feel it in the air I could see it in her empty stare
Well nobody waters the flowers Cause this house just ain't home
I guess it's back to hammers and nails Since our love began to roam
Nobody sweeps up the cobwebs Ain't no welcome sign in front of the door
Nobody waters the flowers anymore
I'd be a hypocrite to not admit I was guilty of the same old thing
Right after work I'd drive to Evergreen Open my nights for the brand new scene
I met a girl there named Rosalie She played Estella and she sang so sweet
One night we sang a song in harmony As they applauded she kissed my cheek
She could feel it in the air She could see it in my empty stare
Nobody waters the flowers Cause this house just ain't home
I guess it's back to hammers and nails Since our love began to roam
Nobody sweeps up the cobwebs Ain't no welcome sign in front of the door
Nobody waters the flowers anymore
I guess it's time I moved on And moving on means I'm starting from scratch
Maybe I can find a new love To build a fire who's got a light of mass
Cause I can feel it in there Cause I can see it in her empty stare
Nobody waters the flowers Cause this house just ain't home
I guess it's back to hammers and nails Since our love began to roam
Well, nobody sweeps up the cobwebs Ain't no welcome sign in front of the door
Nobody waters the flowers anymore
When I got divorced with my first wife that didn't care that I joined that band
What year did you get divorced, sir?
2005 And that's when, miraculously, at the same time, I met this wild woman named Courtney
And she convinced me to start a punk band, which we did called The Alibis
She's a very talented singer that sat in with the Hawaiian band that I was in
And I knew she was good because when we were finished with the song, I apologized to her about how the band wasn't good enough for her singing
This woman can actually sing, this is terrible. I wanted a terrible singer to sit in with this band
You say that to a girl you like
Yeah, well, let's play one more Turnstile song or maybe a few more
Sound of my tears, sorry
Which one?
No, I said Sound of my Tears
Oh, I thought that was a Turnstile song
I'm just being a nut
Right, okay, so what's next on the old Turnstiles?
How about a...
Suicide Surf Break
Music
Cold water, no soup
Night surf, with no scab
Cold water, just me
One wrong move, I'm free
Two times the best, who says
A dark contest of the world, yeah
Cold water, each break
One right move, I'm straight
Cold water, just me
One wrong move, I'm free
Two times the best, who says
A dark contest of the world, yeah
Music
Two times the best, who says
A dark contest of the world, yeah
Suicide Surf Break
Cold water, just me
Music
Were we in Wilmington?
Yeah, so...
Coco, you met Coco?
Yeah, and then I left my...
Heart and...
Wife, and then I ended up dating and...
Wait, you left your ex-wife?
Yes, okay
And then the alibis?
Yeah, we started a new band and it was fun
I had a connection in Nashville to move to Nashville
These folks from LA that were moving to Nashville
At the same time I was wanting to get out of Wilmington
All right, here's my connection
Eddie Van Halen's guitar tech
So, yeah, I quit my job
And then we sold our house
And made plans to move
Coco and I
And our two children
But the night before we left Wilmington
I had a gig to open up for a band that I'd never heard of
Called Jacko and the Sheiks
On a Monday
Street town
And the band that I was in, Deadly Low Five
Were set to open up for them
So that day I told Courtney
I'm not playing this gig, it's Monday
Nobody goes out on a Monday
And we're moving tomorrow
I'm not gonna stay up late
Playing some crap gig
And she said, well, wait, who are you open up for?
I said, some band called Jacko and the Sheiks
And she said, Jack Oblivion?
I'm like, what?
Jack Oblivion?
Yeah, I guess so
And she said, oh, that's so Jack Oblivion
You from the Oblivions?
And I said, I don't know
She said, they're amazing
You have to play this gig
So I was like, ugh
So I played the gig
But then at that show
Met Jack and Graham
And Frank and Keith
And we all, you know, we matched up
Personality wise
And then they had me sit in with them
On the sax, which was a blast
At the end of the show, Jack said
It was too bad, you know, to live closer to Memphis
And I said, well, actually I'm moving to Nashville tomorrow
And he said, oh, we're playing in Nashville
Day after tomorrow, exit in
Come sit in with us again
So I moved and then sat in with them again
This big, bigger club in Nashville
Which was a blast
We drank a lot of tequila
It was amazing, so much fun
Which was right before
Gonerfest
I got to get out of Nashville
And move to Memphis
So we had a six month lease
On our apartment in Donaldson
We rode it out
Throwing our money out the window
On a crazy lease on a crap apartment
And then bought a house in Cooper Young
And here we are
You're right, these guys don't
Immediately offend me
I'm a personal security level
I'm going to be friends with them
We all gelled, you know
You're like a long lost member
And the first gig I played
Actually as a resident
Because I drove down here all the time
Within those six months and played
Shows with them and stayed at Jack's apartment
But the first weekend I was here
Was the David Bowie benefit
At Minglewood Hall
Which was massive
We were there, it was so great
The first weekend you were here
When I met you
I moved here on a Tuesday
And that was the Saturday or Friday
I thought you had already been here forever
I've been here a lot before
But I actually lived here
We were sort of the latest mystery
Rocker to show up
It was like summer of 2015
Through December 2015
Memphis is so kind to newcomers
It's Athens and other cities
Music cities that I've lived in
If you're a new guy on the scene
They're like
What?
Okay, wow, alright
Now I was curious about how you got here
When you got here and when you met Graham
Yeah, it's pretty wild, that's the story
I remember one of the first shows we played
In Memphis at DK
I think I like threw you in my car
And started playing
What was it, Jesse Winchester for you?
Yeah, I don't know
He played me one of the tearjerker songs
We had an early moment
I'm sitting there going, what's wrong with this guy?
I'm like, get in the car now
I don't want to cry right now
I want a tequila shot
It's a minor six, so what's going on here?
Well, when did you guys decide to
Just have the
Toosom?
I could spend five years now
Yeah, I think we had a gig with
More than Toosom
Right? And we didn't want to give it up
So you said let's just do it
And we did
And it was great
It worked and
We started off doing a thing
That was like, I think a delusional
Fantasy of mine where we would
Switch off playing drums and guitar
But I'm just such a not
Comfortable guitar player compared to Seth
I'm such a
Libyans used to do that
And I would just get on the guitar and be like
Oh my god, he should just be playing guitar
Yeah, and I wouldn't that get on the drums
You're a great drummer
And you're a lot greater at drums than I am
No, no, no, everybody would be like
Okay, wait, when are they going to go back
To the real songs?
Let's play another turnstile song
What was one of the
Other ones you wanted to play at this point?
I think maybe Over You
Over You? Which I think is
One of Coco's faves
Yeah, that's a great song
Never breathing always in full throttle
Should've spent all of the extra time with you
Well, look at me, look at me
I'm lonely as can be
But I'm Over You
At least
That sadistic in my smile
My last little while
But I'm Over You
At least
No more table
Sit at the bar and join an old man's table
Happy hour never looked so sad before
This wirehead spider
Always asking for a signal liner
Smoke another and I walk right out the door
Well, look at me, look at me
I'm lonely as can be
But I'm Over You
At least
That sadistic in my smile
My last little while
But I'm Over You
At least
I'm Over You
At least
Yes, I'm Over You
At least
Okay, that was Over You by the turnstiles.
What's the story on that?
Is there a story on that?
It's the narrator, the character in it
is saying that they're over somebody
and you can just tell by the vibe.
Do you write it?
You're writing a lot of songs about heartbreak, breakups.
Yeah, and they're poignant.
Before you got married.
I wrote that one after marriage.
No, Over You is written during COVID.
Then there was all the COVID stuff
and then a lot of the
protests and police involved.
There was so much to write about
and so much heartbreak to draw from.
There's beautiful stuff too.
I was writing...
That's where the...
was Graham playing guitar and singing in the bathtub.
I put on a suit and played in my bathtub.
Yeah, Graham did like...
It was like for three hours and the water got cold.
Do we need to queue that?
The water got cold and then I had one of my solo vinyl
on the side of the tub.
But the humidity made the artwork bleed.
So the water turned green like my album cover.
So I'm sitting in this cold swamp water after three hours.
Cold green water.
It's really funny. Teal.
I heard a dude talking shit about the fact that I did that.
Talking shit.
He was talking shit on social media.
And Frank and Keith defended me,
but this guy two years ago was like,
remember when that midtown hipster got in his bathtub
to try to get attention and was begging for cash apps
while playing a show?
And like Frank and Keith defended me
and sent me screenshots of the thread.
But it's funny because more than one person thought
that that was some elaborate plan.
I decided I was going to do a show in the bathtub
probably 10 minutes before I did it.
Just me being weird and random.
It was great.
I think 3,000 people watched it or something.
That was fun.
I think 3 million would have watched it.
That guitar plan sucked.
The guitar got wet.
Every time I moved my hand at all, there's this enormous squeak.
It's unbelievable.
Squeak like burning for you, blue-oashed or cold.
Yeah.
Just needed the cowbell.
I hear the squeaks and the chords.
What's going on here?
John Bonham's kick drum pedal.
What's coming up ahead for you guys?
Shows back in North Carolina.
In Wilmington.
I've been there a long time.
It's weird. I'm starting to have dreams about Wilmington.
I had one today.
Two of them.
That's crazy.
You took an afternoon nap and dreamed of Wilmington.
I noticed a Wilmington resident
reached out to the turnstiles messenger.
I've been getting lots of people saying,
I didn't know you were coming.
Why didn't you tell me?
It's been booked for like a week.
You're like, where are you staying?
You're like at Candyland, of course.
It's been booked for a week
and it's still months out.
You don't remember why I left.
Real quick,
let's talk about the European tour
and then let's play a song.
I don't know how many songs we have.
I guess we could play anything we want.
Talk about
where you played
stories and stuff
just real quick before we get out of here.
We could play Lost in Prague, which is on the list.
Oh, there you go.
We could play Lost in Prague.
And we kind of got lost.
Yes, physically and emotionally.
Actually, we did get lost.
Alright, hold on.
Let's play Lost in Prague and when we come back,
we'll play Lost in Prague.
This beer is glad what you paid for that 100 crowns.
But Lost in Prague.
Lost in Prague.
Where's this bus going? No way of knowing that she's right.
She said it's downtown.
Now I feel like a clown and she lied.
We're Lost in Prague.
Yeah, we're Lost in Prague.
We're in a hotel.
It's got a strange smell.
Give me a smoke.
Got a pencil from the street.
Make it look not to eat.
I'm gonna choke.
Yeah, we're Lost.
Yeah, we're Lost in Prague.
Okay, that was Lost in Prague by the Turn Styles off Turn Styles 2,
which is a black and white release.
What year did that come out? That came out.
22.
But I wrote the song when I went to Prague initially,
which was 2008.
And we got, Coco and I got lost.
Oh, I thought it was you guys getting Lost in Prague.
You know what? It's hilarious.
I wrote it about getting Lost in Prague.
And then lo and behold, Graham and I got Lost in Prague.
Prague is a MF'er of a city.
Yeah, if you don't get Lost, there's something wrong with you.
You have a really good iPhone.
The streets are ancient.
If I'm an English-speaking American and I go to Prague
and I feel at home, that's not normal.
Yeah, the signs aren't in English.
There's not a lot of English-speaking though.
It's the different.
In Germany, you can talk to anybody, but I felt they don't really want to speak English.
They don't want to speak English.
I'm pretty sure they do.
So many tourists there.
Yeah, it was also kind of a peak moment of our fatigue.
We made it out of the old city,
but we were trying to figure out where we were going after the old city.
I was wanting to just to get a motel room, but um...
Well, anyway.
So usually, like when bands from Memphis have gone over,
they have a guide that takes a bit of her jack talk about this.
Yeah, yeah.
We usually have a guide.
We were just us in a Hyundai rental SUV.
I figured it's just the two of us.
We don't want to spend half our budget on a guy.
Sure.
But...
That was the right call though.
I think.
It was funny, but yeah, it was a little bit stressful every now and then.
Especially since when my eyes started going...
His eyes started going and then I can't drive a stick shift.
And yeah, it was a manual transmission.
So Seth was doing all the driving.
Wait, so you're saying when you rented the car,
you had no choice but to get a straight shift?
Well, it was a lot cheaper.
You know, we're on pension pennies.
And I like driving.
Well, how many dates did you have?
12.
Guarantees.
So you budgeted the whole thing out.
You got free food, right?
Free food, free accommodations.
Head perfume.
Right, with black and white.
Renee.
So you wanted to come back with a thousand bucks, right?
At least two and each.
We wanted to pay for our...
Yeah, and this first time we did spend money on the drums,
we were now there anytime we need them.
We spent money on some CDs and stuff.
And the hocus.
The hocus.
The next time, you'll never know.
The next time we're more set up to profit even more.
For one thing, we've already got turnstiles,
two copies there.
And we'll hopefully get more guarantees,
because now they know we kind of rock.
Right, right, right.
There were a lot of little towns
that of course had never heard of us.
Actually, everywhere we went, they had nerds.
Right.
They knew some of them might have known we played with Jack.
But it was...
We made a really good impression.
And at the end of the night,
every place we played
really wanted us to come back.
I mean, even so, we played in...
in...
So our last show...
Accidentally, because you were lost.
Our last show was in Dresden.
We played Dresden, then we were going to play Dresden.
Wait, hold on. I thought we bombed Dresden.
I thought it was off the map.
I know. That's over on it.
And Renee loves to, like, unashamedly
talk about it humorously.
And we're just like, we turn red.
Renee, the head perforator.
He's like, look at us. Two Americans in the German.
Actually getting along after the bombing.
Oh, brother, you're like awkward.
We were told not to bring it up, and he's bringing it up.
You know, I think 80 years ago, I think it's okay.
Right.
There's been some time.
Wilmington, on the other hand,
you wouldn't want to, you know.
But go ahead.
11th show out of 12 shows
was in Dresden, right?
And the folks that
saw us in Weinbülle,
which was, what, an hour and a half away,
all got on a train
and came up and showed up.
Wow. Had the Dresden show.
It was fantastic.
And then the second Dresden show had just as many people
as the first Dresden show,
which was nice to play the same city
twice in a week and have full energy.
Yeah, it's like all of a sudden we felt like
we were regulars,
because we recognized all these people.
But hell, we'd only been over there for a couple of weeks.
And the Weinbülle guy.
So of course we have to go back.
And the owner of the club,
and Weinbülle is a true rocker,
really hip to all the Memphis stuff, you know.
And he, at the end of the night,
you boys, after you pack up,
you have a Antonio Goodnight beer with me.
And like, we just buddied up.
Was that a metaphor?
And he was just talking about rock and roll
and he kept going,
we are dust compared to you Memphians.
Did you guys go to Hamburg?
Yep, we had a great show there.
Oh, wow.
A good punk show.
And got accosted by prostitutes the whole way there.
Hey, Hamburg hasn't lost it yet.
They all looked like the Kardashians, though.
It was crazy.
Lots of lip injections.
Lots of plastic surgery.
Somehow that's supposed to attract it.
Well, it's weird, because we two were there in 2014.
Where are you going?
Away from you?
Like Burger King into the show.
Straight to bed.
Anywhere.
I'm a married dad.
It'd be more sexy to hump my pillow.
Right.
Those aren't pillows.
I played in Hamburg in the past.
I played in Hamburg 2012,
2014, 2016.
And walking by the red light district.
Yeah, the girls didn't look like that.
That was a recent phenomena.
Yeah, right.
So much plastic surgery and lips the size of that mixer.
Did you play Berlin?
No, we had a Berlin show at Wild at Heart.
And then I think it's sad
because I think the venue and Renee
had perfume wanted us there.
But I think we didn't quite fit
the bill.
And probably the other bands were like,
this isn't a match of our genre.
Did you get a feel?
They want us back at Wild at Heart when we go back.
Well, cool.
Did you get a feel in Germany that,
well, of course, you're in the rock and roll culture.
So it's not really maybe the mass culture, obviously.
Right.
I was in Berlin a long time ago.
I was on showing movies.
But I was in this rockabilly world
where everything seemed to be,
you know,
fashion and rockabilly
very, very astute.
People who were
elitist, rockabilly
and the bartenders all looked
like they were rockabilly people.
That's a very northern Europe thing.
We saw that more
in Denmark when we played
with Jack at the
Denmark Festival.
There's a lot of that in Finland, Norway,
Denmark, Sweden.
Gutter Island.
It's like I'm in there going,
I'm not worthy.
And I'm like, oh, wait, I'm from Tupelo.
Yeah, it's like you're the real deal.
Yeah. Yeah, you didn't spend $300
on a pearl snap shirt.
Well, it's almost the way like Dallas was,
you know, or maybe even Tokyo is in some parts.
It was nuts. It was intimidating.
I miss that game. I was in Malmo.
You know what? Maybe what you guys
actually were encountering were
Teddy boys that were mummified or something.
Dude. Hey, that's a film right there.
That's a film.
I know. Teddy, but you can't get
much cooler than Teddy boys. Mummified
Teddy boys. The Beatles wanted to be Teddy boys.
Do you guys do any Eddie Cochran
or Gene Vincent over there?
No, we did some Carl Perkins, Billy Riley.
I've heard the Europeans go apeshit
when you play Eddie Cochran or Gene Vincent.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Just saying. They went apeshit when we did
any old son stuff.
Carl Perkins. We did
the play that composed. Oh, well, you could
expect that. We played Stop
and Think It Over by Compulsive Gamblers a few times.
Oh, and Michael real quick, Michael
Donahue told me when he interviewed
Carl Perkins, George Harrison
called him on his cell.
What now? Say that again. Michael Donahue
got to interview Carl Perkins
once. Yeah. And George
Harrison called him on either his home
or his cell phone at the time.
Called Carl. Yeah, like Carl was a
hello and blah, blah, blah. He was like, that was George.
That was George. Yeah. That was George Harrison
saying, wait, how did you play that G
going into C7?
Yeah.
What's the 7th
chord again? So have you guys
heard of Bethel Springs?
I've heard of that. What is that?
Bethel Springs is up
toward the county
state line with Tennessee
and Mississippi and all that.
And I had the pleasure of talking
to this lady at the Mid-South Con,
the Syfy Con appropriately
because Rockabilly and Syfy
are just like, you know, same time
period.
And she
is a tourism director
in the town where Buford Pusser
is from, which leads, goes back to
our Eddie Bond conversations with Joey Killingsworth
last podcast.
But she's like, and we're doing all this
great stuff in Bethel Springs.
Bethel Springs is where it's at. People love
to come to, Europeans come to Bethel Springs
and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
What's Bethel Springs?
And she goes, well, that's the first
time that Carl met Elvis at Bethel Springs
when they had a Rockabilly show together.
And I'm like, I'm like, okay.
So that
is considered the birthplace
of Rockabilly because Carl met
Elvis at Bethel Springs.
That's what she said. Now you would
think, but Carl
was hanging out at sun, right?
But maybe he never met.
We're talking 50. We must be talking
about 54. I believe it, but
it's just wild that people would
go eight shit over
something like that. Well, they
got their historic marker.
They have shows there. And that's
why when you're a Memphis
teeny little band like the Turnstiles
and you go to play Europe
for the first time,
people show up because the flyer
says, from Memphis.
Right. Okay. So we're going to play.
What are we playing? One
of many use.
Why? Why are you
being recorded and it's going to come out on
something. It's recorded already.
And it's going to come out on
record called Turnstiles
Cloned where we play
other instruments other than the drums
and the guitar. I guess if it wasn't recorded,
we wouldn't be playing it right now.
Or we'd be waiting. The podcast
would have to wait till it's recorded.
So our next release is going to be
by that time we'll be broken up.
Right. You won't even be together. Never.
Screw that. Jerk.
I'm never letting you go. Winchester.
I'm going back to Wilmington. That teal ass mother fucker.
I'm already back in Wilmington.
I'm back with my first life.
I'm back in Billy Goat
baby in the broccoli.
Copper possum. Here we come.
Alright. Here we go.
What are you going to say?
Don't go your way.
The power of the pedestal you put in place.
The whole wide world sees the egg on your face.
What are you going to do?
For one, for two.
What are you going to do? For one, for two.
The power of denial ain't absolute.
The latitude's on your birthday too.
One of many of you.
The world has plenty of you.
One of many of you.
The world has plenty of you.
Where you going to go? They don't catch the flow.
Big shots shenanigans turn me off.
Everyone would rather that the bed be soft.
What are you going to say? It doesn't go your way.
The power of the pedestal you put in place.
The whole wide world sees the egg on your face.
One of many of you.
The world has plenty of you.
You've just heard Mike McCarthy interviewing Seth Moody and Graham Winchester of The Turnstiles on the Black & Wyatt Records Podcast.
Be sure to watch The Turnstiles' mini doc, Greif Leach, by Mike McCarthy on the Black & Wyatt Records YouTube channel.
Turnstiles' vinyl records are available at the Black & Wyatt Records website.
Join us next time for the Black & Wyatt Records Podcast.