photograph by brian wallace
The Memphis hardcore punk band Deathreat performing in the now defunct venue, The People’s Temple, sometime in the early 2000s.
Editor’s Note: Alex Peterson is a student in Professor Rebecca Finlayson’s Introduction to Journalism course at Rhodes College. The students taking the course spent time this spring researching and writing about Memphis. They are learning the core principles and techniques of journalistic writing while also learning about their local community. Memphis will share examples of a few of the students’ work over the coming days and weeks.
Memphis once had one of the most dingy, energetic, and passionate punk scenes in the South, but very few artifacts have survived over the years. This chapter of the city’s musical history is almost forgotten, but the Memphis Punk Archive is seeking to revive the scene by transforming old forms of media to a digital space. The fan-run archive is led by Drew Ryan and Daniel Drinkard, who were both born and raised in Memphis. Ryan is a graphic designer and art director based in Chicago, while Drinkard owns a record store in Birmingham. The two collect old Memphis punk materials — music, photographs, posters, and other ephemera — and digitize it for their site. At no charge, fans can listen to (and download) more than 70 complete albums, tapes, and demos on their Bandcamp site and gain a visceral interpretation of the Memphis punk scene.
photograph by Jared boyd
Archivists Daniel Drinkard (left) and Drew Ryan hosting a pop-up in the Crosstown Concourse on August 8, 2021.
Punk is not one of Memphis’ most common music exports, but it still followed the core ethos of the city: Do it yourself, support others, and love your hometown. The music was full of fury, frenetic percussion, scorched guitar riffs, and vocalists streaming for their lives. Shows were intense, and venues were packed with moshing teens, often located in sequestered parts of Memphis, on the lower levels of parking garages, or in Downtown alleys.
This is the main motive behind Memphis Punk Archive: to digitize the music of the past for the people of the present.
Barristers was one of these locations, tucked away in an alley off Jefferson Avenue. The place had poor air conditioning and occupants probably could not last 30 minutes without being drenched in sweat. But judging from old photos and memories, they enjoyed their time there, with everyone from local acts to touring metalheads frequenting the place.
It's a shame that, for years, there was very little about the historic venue on the internet. That is, until Memphis Punk Archive uploaded a never before seen set of local band His Hero Is Gone to their YouTube channel. Something from nearly 30 years ago now sees new life in a new format.
photograph by buddy forbess
Moshing concertgoers in The Caravan, a now-closed historic punk venue sometime in the early 2000s.
Many stories about local Memphis art and artists have been forgotten in the modern age. In an era where everything is digital and accessible through websites people forget to check things that are tangible, outside of Spotify’s recommendations. This is the main motive behind Memphis Punk Archive: to digitize the music of the past for the people of the present.
Drinkard and Ryan are continually building up this electronic archive. In true DIY fashion, all the profits go back to the city through donations to either WYXR 91.7 FM or the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center. They tout their collection of old Memphian classics like early emo band Pezz and crust punk band His Hero Is Gone. “Daniel and I played in a lot of punk bands growing up,” says Ryan, one half of the archive. “We have a lot of old Memphis punk CDs, cassettes, records, and printed ephemera in our collection from those days.” Looking for Car Crash, Comatoast, Man With Gun Lives Here, Pezz, Copout, Bury the Living, and more? It's all here.
poster courtesy Memphis Punk Archive
A 1998 flyer for a show featuring Memphis acts His Hero Is Gone and Children’s Crusade, with touring acts MK Ultra and Trepan Nation. Held at a nameless venue at 1297 Madison Avenue, now a shoe repair store. Flyer designed by Randal O’Wain.
The two began the project after recollecting on their past history in the Memphis punk scene. While reminiscing, they realized people might appreciate revisiting the music from their youth, along with those who are unfamiliar with the short-lived scene. “We quickly realized a lot of people would appreciate seeing and hearing this stuff again,” says Ryan. So the goal was established — to preserve the grimy, angsty Memphis underground.
Many of these bands were around in the early internet age, but they have been lost in time, their efforts shoveled to the bottom of a crate of cassettes in basements and abandoned storage units. “People like to think that Spotify is an archive of all the music in the world, but that is so far from the case," says Ryan. "There is so, so much music that isn't online anywhere, especially independent music.” Memphis Punk Archive provides a platform for somewhat forgotten acts to have a second breath of life in the digital age.
The lifespan of old Memphian punk bands reflects how much attention they received — which was: not much. They often just dropped a few demo tapes, played a couple of shows, and then ceased operations months or years later. That was just how things were back then — entirely in the moment, not really concerned about lasting forever.
poster courtesy Memphis Punk Archive
Poster for an all-ages show featuring The Red Square, Children's Crusade, and Pankration. Date unknown.
Memphis Punk Archive has a cavalcade of Memphian punk art at its disposal. It comes in many forms: a website full of music, an Instagram page with old show fliers, a YouTube channel with old footage, anything they can use to digitize old Memphian punk. They collect and compile everything from 20-year-old fliers to grainy hardcore show footage. Without this archive many would never have known about the vibrant local scene in Memphis.
The city is recognized for its music in all forms, so why is punk so rarely brought up? “I don't think it was lack of ambition,” says Ryan. “Memphis is such a musical city, and punk music is more like anti-music, or at least it was before the internet was a household thing.”
Even with that being said, people love what the Memphis punk scene created. Ryan reflects on how the appreciation for Memphis punk has increased over the years. “There are a lot of European and Japanese crust punk kids who are really into His Hero Is Gone and Tragedy," he says. "People LOVE Jay Reatard, Alex Chilton, the Klitz ... people all over celebrate Memphis music, even if Memphis doesn't necessarily celebrate its own music, outside of Sun, Stax, Sam Phillips — the usual.” He notes that Memphis is often thought of as the birthplace of rock-and-roll and the home of the blues, but there is much more to find here besides Elvis, Big Star, and Stax Records.
Regarding the future of the archive, the two are planning to compile all the forgotten Memphis punk classics and put them on wax. Their Bandcamp site has countless demos for anyone to check out, allowing them to fall in love with the past. And if anybody is not too familiar with the scene, Ryan says that now is a great time to start.
