Athens Flagpole
1-22-2003

The four-piece local twang rock group Tishamingo has its own name for the music it plays.

"We call it county rock," says drummer Richard Proctor. "Not country rock. It's rock and roll outside the city limits." What that means, says Proctor, is that the brand of songwriting the group plays "toes the jam band line but we have really strong vocals and songs - shorter songs with a hook that's catchy."

While Proctor admits that the band will likely never be heard on mainstream, or even alterna-mainstream, radio stations, he sincerely wishes for a little radio play.

"But getting into that radio scene - that's a whole different beast," says Proctor, tellingly proving he's not ready to hand over creative control just yet. "I have a friend [in a band that gets radio play] and he tells me that you have to get to the hook in 20 seconds - you have to write around a radio format. We're definitely not ready to play into that industry scene just yet."

They may need to get ready. Behind the strength of its recently self-released, self-titled album, the band (including Stephen Spivey on bass, and Cameron Williams and Jess Franklin on guitars and vocals) is making more of a splash at local haunts - word even has it that John Keane (who produced and plays banjo and pedal steel on the album) may make an appearance at Wednesday's show.

"He's in the studio with Panic right now," says Proctor, hopefully. "But he said if he finishes early enough, he'd like to come to that show and maybe come on stage." Two degrees of separation and counting. Local jam-band Thick-Soled Shoes opens.

By Sarah Lee, ATHENS FLAGPOLE



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