We have hemmed and hawed and hinted. We have danced around the idea, discussed it and dissected. We have done just about everything we can without putting a ring on it and making it Facebook official. But that all changes right now. We’re putting it in print and once you do that, well, there is no turning back.
Get ready to Press Play.
Press Play is what we are calling the latest iteration of an old idea – a contest for musicians making original music in the Augusta area. The rules are simple. When we drop the figurative flag, digital submissions will be accepted for a few weeks. Anything goes. Hip hop or hard rock. Gospel songs or symphonic gongs. The only rules are it must be original work, you must be able to perform it live, and keep it clean. We will accept a single song per act and post everything up for public scrutiny and voting. The three songs that receive the most votes, plus three Critic’s Picks, will perform live on opening night of the 2022 Arts In the Heart of Augusta Festival when Press Play takes over that event’s central Global Stage. There a panel of judges will award the first, second and third place act $500, $250 and $125 respectively.
Our goal here is simple. We want to revive and reinvigorate the original music community in the Augusta area. When want to help acts find new fans and, in turn, help fans find the original music they have been yearning for. Live and original music in this community needs a little jump start. It needs a little more spotlight. So, get into the studio, practice space or laundry room – wherever it is you make that musical magic happen. Press record and watch this space. Because in a few weeks we will be asking for submissions, and then it will be time to Press Play.
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There are no small parts, only Lady Parts
Speaking of bands, one of my current favorites doesn’t actually exist. It’s Lady Parts, the punk rock rebels laying down discordant anthem after discordant anthem on the British television comedy “We Are Lady Parts.” The show, now streaming on the Peacock service, focuses on the lives of four women from London’s diverse Muslim community as they approach the dichotomies of tradition and modernity, being centered in their faith while raising a punk rock salute to the hypocrisy they see all around them.
The result is a television show that is funny, engaging, driven by a particular quirky style and most significantly, populated by characters you have never seen before but still feel very familiar.
The very best television manages to find common ground between an audience and a world it might find completely alien. So,while I have no frame of reference for the Muslim rules-of-attraction rant ‘Bashir With the Good Beard’, I understand the feeling of romantic frustration. I am not Muslim, a young woman or English. But when I watch We Are Lady Parts, I see all of humanity reflected – and it is beautiful.
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Buried Treasure: Making way for Womack
I’ve decided to dedicate a spot in each of these columns to a buried treasure I believe deserves reinvestigation. Be it a book by a forgotten author, a classic television series or, as is the case today, a great-but-underappreciated record, I’d like to dedicate a word or two (hundred) to great art that has been left to languish. Let’s get started.
When considering great live records, my tastes tend to run toward soul. There’s something about the immediacy of that style of music that works well on alive recording. You need to look no further than Augusta’s own James Brown and his classic Live At the Apollo for proof. While you are at it, file Sam Cooke’s Live At the Harlem Square and the incendiary Otis Redding/Booker T and the MGs Live at the Monterey Pop Festival in that same solid group. But my favorite is the first Bobby Womack live record.
Recorded at a small club in Watts, the oddly titled The Womack (Live) is a real record of a very particular set. It features unexpected guests (Percy Mayfield), leans into covers (Everybody’s Talking, Something, California Dreaming) and features a few of Womack’s earliest successes, including the propulsive I’m a Midnight Mover. But the reason it works is Womack, an idiosyncratic soul man who golden gravel voice makes every song his own. This is not a live record, It’s a record of a live set. There’s a difference and the difference it what makes The Womack (Live) outstanding.
Steven Uhles has worked as professional journalist in the Augusta area for 22 years, and his Pop Rocks column ran in The Augusta Chronicle for more than 20. He lives in Evans with his wife, two children and a dog named after Hunter Thompson.
