A group of Memphis musicians who cite their influences all the way from Frank Zappa to James Brown is set to perform at the Delta Fair Friday night. Sunweight, a four-piece band that typically plays original “hypnotic” rock music, also makes a consistent effort to provide Memphians who work in the service industry an experience they wouldn’t have otherwise—enjoying a Sunday brunch from a customer’s perspective.
In May of 2021 the band started stripping their electric sound down to regularly perform at the Hi Tone’s “Night Time Brunch” events. These evening “brunches” feature a breakfast menu unique to the dive bar’s typical lineup of burgers and pizzas. The whole evening is specifically designed to serve the service industry itself—an idea that the bar’s owner Brian “Skinny” McCabe brought to the band.
“People have service industry nights, but nobody is having a special food menu and having a band playing to make this whole vibe happen,” singer/guitarist Nate Woloshin said.
After the service industry employees work the morning hours of Sunday brunch, these “Night Brunches” run from 5 p.m. to midnight—a dedicated time for those people that don’t normally get to sit down and eat breakfast food with friends in a public space.
Drummer Julia Mulhearn, who worked a stint at the Hattiloo theater as a bartender who could admittedly only make whiskey sours, said she always thought the idea “sounded great.”
“It’s like a night-time/day-time showcase,” she said. “[It’s] the worker’s brunch.”
The newest member of Sunweight is also the one who relates the most to attendees of the “Night Time Brunch” at the Hi Tone.
“I’ve actually worked in the service industry for most of my life,” Saxophonist Josh Aguilar said.
“I worked a lot of food industry jobs where we would get out at like 10 o'clock at night or something—many different pizza joints—just basically, food service is my thing.”
Recently Agular made a move to real estate (in between playing saxophone parts his bandmates describe as “forward-thinking”), but he said he understands those who get off work late and, as a result, make it out to events later in the evening. These brunches are a way to “give back” to that crowd.
“It’s just giving back to the people that are in that situation—working those jobs and stuff,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work, for sure.”
To understand how a loud psychedelic rock group started performing brunch sets billed as a “mobile jazz unit,” the musical education of the band’s members help paint a clearer picture.
While Woloshin played drums and guitar in the jazz band at Ridgeway High School, it was bassist Allen Wade and Sunweight drummer Mulhearn who met each other while both were involved in collegiate jazz band.
“I’ve been listening to jazz since high school, and I studied jazz at UofM,” Wade said. “I’m not like a serious jazz musician. I don’t want to play jazz, I just want to be inspired by it.”
Still, by 2018, the members of Sunweight soon found a good reason to play jazz (and not just be inspired by it from a comfortable distance).
“We would do jazz gigs basically just to pay for our record,” Woloshin said.
The band found a regular gig at Mollie Fontaine Lounge, performing once or twice a month for a year until the COVID-19 pandemic hit Memphis.
“We were at Mollie’s, at a gig, the night before everything really shut down,” Mulhearn said.
Though Mollie Fontaine has yet to re-open, Sunweight has come out of the years following 2020 with a new member in their saxophone player, a new place to play jazz and a new record in “Cannoned Hip.”
Woloshin credits Wade for directing and arranging “Hip.” He said that the album is “Allen’s baby.”
“I came in with the initiative, but all of us wrote it together,” Wade said.
Woloshin also said that while the songs were being written, the band was in a “more improved and relaxed state.”
“Allen was like a director,” he said. “The rest of us were producers or screenwriters—It’s more of like a movie.”
Time will tell if the band offers a cinematic performance of songs from “Cannoned Hip” at the Delta Fair at 7777 Walnut Grove Friday night, starting roughly at 8 p.m.
