"Yung Spotty" gears up for the "Anti-Valentines" showcase.

Facebook event page: Anti-Valentines Day

University of Memphis Students and lonely music lovers alike will have the option to celebrate, or mock, Valentine’s day a week early this year at 3147 “Yung Spotty,” an affectionately named house-turned-venue near U of M campus. The free, Feb. 7th show will feature local bands FREED, The Band of Ooo, Sleepwlkrs, Other Stories, and Elder.    

    Eli Wilson is not only a resident of the Spottswood home that is Yung Spotty and the guitarplayer for Sleepwlkrs, but a Music Industry major and the financial manager for “Delta Vibe” the student-run concert planning organization at the University of Memphis. He explained the inspiration for this particular “Spotty” show.

    “We’ve been seeing a lot of events come up for Valentines day for all the people in couples and I noticed a huge surge of single people posting sad, sarcastic, and depressing comments on those events,” Wilson said. “We figured why not make a show for all the single people.”

    Wilson gave insight into the goals and aspirations of his concert venue as a personal showcase for up and coming Memphis bands that takes the pressure off of performing live. He stressed his particular excitement for the collection of acts performing on the 7th.  

    “We have a couple of U of M bands. We have a band that isn’t affiliated with any college, (independent artists) and then we have a band from Rhodes College which actually bases all of their songs on ‘Adventure Time’ episodes,” Wilson said, “They released an application video for NPR’s desk concert and I fell in love immediately.”  

     The Band of Ooo, whose genre is cited on their Facebook page as “Post-Apocalyptic Ska Rock,” is comprised of five members who all play multiple instruments and all sing at particular moments. Guitarist Gina Sposto explained the few different song-writing methods the group utilizes to capture the essence of “Adventure Time.”

    “Each of us has written a song independently and we wrote one song together called ‘you were supposed to be beautiful,” Sposto said, “We sat around and watched the episode ‘Everything Jake’ and literally went on writing the song right afterwards.”

     Though Sposto prides her band for not taking things terribly seriously and enjoying music purely for the love of it, she shared her fellow musicians’ fondness of the animated program they find themselves deeply inspired by.    

    “Adventure time is a good show, but it’s a really real show. If you write a song about the issues going on in the heads the characters, or the injustices, without directly alluding to the characters; the songs turn into really good material that last as stand alone music,” Sposto said. “I’m just excited about it; I want people to hear it because I’m really proud of the work that we’re doing.”  

    Another musician scheduled to perform the “Anti-Valentines” “Young Spotty” bash, Elder Drummer Ian Duren, explained the lyrical aim of his vocalist, Andrew Elder. Not only is the band named after the keyboarder and singer Duren spoke of, but the group is currently preparing for his recital at Visible Music College.   

    “We kinda go along the lines of ‘human stories’ which is actually the title of the recital coming up and the title of the EP we’ve been working on,” Duren said.  “A theme for us is human emotion and human feeling.”

    The drummer alludes to James Blake and Bon Iver as two of Elder’s influences for their electronic synth pop but the combination of fellow “Anti-Valentines” players FREED are sure to shake things up for the audiences at “Yung Spotty.” Bassist and vocalist Miko Alen describe his band as containing hip-hop and hard rock elements and tease about their new song in Drop-C tuning.

     “The one thing that we’ve always strived for is uniqueness,” Alen said, “Y’know; what has a unique sound, what has a nice groove... Anything that can spark an audiences attention.”

    The University of Memphis student shares the major of promoter Eli Wilson but occupies the opposite focus to Music Business; Recording Technology. Alen explained that the last performance FREED was a part of was the Delta Vibe “Game of Tones” event, but is stoked to return to performing in a home venue.     

“House shows are like our thing, we would love to play for bigger audiences but at house shows there’s always a good turnout,” Alen said. “It’s always fun, there’s a lot more interaction than with a big stage.”  

     

Wilson describes “Young Spotty” as the perfect house venue, equipped for the job.

    “It’s a comfortable space, it’s very intimate. Bands are on the floor which is something I’ve always been a fan of,” Wilson said, “Hardcore bands have done that for a long time but you don’t see a lot of artists doing it. I think it’s good for all acts to be at eye-level with the audience.”  

 (Photos of Sleepwlkrs, The Jetpack Crew, and Creepy Neighbor at the previous "Yung Spotty Launch show" in November)

    
Any students in bands who are interested in booking a show at Yung Spotty can contact the venue’s Facebook page, of which Wilson and Sleepwlkrs vocalist Megan Carolan are both the official representatives.

(cover photo design by yours truly)

The Bands:  
FREED 
The Band of Ooo

Sleepwlkrs
Other Stories

ELDER

The Venue:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yung-Spotty/786762968032436

"You Were Supposed to be Beautiful" by The Band of Ooo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFLNATSOt2s

Notable and appropriate "Anti-Valentines" Youtube clip you should most definitely watch RIGHT NOW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s5xsVHOJQs