Tame … Tame & Quiet is back. I know, I know. You’ve heard that before. But this time is different. Or at least it seems to be.
Before quietly dissolving in 2009, TTXQ was easily the best respected and most popular underground band in North Texas. Formed in 2004 by guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Aaron Bartz, guitarist Darren Miller, and drummer Boyd Dixon, TTXQ put out one of the juiciest slabs of intellectual post-punk ever to come from our part of the state, Tin Can Communicate, in 2007. Another album, 2010’s Fight in Words, followed, but it was somewhat posthumous –– in 2008, bassist Pat Ferguson had hopped onboard to fill out the band’s crunchy, angular racket but left about a year later to fight in Afghanistan. Though he eventually returned home safely and now resides in San Antonio, he came to seem irreplaceable to Bartz, Miller, and Dixon. Instead of soldiering on without him, the trio decided to call it quits. Fight in Words, recorded in multiple North Texas home studios with help from multi-instrumentalist Thomas Horton, came and went with little fanfare, an undeservedly ignominious end for such an exceptional, groundbreaking band.
Not too long ago, Bartz and Miller started jamming again, and while they had lost Dixon (who had gone on to other things), they had regained Ferguson, who talked them into recruiting a new drummer: Jason McMullen (History at Our Disposal, Jetscreamer, Raised by Tigers), Bartz said, “came to the first practice and nailed three songs without hesitation, and we were sold.”
The plan now is to play “a smattering of shows here and there,” Bartz said, noting that Ferguson is willing to make the drive to play particularly good gigs. The band, Bartz said, is also writing new material to be recorded soon. “Gotta get the creative juices flowing again after a long break,” he said.
Expect to hear all of the “hits” but not any new tunes when Tame … Tame & Quiet plays its first Fort Worth show in eons on Friday, Jan. 31, with Denton’s Wire Wings and Fort Worth’s The Fibs at The Boiled Owl (909 W. Magnolia Ave., 817-920-9616).
FW Does SXSW
South by Southwest, the ginormous annual music festival and conference held in Austin each spring, recently invited The Cush, Ice Eater, Quaker City Night Hawks, Son of Stan, and Whiskey Folk (né Whiskey Folk Ramblers) to play sanctioned showcases this year, joining Complete and The Unlikely Candidates as representatives of the mighty Fort. Congrats, all.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
