<![CDATA[
<body bgcolor="white">
<h1>THE STORY OF MEMPHIS</h1>
<p>Matt used to twat his brother Ollie round the back of the head with a plastic
fish. But that was when Matt was five and Ollie was two. They don’t
do that kind of thing anymore. Much. </p>
<p>Instead, putting plastic fish to one side, the brothers decided that what
the world needed was another record label. So since October 1998, they’ve
have been hawking their Memphis Industries branded goods in various record
shops around the world.</p>
<p>The first release slipped out like a new born foal, all covered in cack and
slightly wobbly, but <a href="blue_states.html">Blue States</a>’ and Memphis’ debut record Blue
States Forever picked up an enthusiastic critical following. Unfortunately,
for reasons best known to himself, Ollie threw out the masters. And Memphis
sold all 500. So if you’ve got one, let us know what it sounds like,
cause we’re damned if we can remember.</p>
<p>Anyway, confidence high Memphis released a series of 12”s, from Blue
States (The Trainer Shuffle, Your Girl, Walkabout), Broadway Project (Born
Spirit, Crash/Recovery and The Kingdom of God) and <a href="la_mouche.html">La Mouche</a> (The High And
The Mighty, Super Strasse).</p>
<p>This all culminates in the glorious 2000 debut Nothing Changes Under The
Sun. An unstoppable juggernaut of sepia-toned retro-futurism, it’s critically
acclaimed, sells 30,000 copies. And Memphis start to get ideas above their
station.</p>
<p>So albums follow; from <a href="broadway_project.html">Broadway Project</a>, with Compassion, dubbed “A
milestone of electronic melancholy” by the NME; <a href="fort_lauderdale.html">Fort Lauderdale</a> with
Time is of the Essence, which had Mojo hailing it as “portentious and
kinky”; The Squire of Somerton’s Transverberations, which, quite
frankly, had everyone foxed for a bit before the NME declared it “madder
than Syd Barrett in a straightjacket”. In the meantime Blue States are
licenced out to XL Recordings for their second album Man Mountain, which means
that Ollie and Matt get to have nice lunches for a bit.</p>
<p>And so to 2003, with Memphis snapping up <a href="the_go_team.html">The Go! Team</a> for their debut single
Junior Kickstart, which bizarrely ends up on daytime radio in Sweden and Australia,
and <a href="j_xaverre.html">J Xaverre</a> for his debut album These Acid Stars. Memphis’ first label
round up Estuary English demonstrates the diversity of the label, and ends
up as Jockey Sluts compilation of the year.</p>
<p>Second albums from Broadway Project with The Vessel and Fort Lauderdale with
Pretty Monster further enhance Memphis’ reputation for skewed and skewered
pop.</p>
<p>History lesson over. Christ, has it really been 6 years. You know what. It
bloody well has. So here we are in 2004 and we’re still standing. And
looking rougher and tougher and bigger and better and all that. So we’ve
got Blue States releasing their third album The Soundings, in our ‘umble
opinion their best work yet, plus The Go! Team releasing their much anticipated
debut album provisionally titled Bottle Rocket. Thanks for sticking with us
and we hope you remain stuck for some time to come. God bless you, one and
all.<br>
</p>
<h1>Links</h1>
<a href="broadway_project.html">Broadway Project</a><br>
<a href="fort_lauderdale.html">Fort Lauderdale</a><br>
<a href="j_xaverre.html">J. Xaverre</a><br>
<a href="jukeboxer.html">Jukeboxer</a><br>
<a href="la_mouche.html">La Mouche</a><br>
<a href="memphis_news.html">Memphis News</a><br>
<a href="people.html">Memphis Industries: Our People</a><br>
<a href="street_team.html">Street Team</a><br>
<a href="the_black_neon.html">The Black Neon</a><br>
<a href="the_go_team.html">The Go! Team</a><br>
<a href="the_squire_of_somerton.html">Squire of Somerton</a><br>
<a href="the_story_of_memphis.html">The Story of Memphis</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3144586-6");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
</body>
]]>