Philosophical flow-mason Clay Perry might have found a cheat code for digital music marketing, but the strength of his rhymes is what’s earning him the clicks. B Y
P A T R I C K
H I G G I N S
It’s an almost comical understatement to say that local musicians can’t compete for people’s attention right now. With the myriad profound and life-altering circumstances occupying any person’s every available neuron at all times, giving notice to a homegrown artist’s latest single is a level of luxury many are struggling to achieve. That a track by an underground Fort Worth rapper that dropped unceremoniously in the
HearSay They had me at “Arkestra.” Fort Worth’s Rage Out Arkestra will always tickle me for being named after one of my favorite artists of all time. And all solar systems. Though Sun Ra died in the 1993 after being born in 1914 — on Saturn (!) — his Arkestra lives on. Led by saxophonist Marshall Allen, the band still performs occasionally. The big question is, Are there similarities? Between Rage Out and Sun Ra? The answer: not so much, though this is not necessarily a bad thing. You could almost think that some of what makes Rage Out rage out would have found a home in the spaceman’s latter-day oeuvre, like the Fort Worth ensemble’s polyrhythmic grooves and vibe-enhancing fretwork. I think Sun Ra would be proud. Though I’ve seen Rage Out Arkestra a couple of times over the years, most recently at Shipping & Receiving Bar, where the ensemble regularly gigged before the pandemic, I can’t say I ever sat down and listened to them. Like the jazz jams at the legendary Black Dog Tavern,
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a place known very well by most of the guys in Rage Out, it’s always hard to focus on live straight-ahead, occasionally free jazz when there’s beer to be drunk and convos to be had. The background noise comes to the fore when it’s between your ears during a pandemic. Like it’s doing to me right now. The album that Rage Out released a couple of months ago is, of course, a live recording, this one from a gig at Harvest House in Denton in 2017. Recorded by Zaach Williams and Cameron Ermish, mixed by Taylor Tatsch at his AudioStyles studio outside of Austin (Maren Morris, Cutthroat Finches, Shadows of Jets), and mastered by Clint Niosi at his Orange Otter Audio in Fort Worth, Rage Out’s self-titled full-length is like one long, polyrhythmic groove generously salted with some stellar individual horns, keys, and guitars. Though primarily experiential music, Rage Out’s output rewards a seated, headphones-on listen. Like in any good groove, the time signature may fall away completely, but the momentum continues surging forward. Going from loud to soft and back again as Rage Out does here is one way to keep the drama ratcheted up, to keep the listener couch-locked. The soloing
Salvador Luna
Starting to Roll
Perry: “If I had done this 10 years ago, I would probably literally have millions of fans.”
the power of the streaming platforms and take advantage of them. He’s coy about his methods, preferring to relate the tools he’s learned to utilize to other artists directly on how to fully capitalize on digital distribution. He does allow that social media is instrumental. “I remember back in the day looking on Twitter and thinking, “Man, if you could somehow generate a huge following on here, even if they didn’t know your music, you could manipulate that into helping them find your music,’ ” he said. “So I kind of already had a mind for it. The game might look different, but nothing’s changed. I mean, everything’s changed, of course,” laughing, “but if I had done this 10 years ago, I would probably literally have millions of fans.” Despite any boost he might have received from his newfound digital
Rage Out Arkestra album cover ar t by Gar y Joe Uribe Cour tesy Bandcamp
MUSIC
middle of this hellish spring would ping the average person’s radar, much less find its way into someone’s earholes and/ or eyeballs more than 2 million times, is nearly inconceivable. But in two short months, Clay Perry’s “Roll N’ Ride” has accomplished just that. “When I first finished it,” Perry said, “I knew it was a good song, but I didn’t really know how good it was gonna be, but as soon as I dropped it, it just caught fire. It’s steadily growing by 2,000 hits a day. I’m constantly getting messages 24/7 from people from like 10 different countries. I’m having to use Google Translator all the time now to talk to these people.” It’s easy to see why fans are responding to the track. “Roll N’ Ride” is the quintessential chilled-out smoking song. (Perry fittingly released the standalone single on April 20.) With producer Epik The Dawn’s crystalline laid-back bop and Perry’s casual, syrupy flow, the sedating devotional to getting stoned and driving around will leave you with bloodshot eyes, the bitter thickness of cottonmouth on your tongue, and a very questionable recollection of just how you’ve gotten to wherever you are. The trick, though, is how to get people to hear it. Without the possibility of the typical big release with accompanying listening party or live performances available, artists must look to other ways to try and get in front of people. This is where Perry’s savvy away from the mic comes into play. After spending the last few years steeping himself in digital analytics, Perry thinks he’s learned a simple way to harness
Recorded live in Denton, Rage Out Akestra’s debut album is a polyrhythmic journey.
is mostly tasteful, save for the occasional angry honk or aggressive Coltrane-esque vocalization. From what I remember of Rage Out in person, there’s not a lot of movement onstage, just hands pounding and fingers tickling. Listening to the band on tape, though, it’s like you’re watching fireworks over a raging ocean: Percussionists Eddie Dunlap, Parker Anderson, and Dieudonne Samudio (with special guest Gerard Bendiks) never stop moving, and the brass/woodwinds (Dave
marketing chops, Perry credits the song itself for its success, with impressions well north of seven figures across all platforms. “One-hundred-percent, it’s the song,” he said. “I did the same thing with ‘Survival of the Greatest,’ which I released a month after ‘Roll N’ Ride’ in the exact same format, and I didn’t see near the success on that one. It’s still generating numbers but not moving on its own like ‘Roll N’ Ride.’ ” The buzz surrounding the puff-puffgive anthem has helped precipitate some new and substantial opportunities for Perry. He’s been hard at work on the second part of a trilogy of concept albums he plans to release centered on his own voyage of self-discovery that he began with 2018’s I.K.I.K.N (I Know I Know Nothing.). As well as “Roll N’ Ride,” Exodus, the title of the forthcoming sophomore disc, will boast two tracks that Perry anticipates will be the biggest of his career. Each will be coops with legendary Houston producer Mr. Lee (Scarface, Bun B, Paul Wall), and one of them will have a guest feature that Perry, despite being giddily excited about, asked to keep off the record. If true, it’s huge. Perry plans to drop Exodus and its accompanying potential career-defining singles later this summer. In the meantime, he’s busy battle-planning, sharpening his digi-distro toolkit in preparation for the crossroads he’s found himself at. “Everything [I’ve done] in my life, right now, is coming to a head,” he said. “I feel like I found lightning in a bottle. I’ve just got to figure out how to handle it and use it to my fullest advantage.” l Williams, Chris White, and Jerry Smith) explode and dissolve, explode and dissolve, their voices sometimes delightfully sparring but mostly harmonizing — the “Acknowledgement”/A Love Supreme refrain on “The Good Voodoo” is as melancholy as it should be. Aside from a couple of nicely restrained solos, guitarist Darrin Kobetich, scorching bassist Canyon Kafer, and keyboardist Joe Rogers mostly stick to fueling the groove. The musicians who really get to step out are the brass/woodwinds: Williams, White, and Smith. Their interplay on “Airbell” is like a dance of sorts, and sometimes the hot/cold dynamic between a fiery sax and ethereal, twinkling flute makes for a kind of star-crossed-lovers call and response. White’s trumpet on the Middle Eastern-tinged “Michelle” is perfectly serpentine (and graciously augmented by Kobetich’s Cümbüş, a Turkish instrument that looks like a small banjo but sounds like a sitar). If, as Sun Ra said, space is the place — and indeed it is — then visit RageOutArkestra.bandcamp.com and soar. — Anthony Mariani Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
