MUSIC FEATURE
the decade since that pensive, plaintive folk-tinged debut, The Mystery Plan has released six full-length albums, as well as a treasure trove of EPs and singles. The tunes contained in this musical cache veer from the jaunty yet deadpan front-porch shuffle of 2012 single “Skeleton Man” to the rippling trip-hop rap of “Silver Lining,” a recent song from July 2021 release Jason Herring’s scheme to You Also Have Eyes, a compilation of old and new push Charlotte music is material that Herring feels deserves a reintroduction anything but mysterious to listeners. The Mystery Plan’s dreamy, jazzy and BY PAT MORAN percolating tunes can also be heard live during two sets at Common Market Oakwold on Oct. 22. Herring Driving outside Columbia, South Carolina, just says the outdoor gig will be the band’s last show of as night fell, Jason Herring was looking for a sign. the year, but new Mystery Plan music will drop Nov. After launching three successive bands plus a 19 in the form of Thought Bubbles, a remix album record label that fosters and promotes the Charlotte artists he loves, Herring had taken a well-deserved break from the music business. He had gotten married, and with his wife Amy was raising a daughter, Greta. “Greta was asleep in her car seat in the back, and I was talking to Amy,” Herring recalls. He was depressed and uncertain. After taking a four-year hiatus from recording, touring, packaging and promoting extraordinary sounds, he wondered if it might be time to return to making music. He couldn’t make up his mind. At that moment, a THE MYSTERY PLAN. disembodied voice gave Herring his answer. The voice was on the car radio, and it was his own. Columbia’s of sorts. college station WUSC was running a promo that In this format, The Mystery Plan’s genre-splicing Herring had cut during a stint with his then-most hybrids like “Silver Lining (Jah Freedom Mix)” really recent band, Charlotte’s alternative hard-psych shine. The original version, which appears on You outfit The Interstellars. Also Have Eyes, parts a veil of jazzy, shimmering “It was like, ‘Hey, this is Jason from The keyboards like a beaded curtain to reveal cantering Interstellars and you’re totally zoning out to WUSC, beats alongside Big Supreme’s assured and 90.5 in Columbia,’” he recalls. inspirational rap. The announcement was followed by one of the For Thought Bubbles, rapper/producer Geoffrey band’s songs. Herring cranked it up, rolled down Edwards, who performs as Jah Freedom, strips the all the windows, and shouted out into the night, composition down to its supple rhythmic spine, then “Yeaaah! I’m on the radio!” retools the arrangement and moves the beats and Herring had his sign, and in 2010, a few years wordplay to the forefront. The changes accentuate later he launched his current band, The Mystery the durability of the shape-shifting tune. Plan, releasing the eclectic avant-garde rock outfit’s Like previous music collections by The Mystery first album, The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be. In
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THE MASTER PLAN
Plan, the forthcoming remix album will be released by 10mm Omega Recordings, a label launched by Herring in the 1990s to showcase Charlotte’s variegated music scene. Home to chameleon-like pop rocker Benji Hughes and Brazilian jazz artist Micah Gough, 10mm Omega Recordings has also released tunes and sounds by Todd Busch of Flyweb, hip-hop act The Katskillz Project, a collaboration Herring did with DJ and producer That Guy Smitty called Muchacho, surf rockers Aqualads and much more. As Herring tells it, he had little choice but to launch a label tailored to spread the word about Charlotte’s quicksilver and combustible music scene. “Every time I went to see [Charlotte acts] perform, I would catch all the feels — I would get
a dance craze set to beach music that first swept the Carolinas in the 1940s. In 1987, Hunter got a job working for Easy 104.7 in Charlotte, so he moved his family to the Queen City when Jason was 16. Herring’s teen rebellion kicked in while he attended high school, first at Spring Valley in Columbia, then at East Mecklenburg here in Charlotte. He was determined not to be a rock ‘n’ roller like his parents, so he immersed himself in school sports, playing football and baseball, eventually joining the Spring Valley High football team. Herring also became an accomplished horseman — showing, jumping, vaulting and competing in dressage events. Despite his athletic interests, Herring couldn’t resist the draw to music. The die was cast when he attended his first Charlotte rock show, a gig by The Velvet Underground drummer Mo Tucker, who appeared with Half Japanese at The Milestone Club. It was Herring’s next show, however, that determined the course of his life. “The second show I saw was Fetchin Bones,” Herring says. “I was amazed by how weird and awesome they were.” Long before DaBaby, Anthony Hamilton or The Avett Brothers, the first band that broke big from Charlotte was Fetchin Bones. Fronted by Hope Nicholls, a singer with the blues-soaked passion and rock ‘n’ roll firepower of Janis PHOTO BY OTIS HUGHES Joplin, the band was grunge, cow punk and Riot Grrrl before any of those designations existed. goosebumps,” he says. “I decided it was going to be At age 19 in 1990, Herring had hit a turning my job to make sure that more people know about point. He wanted to do what Nicholls did, so he went the talent and beauty of Charlotte’s music scene — to Superior Feet Playhouse, a rock ‘n’ roll-themed everything from jazz to hip-hop to rock ‘n’ roll to boutique in Plaza Midwood where Nicholls worked, reggae.” to ask for career advice. Long before Herring could spread that gospel of “I said, ‘I want to do what you do. How do I go Queen City sound, however, he first had to fall under about doing that?’’ Herring says. “She just looked at music’s emotional spell. That process began in his me and said, ‘Learn how to play an instrument, and hometown of Columbia. write some songs. Start there.’” While attending Central Piedmont Community College, Herring expanded his music tastes to From shag to interstellar lift-off “At a very early age, I was turned on to Marvin include the moody sounds of The Smiths, The Cure Gaye, Steely Dan and beach music,” Herring and Prefab Sprout. Herring formed his first band, remembers. His father Hunter Herring was a DJ on The Groovy Disco Bunnies, with classmates. Since Columbia radio and heavily into the shag movement, he hadn’t yet learned to play an instrument, he
