History
Founded by Christina Marrs, Wammo and Guy Forsyth after a legendary party at the famous Dabbs Hotel along the Llano River in Texas, the band began by busking on the streets of Austin and playing for tips in bars. In their earliest days, the Spankers' repertoire consisted almost entirely of country, blues, jazz, swing and Tin Pan Alley songs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s with a particular emphasis on the 1920s and 1930s. While their tone was raucous and irreverent, the band was also known for its musicianship, theatricality and militant acousticism. Until 2004, they played the vast majority of their concerts without any amplification at all. Not only did this heighten the theatricality of their shows, it caused the musicians to develop inventive vocal and instrumental arrangements in order to constantly engage an audience in such a quiet performance. Several early members were actors and nearly all members have been multi-instrumentalists.
With the departure of Guy Forsyth in 1997, the Spankers began playing more original songs, most written in the roots styles the band had already mastered. By 1999, only Marrs and Wammo remained of the line up that gained popularity in Austin and around Texas. Reconstructing the band under their leadership, Marrs and Wammo began to expand the act's boundaries to include more cross-genre experimentation, more intricate arrangements and vocal harmonies, and, most successfully, more humorous songs, sometimes with pointed social and cultural commentary. Many of their albums from 1999 on have been musically or lyrically thematic. Spanker Madness, primarily country blues music about drug use, is generally pro-marijuana, but several songs examine the negative side of drug use and incisively criticize the War on Drugs. They have also released A Christmas Spanking; Mercurial, an album recorded live using technology and techniques of 1940s vintage; My Favorite Record, an album about their love of music; X-rated EPs; and Mommy Says No!, an album of songs about children and childhood heavily inspired by Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak. The Spankers have covered songs by a wide range of artists including Prince, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Beastie Boys, The B-52's, Black Flag, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Harry Nilsson, The Jazz Butcher, The Violent Femmes, George Jones, Nirvana, Nina Simone, Nine Inch Nails, Otis Redding, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Johnny Cash. They are also known for throwing snatches of familiar songs into cut and paste sections of their own construction to form musical montages.
In 1999, Marrs and Wammo founded Spanks-a-Lot Records to release their music. Besides giving the group complete creative control, starting their own record label allowed the Spankers to increase the frequency of their releases, avoid the problems they had experienced with their three prior labels and keep a larger share of the profits derived from their recordings. This move was part of a trend amongst musicians allowed by the proliferation of digital recording technology and distribution. Spanks-a-Lot has released two DVDs documenting the group's live show, highlighting its musicianship and continually evolving theatricality.
Their theatricality reached its apex in January 2008 when the group premiered its stage show "What? And Give Up Show Biz?" off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre.
In January 2011, Asylum Street Spankers won The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Gospel category for God's Favorite Band.
Read more about this topic: Asylum Street Spankers
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