Stomp & Stammer, March 2013

Tim and Susan Lee, Bill Foster The whole thing started out as you probably have heard, are innocently enough about thirty- two-thirds of a band called the some-odd years ago in Jackson, Tim Lee 3, which formed in the Mississippi. fall of 2006 when Susan woke up “We met at my brother’s fra- one morning and realized Tim ternity house party at Millsaps had been doing it all wrong for College,” says Susan. “Neither twenty-five years (or something one of us was attending the like that). Since then, the TL3 school, but some friends and I has played about six thousand went to see the Occasions, which gigs in clubs and bars and on fes- was Tim’s band.” tival stages from Knoxville, where Before the end of the follow- the couple lives with a dozen or ing year, the couple was married. so basset hounds at any given Tim’s father, who was then a time, to Austin, Albuquerque, preacher in the Methodist church Atlanta and Los Angeles – and and is now a retired bishop, per- every town in between that has a formed the conjugal ceremony. decent barbecue joint. “When you know, you know,” Devil’s Rope is the name of the Susan says. TL3’s recently released fourth Meanwhile, Tim had estab- album, which has been much lished another kind of bond anticipated after the promis- following an encounter with ing notices accorded to the epic aspiring musician Bobby Sutliff double-CD, Raucous Americanus on the front row at an Alice (2010). The newer album fea- Cooper/Suzi Quatro show (so tures Tim on guitars and vocals, the legend goes). Discovering Susan on bass and vocals, and they shared an affinity for pop the mighty fine drumming of harmonies, catchy melodic phras- Chris Bratta. The thirteen tracks ing and other nerdishly musical on Devil’s Rope were recorded componentry, the kindred spirits in three different sessions in formed the Windbreakers. three different cities at three story by Meet the Windbreakers, a largely different studios each with dif- DIY seven-inch EP, was released ferent engineers: Scott Minor Doug in 1982. A year later, Any Monkey (Sparklehorse) at Wild Chorus in TheThe TiesTies DeLoach with a Typewriter, produced Knoxville, John Harvey and Mary by Mitch Easter and featuring Podio (Jimmy Vaughn, John ThatThat Richard Barone of he Bongos, Dee Graham, Beaver Nelson) at When she sent a noticeable ripple through Top Hat in Austin, and Craig comes out, the swelling indie music sea. Two Schumacher (Calexico, Neko she says, ‘I’ve years later, the Windbreakers Case, St. Maybe) at WaveLab in BindBind got the third released Terminal, a full-length Tucson. “Driving verse.’” album with special guests the Despite the potential for too through The remainder Rain Parade. With the support of many cooks spoiling the broth, Oklahoma on the of the album label owner Danny Beard, who Devil’s Rope holds its own both way to Tucson to deliver spans styles and met Tim and Susan when they as a collective achievement and a mellotron to a friend’s studio, themes rang- moved to Atlanta for the first a thoroughly engaging collec- we kept seeing billboards for the ing from “Judging time in 1984, the Windbreakers tion of handcrafted rock ‘n’ Devil’s Rope Museum,” Tim You,” a wildass blues-rocking released a series of singles and roll songs. Right from the start recounts. “We were like, ‘What assault on the religiously intol- albums on DB Recs including Devil’s Rope is a bona fide, hook- is that?’ Susan looks it up on her erant (ably abetted by Craig I’ll Be Back (1986), Run (1986), happy ear-grabber. phone and finds out it’s referring Schumacher’s wailing har- A Different Sort… (1987), At The tweaked feedback and to barbed wire.” monica), and “Halo Days,” a Home with Bobby and Tim (1989) jangly opening guitar chords of The next morning, waking up beautifully rendered power-pop and Electric Landlady (1991). “Signal” perfectly complement in the Motel 6 in Clovis, New memorial to a young man lost “I really liked Tim’s music, the poignant, straightforward lyr- Mexico, with a riff and some before his time, to the best but the decision to work with ics elucidated by Susan’s solid, yet words in his head, Tim grabs cover of Magnapop’s “Open the him was propelled as much by softly Southern-tinted, soprano his Gibson and sketches out two Door” you will ever hear, and his personality as anything else,” voice. Moving down the playlist, verses and a chorus while Susan the hilarious country-song-that- Beard says. “He has so much the blues-rocking, gospel-inflect- is sleeping. “When she got up, I isn’t, “Cut-Rate Divorce,” which integrity and he’s committed ed title song represents the TL3 played it for her,” he says. “She was inspired by another series of to what he’s doing. He’s very songwriting duo’s consistently said, ‘That sounds great,’ and billboards, this time spied on a engaging and enjoys life, and his effective M.O. then goes and takes a shower. trip home from Macon. enjoyment is infectious.” The Tim Lee 3, On the Road and At The Track \\PAGE30•StomPAndStAmmEr\\ In the mid- to late-Eighties, in every weird backwater on the Once in Oxford, “not paying Tim, which brings us to the fate- Tim toured and played with a map.” Calder says. “He could much attention to music” natu- ful day in 2006 when the soon- number of Atlanta-based bands drive you into a Mississippi jun- rally failed to prevent Tim from to-be Tim Lee 3 was born. including Swimming Pool Qs with gle to locate an obscure folk art- participating in a few projects “One Saturday morning, I Jeff Calder; Homemade Sister ist, then, on a Sunday, haul you with locals like Blue Mountain, woke up and the first thing out with Linda Hopper and Ruthie across the border into Louisiana Wilco bassist John Stirratt, of my mouth was, I want to learn Morris (which would eventually where you could get a frozen Garrison Starr, and Neilson how to play bass,’” Susan recalls. morph into Magnapop); and alt- daiquiri at a drive-thru window.” Hubbard. And yet, without The next thing she knew, Tim honky-tonkers Slim Chance & the Around the time of the release practicing, recording, touring had procured a pawn shop bass Convicts. He also co-founded the of what is arguably his finest solo and songwriting piled up on his and started teaching her how to short-lived Cosmonecks with Dave album to date, Crawdad (1991, plate, Tim had to find something play it. Six months later, she was Weil who would move on to front DB Recs), which features mem- else to feed his restless nature. onstage at a club in Knoxville, the still extant Blacktop Rockets. bers of the Coolies, Swimming That something was racing. and from there to a show with “As a man-of-the-people, Tim Pool Qs, Lava Love, and Right More specifically, Tim and Mitch Easter, a benefit concert in would like you to think he’s com- as Rain, Tim felt his mojo dissi- Susan immersed themselves in the Oxford backing Amy Rigby and pletely untutored, that he’s never pating. The thrum of innovation world of dirt late model racing. Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles), a even picked up an instrument,” and discovery was being super- This type of automobile racing Windbreakers reunion set in LA, says Swimming Pool Qs founder seded by the blunt, inevitable takes place on small dirt-surfaced and a pop festival in Chapel Hill. Jeff Calder. “The truth is, he’s a juggernaut of commerce. oval tracks located by the hun- “I was scared to death at first, great musician who can learn any- “The whole scene had gone dreds in outlying metro suburbs but now I’m totally addicted to thing in a couple of passes.” from being this cool music and small towns across the it,” she admits, and that’s a very Calder recalls “a Swimming thing to everybody fighting over country. Think of dirt late model good thing. Pool Q’s crisis situation” in 1989 record deals,” Tim says. “I pretty racing as the old school, acoustic Inspired by a shared commit- when the band needed a bass much spent the ’90s not paying Americana analogue to the highly ment to their art and audience, player for a string of East Coast much attention to music.” commercialized and globalized, the Tim Lee 3 represents that dates “up to Maine and back.” Once again, the Lees pulled raging computer age complex rarest of combinations: a hus- After getting the call and driving up stakes and headed back to represented by NASCAR or band and wife team that writes over from Jackson, Calder says Mississippi, this time to Oxford. Indy Car. Today, Tim and Susan and plays formidably good rock Tim learned the bass parts for “It was all about leaving everything are the editor and art direc- ‘n’ roll music. ﬂ two sets of “pretty difficult mate- else behind and going back to tor, respectively, of Late Model rial” in less than a week, adding school,” says Susan who, as a pho- Illustrated, which is published in The Tim Lee 3 play the that Tim’s skill set went beyond tographer and freelance designer, Murphy, North Carolina. Hummingbird Stage and his onstage contributions. had always handled the graphical “Neither of us is very good at Taproom in Macon on Saturday, “Tim knew every side street side of Tim’s musical endeavors.

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