South Region Groove of the Month: CYC

by Chip Schramm

The South Region Groove of the Month this month is like a large octopus capable of playing a different instrument with each arm. Known to old-school fans as the Cooper-Young Cyndicate, or more commonly CYC, both the band's lineup and their sound have explored every corner of the musical map. Like almost any young band trying to forge its identity, CYC has added and dropped a few members while maintaining a core group of musicians to channel the creative energy. In addition to the obvious mixture of live playing with a DJ to spin records, the members of CYC also combine some classical training with raw soul in their horn section. With most of the members in their early 20's, CYC has established itself in the Memphis music scene with a weekly gig at Willie Mitchell's Legends on Beale Street. They have hit the festival circuit on a regional basis so far, but are planning to take off on a longer tour in the summer.

The core of the group consists of founding members Elliott Ives on lead guitar and vocals, Blake Rhea on bass, and Jeff Burch on drums. The current lineup features former Straight Up Buzz frontman Lee Sharp on sax and vocals, Pat Fusco on keys, Spanky Malone on trumpet, and DJ Aramis mixing and spinning on the turntables. This lineup creates some jazzy jams and solid funk grooves, but doesn't stray too far away from their rap and hip-hop influences. In 1998, local rapper A.K. was nominated for the Premier Player Award by the the local chapter of the Grammys in the rap category. The band and rapper have parted ways since, but CYC still maintains a spunk in their verse and swagger in their step whenever they hit the stage. From humble beginnings as a local group at a local coffeehouse to gigs at an infamous punk club called Barristers to their current spot on Beale St., CYC has already come a long way. I recently had a chance to talk with Elliott Ives at his midtown Memphis abode about the past, present and future plans of CYC. Excerpts from that interview follow.

C: You guys have come a long way since you were playing those regular gigs at Barristers. That club isn't even there anymore.

E: Well, when we were doing the Barristers gig, the money wasn't even the big thing. On Wednesday nights, we could do whatever the hell we wanted to do, and people would come out. We'd get a good crowd and that's how we established ourselves in the Memphis scene. We got to play Legends back before the club even opened for Crossroads, that festival that local bands could do, and there were a lot of P.R. people in from records labels. We did Legends and we were in the rap category. We were the last band to play and they had good acceptance towards that. The owner, J.C., asked us to come back and play a couple more and we started the Saturday night thing there late night. It's been goin' on for about 14 or 15 months now.

C: How did you get hooked up with A.K. back in the beginning?

E: Jeff and I and Blake had started playing just the three of us at Jeff's house on Mita in the Cooper-Young district. I met A.K. through Jeff when we were playing every day there and he would come in and just start flowin' like nobody's business. That turned us on and we were like "damn," we can just play this beat and this dude comes in and gives us his soul and his energy from where he's from, he just gives it all to us. We dug it, so we said let's see what we can do and we added some horns and the keyboard player and it just started as a collective improv thing. We did The Edge [coffeehouse] and started getting bigger gigs and started getting some tunes and got our first album out, "Straight from the Cyndicate" at the end of '97. Then A.K. showed a lot of his unprofessionalism at some of the gigs and we made a little change there. We went from A.K. to Candace Ivory [on backing vocals] and did another album with her. Now we have Lee Sharp in the band from Straight Up Buzz.

C: I would say picking up Lee was pretty big for you. How did that change the sound of the band?

E: Everything, it changed everything. I feel more comfortable playing with Lee next to me than anyone else. A.K. kept me on the edge because I didn't know what he was gonna do. Excitement, yes, but it was like....."holy shit".....He brought a lot of flavor to the band, but never really busted out. Lee, everything he does to me sounds really good. Now we choose to sing all of our vocals together. There's still some lead stuff that I do and now some lead stuff that he does, but most of the time we're together. Now Spanky's been singing and the three of us have gotten this thing together that's really kick ass. Lee's sax playing is tearin' it up.

C: He went for a while without all of the keys on his sax. Does he have all of them now?

E: He's missing eight notes.

C: To play like he plays and be missing that many notes, that's absurd!

E: He's very talented, man. I consider him just a big butt-load of talent. I look up to him and we work really well together. They're so many facets to this band that are good. There's the rhythm section that's really tight, our drummer and bass player create that. There's a good melodic thing, a good harmonic thing with our keyboard player, he's got a very good touch, and the horn players just bring really great stuff together.

C: The past four or five times I've seen you, you've sounded a little bit different than the time before. I remember the last time, I heard a good bit of salsa or latin influence in some of your songs. Where are most of your influences coming from?

E: Not really anywhere as far as individuals go. Everybody's got their own sound in this band and their own little thing. You could probably look at each individual person and see where they're coming from. Collectively, everybody in this band plays in this band because they love the music. That's the only reason. It's not to make money, it's not for the sheer purpose of entertainment. It's to show people that you can put all different genres of music and feel different moods of music instead of having to be radio friendly. We're trying to throw a little bit of everything at everybody because we like every kind of music and we're going to play every kind of music. We think we can make it all fit together until we make it all one movement, one expression.

C: Coming from studying at Rhodes College; studying guitar, drums, and piano all at one time or another, what do you think has influenced your playing the most?

E: What has influenced my playing the most has been being challenged by the music we play. When we first started playing, I did not know anything about the guitar. I knew a few chords, I did not know any theory, I knew nothing. From playing with our drummer Jeff Burch, he taught both of us how to play music - not how to play our instruments, but how to play with other people. How to listen, how to makes things happen on a different level, how to make things happen on a different level. Everything was rhythmic. At heart, everyone in this band is a drummer. Going to Rhodes, I picked up on some of the theory and learned more scales and learned technically how to play the guitar better. But there's been no other influence for me to do what I do and put input with this band than just to play with these guys forever and listen to other people. We've had probably over twenty people that have been in the band before.

C: Yeah, I see that a lot down in New Orleans, especially with the jazz groups down there. They trade out guys in an open atmosphere. Do you feel like you get that a lot here in Memphis - people just willing to sit around and share the groove?

E: CYC has always been just one big project. Now it's more refined because we have to make it that way in order to succeed and make it tighter. The music is still there. The idea will always be there. We want to get this out to a bunch of people. We think the musical tide might be changing.

C: How about DJ Aramis? Can you tell what he's doing when he throws a couple of records down and changes the beat? Is he up that loud in the monitor?

E: To us, DJ Aramis is a gift. He really just makes the vibe of the show that much more happenin'. For that, Aramis is irreplaceable and Aramis is a vital part of the band, although he doesn't know all the substance to our songs, he doesn't know all the music theory we know. He doesn't come to rehearsals unless we're getting ready for a festival or a big show and we'll put together a set and he'll know exactly where everything is. This past weekend we popped out with four new songs and he'd never heard them. He's really good about listening to the band. When we end a song before going into another one, he always throws this ending in and has something else cued. He just has this great hip-hop vibe. As far as sampled stuff goes, we worked with that before on our albums. We've messed with loops. We'll put a kick drum over some stuff. It makes the music more ballsy and more flavorful, that's for sure.

C: Y'all played down at Bayfest in Mobile this past year. That's where I grew up. How was the crowd down there?

E: Our spot was at 6:30 on Friday night, so we were the first band to open up the entire festival and the crowd was decent. We got enough people to hear us to make it definitely worth it. What was good about Mobile was that they gave us a chance. Every band that played there was signed or a bigger act. We played in front of Three Doors Down who opened for Freddy Jones Band who opened for Kenny Wayne Sheppard who, of course, is a big act. We were one of the only groups down there who didn't have a record deal. We're very independent. I'm just happy we got to make it down there.

C: So do you ever call yourselves the Cooper-Young Cyndicate anymore or is it just CYC?

E: Man, it's always gonna be the Cyndicate, always. But..... it's just CYC. When people used to come up to me and say "what's CYC?" I used to say all sorts of stuff. (laughs)......It could be anything, just anything you want it to be, but dammit.....It's just CYC.

C: You want to get the music out like you said and embrace a lot of different styles. Do you have any plans for any extensive touring when you get done with school?

E: Starting in the Summer of 2000 CYC is gonna make a big turn. We're all gonna ditch school, I'm going to graduate and everybody else will either graduate or just take time off. We're just gonna hit it hard man. We're gonna design a little tour and hit it as hard as we can and go as far as we can every night. Hopefully we're gonna play in front of a lot of people. That's really what we need is some exposure. I think enough people in enough towns would dig it that we could do something. We've got a pretty good fan base here in Memphis. That's the important thing, to have your hometown behind you.