While we’ve been headquartered in Nashville, TN for quite some time, some of you old-school Fuzz Heads know that we got our start down in Jacksonville, FL—spiritual home of surfing and Void Magazine, which began as a local Jacksonville Beach surf report.
The Original Fuzz founding team spent its early days paddling the waters of Jax Beach attempting to ride the gnarly, haphazard, shark infested waves that shaped East Coast surf culture. In that regard, Void is a kindred spirit.
Void recently launched a new music series they’re calling “Office Music.” In support, we’re proud to premier the latest installment featuring one of our favorite bands with ties to Nashville—Champagne Superchillin’.
Not only does Champagne Superchillin’ call Nashville label—Soft Junk—home, it features some of the most creative musicians to emerge from the Nashville scene in recent years. We’re stoked to premier the latest edition of Office Music featuring Champagne Superchillin’. We’ve also got a brief Q&A about the project with Void editor, Matt Shaw.
Merci!
Q&A w/ Void Editor Matt Shaw
Void started as surf report and has evolved into a culture hub for Northeast Florida. There is a ton of crossover from the music world and surf culture, especially when you live near a coast. What is it about coastal cities that breeds this kind of crossover creativity?
I'd love to say that because surfing—and skating to greater extent—are activities that take you places and expose you to different people, cultures, art and music, that everybody who participates in those activities ends up all the more enlightened for it. It's not always the case, unfortunately. But going back to the golden era of surfing in the late '50s/early '60s, surfing was a counterculture activity and surfers really embraced that identity. The cool cats loved jazz, the kooks liked the Beach Boys. I think that spirit of outsiders looking to identify with outsider stuff—whether it music or art—prevails in pockets of surf communities around the globe. Later on, for my generation at least, the culture around surf/skate videos in the ‘90s and early ‘2000s definitely exposed a lot of surfers and skaters (us here at Void, especially) to all kinds of music—Hip hop, reggae, electronic, metal, garage were all prevalent (along with some really dated pop-punk, of which many of us still take guilty pleasure in).
Jacksonville, Florida isn't exactly on the map when it comes to music these days. It has a rich history of southern rock but a lot of people just think of Florida Man and Republicans. Are you hoping to change this?
We talk a lot about this at Void. It goes much deeper than Southern Rock—which, yes it's cool that the Allman Brothers formed here and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special are from here. But even dating back to the turn of the century The Black National Anthem, “’Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing,” a song which Beyoncé performed at Coachella this year, was written here in Jax. There's been a thriving Hip Hop scene here since essentially the birth of Hip hop, the Punk and HC scenes remain vibrant, and we got the Bedroom Pop thing dialed, too (Sub Pop's Yuno lives here). I think what we've been missing is a homegrown platform for these artists. We need to be able to show them to the folks who live here before the rest of the world finds them and claims them. The artists need to feel supported and feel that this region is a part of their identity. We haven't been able to do that, and so people just think ABB is from Macon, Georgia. People will give us Limp Bizkit, though!
How did Into the Void: Office Music Series come together?
Besides writing about local artists in the mag, we wanted to find a way to expose their music to our readers. We invited a bunch of bands to come in and play three song sets in our office during work hours (ala Tiny Desk or KEXP), Glenn Van Dyke (Boytoy) recorded and mixed the sessions, and local surf videographer John Massey setup a simple two camera shoot. We tried to invite the most diverse grouping of artists in to kind of showcase how deep our scene goes, from Hip hop collective L.O.V.E (Culture) to garage rockers Mercy Mercy to Bedroom Pop singer/songwriter LANNDS to the mighty 10-piece Afro-Cuban Salsa band LPT. From there it has branched out to include regional and national acts like Miami's Ben Katsman's DeGreaser and, recently, Brooklyn-by-way-of Nashville's Champagne Superchillin'. We're hoping to make our office a must-play for bands touring the region. It's a lofty goal, but I think we're on the right track.