By Kody Ford
Editor

Bartin Memberg (aka Martin Bemberg) has released a new album Ready for the Good Things, featuring new songs and freshly mastered tracks from his previous EPs. The record dropped on Election Day (Nov. 6 for you low information voters) and can be purchased on his Bandcamp page. About half of the album was recorded at his former home in Austin and the remainder back in Fayetteville, AR. He played all the instruments handled vocals along with mixing and producing with the exception of “Take You Home” featuring Daryl Lee on vocals.

“It’s really meant to be released on vinyl, with four songs per side,” he said. “Side A has the prettier songs, and Side B is mostly rock n roll. The online release is intended to encourage people to buy the digital album so that I can press the album on vinyl, as it’s meant to be heard.”

The album walks the line between lackadaisical and ironic, but handles such a delicate balance with precision. The title track “Ready for the Good Things” showcases a slacker ethos reminiscent of great 90s bands like Pavement and Guided by Voices. “McCartney Goes to Church” harkens back to Martin’s Memphis Pencils days. The reverb-heavy melodies on the record recall Panda Bear, Caribou and Beach House.

Martin has been a staple in Fayetteville music scene for several years with the exception of a brief move to Austin, TX. His previous band Memphis Pencils garnered acclaim and a loyal following selling out bars like Smoke & Barrel. They released two great records Crayon Jewels and Shhh, I’m Rustic before parting ways last year.

Music has long played a role in Bemberg’s life.  Some of his earliest memories are of his parents letting him stay home from preschool to record a capella tunes around the age of three. Around this time his parents enrolled him the Suzuki Music School in Fayetteville for piano lessons, which he continued until around age 11.

“I think my parents and my teacher, Sally Carter, had a sort of agreement where they weren’t going to push me to become a virtuoso,” said Bemberg. “I think the point was for me to be exposed to music rather than to get technically proficient, and I’d say I got a pretty good ear and sense of melody out of the deal.”

In junior high, he began his first punk band, The Defiant with his future Memphis Pencils’ band mate Reed Faitak.  Throughout high school he played in other bands.

“We were made to feel like rock stars by our moms and our Fayetteville High School classmates,” he said.

The reassurance helped shape his confidence during the next chapter of his life. In college at the University of Arkansas, Martin met Gary and Jim Sloan and, along with Faitak, formed the Memphis Pencils. They won several Northwest Arkansas Music Awards, went on several tours and was named Arkansas’ Best New Band by The Boston Phoenix in 2009.

“Again, people around town made us feel like rock stars, but I really we were just a medium-sized fish in a tiny pond when I moved to Austin with Reed and JD Paul, Pencils’ drummer to make it big or something like that,” he said. “Neil Lord and those two guys had been planning to move to Austin for like half a year, and while the band was in Philadelphia on tour their fourth roommate backed out so they invited me to come down. My number one reason for going to was to keep the band going, but when we got to Austin it just didn’t take. Not really sure why. I think everybody was just ready to start over.”

Martin began again as well, playing guitar and recording Elsewise and Cetera when he wasn’t working as an ESL conversation tutor or writing poetry. One good thing came out of his Austin excursion.  He met his wife Kristin, whom he credits with accelerating his creative output. They got hitched at the Travis County courthouse and returned to the UA so he could finish school, put together a new band, and continued recording.

He said, “I’ve only recorded in home studios where whoever’s turning the knobs will do whatever the hell I ask them to or by myself, so I don’t really know what it’s like to do it in a professional studio. But what I like about it is that you have total control over what sounds end up on your record (given you know how to manipulate the technology).”

Ready for the Good Things features some of these newer recordings. The title track was influenced by “Modern Man” song by The Arcade Fire, but also by George Harrison, at least lyrically. After watching a George Harrison documentary on HBO, Martin wrote the song.

“The lyrics are kind of existential, which isn’t exactly a new thing for me, but it’s certainly not the norm,” he said. “I’d say 85% of my songs are about love. This one has lines like ‘Heaven knows that I’ve got time for the things I’ll leave behind.’ George Harrison’s stuff after the Beatles seemed to mostly be in this mode of, like, ‘How do I prepare my soul for the moment when it leaves my body?’ It’s a pretty sexy concept, I think.”

He describes much of his newer work as more straightforward pop/rock songs with a strong focus on melody.

“I’ve been going for that driving, straightforward, but not too in-your-face sort of sound,” he said. “And I’ve been using my acoustic guitar like an electric guitar, which is out of necessity and not because I’m a super cool dude – I left my amp in Austin with Neil and Reed.”

In the long run, Martin hopes to return to focusing on bands than him.

He said, “My plans for my solo work are for it to stop being solo work. I really want to play with a band again…There’s something to be said for recording all the parts yourself. It’s kind of like, that’s how you get the purest version of the song. But there’s a lot more to be said for letting other people add their own flourishes. That was my favorite part of Memphis Pencils. At the end there, with Joel, Reed, and JD, I wrote the songs and that was it. Everybody knew what to do immediately in rehearsals…And then, of course, after playing the new song for a couple weeks, each guy really figured out how to take their piece of it to the fullest extent. I don’t think anyone can possibly understand how much I miss the last incarnation of Memphis Pencils. At least we got it on record. I don’t know if there’s a single video recording of that lineup though. It’s a damned shame.”

To purchase Ready for the Good Things, visit the Bartin Memberg Band Camp page. As a token of appreciation, he is offering Beats, his instrumental hip-hop album, for free.

 

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