WORDS / DAVE MORRIS
PHOTO / COLLEY BAILEY

Local music scenes are often thought of only in terms of the bands or the venues in that particular area. However, there is another very important element to most high functioning music scenes – the promoters.
Starting in the mid 1990s, the residents of Northwest Arkansas have enjoyed the services of Chris Selby, an exceptionally competent and accomplished DIY promoter (among other things). If that name doesn’t sound familiar, then perhaps you’ve heard of Clunk Music Hall, Clunk Records, Clunk’s Hungry Express Wagon, or something else involving the name he is more publicly associated with, Clunk.
Clunk Records was responsible for selling an entire generation of Northwest Arkansas music fans both regional and national underground CDs and LPs, as well as releasing original music by vital local acts such as the Paper Hearts. Clunk Music Hall brought a multitude of meaningful music into the region, such as Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, At The Drive-In, The Get-Up Kids, …And You Will Know Us By Trail of Dead, Ted Leo + Pharmacists, The Mars Volta, Les Savy Fav, Pinback, Nada Surf, the Dismemberment Plan, Murder City Devils, Melt Banana, The Special Goodness, The Faint, Wesley Willis, and many, many other national and regional acts. Even Lucero made their Fayetteville debut at Clunk Music Hall, an event frontman Ben Nichols remembers fondly.
“I’d never been to Clunk before we played there, but we’d heard rumor of it for quite a while. It was our first show in Fayetteville, I believe, and I remember being really impressed that a town like Fayetteville had a place that cool. We played on the floor in front of the stage because I think we thought the stage was too big for us,” Nichols says.
With such a steady influx of national artists performing on a regular basis, Clunk Music Hall attracted patrons from all over the state and region. However, it was the locals that kept the venue alive. “I had lots of good friends and other great local folks help me out during shows at Clunk. Without them it never would’ve worked at all. They saw a lot of mediocre bands just to help me out,” Selby says.
Northwest Arkansas NPR Affiliate KUAF 91.3’s Classical Music Director, Katy Henriksen, was one of the local regulars during Clunk Music Hall’s heyday. “Clunk Music Hall was a haven during college for me – it opened up my freshman year, I think, so I wasn’t able to go to bars to check out any music. Clunk was in touch with what was going on in the indie scene bringing folks like Damien Jurado through town in a venue I could actually get into. Bare bones, it was all about the music and the people who came to enjoy the music. What I have is a fond glowing memory of coming together over all types of bands at a dark threadbare warehouse extremely sparsely furnished.”
Of course this steady flow of big names also helped local artists find their way; bands such as the Paper Hearts, Skirt, Vore, Spoken, Total Knockouts, Kung-Fu Grip, Gal’s Revenge, 100 Years War, Fizzgig, 2 Dean Crew, and countless other local acts played the Clunk stage as well.
Fayetteville Flyer co-owner Todd Gill performed at Clunk Music Hall with several local acts from 1998-2002. “Chris would book popular local openers that sounded nothing like the touring bands to make sure enough people would show up. Sometimes he’d have the locals play last just to keep people around. That exposed a lot of folks to music they’d normally never consider listening to. And it led to a lot of appreciation for different genres.
“Combine that with the venue doubling as a record store, which carried the same music as it booked and you end up with a really strong community of musicians and fans of music. I think Clunk created a lot of musicians out of people who were previously just fans. It’s easier to imagine yourself learning to play an instrument when you’re around so many musicians, especially when you’re in such an intimate environment with players of all ages and levels.”
Gill noted that Fayetteville became known as a must-stop city for a lot of bands and booking agents, which led to a high caliber of talent coming through the city.
“I think people felt obligated to themselves to show up and watch a band even if they’d never heard of them. Nobody wanted to wake up on a random Tuesday morning to discover they’d missed something epic at Clunk the night before,” Gill says.
Personally I’ve always wondered what was the story behind the name Clunk and like most nicknames, it’s a bit silly. Young Chris Selby joked about naming his future child Clunk and the name was instead re-purposed for the name of his record store and obviously it stuck for him personally. Clunk wanted to have a record store since he was 13 years old, and that naturally lead him to become involved with booking performances, hosting a series of radio shows on 104.9 The X, owning a venue and later a record label, and participating in local music in pretty much every other conceivable way. However, his involvement as an actual musician has been surprisingly non-existent; he “can’t sing” and his stint in a joke band called the Muffins consisted of him “hitting play for a pre-recorded samba beat.”
Clunk attributes his success with a simple philosophy: “Don’t screw anyone over and don’t be an a–hole.” Most of his biggest shows were booked either by merely calling the appropriate booking agent or band contact and asking if they were interested in playing the Fayetteville area or by old-fashioned networking based on his previous shows. He also humorously notes, “And if they were bad at geography I would help them route shows here by being familiar with a map of the United States.”
Unfortunately, Clunk was burned out by mid-2002 and in the face of growing financial concerns, Clunk Music Hall closed its doors. Clunk Records survived until 2005 before succumbing to the all too common fate of most brick and mortar record stores in the 21st through his friendship and great working relationship with JR’s and Dickson Theater owner Wade Ogle, he was able to continue booking local shows on a much more sporadic basis. Even after the demise of his namesake venue, Clunk has booked big shows such as the Shins at the Dickson Theater and The Postal Service, The White Stripes, and TV on the Radio (different shows) at JR’s He even recently brought Sub Pop’s King Tuff to the current JR’s. A local t-shirt company even still produces a t-shirt with the old Clunk Records logo, signifying the lasting impact Clunk has had on the area culturally.
Although he has no immediate plans involving music aside from the occasional DJ set at JR’s, Clunk is still a visible part of the community through his current business endeavor, Clunk’s Hungry Express Wagon, or C.H.E.W. For a modest fee, Clunk will deliver (on a moped, no less) food from a growing number of restaurants on and around Dickson Street to your door. “I like delivering food.  It is much simpler and less stressful than booking shows,” he says.
So if you’re in the downtown Fayetteville area and would like to meet a local icon to see what all the fuss is about, and also have some food delivered, call 479-283-7655.

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