Step into the rock ’n’ roll time machine and take a trip back 20 years.
Yep. Lots of things going on in ’93. Nirvana releases In Utero; the world is introduced to the mighty Wu-Tang Clan via Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers); a little film called Jurassic Park enthralls moviegoers; the president is from a place called Hope; and Cheers ends its television run, making room for Frasier.
And in Little Rock, three pals who had just graduated from high school were getting together to form a band they would call The Big Cats.
“It’s been 20 years, yeah,” says Burt Taggart. “Josh Bentley is our bass player and he’s also sort of our archivist and historian, and he was the one who remembered and said, ‘You know, this is 20 years.’”
The anniversary lines up perfectly with the band’s annual late-December shows at Little Rock’s White Water Tavern. The Cats will take the stage Friday for a pair of sets, with the first being an all-ages affair at 6 p.m. and the 9 p.m. show for a 21-and-over crowd.
Oh, and Taggart says the early show will be child-friendly, with the volume turned down a bit. For the late show, however, it will be back to standard rock ’n’ roll volume. It will also mark the first time the band has shared a stage with fellow Little Rock stalwarts Mulehead.
Along with Bentley and Taggart during those first rehearsals back in 1993 was drummer Colin Brooks. Taggart had been in Chino Horde, while Brooks and Bentley were members of Substance. When those bands broke up, the three gravitated toward each other.
“I had written seven or eight songs by myself and Josh and Colin said, ‘Why don’t we mess around with those?’”
It was toward the end of the year, friends were making their way back into town on Christmas break from college, so the three figured, why not put on a New Year’s Eve show?
“After that, it was such a blast, we just never quit from there,” Taggart says.
The band added guitarist Shannon Yarbrough in 1994. In 1996, Bentley left for Nashville and Jason White took over bass duties, but things eventually came to a halt and the band split up.
After Yarbrough’s death in a May 7, 2000, car wreck, the Cats reconvened for a Christmas show, and later recorded a two song single for the band-operated Max Recordings (which uses Yarbrough’s middle name and is still run by Taggart), which led to the full-length Worrisome Blues in 2002.
The Cats released On Tomorrow in 2007 and the sprawling The Ancient Art of Leaving: High & Low in 2011 and The Ancient Art of Leaving: Two Parts in 2012.
The Cats have been scattered to the winds for quite a few years. White is a member of Green Day and lives in California; Brooks lives in New York and plays in Dan Zanes and Friends, a popular children’s group led by the ex-Del Fuego member; Taggart and Bentley keep the home fires burning in Little Rock. The annual December shows are often the only time the friends are able to be in the same spot at the same time.
Taggart says there’s no set list yet, but with 20 years of material, the band isn’t exactly searching for stuff to play.
Also, Taggart’s got something up his sleeve for the anniversary. He has been working piecemeal with the Cats on a track that just may make its debut Friday.
“A month ago, we started trading emails about the shows and I told them, ‘I’ve got a song,’” he said. Brooks was in the state for a Fayetteville gig, so he added drum parts to the rest of the contributions and, boom! “That’s Not the Reason.”
New Big Cats track? Yep. And it just might make its way into the set list.
Check it out Friday.
The Big Cats 6 p.m. Friday, White Water Tavern, 2500 W. Seventh St., Little Rock Admission: $5 (all ages) 9 p.m. Friday, White Water Tavern Admission: $10 Opener: Mulehead, 9 p.m. show only (501) 375-8400 whitewatertavern.com
Weekend, Pages 30 on 12/26/2013