I first heard them years ago when I got their cassingle "The Smell of Lemon Verdana / Yarn Yearning." This was back when southern rap was all about OutKast and The Geto Boys -- funky and offbeat. The Faulknerds' focus at the time, fonts and lusty knitters, fit in with the first baby steps of nerdcore rap and seemed to fit their goals as it was printed in 6 point Verdana (what else?) on the back of their cassingle: "to distract us while getting our theses on Faulkner done and, oh yeah, maybe score with a cute sophistichick or two."
Eventually, the Faulknerds found a small following, even beyond the two sophistichicks (both not incidentally lusty knitters) Joe Kwanzaa would eventually lay. (Go Joe!) Their talent was always bigger than lil' old Natchez. They spread their music through underground tapes and CDs, oddly rejecting the Internet unlike so many other nerdcore trailblazers. Instead, they relied on gimmicks that garnered them plenty of local press coverage. One of their publicity stunts was to travel up the Natchez Trace Parkway in their art car, a VW bug decorated with corks from wine bottles, distributing free cassingles the whole way to everyone under 25 they met along the way. They met a producer in Nashville who, of course, thought their music could be greatly improved if they'd just change their image and add a steel guitar. Oh, and Kay D. Would-LAN should lose 20 pounds and wear more leopard print, but Rollin' Smoke had been telling her that for years.
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Their biggest marketing stunt was a robocall (Kay D. Would-LAN was dating the president of the Ole Miss College Republicans at the time, who thought she looked just fine out of leopard print) to all residents of Oxford, Mississippi -- including the students of Ole Miss -- the week before finals. People who picked up their phone were greeted by the voice of William Faulkner himself as the Faulknerds' best song, "Straight Outta Compson," began.
"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even hear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question. When will I be blown up?"
<explosion sound>
Straight outta Compson --
Crazy muthafucka named Ben G
From the geeksta group called the Faulknerds
When I see thems golf, I get my rocks off,
Moan like a whore and Luster begins to scoff . . .
One call was placed to the South Shall Rise Again Society Headquarters (SSRA), located in a fancy-schmancy old plantation on the outskirts of town. The SSRA have had a beef with William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams for years. Even though these authors have brought more fame and notoriety to the South than all SSRA members combined, the SSRA still hates them for "depicting the mighty South as a dying beast instead of an awakening giant."
One member, a feisty chick about 4'11" and going by the name of PYT Beauregard, even started a nerdcore beef with the Faulknerds, performing "(I'm a Lady, But I Gotta Say) F. Compson" on Peachtree Cable Access' Hotlanta Hootenanny in August 2007. (For the record, the "lady" just said "F" too. She's a walking radio edit. The FCC might love her, but she's really not very much fun.) The Faulknerds followed up with "2,400 Square Miles and Growing," a boastful rap about Yoknapatawpha County filling up with Oprah devotees.
Hell hath no fury like a geek fight. You can almost hear them leveling up. Oh wait, you can hear them leveling up - "2,400 Square Miles and Growing" contains samples from Super Mario Bros. PYT Beauregard relies on pulling her samples exclusively from the Bill Gaither Trio and Uncle Dave Macon. Needless to say, her self-imposed exclusivity has also limited her fan base.
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Most nerdcore fans have sided with the Faulknerds in this geeksta beef -- with good reason. PYT Beauregard is a one-hit wonder, if you can call her efforts a "hit" since there is no chart for nerdcore, of course. It's hard to rank the listening habits of about 5000 people who don't leave their basement except to buy more Mountain Dew. But the Faulknerds have released a reel-to-reel(!) called The Portable Faulknerd featuring their best and latest works, including "Straight Outta Compson," "Zapruder in the Dust," "Sanctionary," "Requiem for a Gun" and "The Sound of Flurries." My favorite is "As I Lay Di & King," a crass "what if" about bedding one's dead heroes. (I was lucky enough to score one of the 25 limited edition 78rpm vinyl pressings. Thanks, Joe!)
Now that the last of the Faulknerds is set to get his master's degree in English literature from Sewanee, the future of the Faulknerds is unclear. Like Dilsey, will they endure? Or will they, like the Compsons they rap about, just implode?