The Music Man: Abram Morphew was an Experimental Musician that Became Part of a Community

An overnight shift and a cup of coffee brought Abram to his musical partner Jason Meeks in 2000, yet the two were not strangers. They had both played in the Lake Hamilton High School band (Pearcy, AR), but their interaction was quite limited until Abram struck up conversation with his waitress-a friend of Jason's-who reintroduced the two. "It was rather humorous when we first met," Abram recalls, "because there was this really familiar, I-already-know-you sort of attitude." They immediately felt kindred spirits; he is blunt about their outsider status, apparent to them both. "In Arkansas, not owning a pickup truck and not being an avid deer hunter isolates you from 90% of the culture. When you happen to find someone who is into anything outside of that cultural stigma, you tend to latch on."

After their fateful run-in, the duo worked with whatever they could scrape together in the small town of Fayetteville, AR and formed a band The Binary Market Show. "We started working on TBMS stuff as a side project… recording with tape machines and some rusty equipment that our friend had recovered from an old barn." It wasn't until July of 2002 that TBMS played their first live show. It was their last for four years. "We wound up forgetting a couple of major parts to the song and played for a mere 18 minutes," admits Abram. "That began this evaluation process as to whether or not we were even capable of playing as a two-piece outside of a recording environment."

The two finally built the nerve to face the outside world again, determined to pursue their own way whatever the consequences. As Abram explains, "Our music exists for us; it's what we've always done. We just put up the albums on our website and allow whomever to stumble upon them." It was never about fame and fortune for TBMS, but rather the existence of an underground music culture in a town with little to offer. This idea expanded into the innovative 8088 Record Collective. "We were initially hoping at least to document the happenings of our local music scene by recording bands." It became evident that this recording label would not be self-sustainable and funds would be necessary. They fused the twin concepts of social-networking site and music label to generate an online space for artists to interact with one another. "A rather idealistic notion to build a website around, but it's worked for us so far despite heavy criticism from various media sources." Lack of funds, thin initial audiences, problematic performances, mainstream-media criticism… Abram steadfastly refused to allow his vision to die. The spirit remains. "The records that we release aren't so much a collection of songs to be released to a faceless public as they are a document of the way we thought, felt and experienced in that period of time."

He and the rest of the collective are thriving, with eleven bands behind it. They have released various compilation albums and additional projects for The Binary Marketing Show are in the works. Their collective experiences speak for themselves and the message is clear: Stop letting the world define you; you're the author of your story, so don't be afraid to write your own definition.

Written by: LBucci (for uwemp.com)