User talk:Publist4music

From their first live show at Hedgens in 1984 to a packed house, The Pigs (Tommy Akins, Stewart Bird, [Gary Fordham], and Chris Lanier) established their selves as a force to be reckoned with and started playing along with the other house band The Georgia Satellites weekly at the rock club. They were discovered by a talent agent from the up and coming Hot Trax record label and recorded their debut release EP “P is for Pig”. With songs like “Memories”, “In God We Trust” and “Oh No”, the album got a lot of airplay up North with it reaching #5 on a Wisconsin radio station and was ranked higher than R.E.M. on a Québec, Canada radio station. Unable to fulfill the request to tour in Canada, they continued writing and playing live in the Southeast. The band had the chance to record at The Drive Inn Studio in North Carolina with Don Dixon around the time he was recording The Smithereens latest release. Out of those sessions came six cuts. A video was made out of the song “Make Believe”at The 688 club in Atlanta. “Lonely Town” and “Glamour Boys” were other popular songs to some out of those sessions.

With this success, they started opening for major label acts like Dreams So Real, Bo Diddly, and The Godfathers. They started expanding their fan base playing regularly at important clubs like CBGB's in New York, NY, The Milestone in Charlotte, NC, The Antenna Club in Memphis, TN, Einstein A Go Go in Jacksonville, FL and The Cotton Club in Atlanta, GA.

The band was given the opportunity to be produced by Mitch Easter of Let’s Active fame, and the band headed back to North Carolina in lay down six tracks in the Drive Inn Studio in Chapel Hill. Two of the songs “Cambodia” and “Spinning” would eventually make to their release on Porcelain Records. “ Cambodia” even got airplay on WKLS 96 Rock in Atlanta and was featured on its Sunday Night radio broadcast of Peach Jam.

With The Pigs' popularity rising, Russell Carter came into the picture to shop for a record deal since he had been successful in doing that with other musical artist in the Atlanta music scene including The Indigo Girls. Carter told The Pigs that International Record Syndicate was interested in signing them. The Pigs were advised not to sign with the label since I.R.S. was at the time in financial difficulty and that Carter would have a better deal coming for them. The Pigs management Johnny Guy and Gary Mills started promoting their own release of the Pigs – a 13 songs cassette called “Ogha Ildwa”(Pig Latin for Hog Wild). It was sold at all their live shows and many thousands were purchased. The Pigs started playing bigger venues as an opening act; they opened for The Replacements at The Roxy in Atlanta and Drivin’ n Cryin’ at the Macon Museum of Art. They also started headlining to sold at shows in places like Shannon’s in Rome, Georgia, Joplin, Missouri, Cincinatti, Ohio, Jackson, Mississippi and The Flame in Statesboro, Georgia. During that time a cassette came out called “Pig Music” and they were selling more than they could produce.