Walking up to the Hi-Tone Friday night, ground zero for Gonerfest 6's night shows, I heard the first beer bottle of the night break before I even got in the club. I took it as the equivalent of the bell a boxer hears.

Goner Records bands certainly have a sound, and it's rooted in Memphis' blues rock history, but that sound has been transformed by bands from places as disparate as France, Seattle, Puerto Rico, and Omaha. For men and women of a certain age growing up on punk, this weekend was church.

Friday night, that was spelled out with sets from the Intelligence, who worked the electro side of the Goner sound, and Thee Ohsees, who seemed more "peppy" than usual and plowed through the riffy, jerky side of it. Puerto Rico's Davila 666 took the '77 sound and ran with it through a short 'n' sweet set. A good crowd was still hanging around for the night's headliners, the Compulsive Gamblers, featuring ex-Oblivians Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber. By 1:45am, there was still no sign of Cartwright, until Memphis icon/Gonerfest MC Ross Johnson got on the mic and explained he had fallen asleep in his van. Still, the group pulled out a superb set of punk-blues, proving once again that Cartwright could have easily been ruled the boards at Stax if he'd been born 30 years earlier.

Saturday, there was sort of that last night of South by Southwest feel, where people are wound up and down at the same time. French quintet Sonic Chicken 4 was excellent, and should be seen tomorrow night at Beerland. Omaha trio the Box Elders ended its set with an inspired cover of the Undertones' "Teenage Kicks." L.A.'s masked punks No Bunny were sprayed with Faygo by some young men in the crowd, though their Insane Clown Posse affiliations were unclear. I was super excited about headliners the Cheater Slicks, but they seemed to be having an off night and were almost too loud.

Paging through the Memphis Flyer on Sunday, I came across an interview with Goner Records co-founders Zac Ives and Eric Friedl, in which Friedl explained what I'd been trying to about these bands all weekend:

"They took the Memphis/Oblivians kind of scuzzy blues-rock sound and figured it out," Friedl says. "About five years ago, they twisted it into something else. They got good at this idea of low fidelity, simple, melodic songs, and very direct guitar-based stuff."