Results tagged “Barley's Taproom” from Live Like This

Superdrag frontman John Davis has a busy summer ahead of him, most of it related to side projects. He recently played an Alex Chilton tribute show with the surviving members of Big Star, and he's got a solo show coming up at Barley's on Friday, June 4. It's the John Davis Liberation Front, which is apparently 40 minutes of solo material and 20 minutes of Davis talking about the ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Flesh Vehicle, the Nashville band led by Superdrag bassist Tom Pappas, is opening that show.

Then, on Friday, July 9, Davis is regrouping with his pre-Superdrag bandmates in 30 Amp Fuse--Mike Smithers and Joey Sanchez--for a one-off reunion show. They'll be playing at Barley's and performing the Wind-Up album in its entirety. I hope I can find my copy of that between now and then... (Thanks to Steve Wildsmith for the tip.)

Finally, Davis' alter ego Johnny Flame is recording tracks for a song-for-song tribute to the Misfits' 1982 superclassic album Walk Among Us. There's no release date yet, but you can hear a few early samples at Davis' MySpace page.

Today's First Friday, so there's art, box wine, and fruit-and-cheese plates all over downtown. There's plenty more to do this weekend, though. Here are some highlights:



• Wendy Williams, the AVN Transsexual Performer of the Year for 2009, will be signing autographs at Rainbow Video in North Knoxville today at 5 p.m. Jesse Fox Mayshark interviewed Williams for this week's issue.

• The John Myers Band, led by the local veteran R&B singer John Myers (above), is performing at Knoxville Museum of Art's Alive After Five series at 6 p.m. The show is free. Jack Neely profiled Myers in 2007, and I reviewed his new CD this week.

• Royal Bangs play at Barley's Taproom tonight, with former Bang Brandon Biondi's band Coolrunnings--whose remix of Twin Sister's "All Around and Away We Go" was featured on Pitchfork earlier this week--opening.

• The Night of 1,000 Dollys, an annual celebration of all things Dolly, moves to Club XYZ in Happy Holler tonight. The party includes biggest hair, biggest boobs, and Dolly look-alike contests and late-night Dolly-themed drag shows. It's 21 and up and admission is $3, unless you have a Dollywood season pass or ticket stub, in which case you get in free. 

• Local "anti-pop" stars Hudson K celebrate the release of their debut album, Shine, at the new Relix Variety Theatre in Downtown North, on Central Street, on Saturday night at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10, which includes a copy of the disc. Janet Jay interviewed Hudson K singer/pianist/songwriter Christina Horn this week. 

• Cellist/singer/songwriter Ben Sollee, whose scheduled headlining performance at last month's Dogwood Arts Rhythm N' Blooms festival was canceled when volcanic ash stuck Sollee in Sweden, will hold a makeup performance at the Knoxville Botanical Garden on Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$75. The expensive seats include a reception with Sollee. Discounts are available for Rhythm N' Blooms passholders. Jack Neely interviewed Sollee here. 

Last week the Rossini Festival street fair and productions by both Knoxville Opera and UT Opera Theatre made for a busy weekend. There's just as much to do this weekend.

• Walking With the Dinosaurs at Thompson-Boling Arena on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday--as close as your going to get to seeing real-life dinosaurs anytime soon

• Indie-folk singer Josephine Foster (above) at Pilot Light tonight at 10 p.m. On her most recent album, Graphic as a Star, Foster has set several Emily Dickinson poems to music.

• UT's annual spring concert, Volapalooza, moves from Fraternity Row to World's Fair Park this year with electro-pop group Passion Pit, Celtic rockers Flogging Molly, and novelty rapper Asher Roth. The concert starts at 7 p.m. tonight. Tickets are free for UT students, $15 for everybody else.

• Mitch Easter, the guy who produced the first two R.E.M. albums with Don Dixon and fronted the classic North Carolina college rock band Let's Active for most of the 1980s, is playing at Barley's Taproom on Saturday night. The Tim Lee 3 and Angela Faye Martin, whose new album Pictures From Home was one of the last projects Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous worked on before committing suicide in March, are opening.

• Self-deprecating TV comedian Kathy Griffin is performing two shows at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday. The first show, at 7 p.m., is already sold out, but tickets are still available for the 9 p.m. set. The performances are being recorded for an upcoming special on Bravo. 

The Dogwood Arts Festival's Rhythm N' Blooms Festival is officially underway--it started with the Blue Plate Special at the Square Room this afternoon--but the real kickoff is this evening at Market Square with 18 South and 6 Mile Express, accompanied by shows at Remedy Coffee and the Crown & Goose in the Old City.

Tomorrow and Sunday are the big days, though. The Square Room, the Bijou Theatre, and Barley's Taproom have dozens of performances scheduled from early afternoon until after midnight, and there are also sets at Preservation Pub and back at Remedy. Highlights for tomorrow include Pokey LaFarge, Yarn, Samantha Crain, the Dixie Bee-Liners, the Drunk Uncles, Dawn Landes and the Hounds, Medford's Black Record Collection, Brendon James Wright and the Wrongs, Taylor Brown, Kevin Hyfantis, the Songbirds, and Cutthroat Shamrock.

Sunday's big shows are at the Knoxville Botanical Garden in East Knoxville, with headlining sets by Ben Sollee (below) and Daniel Martin Moore and Carrie Rodriguez. The Black Lillies are also among the bands performing there. You can also catch Sollee at Remedy at 3 p.m. R.B. Morris and Hector Qirko are playing at the University of Tennessee Garden off Neyland Drive at 5 p.m.



 

Weekend passes are available for $40; there are no single-event tickets. Ticket info and a full schedule are available here.

Photo by M.T. Flatley

WUTK is hosting an Earth Day benefit show headlined by the Black Cadillacs at Barley's on Friday, April 9. There's a $5 cover (you can always donate a little more) and proceeds will be split between EarthFest 2010 and WUTK.

Joey English and Nashville's AutoVaughn will open the show. Doors at 9 p.m.

Not many people missed R.B. Morris' CD release show for his new album Spies Lies and Burning Eyes at Barley's back at the end of January. But a few key people--members of Morris' band, who couldn't make it into town because of snow--didn't make it, so Morris has scheduled another show on Friday, April 2, also at Barley's, so those guys can back him up.

Back in January, Morris, his long-time musical partner Hector Qirko, and the Tim Lee 3 made up the impromptu band for the release show. This time, Morris is bringing Dave Jacques, Paul Griffith, and Eric Fritsch in.

(In Mike Gibson's recent MP profile, Morris had this to say about the music industry:

"I was listening to an interview with a guy inside the business the other day. He was saying the music is the last consideration. It's a meat market. It's McDonald's. It's a beauty pageant. Let's send somebody up the flagpole, and if they hit, we'll run 'em up a bigger pole.

"I don't live in that world. And the few chances I had I either walked away from it because I saw what was going to happen or I went ahead and looked in the door and butted heads with someone and said forget it. That's a different life, and it's not mine."

So it's worth noting that this is Morris' third CD release show for the new album, counting a soft release gig at the Laurel Theater with Qirko in December.)

Members of local superstars Superdrag are getting together at Barley's next weekend to perform a set of Ramones covers under the name Warthog. You can read some details here.

The show's on Friday, Feb. 26, at 10 p.m. Admission's $5 or so.

Veteran soul/R&B/funk singer Charles Walker, who hooked up with a crack Nashville band called the Dynamites a few years ago, has performed several times in Knoxville. He and the band will be back at Barley's on Saturday, March 6.

The Dynamites are touring in support of a new album, Burn It Down, which was released in September.

The Drunk Uncles might be Knoxville's hardest-core country band. On their new album, Smashed Hits, they cover Buck Owens ("Tiger by the Tail") and Tom T. Hall ("Me and Jesus") and offer a handful of honky-tonk originals.

The band--Jeff Barbra, Mike McGill, Gordy Gilbertson, Eric Keeble, Brock Henderson, and Aram Takvoryan--has just lined up a show at Barley's Taproom next weekend. They're playing on Friday, Feb. 5.

You can hear some song samples here.

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, whose debut album Tell 'Em What Your Name Is! (Lost Highway) was all over best-of-2009 lists, are bringing their old-school funky R&B to Barley's on Feb. 19.

Back in the 1980s, the Relentless Blues Band was a staple of Knoxville's music scene. (They placed 34th in Metro Pulse's Best Knoxville Bands Ever poll earlier this year, tied with Erick Baker and Wh-Wh.) And now they're back, playing happy hour sets at the Catalyst courtyard in the Old City from 5-9 p.m.

Here's a bit Jack Rentfro wrote about the band in Cumberland Ave. Revisited:

A couple of years later, (Jacaranda) devolved from the double lead guitars-and-drums-Allman Brothers paradigm back into the trio that started it all. Montage was the name of this new, streamlined strategy of the Cortses and Jones. It was, regardless, "original, kick-ass" music, as Corts put it. Guest keyboardists with Montage included Leo Schmied, Joel Fairstein and Marcus Shirley. In 1988, Montage ceased to exist and Ed joined forces with local guitar madman, Don "Mad Dog" Rutherford, and dynamic frontman and bassist, Michael Delaney, to form the original edition of the Relentless Blues Band. This assemblage continues to exist in some form, usually with a Corts somewhere, sometimes with blueswoman Cheryl Renee on vocals. Jones, "Detroit Dave" Meer, Ladd and the Cortses are also known as the Nairobi Trio, a musical alter-ego that has played Knoxville clubs since 1989, usually presenting "obscure covers and rock classics" as their bill of fare.

And '90s indie rock band the Scenesters are getting back together for a reunion show at Barley's on Friday, July 31, with John Davis of Superdrag and Superdrag bassist Tom Pappas' Whip!

 

Tonight: The slightly bent noise/art-pop of Magik Markers with It Is a Code at Pilot Light, or the genuinely fierce Nashville funk-and-R&B revue The Dynamites with Charles Walker at Barley's Taproom, 10 p.m. There's also The Melungeons at Patrick Sullivan's and local honky-tonk revivalists J.C. and the Dirty Smokers at Preservation Pub.

Saturday: Two chances to see Elvis Perkins in Dearlnad--a specail Saturday Blue Plate Special at WDVX and later at the Catalyst.

Stuff to do tonight:

• It's First Friday, so art+free booze all over downtown. 

* The Best of Knoxville Party with the Dirty Guv'nahs, Jon Worley and Cornbred Blues Revival, and DJ Slink at the Cider House. More free booze.

• The 1220 CD release show at the Catalyst.

• The Felice Brothers at Barley's Taproom.

• Southern Culture on the Skids at the Square Room.

• Celebrate the grand opening of Southbound Bar & Grill with some trashy women and Confederate Railroad. 

Bobby Bare Jr. and his Young Criminals Starvation League and a whole bunch of locals--Mic Harrison and the High Score, Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere--along with 20-year-old YouTube ukulele phenomenon Julia Nunes are performing tonight at Barley's Taproom as a benefit for WUTK 90.3 FM (the University of Tennessee's student-run radio station, which depends entirely on donations) and tomorrow's EarthFest celebration.

WUTK general manager and program director Benny Smith talks about the music he's been listening to lately here.

Show starts at 9 p.m., admission is $5.