Results tagged “The Valarium” from Live Like This

Just in case you missed him at MoogFest in Asheville last weekend, Gregg Gillis, the Pittsburgh DJ/producer who mixes and matches samples from classic rock and Top 40 and goes by the name Girl Talk, is coming back to Knoxville. He'll be at the Valarium on Jan. 24; ticket details haven't been announced yet. (News about his new album is also expected soon.)

Chris Buckner wrote about Gillis back in 2008.

It might be a surprise to their fans, but everybody doesn't like Mumford and Sons, the exceedingly popular young English folk-rock band (think Coldplay meets the Decembrists) that sold out its Nov. 8 show at the Valarium in a matter of days.

The story making the Internet rounds is that Mark E. Smith, the curmudgeonly lead singer and mastermind for British postpunk legends the Fall, revealed his contempt for the band in an interview with Australian mag The Brag. The full interview isn't available online, but the Quietus offered this excerpt, which reveals Smith to be (surprise!) kind of a bastard, but is also pretty funny:

"We were playing a festival in Dublin the other week. There was this other group like, warming up in the next sort of chalet, and they were terrible. I said 'shut them cunts up' and they were still warming up, so I threw a bottle at them. The bands said 'that's the Sons of Mumford' or something, 'they're number five in charts!' I just thought they were a load of retarded Irish folk singers."

This just in from the AC Entertainment Twitter feed:  "Smashing Pumpkins play @The Valarium in #Knoxville on July 23. Tix on sale Friday noon. Their show in '08 @TNTheatre rocked!"

Way back in 1998, I saw Modest Mouse and Stinking Lizaveta at some long-gone club in Atlanta. At the time it was a brilliant match--MM was touring in support of The Lonesome Crowded West, still their best album, and its rigid grooves and jagged guitar riffs fit well up against SL's tornado of heavy, jazzed-up post-punk.

Since then, Modest Mouse has become a gigantic pop crossover band--"Float On" is a great single, but it doesn't compare favorably to The Lonesome Crowded West--and now a veteran early-'00s legacy act. Stinking Lizaveta are still bruising around the country, playing small clubs to small audiences. Their most recent album, Sacrifice and Bliss, is a minor masterwork of what's been called "doom jazz." Both are coming to town in the next few months: Modest Mouse at the Valarium on July 18 (tickets are $35) and Stinking Lizaveta at Pilot Light (their 15th show there!) on May 11 (admission is $6). 

Fear Factory may not have invented industrial/groove metal, but they perfected it in the early 1990s. Their 1995 album Demanufacture is a classic. After a tumultuous '00s, the band's core creative duo--guitarist Dino Cazares and singer Burton C. Bell--are back together and have added superdrummer Gene "The Machine" Hoglan. Fear Factory's bad-ass new album, Mechanize, out earlier this month, is getting raves as an unexpected return to form.

Fear Factory's playing at the Valarium on April 2 with Winds of Plague, Dirge Within, and Periphery.

It was like 1988 at the Valarium last night, with retro thrashers Skeletonwitch throwing down on a small but enthusiastic crowd with a 45-minute set that confirmed just why the Akron, Ohio, five-piece was headlining the show. The band came on stage in a cloud of smoke and blast of galloping guitar riffs and never let up, except for a few brief segments of stage banter from singer Chance Garnett. (Highlights: "Knoxville, this one's about Satan!" "This one is about dying--'Strangled by Unseen Hands!'" "This one's about kicking ass! We find the farther South we get, the more you guys know about kicking ass!")

None of the three opening bands--Howl, Iron Age, and Black Tusk--challenged Skeletonwitch; all three played some variation on sludge rock; Iron Age's mix of hardcore punk and thrash came closest to igniting, but they were nowhere near the headliners in speed or intensity.

Atlanta prog-sludge heshers Mastodon have just announced dates for their spring tour, which includes a stop at the Valarium on May 21. The band's still touring in support of Crack the Skye, which was released way back in March. This leg of of the tour includes Baroness, Between the Buried and Me (who just played at the Bijou Theatre on Friday night), and Valient Thorr as support.

Both Crack the Skye and Baroness' Blue Record were on Metro Pulse's list of the best albums of 2009.

Tonight's Infected Mushroom show at the Valarium with L.A. DJ Reid Speed has been canceled, presumably due to this weekend's weather forecast. The Valarium website says a new date will be announced and tickets for tonight's show will be honored. 

Both Cage the Elephant--a slacker rock band from Bowling Green, Ky., that sounds like Beck fronting the Strokes--and the Asheville-based African pop-influenced jam band Toubab Krewe are coming to the Valarium soon.

Cage the Elephant's playing with As Tall As Lions and Morning Teleportation on Thursday, Feb. 18. Tickets are $15-$20, and it's 18 and up.

Toubab Krewe will play with locals Ga-Na-Si-Ta on the same night at the Cider House, a smaller club adjacent to the Valarium. Tickets for that show are $10-$15, and it's also 18 and up.

The stop's not listed on the schedule just released on Pitchfork, but the Valarium website has Major Lazer, the dancehall-inspired project featuring producer/DJs Diplo and Switch, on the calendar for March 29. That's in between dates in Atlanta and Carrboro, N.C., so the stop seems likely.





Major Lazer's debut, Guns Don't Kill People--Lazers Do, was released this summer. It includes guest spots from M.I.A. (who just released "Space Odyssey," the single from her third album, due in May), Santigold, Vybz Cartel, and Ward 21.

Video: M.I.A., "Space Oddity"

I expected Peaches to be pretty trashy. I didn't quite expect just how spectacularly and gloriously trashy she would be during her performance at the Valarium last night. It was a hour-long celebration of appetite--a marked improvement over the warmed-over synth-rock of opening act M.E.N., and, I think, a more fully formed political statement than the Le Tigre spin-off's sloganeering. Maybe "Shake Yer Dix" and "Lovertits" aren't part of the standard vocabulary of political discourse, but as a statement of dancefloor hedonism and pop indulgence, they beat cardboard signs reading "Silence=Death." (I agree with the sentiment, and it's an important message, but you're preaching to the choir here. And who wants to dance to that, anyway?)

The rock dynamics--the guitars and the encore, especially, and closing the set with the crowd-pleasing "F--k the Pain Away"--were a little disappointing, but Peaches and her band worked them well. She ruled the stage from the moment she appeared, wearing a rubber or maybe latex cartoon porcupine suit and a wrestling mask. By the end of the set she was down to a flesh-colored nylon bodystocking. She crowd-surfed, spewed a bottle of champagne over the audience, and played something that looked like either a fluorescent light bulb or a lightsaber. 

When I was a kid, my mom was terrified of rock concerts, I think mostly in response to KISS and the stampede at the Who's 1979 concert in Cincinnati. I had vague ideas about the debauchery that happened at concerts; last night was about as close as I've ever gotten to actually seeing what I thought a rock concert was like when I was 10.    

It's a big weekend in Knoxville:

• The James Agee Film Festival starts tonight at the East Tennessee History Center and continues tomorrow at the Square Room and Sunday at the Bijou Theatre. Lots and lots of details courtesy MP editor Coury Turczyn here.

• Jonathan Sexton has a release show for his new CD New Day at the Square Room tonight with his band the Big Love Choir.

• The first Knoxville Horror Film Fest is tonight at Pilot Light.

• KSO at the Tennessee Theatre tonight.

• Comedian D.L. Hughley at Sidespltters Comedy Club.

• Angel Zuniga Martinez, formerly of Angel and the Love Mongers and long overdue for some MP coverage, is playing at Preservation Pub tonight with Kevin Hyfantis and Matt Urmy.

• Get an intro to Knoxville Rock Girls Camp at the Birdhouse on Saturday afternoon.

• Brewers' Jam at World's Fair Park on Saturday.

• Local deathcore kings Whitechapel at the Valarium.  

You can get free tickets to De La Soul's Thursday concert at the Valarium here--up to four tickets for a single e-mail address--or at Disc Exchange or Swagger in West Knoxville.

Pay careful attention to the warning on that Concertwire page--"TICKET IS REQUIRED FOR ENTRY BUT ENTRY IS NOT GUARANTEED"--and get there early. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Does anybody have news about last night's Hank III show at the Valarium? Word has it he played for five or six hours, well past the usual end of Valarium shows. 

The big 10 for $10 show at the Valarium with Poison the Well was canceled last night after a fight broke out and spread into the parking lot. Doors opened at 3 p.m., with 10 hardcore bands lined up for the all-ages show. According to reports, the show was over by 3:30 p.m.

Video of the post-fight scene here.

UPDATE: Poison the Well has released an official statement in response to the cancellation through their publicist:

Last night the show was cut short when a scuffle broke out between crowd members and security guards. The incident occurred a few songs into the local openers set and what transpired was a flurry of police and reprters and ultimately a cancelled show. Though we were not involved in any way we would like to apologize to anyone who had purchased a ticket or was planning on attending. We, as a band never condone this kind of behavoir and always maintain as safe and brotherly an envoironment at our shows as possible. Unfortunately the actions of a few can sometimes effect many. It's still unclear to us who is responsible for the fight, the security or the kids but either way it should not have happened. We will always continue to ensure that our shows are safe and fun for all. Again, our apologies to those whom
were there to have fun and partake in the family like atmosphere that we have been
experiencing on this tour thus far. We will do whatever we can to return and make it up.
Sincerley,
PTW

Knoxville/Cookeville rockers Wake the Light, featuring Ryan Hughes and Matt Sharon from The Amend, are heading out on the road this summer with Memphis alt-metal band Saliva. (There's a June 21 show scheduled at The Valarium.)

Aha! So The Cider House, the small-club annex at The Valarium, has apparently finally opened for real, after a couple of months of delay.

Florida new-school punks Against Me! are scheduled for Sunday, April 19, for an all-ages show. $10.

Saturday, Dec. 6: The Square Room on Market Square officially opened with a well-attended set by My Brightest Diamond. The space is something of a marvel--hardwood floors, immaculate fixtures, a stage that seems to be visible from anywhere, and stunning acoustics. And who were all those people?

You've got several chances to try the place out before the end of the year: The Ten Out of Tenn singer/songwriter showcase stops in on Wednesday, Dec. 10, and locals Scott Miller, Todd Steed, and R.B. Morris play together on Wed., Dec. 17.

Sunday, Dec. 7: David Byrne mixed a bunch of Talking Heads covers and versions of songs from his two albums with Brian Eno during his concert at the Tennessee Theatre, according to Jack Neely.

I wouldn't know, since I was across downtown at the Valarium, watching Animosity, Annotations of an Autopsy, All Shall Perish, and Job for a Cowboy. The place was near capacity just after the doors opened for several hours of deathcore (and one set by a band that sounds like Shadows Fall).

Things to do in Knoxville this weekend:

Friday, Dec. 5: It's First Friday, so wander around downtown, eat and drink for free, and check out some local art and music. After that, head to Metro Pulse's Christmas Party at the Valarium with the Dirty Guv'nahs, the Cornbred Blues Band, and DJ Slink.

Saturday, Dec. 6: The Square Room is hosting its first show on Saturday night with New York cabaret-rock band My Brightest Diamond.

Sunday, Dec. 7: You have to pick between David Byrne at the Tennessee Theatre or Job for a Cowboy with Hate Eternal, All Shall Perish, Annotations of an Autopsy, and Animosity at the Valarium. (I'm probably going with Hate Eternal.)

EDIT: Sunday's decision might have just gotten easier for some of you. Hate Eternal singer/guitarist Erik Rutan was hospitalized last week for a kidney infection and the band won't be playing.

The Misfits will be playing at the Valarium with locals The American Plague on Wednesday, Dec. 3. TAP singer/guitarist Alex Weatherly, aka JAW, played in former Misfits guitarist Bobby Steele's The Undead in 1999-2000.

Also, David Byrne's scheduled at the Tennessee Theatre on Sunday, Dec. 7. He'll perform music from his collaborations with Brian Eno, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008).