Results tagged “local music” from Live Like This

The local electro-acoustic/chamber pop ensemble Shortwave Society, just a week away from a headlining show at Pilot Light with Asheville's Stephaniesid, had their van, loaded with a pile of gear worth $25,000, stolen in South Knoxville last night.

It's a bad deal for any band, but it's particularly devastating for these guys, who depend on samples, programmed percussion, and homemade synthesizers to make the music they do. Singer/songwriter Grant Geren says it's "a nightmare" and worries that they'll have to cancel shows for the rest of the year.

Details from Knox Blab:

LARGE, WHITE 15 PASSENGER DODGE RAM 3500 WITH THE WORD "CAUTION" ON THE BACK IN BLACK LETTERS. THE FRONT GRILL AND RIGHT TURN SIGNAL ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY MISSING AND BUMPER IS BENT.

Gear in van: Roland handsonic, v-drum kick trigger, L1 Bose Tower w/ mixer and bass speaker, homemade synthesizer, Vintage Fender Rhodes with stand, Roland space echo peddle, RE-20 dynamic microphone, fender deluxe guitar amp, Line 6 delay modeler, Baggs DI box, yamaha mixing board MG-122X, Mooger Fooger Ring Modulator, Boss digital tuner pedal, Mod Tone tremor pedal, 4 DI Boxes, a pandeiro, a djembe, 18' crash cymbal, gretsch snare drum, Monster Power Conditioner, many stands cables, full box of shortwave Cd's, 50+ shortwave t-shirts.

R.B. Morris has followed a lot of paths during a three-decade career as poet, playwright, and musician. But none of them would have obviously led him to his latest post, which is songwriter-in-residence at the University of Tennessee's National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.

The Institute is designed to face the "ongoing challenges of maintaining a safe food supply, avoiding economic disruptions caused by emerging infectious diseases, and evaluating methods to better manage the inevitable disease outbreaks that develop due to globalization," which"may best be investigated by integrating modeling and mathematics with the biological studies which are critical to the formulation of public policy to address these challenges." (That's all according to the NIMBioS website.) The songwriter program is intended "to encourage the creation and production of songs involving ideas of modern biology and the lives of scientists who pursue research in biology."

It's a month-long program that will last through June and include up to five songwriters. No word yet on what exactly will be done with the songs that are written.

The Knoxville Horror Film Festival is officially over, but you won't be able to tell this weekend: the same group that organized the fest at Relix Variety Theatre in Happy Holler last weekend is hosting a two-hour recap at the same place on Friday night, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m., followed by a screening of black-metal documentary Until the Light Takes Us, which will in turn be followed by a performance from Knoxville black-metal band Argentinum Astrum.

Lee Gardner reviewed Until the Light Takes Us here.

Admission to either the recap or the UTLTU screening is $5, or it's $8 for both.

The Johnson Swingtet is one of Jack Neely's favorite local bands, as you can tell from his 2008 feature on them. They've changed things up quite a bit since then, so the new CD, which the Swingtet is officially releasing this weekend, will be a welcome introduction to the band's new lineup and its new interest in Western swing.

The Swingtet's celebrating the release of Volume 1 (oddly enough, the follow-up to their 2008 self-titled debut) on Friday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. at the Laurel Theater in Fort Sanders. Admission is $10-$12.

We reported back in April that the Tim Lee 3 had a busy summer ahead of them, mainly because they would be recording a new album at studios in North Carolina, Arizona, and Mississippi.

They apparently got really busy at those sessions--the new album, Raucous Americanus, the follow-up to the band's 2008 disc Good2b3, is an old-fashioned double album. It's due out next month, and the CD-release show the Lees have planned for Patrick Sullivan's on Friday, Nov. 12, is appropriately big: a premiere of the band's video for the song "Get There First," DJ sets from Nathan Moses and Graham McCorkle of the Vaygues, and an opening set by Angela Faye Martin, a North Carolina singer/songwriter the Lees have befriended since playing a local show with her earlier this year. And, of course, a long set of the Tim Lee 3 playing songs from the new album, and probably some old favorites. 

The Dirty Guv'nahs have posted the official video for the song "We'll Be the Light," off their brand-new album Youth Is in Our Blood. It was shot at Preservation Pub a few months ago.

Knoxville's Ampient Music, a free-floating collaboration of drone, sound art, and other noises that ask for a lot of patience, is moving into Pilot Light tonight for an early show. The group generally includes Todd Steed, John T. Baker, George Middlebrooks, Carl Snow, Toby Applegate, and a few others. Find out more here, and there's discussion at KnoxBlab too. (There's a free download of the Knoxville Is Ampient compilation at the bottom of the page.) Tonight's show starts at 8 p.m., cover is $3. 

If local music clubs have seemed a little less sleazy this year, it might be because Maryville's hair-metal revivalists Gun*Slinger broke up in January. Now they say it's just been a hiatus, however, and that they'll be bringing their '80s-style Sunset Boulevard glam-rock back to town soon.





Here's the e-mail singer Cole Graham sent out yesterday:

"Gun Slinger mended their wounds, cleaned up the saddles and instruments of mass music production, and they ride again.

It is understood that there are four creative and well rounded musical gunslingers in the band, and disagreements arise. Time away cleared the air for forgiveness and understanding.

Rock goes on!

The band is continuing work on their debut album and lining up shows.

The obvious choice to fill the slot as Knoxville's top blues guitarist since Hector Qirko moved to South Carolina this month is Labron Lazenby. He'll get a chance to show why on a pretty big stage next week when he and his band, the LA 3, headline the Hard Knox Blues Bash on Thursday, July 1, in the Old City Courtyard behind Southbound Bar & Grill. That, coincidentally, is where Qirko, with his honky-tonk combo the Lonesome Coyotes, played his last Knoxville show before moving. (Not his last last, we all hope, just his last one before the move.)



Lazenby is a first-rate player; he and his band played at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in January and reportedly sold more CDs than any other band there.

The Hard Knox Blues Bash is a fund-raiser for the Tennessee Valley Jazz and Blues Foundation, a local nonprofit founded last year to support the blues in general and the music of East Tennessee in particular. The Relentless Blues Band and the Hard Knox Blues All Stars will open the show, which starts at 8 p.m.; admission is $5, $2 for teenagers 13-17, and free 12 and under.

I mentioned it in my review this week, but it's worth noting again that the local death-metal band Whitechapel's third disc, A New Era of Corruption, opened at #43 on the Billboard album charts last week, with more than 10,000 copies sold. That's a lot of records for a death-metal band, especially one that was playing all-ages matinees in Knoxville just a few years ago. 

Place of Skulls is one of Knoxville's underappreciated bands. So the 20 or so people who stuck around for PoS's headlining set at the Longbranch Saloon on Saturday got front-row seats and national-class trad doom metal, all for just $5. (The highest price was having to wait through Ophiuchus, a thrash/death band from Nashville with great chops and one of the silliest frontmen I've ever seen.) PoS played for just under an hour, fitting in old songs, newer ones, and at least a handful of songs from frontman Victor Griffin's former band Pentagram and a surprisingly effective cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." The weird thing about the band? Their classic doom is informed by Griffin's Christianity, though PoS is nothing like what anybody would call Christian metal.

Even though the band's barely acknowledged in its hometown--Griffin thanked the small crowd at the end of the show for supporting the "struggling doom metal scene in Knoxville"--Place of Skulls has a distinguished underground lineage: Griffin played in the seminal D.C. doom group Pentagram's classic lineup from 1981 to 1996 and wrote or co-wrote some of that band's signature songs ("Death Row," "Relentless," "20 Buck Spin"), and Scott "Wino" Weinrich (St. Vitus, the Obsessed) played on PoS's 2003 album With Vision. (That album and the 2001 debut were released on Southern Lord, home to Sunn O))), Boris, and Earth.)

Griffin and his band have been busy lately, though, and hopefully that will raise the band's local profile. A new PoS album, As a Dog Returns, has been recorded and is due out this fall, and for the last few weeks Griffin's been pulling double duty with Pentagram, who have seen a swell of past-due recognition in the last few years.  

During Bonnaroo the city limits of Knoxville seem to temporarily stretch all the way to Manchester. As usual there are a lot of familiar faces on the farm, both in the crowds and on the smaller showcase stages.

Sarah Pirkle's been a prolific local performer for years now--solo, with her husband Jeff Barbra of the Drunk Uncles, and as a member of the Naughty Knots. But she's just getting around to her first solo album, which is due out on July 9. (If you pre-order the disc with a $20 purchase through PayPal, you get your name listed in the credits.)

The weekday roots-music series Blue Plate Special is kicking off its monthly Market Square shows today at noon with a performance by former everybodyfields singer/songwriter Sam Quinn (above) and master fingerstyle guitar picker Bill Mize. Quinn is celebrating the release of his first solo album, the fake that sunk a thousand ships, with his backing band the Japan Ten. You can read an interview with Quinn here. He's also playing a show at the Square Room on Friday, May 14.


The Blue Plate Special series, usually held at the WDVX studio on Gay Street at noon, with Friday installments at the Square Room, will now hold shows on the big Market Square stage on the second Wednesday of each month at noon. 

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. 

Local modern rock band Zero Point is headlining a benefit show this weekend for Jake Young, a friend of the band who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was struck by an SUV. Here's the e-mail the band sent out with details:

We are playing a benefit show this Saturday for Jake Young. He was struck by an SUV as a pedestrian and suffered a traumatic brain injury. The money raised from the benefit show will go towards medical procedures to improve his quality of life. Music will be played all day from noon until around 11pm. Admission is $7 for adults and $3 for kids under 12. We will be playing starting at 10pm so we hope to see you there for at least our set if not more. There will be smoked pork, popcorn, and cotton candy for sale to raise money as well as a moon bounce for the kids. The location is the fireworks shed on 411 South at the Blount County/Loudon County line. We will be donating a portion of any CD sales at the show to the family to help with medical procedures for Jake so if you haven't checked out our CD yet make sure to pick up a copy at the show so that you can support the cause as well as get some new music to listen to. See you there!! Bring some people! The more people that show up, the more help that can be provided for Jake and it will also make for more fun for everyone.

John Myers, the local singer and songwriter who achieved some minor success as a soul singer in the 1960s and early '70s, is releasing his first ever solo album and one of just a few records he's made since the Hearts of Stone's 1970 Motown disc Stop the World.



Jack Neely chronicled Myers' career, which started at Green Elementary School and continued through the East Knoxville club scene with Clifford Curry to a mid-'60s appearance on The Merve Griffin Show and Motown, in 2007.

Myers' new album, I Ain't Goin' Nowhere, will be available at the Knoxville Museum of Art's Alive After Five series on Friday, May 7. Myers will perform with the musicians from the disc--Sean McCullough on keyboards, Chris Durman on acoustic guitar and harmonica, Steve White on mandolin, Maria Williams on bass, Steve Corrigan on drums, and Kevin Abernathy on electric guitar.

It's a free show, and starts at 6 p.m. 

Nate Chinen reviews Backatown, the new album by Trombone Shorty, in The New York Times. "[I]t's an album more polished and less thrilling than Trombone Shorty's live shows, but it's firm in its purpose with swagger to spare," Chinen writes.

Trombone Shorty opens this year's Sundown in the City on Market Square on Thursday with a co-headlining set with local hotshots Superdrag.

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

Looks like Chris Scum's band the Dirty Works, recently the subject of the locally praised documentary Rebel Scum, are in need of a drummer.