March 2009 Archives

The schedule for this year's Sundown in the City series has been announced. Lots of repeat performers, but lots of local bands, too. Shows are Thursdays, April 9-June 25, on Market Square, all ages, and start at 6 p.m.

April 9 -- Arrested Development with special guest
April 16 -- Cowboy Mouth with Phil Pollard & Band of Humans
April 23 -- Karl Denson's Tiny Universe with Brent Thompson & His Wandering
April 30 -- Big Head Todd & the Monsters with Joan Jones
May 7 -- Local night featuring Royal Bangs, Same As It Ever Was, and Tenderhooks
May 14 -- Gavin Rossdale with Vertigo
May 21 -- Grupo Fantasma and The Belleville Outfit
May 28 -- Dave Barnes with Jonathan Sexton & The Big Love Choir
June 4 -- Shooter Jennings with 1220
June 11 -- Grace Potter & the Nocturnals with special guest
June 18 -- The Wailers performing the classic reggae album Exodus in its entirety with special guest Toubab Krewe
June 25 -- Jamey Johnson with Brendon James Wright & The Wrongs

A couple of pretty high-profile local shows this weekend: Teenage Love's CD release show at 4620 on Saturday, March 21, with Scull Soup (the new disc, No Excuses, is a hearty slab of circa 1984-style hardcore, just what you'd expect from TL) and Tenderhooks with The Wading Girl at Pilot Light on Sunday, March 22.

Just look at John Sewell in that photo! (He's top left.)

I don't think I'll be able to order my thoughts on Bill Frisell's show last night at the Square Room with Greg Leisz, so here are some quick notes:

• Frisell opts for clarity over fluidity--except for a couple of passages at the beginning and end, he used almost no effects, just a raw, naked amplification, and he makes each note distinct. He also doesn't make playing guitar look easy. He's playing difficult material, and it shows. It's an intense and intelligent approach to guitar.



• I never would have thought about how closely related John Fahey and Chet Atkins are until last night. Frisell seems to draw on both as an influence, not least in the way he makes no distinctions among jazz, country, blues, and pop.

• This particular set-up--Frisell on electric guitar, Leisz on lap and pedal steel--does hedge Frisell's cerebral approach. Even when he plays songs that have some amount of sentimentality built in--like Hank Williams' "Lost Highway"--his clean, precise picking sometimes feels like an exercise. Leisz' swooning lap on those pieces adds a mournful, emotive quality.

• Frisell, who lives in Seattle, told a story about the last time he was in Knoxville, with a combo led by Jack DeJohnette a coupl of years ago. He was walking down Gay Street and saw a bar--presumable either the Downtown Grill & Brewery or Bistro--where a bluegrass band was playing. He got excited, figuring he was near the cradle of bluegrass and had stumbled across a real local old-fashioned bluegrass group. Turns out they were from Seattle. 

Cy Anders, identified here as president and CEO of Ober Gatlinburg but also a longtime producer and host for WUOT, died Tuesday. He was 57.

Anders had most recently hosted the Friday edition of WUOT's evening jazz show Improvisations.

Sex and Dying in High Society: L.A. punk legends X are coming to Knoxville in June. Original lineup--John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom, and DJ Bonebreak. You can apparently vote for the set list at the band's website. 

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.

The VIP meet-and-greet with former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler and his new band Adler's Appetite at Big Mama's Karaoke Cafe on Sunday was pretty standard celebrity relations, with the band showing up a little bit late, then sitting at a table to sign memorabilia and shake hands. About 50 people paid $50 for the session; at least a couple had original vinyl copies of Appetite for Destruction, with the notorious Robert Williams robot rapist cover.

Adler's Appetite bassist Chip Z'Nuff, of late '80s/early '90s psych/glam/hair metal band Enuff Z'Nuff, did make the rounds afterward, dressed totally glam in a woman's straw hat, aviator glasses, a black hoodie, and silk scarves.   

Bobby Brown got a ton of Terry Morrow press last year when he was in Cocke County shooting the CMT reality show Outsiders Inn. Let's see if he gets half that much ink when he comes back for, you know, what he's known for--a concert. He'll perform at Knoxville Civic Auditorium on Friday, April 3, with the Summit Tour with Johnny Gill and Ralf Tresvant. It's his prerogative. 

Whether News Sentinel music reporter Wayne Bledsoe is really serializing this Twitter novel about a woman who may have had a one-night stand with a rhinoceres, I don't know. But passages like "Helen wondered about the great emu crossing the street. Why was it ruffling it's wings so? Why did it walk as though it had a rash?" make you stop and notice. 

Commenting on Esquire's list of the 75 albums every man should own is pointless, but what the hell: I can't believe a major magazine marketed at an under-60 demographic would come up with as bad a list as this. (FWIW, I own 22 in some form or other. I am 22/75 of a man.)

Here it is, in its unranked entirety:

Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen
Phases and Stages, Willie Nelson
The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
Lust for Life, Iggy Pop
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie
Live at The Apollo, James Brown
What's Goin' On, Marvin Gaye
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement
Illmatic, NaS
Dire Straits, Dire Straits
American Beauty, Grateful Dead
Out of Step, Minor Threat
Aftermath, The Rolling Stones
Paul's Boutique, The Beastie Boys
Led Zeppelin (I), Led Zeppelin
Imperial Bedroom, Elvis Costello
The Cars, The Cars
Being There, Wilco
Destroyer, KISS
The Bends, Radiohead
Gettin' Ready, The Temptations
Highway To Hell, AC/DC
The Dictionary of Soul, Otis Redding
The Headphone Masterpiece, Cody Chessnut
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Soundtrack, Ennio Morricone
Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
Take a Giant Step/De Ole Foiks at Home, Taj Mahal
Catch a Fire, Bob Marley
MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana
Live at Oberlin College, 1966, Mississippi John Hurt
The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1, The Traveling Wilburys
Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, Townes Van Zandt
Woke On a Whaleheart, Bill Callahan
Rubber Soul, The Beatles
Velvet Underground and Nico, Velvet Underground
Workin' Together, Ike & Tina Turner
The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place, Explosions in the Sky
True Stories, Talking Heads
This Is Hardcore, Pulp
Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses
In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra
Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis
Combat Rock, The Clash
Road to Ruin, The Ramones
Marquee Moon, Television
Animals, Pink Floyd
Doolittle, The Pixies
The Adventures of Slick Rick, Slick Rick
Ready to Die, Notorious B.I.G.
The Unreleased Recordings, Hank Williams
Ten, Pearl Jam
Band of Gypsys, Jimi Hendrix
Brighter Than Creation's Dark, Drive-By Truckers
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Ray Charles
...And Justice for All, Metallica
Fair Warning, Van Halen
Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z
Pet Sounds, Beach Boys
Exile In Guyville, Liz Phair
Look Sharp!, Joe Jackson
Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder
Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
Who's Next, The Who
Left to His Own Devices, Vic Chessnut
Symphony No. 5, Beethoven
Night Beat, Sam Cooke
Songs of Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen
Penthouse, Luna
Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club
Small Change, Tom Waits
Live at Folsom Prison, Johnny Cash
Harvest Moon, Neil Young
Mingus Ah Um, Charles Mingus
Mahler Symphony No. 5, George Solti
Grace, Jeff Buckley

Former Knoxville boy genius/Viceroys co-founder John Paul Keith has just released this new song by his band The One Four Fives, "Everybody's in Austin," in honor of next week's SXSW Festival. (He will actually be there, despite the song. Check his MySpace page for scheduled appearances.)

I've thought for a while I need to get a hard drive to back up my music collection, which is all stored on my PC at home. When I tried to plug in my iPod last night, I found that a weekend power surge seems to have blown up my PC.

Still have most of the collection on disc, but had a year+ of eMusic downloads on there, too. V., v. sad.

Heartsrevolution, Switchblade (IHEARTCOMIX)
Twitchy 8-bit electro from New York. An obvious debt to Crystal Castles, especially on the title track. The rest is lighter and bouncier and nods to '80s synth pop.

Shooter Jennings, Bad Magick: The Best of Shooter Jennings and the .357s (Universal Records South)
Can't be a good sign when your last two albums failed to make the top 50 and it's been four years since you had a hit and your label releases a greatest hits culled from just three studio records. Smells like contract fulfillment to me.
The contents: Southern rock marketed to country radio. Guest spots by George Jones and Doug Kershaw (and Mrs. B.I.G. Faith Evans (!) on "Southern Comfort"), a cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life," a "Ballad of "Easy Rider"-style stoner saga that incorporates Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf." Two previously unreleased tracks are maybe worth the cash-in: a live cover of Waylon's "Lonesome Blues" and a nicely arranged version of the totally appropriate Hank Williams Jr. song "Living Proof."

Back to the stack, which just gets bigger:

The Movement, Set Sail (One Bald Egg)
Reverb-heavy rap-reggae. Bass way up in the mix; hints of dub and roots. These guys listened to a lot of Sublime in college. Featuring G. Love. Improbably dexterous (if you ignore the drums) and yet still abhorrent.

The Future, Future (Futureband LLC)
Local band from somewhere that likes Simple Minds and Bob Marley's Legend.

Jerad Finck, Jerad Finck (Hit Street)
Singer/songwriter power pop. Standard stuff, but catchy and loud. Raises the question, though: If One Tree Hill had been on the air in 1992, would Freedy Johnston have had a song on it? (Subtract points for the heavy metal arrangement of "Paperback Writer.")

Lots of local music coming out soon: John T. Baker's Ohm, a collection of ambient music; the self-titled debut from The Black Lillies, Cruz Contreras' new band; Down From Up's From Ashes to Empire, featuring some pretty far-out shredding from guitarist Andy Wood (and some pretty far-out haircuts in the promo pics); and Teenage Love's No Excuses.