February 2010 Archives

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.

Noted jazz instructor Jens Hannemann, the author of the Complicated Drumming Technique instructional video below, will open for Joanna Newsome at Big Ears on Saturday, March 27, at the Bijou Theatre.

Electronic music can be a tricky proposition in Knoxville. So tonight's show at 90 Proof (inside Southbound in the Old City) by the West Coast producers Daedelus and Nosaj Thing, with support from the laptop/strings duo Jogger, is a welcome relief from what sometimes seems like an endless cycle of big beat legacy acts, jam bands masquerading as DJs, and early '90s techno.

Nosaj Thing is also scheduled to perform at Big Ears in March.

It's been a while since Knoxville's had a top-notch national hip-hop concert--all the way back to Lil Wayne in 2008, maybe? We're not getting one any time soon, either, but Lupe Fiasco is coming to Johnson City in April. He'll perform at East Tennessee State University on Thursday, April 22, on the Steppin Laser tour in support of his forthcoming album Lasers, due out sometime this year.

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.

Ex-everybodyfields singer Jill Andrews kicked her solo career off in high style last fall with the release of her self-titled EP. Now her former bandmate and romantic partner Sam Quinn's right behind her--his first solo record, The Fake That Sunk 1,000 Ships, is due out on May 11.

In an effort to keep the good times rolling in a gleefully depressing way, Sam Quinn's latest musical incarnation finds the everybodyfields' co-founder looking deep into his heart to deliver a collection of soul-baring songs that are part catharsis, part healing, and all beautifully written and sung. Aided by his band The Japan Ten, Quinn is stepping out in front with some new tunes, fresh faces and maybe even a new pair of brown pants. Quinn's debut album, The Fake That Sunk 1,000 Ships, will be available on May 11 on esteemed NC indie label Ramseur Records.

Vampire Weekend's new video for the song "Giving Up the Gun," featuring RZA, Lil Jon, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Joe Jonas, is now available at Spinner.

Vampire Weekend is playing at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday, March 27, as part of the Big Ears festival.

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.

Passion Pit, the synth-pop up-and-comers who are headlining UT's Volapalooza concert at World's Fair Park in April, have just released a video for the song "Little Secrets" at mtv.com.

Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal says, "It doesn't add up to much, though, and it's not pretty enough to get away with it."

Passion Pit, from Cambridge, Mass., are playing Volapalooza with Asher Roth and Flogging Molly on April 30.

The full (so far) schedule for Big Ears is up. New-ish details include:


• Terry Riley will perform on Saturday, March 27, at UT's Cox Auditorium in the Alumni Memorial Building, on the university's new pipe organ. He'll be playing music commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2008.



• On the same day, at the Bijou Theatre, Sufjan Stevens, along with members of the National and Sara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, with Clogs, which also features the National's Bryce Dessner. So far that's Stevens' only scheduled appearance, but nothing's final yet...

• Tim Hecker and Ben Frost will perform together on Sunday, March 28, at the "Big Ears Annex" (which might be the former Blue Cats/Catalyst space in the Old City).

• There will be a Big Ears listening party at the Square Room on Thursday, Feb. 25. The listening party will include recorded music and videos by Big Ears artists, commentary by AC Entertainment honcho Ashley Capps, and a chance to win a pair of Inner Ear passes to the festival.

The long-running Jubilee Community Arts has just announced its almost-as-long-running Jubilee Festival, a weekend-long event celebrating local and regional music traditions that's held every year at the Laurel Theater in Ft. Sanders.

This year's 41st annual Jubilee Festival, scheduled for March 12-14, will feature music by Jim Turley, Matt Morelock, Ian Thomas, Fred Moyse, Tom McCarroll and Tammie McCarroll-Burroughs, Danny Garmon, Lost Marbles, the Bearded, Joseph Decosimo and Allison Williams, John Alvis, Roy Harper, Mike and Marcia Bryant, the Jake Leg Stompers, and the Mumbillies.

Tickets are $12 each for Friday and Saturday night concerts (with discounts for JCA members, seniors, and students). There's also a free potluck and Old Harp singing at the Laurel on Sunday afternoon. Visit the JCA website for a full schedule.

More big Big Ears news this afternoon: Sufjan Stevens, the eccentric indie-folk singer/songwriter who led so-called "freak folk" into the mainstream in the mid-2000s, will be performing at the festival with the chamber/folk/pop group Clogs.

Noted American guitarist Adrian Belew, who's played with Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, David Bowie, and maybe most famously King Crimson, will also be at the festival. Chris Barrett interviewed Belew last fall; you can read it here.

Noise-pop group Abe Vigoda and DJ/producer Nosaj Thing, both from the same super-hip scene in downtown Los Angeles, have been added to the Big Ears lineup. 

R.B. Morris might not like the music business--"No one is that interested in what I do. Nobody is interested in the work. 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," he said in a recent MP interview--but the recent release of his long-awaited new album Spies Lies and Burning Eyes is attracting attention anyway, whether he wants it or not. Morris has just been added to this month's Tennessee Shines concert at the Bijou Theatre on Wednesday, Feb. 24. He'll play with the Bottle Rockets, Ruthie Foster, Sarah Siskind, and members of the Carpetbag Theatre.

Akron/Family are asking fans to contribute home-recorded version's of their new song "Woody Guthrie's America," which has reportedly become the set-ending song on the band's current tour, which stops at Pilot Light on Feb. 28.

They've posted a handful of fan-submitted video and audio clips of the song here.

The Metropolitan Opera and the English National Opera have commissioned an opera from NYC composer Nico Muhly, who's performing at Big Ears in March. It's quite an accomplishment for the 28-year-old Muhly. The opera, with a libretto by Craig Lucas and based on the real-life story of a teenager who tried to arrange his own murder on the Internet, is scheduled to debut in London in 2011 and premier at the Met during the 2013-14 season.

The New York Times has more.

More Big Ears additions just announced: the international guitar/synth/percussion improv trio Konk Pack, made up of Henry Cow's Tim Hodgkinson, Thomas Lehn, and Roger Turner, and New York art-black metal band Liturgy.

Both have recently played in Knoxville. Konk Pack was at Pilot Light in 2007, and Liturgy played a blistering, exhilarating set at the Birdhouse last fall.

About 10 years ago, New York composer/clarinetist William Basinski dug out some old tapes he had recorded--mostly loops of ambient synth and string passages. When he played them back, he discovered they'd started to decay. He recorded the playback, which was then released in 2002 as the four-disc set The Disintegration Loops. It's a landmark of the 2000s, stately and haunting, a long meditation that's a direct influence on later ambient sound artists like Mountains and the Field. And he's just been confirmed as part of Big Ears, set for March 26-28.

You've got two chances to see veteran weirdo Texas outlaw country singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard this weekend. He's playing at the Shed in Maryville on Saturday night; that's $20. You can also see him for absolutely free at the Disc Exchange that afternoon. He's playing an in-store there at 5 p.m.

AC Entertainment has announced the dates for this year's Sundown in the City series of free concerts at Market Square, and there's one big surprise: It's only happening five times. Last year's series included 12 concerts and stretched from April 9 to June 25. This year, Sundown will be held on April 22, May 6 and May 20, and June 3 and June 17.

On the Sundown website, Ashley Capps says, "We're proud of Sundown's success and excited about its future. As downtown evolves, we¹re working on evolving Sundown as well."

The acts for this year's series will be announced in April.

Bear in Heaven are coming to Pilot Light with Cymbals Eat Guitars (named Best New Brooklyn Band of 2009 by the Village Voice) on March 10. They have a couple of new songs from their new album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, available online.

mp3: Bear in Heaven, "Lovesick Teenagers" from Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes, 2009)
mp3: Bear in Heaven, "Wholehearted Mess" from Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes, 2009)

Country/folk singer Malcolm Holcombe visits Knoxville quite a bit. He's coming back to the Laurel Theater on Saturday, March 6. Here's a pretty unhinged clip of him at the Laurel back in 2008:

The announcement of the Bonnaroo lineup rolled out on an exhausting Tuesday afternoon on the festival's MySpace page and more effectively on its Twitter feed, essentially making lunch and publication deadlines an afterthought--and also serving as a reminder of just how lumbering and obsolete an old-fashioned newspaper can sometimes seem. It's already old news, right?

Some online commenters were frustrated by the official announcements. The entire roll-out process, in fact, prompted enough complaints that "#lineupfail" became a popular Twitter tag.

Here's the full lineup: The Avett Brothers, the Flaming Lips, Weezer, Medeski Martin & Wood, John Fogerty, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Ingrid Michaelson, Phoenix, the xx, Regina Spektor, Mayer Hawthorne, Wale, Steep Canyon Rangers with Steve Martin, Norah Jones, Bassnectar, OK Go, Monte Montgomery, Jay-Z, the Punch Brothers, Thievery Corporation, GWAR, She & Him, Jimmy Cliff, Tokyo Police Club, Kid Cudi, Japandroids, Dr. Dog, Baaba Maal, Neon Indian, the Zac Brown Band, the National, John Prine, Dave Matthews Band, Dave Rawlings Machine, Local Natives, Dropkick Murphys, Manchester Orchestra, Jeff Beck, Jay Electronica, the Postelles, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rebelution, Damian Marley and Nas, Needtobreathe, Tenacious D, the Black Keys, Jamey Johnson, They Might Be Giants, the Entrance Band, Lotus, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Clutch, Tori Amos, the Melvins, the Dodos, Kings of Leon, the Dead Weather, Rise Against, Deadmau5, Martin Sexton, Blitzen Trapper, the Gaslight Anthem, Mumford and Sons, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Baroness, Julia Nunes, Here We Go Magic, Tinariwen, the Disco Biscuits, Diane Birch, Lucero, Isis, Miranda Lambert, Kris Kristofferson, LCD Soundsystem, Brandi Carlile, B.O.B., Darryl Hall with Chromeo, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Blues Traveler, the Temper Trap, Michael Franti and Spearhead, the Dan Deacon Ensemble, Les Claypool, Mike Snow, Against Me!, Calexico, Hot Rize, and Stevie Wonder.

College News is reporting what people following the rolling Bonnaroo lineup announcement on MySpace and Twitter already know: a lot of people have hated the process, which, especially early on, was susceptible to crashes and has lagged behind extensive leaking before the announcement even started at noon. Here are some of the tweets collected by CN as evidence of #lineupfail:

@delineated Okay, Bonnaroo, you've kind of shit the bed with this staggered announcement. It's becoming annoying

@musicnewsdaily Early tweet feedback on Bonnaroo lineup announcement method. Annoying, slow, crashes, no one uses myspace anymore

@tlrpm: Fuck you AC Entertainment. How much did Rupert [Murdoch, President of News Corps, who owns MySpace] pay you for traffic to his failing site?

@JonWHorn Ok @Bonnaroo ... how about announcing some of the lineup that we haven't known for the past hour already?!

@TheRightMinds I'm pumped to see the Bonnaroo lineup, but whats with the myspace timed announcements? are we expected to watch this all day?

@lindseydurrell I'm not sure which is more annoying: that @bonnaroo is only announcing an artist every 5 mins. or that they're being unveiled on MySpace.

@brian_shoemaker Bonnaroo is using MySpace to announce its concert lineup. In other news of using outdated tech, I'll be dubbing a new mix cassette tonight.

The lineup so far: The Avett Brothers, the Flaming Lips, Weezer, Medeski Martin & Wood, John Fogerty, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Ingrid Michaelson, Phoenix, the xx, Regina Spektor, Mayer Hawthorne, Wale, Steep Canyon Rangers with Steve Martin, Norah Jones, Bassnectar, OK Go,
Monte Montgomery, Jay-Z, and the Punch Brothers.

I'd recommend the Bonnaroo Twitter feed over the MySpace page.

The eighth annual Volapalooza concert, the University of Tennessee's annual end-of-academic year event scheduled for April 30, has announced Cambridge, Mass., electro-pop group Passion Pit as this year's headliners, with support from frat-brat rapper Asher Roth, whose single "I Love College" annoyed and infuriated anyone over the age of 22 last summer, and L.A. Celtic punk band Flogging Molly.





Volpalooza's moving this year from Fiji Island, near UT's main collection of fraternity houses, to World's Fair Park. Tickets are free for UT students; general admission tickets are available for $15.

The organizers of Bonnaroo are set to announce the festival's lineup today in a rolling announcement that starts at noon, which also happens to be the exact same time that tickets go on sale. Keep an eye on the Bonnaroo MySpace page for details, and check back here this afternoon for a full list of scheduled performers. 

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.

UPDATE: Actually, Pujol's show seems to have been canceled. It's a good bet, however, that he'll be back soon.




Nashville singer/songwriter Daniel Pujol, who the Nashville Scene included in its feature "10 Artists to Watch in 2010" last week, is playing at Pilot Light on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Scene writer D. Patrick Rodgers says of Pujol, who plays Knoxville frequently:

When talking to Daniel Pujol, it becomes swiftly apparent that he's one of those musicians for whom creating art is less a sweet way of passing the time and more an active expression in what it means to be, like, human and stuff. Could it be that this artist in the populous stable of local D.I.Y. punkers known as Infinity Cat is a part of that all-too-rare breed? You know, the breed of musicians who are politically informed and culturally conscientious?

Even though the legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem has canceled its scheduled U.S. tour in April, at least one of the openers still wants to hit the road that month, according to the metal blog Invisible Oranges.

San Francisco's Ludicra, who play a particularly arty but altogether bad-ass brand of black metal, still plan to tour now that Mayhem has pulled out. And rumor has it that one of their stops will be in Knoxville. More details to come. (Read an interview here with the band's drummer, Aesop Dekker, about the new album, The Tenant, due out in March on Profound Lore.)

Ludicra were set to open the Mayhem tour with New York bands Tombs and Krallice. Tombs played at Planet Caravan in Asheville last fall, and Krallice opened for Wolves in the Throne Room at the Hideaway in Johnson City last spring. No word on whether either band will be coming back this time.

Synth-pop bands Cold Cave and Nite Jewel got stuck in the snow in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and couldn't make it into Knoxville for their scheduled show at Pilot Light. Never mind, though--local duo Damaged Patients more than filled in the headlining spot with their public debut.





Damaged Patients--the enigmatic Jennifer Toland on vocals, Ben Tramer on drums, and a preset synth--performed a short 20-minute set of nearly a dozen very brief songs that channeled both Joy Division and classic 4AD bands like the Cocteau Twins. Toland sang in a flattened but not quite emotionless voice over melancholy synth lines while Tramer banged a steady, heavy martial beat with mallets on a tom/snare/cymbal set-up and two separate video screens showed a close-up of Toland's mouth as she sang and a wide-open human eyeball.

A sizable crowd had come to the show, presumably to see Cold Cave and Nite Jewel--one group had, in fact, driven up from Florida to see them--but got way more than their money's worth from Damaged Patients. (Never mind that there was no cover.)

Fresh off the Knoxville premiere of the documentary Rebel Scum, which tracked two years in the life of the band, Knoxville gutter punks the Dirty Works are celebrating the release of their new EP, Get Wrecked. The band's having a CD release show at the Longbranch Saloon on Thursday, Feb. 11, at 9 p.m.







I reviewed the new disc last week: "scuzzy, three-chord rock, rudimentary guitar solos, [and] frontman Chris Scum's fascination with blood and other body fluids. (The album starts with the couplet, "I woke up on the street/puking on my feet.") The Dirty Works' vision of what rock 'n' roll is and means is a limited one, but there's no denying their commitment to it."

Country singer Lee Brice, whose latest single, the power ballad "Love Like Crazy," is his fourth song since 2007 to break into the lower reaches of the country Top 40, is playing at Cotton Eyed Joe on March 11 with Clay Walker.

The big warehouse club way out in West Knoxville, which has been around since the early 1990s, has expanded its concert schedule in the last year or so, with performances by Joe Nichols, Gretchen Wilson, and Darius Rucker in late 2009.

Lee Brice is working on his debut album Picture of Me.

Angel Zuniga Martinez' in-store performance at the Disc Exchange listed in Thursday's paper for Saturday afternoon is actually happening today at 6 p.m.

Martinez, the former frontman for Angel and the Lovemongers, is celebrating the release of his first solo album, The Cage, recorded last year with Kevin Hyfantis and the Bishops Band. Martinez and Hyfantis are also playing a showcase/CD release event (Hyfantis has just released his first full-length album, Carnival Authority) at the Bijou Theatre tomorrow night.

Last night was a notable showcase for a couple of local bands that made the most of a high-profile gig on the best stage in town. Royal Bangs absolutely killed in their opening slot for Athens, Ga., power trio the Whigs. In fact, during the bangs set, I thought that the Whigs would have a hard time following--I'd have wanted more than three guys in my band to match the Bangs' energy--and they were; they're a good band (with a seriously hotshit drummer), but their rootsy, '90s-style slacker rock fell flat in comparison to the Bangs' neon-colored, synth-powered power pop. This was one of the best bands in town on the top of their game, playing to an enthusiastic crowd (maybe small by Bijou standards, but a big one for Royal Bangs) in one of the best rooms anybody could ever hope to play in. It was kind of a watershed night for the band.

They brought Will Fist and his Three Man Band as the openers, too, and their thrashy garage psych was bare-bones but powerful--and loud.

St. Vincent's new video for the song "Laughing With a Mouth of Blood," (via Pitchfork) from her 2009 album Actor, features Fred Armisen of SNL and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney (aka the comedy team ThunderAnt). It's a takeoff on TA's "Feminist Bookstore" series, available here.

St. Vincent's playing at the Bijou Theatre on Sunday, March 28, as part of the Big Ears festival.





St. Vincent - "Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood"

st. vincent | MySpace Music Videos

Renowned New York klezmer guy Andy Statman, who's infused traditional Jewish music with the improvisational and exploratory spirit of jazz, will be performing at Ironwood Studios on Feb. 15. Doors at 7 p.m., music starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. Statman's also playing at the WDVX Blue Plate Special that day at noon.





Statman grew up in New York and started playing bluegrass (as a mandolinist) during its jazzy, newgrass heyday in the 1960s, learning from David Grisman in Nashville and playing with Bob Dylan and Vassar Clements. He then had a profound spiritual response to John Coltrane, under the tutelage of Richard Grando, and took up the saxophone and klezmer. Now he's one of the preeminent clarinet players in the world.

You can hear some of his music here.

From Alan Sherrod's MP classical music blog:

"Word has it that Knoxville Opera is having a little cocktail party as part of this week's First Friday in the S&W Grand from 6 to 9 p.m. I've also heard they are calling it Opera After Hours at First Friday. And, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if members of the Knoxville Opera Studio were there to entertain those that drop in on the downstairs bar area."

Read Alan's profile of Rachele Gilmore, who's starring in KOC's production of Lucia di Lammermoor next weekend, here.

Last night's Sound Off was the closest one yet, with local singer/songwriter duo the Songbirds squeaking by the boho indie band fronted by Joey English. (One other judge and I both had those two tied for first.)

The placements are based on a compilation of scores from the judges and a measure of crowd response from the soundboard. (Last night they were Benny Smith, Eric Nowinski, Jeff Cueller of AC Entertainment, and Chyna Brackeen of the Knoxville Botanical Garden, and me.) In each of the previous four contests, we pretty much knew who would win; the last two, won by Aftah Party and Hudson K, were apparent as soon as those bands finished playing. This time none of us could tell for sure, which made it one of the most interesting so far.

The Songbirds will advance to the final round on March 3 against Aftah Party, Hudson K, Taylor Brown and Company, and Vinyl Thief from Murfreesboro. Local emo rockers Seeing Skies have also been added to that bill as a wild card, thanks to them having the loudest crowd response. Joey English also announced that his band is heading out next week on a tour with Delta Spirit and the Willowz.  

According to Livedaily, Paul Simon's been conformed as the headliner for Bonnaroo 2010, and Paul McCartney's likely coming, too.

All this hot on the heels of Wayne Coyne's revelation that the Flaming Lips will play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety during an after-midnight set at the festival.

Big Ears headliners Vampire Weekend recorded a session for the French website La Blogoteque's Les Soirees de Poche series of video concerts. They play six songs in just over 20 minutes, including the Honeycombs' "Have I the Right." You can watch it here. 

Asheville singer/songwriter ScareKrow (yeah, that's his name, and yeah, he has dreads) will perform at the Candoro Arts and Heritage Center in South Knoxville on Saturday, Feb. 13, at 9 p.m. The show's a benefit for the restoration of the historic Candoro Marble Building. Admission is $8.

The Arts and Heritage Center is located at 681 Maryville Pike, on the grounds of the Candoro Building.

WDVX radio hosts will be tending bar during happy hour (that's 5-7 p.m.) today at Preservation Pub. They'll have a tip jar for donations to the publicly funded roots-music radio station, and they'll also be giving away free WDVX merch and a pair of tickets to see the Yonder Mountain String Band at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 6. Big Country's Empty Bottle will play.

Cold Cave, the noisy Philadelphia electro-pop band that's gone totally '80s on their new album Love Comes Close, have just released a new video for the song "Life Magazine." The band, featuring members and ex-members of Xiu Xiu, Prurient, and American Nightmare, is playing at Pilot Light on Saturday, Feb. 6, with Nite Jewel and locals Damaged Patients. 

Cold Cave "Life Magazine" from Focus Creeps on Vimeo.

It seems pretty likely that at least one of the headlining acts at Bonnaroo has already been identified, with Wayne Coyne telling Spinner yesterday that the Flaming Lips will play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety at the festival, which runs June 10-13 in Manchester, Tenn. As for the remaining dozens of performers, they'll be revealed on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at the Bonnaroo website in a rolling day-long reveal.

Tickets go on sale the same day.

Tonight's the final qualifying round of the Square Room's Sound Off competition, with the Songbirds, Matt Davis from Medford's Black Record Collection, Joey English, Ol' Sweet Lou, and Britta Adams facing off for a spot in next month's finals. Each band will play two originals and a Motown cover. Doors open at 7 p.m., the music starts at 8 p.m.

Aftah Party, Taylor Brown and Company, Hudson K, and Murfreesboro's Vinyl Thief have already secured spots in the final round, set for March 3. The winner gets a prize package that includes a recording session at Rock Snob Recordings, a slot on this summer's Sundown in the City, an EP, and a release show at the Square Room when it's ready. 

The official Bonnarroo lineup won't be released until next week--it's supposed to be a day-long reveal at the festival website on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the same day tickets go on sale--but word's already leaking that the Flaming Lips will play the entirety of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at the weekend-long festival in June.





Lips frontman Wayne Coyne told Spinner today that the band will reprise its Moon set from New Year's Eve in Oklahoma City at Bonnaroo on Friday, June 13, at midnight.

"We do a Flaming Lips set then starting about 2:30 we do this 'Dark Side of the Moon' thing. In that sense, it's perfect for that. It lets you play a little bit longer," Coyne says.

The Flaming Lips played Bonnaroo in 2007.

Brooklyn Vegan has a bunch of photos and a shirt review of Gang Gang Dance and DJ /rupture at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago. Both are playing at Big Ears in March. 

Jazz critic Ben Ratliff reviews a recent concert by the Florida prog-metal band Cynic in The New York Times today. Cynic plays at the Bijou on Friday with Between the Buried and Me, Devin Townsend, and Scale the Summit.

Cynic shows the marks of Mr. Holdsworth and early jazz-fusion both directly, through guitar technique, and in a larger sense through its complex suggestion of possibility. It's a slippery band, changing its affect quickly, within a tune, from nearly orchestral harmonic breadth to death-metal straits; the melodic-harmonic writing is serious and good. There are opposing forces tensing up the music -- both a typical metal heaviness, with Sean Reinert's Wackermanesque drumming, and some counterintuitive pockets of light.

Veteran St. Louis alt-country band the Bottle Rockets have just been announced as the headliner for this month's Tennessee Shines concert at the Bijou Theatre on Wednesday, Feb. 24. They'll be performing with Ruthie Foster, Sarah Siskind, and actors from Carpetbag Theatre, who'll be singing pieces from their musical Between a Ballad and a Blues, based on the life of Howard Armstrong.





I wrote this story about the band back in 2002, when they were about to play a show at Blue Cats. They'd just released Songs of Sahm, a tribute to Texas singer/songwriter Doug Sahm. Jack Neely wrote about Tennessee Shines last year.

The Museum of Appalachia's Help for Haiti concert, originally scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 30, has been rescheduled for Friday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. The initial lineup has been expanded to include: Back Row Boys, Big Boy Band, Carroll Hollow, Elaine Graham, Jennifer and Lopez, Joyful Noise, Just Krossing, Liz and Tim, and the Hotshot Freight Train.

Admission is free; all donations will be donated to Partners in Health.

The Bijou Theatre's online calendar has added a couple of new March shows: badass Texas singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen (March 24), author of "Gringo Honeymoon" and "The Road Goes on Forever" and the even more classic but less known "Corpus Christi Bay," and Ingrid Michaelson and Mat Kearney (March 30).

Tickets for each go on sale Feb. 5.

Wigsphere says Sapphire is hosting a Haiti benefit concert on Thursday, Feb. 4, with performances by the Fine Line, Vera Noreva, and Jo Dunn from local alt-rock band Adoration. The show starts at 8 p.m., there's no cover, and 10 percent of bar sales will be donated to the Red Cross. 

YouTube (via Pitchfork) has this video of St. Vincent and Bryce Dessner--both of whom will be appearing at Big Ears in March--performing together at Lincoln Center this weekend as part of the American Songbook series. (David Byrne also played with St. Vincent, and she and Dessner collaborated at a Haiti benefit in NYC last week, where they played a 10-minute version of Dolly Parton's "Jolene.")

Old-time and bluegrass fiddler Charlie McCarroll is playing at the Laurel Theater in Fort Sanders on Friday, Feb. 26. Here's some footage of him playing at Don's Barber Shop in Harriman last year.

Will Fist's Three Man Band has been added to the bill for Thursday's concert by the Whigs at the Bijou Theatre. Royal Bangs are opening. It's almost certainly the first time a Whisk-Hutzel band will play the Bijou. The collective of lo-fi projects led by Fist typically plays Pilot Light.

Andrew Clayman wrote about the Whigs the last time they came through town.

mp3: Royal Bangs, "B&E" from Let It Beep (2009)