March 2010 Archives

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.

Ben Ratliff writes about Big Ears in The New York Times. Some choice bits:

• "The producers displayed no pretension or hand-wringing -- no stated rubric of avant-gardism and no rhetoric about how it's our responsibility to support experimental composers as a cause. Instead the experience was more like a string of mind-blowing midnight movies."

• "Since last year I'd been looking forward to revisiting the Bijou, a perfectly configured 700-seat historic theater with balconies. ... But the 1,500-seat Tennessee Theater, a Moorish Revival movie house a few blocks from the Bijou and also recently renovated, was dreamier still: a palace as big as an ocean liner, where sound reveals itself naturally and precisely, in what Wallace Stevens called its "spontaneous particulars.""

• And a shot-out for locals Argentinum Astrum: "Minimalism, which is Mr. Riley's ballpark, can be expressed through many musical languages. After getting a headful of Ms. Newsom, I went to the Pilot Light, a tiny bar, to hear Argentinum Astrum, a fantastic doom-metal band from Knoxville. Repeated riffs so fat, loud, slow and heavy that the individual notes are nearly disconnected: what's more minimal than that? Nothing. Consider yourself informed."

Pitchfork delivered its report yesterday afternoon, describing the weekend as "a long weekend of paradise-- and again a still must-attend, if very different than before, music festival."

Over the weekend I went out armed with a digital recorder to talk to fans of Big Ears 2010. Here are a few thoughts from some of those concert-goers on what shows they saw, which they enjoyed most, and how they felt about this year's festival and its host city of Knoxville. 

SPIN magazine has a new photo gallery of its staffers picks for the Nine Best Moments of the Big Ears Festival.

Some good lines in the accompanying text: "A roomful of Tennessee teens singing along to a New York band's song about vacationing on effing Cape Cod bordered on the surreal," about Vampire Weekend. They stick to the Bijou and Tennessee theaters for each one except the last, which I can't possibly argue with. 

I'd been in pretty high gear for the majority of Friday and Saturday so it shouldn't have been too surprising I hit a wall early Sunday afternoon, but somehow the Big Ears folks even seemed to factor festival fatigue into the schedule: I heard more than a few people talk about how the third day of the festival was kind of an anticlimax (to be fair they said this before having seen The National, which I didn't see the end of but can only imagine that "climactic" would be fairly applied) but to me it seemed much more of a welcome cool-down. 

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. 

(Photos by Shawn Poynter)
In our final round of photos for the blog, we've got my personal favorites one from The Books and a few of St. Vincent.

Books

(Photos by Shawn Poynter)
Jens Hannemann, which I missed, was apparently funny. (Psst! it's really Fred Armisen from SNL!)

(Photos by Shawn Poynter)
Jens Hannemann, which I missed, was apparently funny. (Psst! it's really Fred Armisen from SNL!)

There's a weekend recap coming, but for now here's a round-up of what other people are saying about Big Ears:

• Brooklyn Vegan's reports

• The L.A. Times' Ann Powers on the xx

• The Wigsphere

• The News Sentinel's Randall Brown

• Knox Blab

• The Milk Carton

There should be more to come this week from the New York Times, Pitchfork, and Tiny Mix Tapes.

There's an emotional hangover that goes with the end of something as intense as Big Ears. I was exhausted yesterday, which was a mixed bag--most of the music, from Adrian Belew sitting in with George Middlebrooks and Jim Rivers' Ampient Cafe set at Old City Java a little after noon to the Books and Bang on a Can, was sedate stuff, made for settling into a cozy spot, but I also had a hard time staying awake through much of it.

In fact, I only saw about three hours of music yesterday--part of the Ampient set, half of the Books' show, the first movement of Music for Airports by Bang on a Can, part of the Shaking Ray Levis set with Shelley Hirsch, Ben Frost and Tim Hecker, and half of the Calder Quartet's set at the Bijou.

I just didn't have it in me--Saturday was such a long and energetic day, almost nonstop from noon to 4 a.m., with most of the weekend's highlights. And there were a lot--I made some tough decisions, and there are shows I wish I had seen, but I don't regret seeing anything I did catch.

I was glad to have a slower day after that, but I was also glad to be on my couch watching Celebrity Apprentice while the National were playing. They certainly didn't miss me, anyway, judging by the crowd lined up outside the Tennessee Theatre two hours before they started.

Saturday took it's toll on me, walking back and forth from venue to venue, sitting in crowded theatres all day long. But still - worth it.
Here are some noteworthy shots by photographer extraordinaire Shawn Poynter.

DJ /rupture at the TN Theatre. He later tweeted he was kicked out of the Joanna Newsom show for TALKING.

My somewhat frenzied sampling of Saturday night's offerings turned up some interesting contrasts on the rhythmic side of things:

Day Two highlighted what I'd put forth as the only relevant problem with Big Ears booking such high-profile indie rock acts: the stretch of the day from the Dirty Projectors' show up through Clogs, Vampire Weekend and Joanna Newsom -- each of them at either the Tennessee or Bijou theatres -- left the Old City's Big Ears Annex borderline empty despite the venue having already hosted a few of the festival's sleeper hits. I'm still kicking myself for missing Iva Bittova & Liturgy in the early afternoon (though I caught up with Liturgy later at the Pilot Light, and was pretty blown away by their brooootality, and the only black metal shrieker whose voice I'll ever call "lilting") but I was part of undeservedly anemic audiences for Asheville spazz-mathers Ahleuchatistas, DJ /rupture's collaboration with The Ex's Andy Moor, local post-hardcore stalwarts New Brutalism, and, in what may have been the day's highlight, the three nutzoid codgers from Konk Pack, who dicked around agitatedly with an ancient synthesizer, a drum kit and an effects-drenched lap steel guitar in what seemed at first to be just indulgent noise but turned sneakily into an intense post-rock clamor. (Konk Pack will be playing again Sunday evening at the Annex starting at 8pm.)

The rain actually seems appropriate this morning, even if it is coming down way harder than it needs to to set a somber, elegiac mood. Yesterday just kept ratcheting up to the buzzsaw blur of Liturgy and Gang Gang Dance's slinky, ritualistic dance party, and today feels like it should be spent with some quieter music.

I took a short break after Dirty Projectors, then headed back to the Old City for Konk Pack. The improv trio--a Frankenstein monster keyboard, drums, and a weird inside-out elctric guitar, laid out on a tabletop like a lap steel--started slow, and the group's free playing takes some orientation, but a third of the way in it started to click. By the end it was a beautiful swirl of noise, playful, just this side of chaotic, and a thrilling example of what Big Ears still offers besides marquee indie rock.

At this point I'd decided that the Big Ears Annex had been fruitful enough that I was just going to stay in the Old City. I skipped some potentially rewarding, even lifetime-enriching-type shows--Terry Riley's pipe organ concert, William Basinski and Ben Frost, Bang on a Can and Riley at the Tennessee, throw in Joanna Newsom if you want to--for Pilot Light's metal lineup. Warband's retro thrash sounded tighter than it did the last time I saw them (and it's fun to pick out the band's obvious influences--I spotted riffs straight from Metallica's "Whiplash," "Seek and Destroy," and "For Whom the Bell Tolls," as well as a double-time coda copped from Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"). Argentinum Astrum has added substantial black metal influence to their doom/sludge, presumably since the arrival of new bassist Emily Robinson, formerly of Tenderhooks. An interesting departure, but I think I preferred the old Burning Witch style more. Something to watch.

Warband and A.A. brought in lots of people for Liturgy's second show of the day. The band just kills--great songs, tight as a drum, and the sight of cherubic-looking singer/guitarist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix shrieking his lungs out is something else. I really do appreciate that Big Ears recognizes the genuine artistic merit of metal.

 

Some photos from Andrew WK's motivational speech, which was essentially, and I quote from him directly, "Trick yourself into being happy!"
Photos by Shawn Poynter.

Not sure how to start so here it is: it's all about the Ex. I'm a touch embarrassed to admit they're one of those bands I've always known by reputation alone, but that's because no one apparently thought to tell me that they're nearly everything I love from the last 35 years of underground music (from Gang Of Four to Unwound) all rolled up into one band. I knew my shins would be hurting from walking after Big Ears' first night (and whoooooboy do they ever) but I didn't expect that my collarbone would be hurting from uncontrollable headbanging. Kudos to Ex openers Buke & Gass too, who come across with an alarmingly full post-punk sound for a duo consisting only of a baritone ukelele and "gass" (part guitar, part bass, all cop) plus a kick drum and a tambourine boot.

The night was marred by an equally unexpected disappointment, though: Swedish Quaalude-calypso duo jj's set at the Bijou captivated some but seemed to leave many more cold, as the "mysterious" group's singer stood center stage sipping on a beer and singing karaoke to full backing tracks while largely anonymous video footage played above her. (Her partner in crime hung back in the shadows for the most part; I am going to be charitable and assume he was at least the one pressing Play before each track. At one point he came out and seemed to be playing guitar along with one track, but the guitar coming over the speakers didn't seem to mind when he took the occasional breather from bothering to mime strumming.) The advantage, of course, is that the breezy, foggy pop itself came across just like it does on the record, and no one will deny the singer is tremendously talented. But after watching opener Nosaj Thing tear the room apart as just one dude standing at a bank of electronics -- think an ultra-crunk Four Tet -- the undeniable laziness of jj's show was hard to swallow. And it didn't help that headliners the xx (in a faithful, if slightly bloodless, runthrough of their stellar self-titled LP) put on what should pretty easily be the "spectacle" show of the entire fest, treating a packed-to-the-gills Bijou to one of the most impressive light shows I've ever seen.

One other minor disappointment: the Big Ears folks seem to have gone out of their way to program serious party music late at night, and I had hoped to see a lot of people shaking that ass @ DJ /rupture's set in the wee hours of the morning; though he certainly had the crowd captivated, the mood was much more head-bobbing than rug-cutting. (OK, there were a few dudes awkwardly dancing their little hearts out.) Hopefully Saturday's Javelin / Gang Gang Dance show will fare better...if people can figure out how to pace themselves all day. (Myself very much included.)

(sorry this is posting so late, been having trouble with el blog)

Today's been great so far--Bang on a Can All-Stars, followed by Iva Bittova and Liturgy at the Annex and Dirty Projectors at the Tennessee Theatre.

Iva Bittova's a stunning performer--not entirely pleasant, but you dn't really want her to stop, either. She mixes classical violin training with Eastern European and Romani folk music and has a voice of unbelievable range. It's dramatic, virtuosic, unexpected, utterly brilliant.

The Brooklyn black metal band Liturgy somehow made perfect sense right after--they played most of their 2009 album Renihilation and one new song, totally loud as shit. They play an arty take on traditional BM, incorporating the foundational elements--blast beats, tremolo riffing, and shrieked vocals--with none of the theatrical stuff. Smart (they have a manifesto on "transcendental black metal" for sale), efficient (especially drummer Greg Fox--even his blast beats were all in the wrist and feet; he barely moved his arms above the elbow), imaginative. Black metal may seem an odd fit for Big Ears, but if you think that it's only because you haven't heard them. (They played at the Birdhouse last fall to about 30 people, and there were only about half that at the Annex. Liturgy plays again tonight at Pilot Light,supported by local thrasher Warband and local doom metal trudgers Argentinum Astrum.)

Dirty Projectors sounded great. Dave Longstreth is a weird guitarist, but everything worked great--the Tennessee was full, but it might have been just a bit big for the band. A mix of new and old songs, a quiet rendition of "Two Doves," and (okay, I left early) probably "Stillness Is the Move" at the end. A great band, idiosyncratic and smart with weird chops, but a little distant in the big room. A good argument that the best of Big Ears is in the small venues.

I must tear myself away from the Dirty Projectors at the Tennessee Theatre to post some of the shots we've received from Shawn Poynter before it's too late:

Potentate of Big Ears this year is Terry Riley.

Day two got off to a nice start with Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Square Room--the five-piece set-up includes cello, bass violin, clarinet, electric guitar, and Ches Smith on drums and percussion. They're an expertly paced, tightly controlled ensemble, and closed with a few pieces by Dirty Projectors' Dave Longstreth. One was melancholy chamber music, the other energetic pop--the variety showed off BOAC's range. A good turnout, too--similar acts at the same venue last year drew much smaller audiences.

It's a beautiful day outside, and lots of good music ahead.

I took a lot of notes during the Terry Riley Quartet's concert at the Bijou. It was a weird set--a couple of original Riley compositions, a rearrangement of an Indian raga, and a composition by Riley's son Gyan. Ches Smith, drummer to the avant-stars, is indeed a fabulous percussionist, and he kept some interesting rhythms up the whole time. Mostly, though, I felt like there were a lot of really complicated musical ideas at work that were beyond me.

From there, the Ex at the Big Ears Annex. Anybody else has a hard act to follow--the Dutch post-punk four-piece was loud and ferocious, three guitars (one tuned to almost a bass) and drums, relatively simple songs, just riffs building and building, just a monstrous rock show.

I've just about decided to skip the rock shows at the Bijou and Tennessee in favor of smaller shows, so no xx for me. (I did have dinner at the Nite Owl at a table next to the National.) Andrew W.K.'s set with the Calder Quartet tried my patience--I gave up after an hour, even though the AWK hits were coming soon. His anti-comedy act was pretty unentertaining, and as good as the Calder Quartet is, they were drowned out by the crowd, which was made up largely of teenagers there to see AWK.

So, some disappointments of varying degrees bookended one nearly perfect set.

Andrew W.K.'s set with the

The festival's officially underway--Sam Amidon just completed a lovely set of folk songs (and one original) arranged for piano and banjo/guitar from his album All Is Well at Knoxville Museum of Art. (One was "O Death," another "False-Hearted Chicken.") He was accompanied by Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, on piano. It really was lovely--Amidon's an interesting banjo player and his voice often resembles that of the late avant-disco composer/cellist Arthur Russell, Bartlett's a fantastic pianist, they maintained a controlled, moderate pace for the entire 30 minute set. It was maybe a little sedate as an opener--last year started with the Baltimore electronic collage duo Matmos, who were much more energetic. I also could have done w/o Amidon's interpretive dance for the last few bars of his final song--it was a stretch into artiness that he'd threatened but never made through the entirety of the set until then.

Amidon and Bartlett are also, with composer/songwriter Nico Muhly and violist Nadia Sirota, performing tomorrow as the 802 Tour at the Bijou Theatre at 1 p.m., and all of them will be performing separately throughout the weekend.

Sufjan Stevens was at KMA, and Andrew W.K. was spotted at the Downtown Grill & Brewery earlier this afternoon. (Best Big Ears-related tweet today came from him: "PARTY TIP: DON'T BE MEAN TODAY")

Next up: Terry Riley Quartet at the Bijou Theatre. 

If you think we're overdoing it with the Big Ears coverage, well, argue with Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale. He's declared this officially the Big Ears Festival Weekend.

 Knoxville, Tenn. -- Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale has proclaimed this weekend, March 26-28, as Big Ears Festival Weekend in Knox County.  Mayor Ragsdale visited the offices of Festival organizer Ashley Capps, president of A.C. Entertainment, to issue the proclamation.  

"We are thrilled to have such a wonderful showcase of the music and musicians of our area," the Mayor told Capps.  "We really appreciate this creative festival and the needed boost it brings to tourism in Knox County."

The Big Ears Festival debuted in Knox County in 2009 and has been cited by the New York Times as an event "...for people who like hearing nuanced music in excellent theaters."  More than 50 concerts are planned during the weekend, plus talks, exhibitions, and other activities.

The Festival's mission is "to offer an exciting and dynamic platform of musical and artistic discovery by artists possessed of singular and unique visions that stand apart from the mainstream."  Find out more about the Festival at www.bigearsfestival.com/2010/.

Watch for some live music performances by local bands in unusual spots around downtown this weekend--parking garages, maybe some official Big Ears venues (or close by), and some alleys. That's the Kno Ears festival, an alternative fest of local music masterminded by Will Fist.

You might see the kickoff at 4:30 p.m. at or around KMA.

Big Ears isn't officially underway for another six hours, but Sam Amidon and Nadia Sirota are playing 11 O'Clock Rock at Knoxivi soon, according to AC Entertainment. At the moment, it's a real-estate ad.

The xx show tonight at the Bijou has just sold out, joining Vampire Weekend as the two full-capacity events so far. Word is to get to any theater shows early, even if you have a pass, especially VW, the xx, Joanna Newsom, and the National. I suspect Clogs will be packed, too, since Sufjan Stevens is playing with them.

The official schedule hasn't been printed yet, so you can d/l a good one here:

Big Ears schedule

Well, Big Ears is finally upon us. You can read a massive amount of Metro Pulse coverage here, you can keep updated on official news here, and here's a recent blog post from Atlanta's Creative Loafing on the festival.

Starting tomorrow afternoon, MP staffers and contributors will be trying to keep up with everything that's going on. What we expect to see: mind-bending performances by minimalist composer Terry Riley; lots and lots of skinny white kids at the Vampire Weekend show on Saturday night; and lots of surprises. We have no idea what to expect from Andrew W.K.'s late-Friday show with the fancy string ensemble Calder Quartet, or his lecture at KMA on Saturday.

You can keep up with us here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. And, of course, in the real world. 

Last year the Dogwood Arts Festival's Rhythm N' Blooms festival was a catch-all designation for a bunch of regularly scheduled concerts that took place all around downtown during the month of April. This year, the festival's grown into a real, three-day, multi-venue festival with a big-time lineup of local, regional, and national Americana acts, topped by two performances by Ben Sollee and a set by Carrie Rodriguez. More than 40 acts, including locals R.B. Morris and Hector Qirko, the Black Lillies, Medford's Black Record Collection, the Drunk Uncles, Taylor Brown, the Songbirds, the Black Cadillacs, and Kevin Hyfantis, have been announced so far, with more to come.

The festival is scheduled for April 16-18 at the Bijou Theatre, the Square Room, the University of Tennessee Gardens, Remedy Coffee, the Knoxville Botanical Garden, Barley's Taproom, Preservation Pub, the Crown & Goose, and Market Square.

Passes for the festival are $40.

The Fred Eaglesmith show at the Shed in Maryville that's listed for Saturday in this week's print edition--the one that's listed as free--is actually $20 for general admission, $30 for reserved seating. Oops. Sorry about that.

You can get more info and buy tickets at the Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson website.

WUTK 90.3 FM is airing an interview with James Brown, recorded backstage either before or after his 1968 concert at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum, on Sunday morning. No word on where the footage came from or why it's being broadcast now, but any reason to listen to the Godfather of Soul is a good one.

The broadcast starts at 9 a.m. on Sunday, March 13, with an NPR program featuring Ry Cooder and the Chieftans.

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.)

Dandridge may seem like an unlikely spot for a big music festival, but some Nashville-based promoters are dropping in there in June--the weekend right after Bonnaroo, in fact--for Cosmic Convergence, a four-day fest featuring some pretty big electronic/trance/jam-band acts, including Conspirator, with members of the Disco Biscuits, and Colorado's EOTO, who are playing at the Valarium on March 24.

In her feature last week on the Florida chillwave producer MillionYoung, aka Mike Diaz, who's working with the Knoxville-based music label Arcade Sound Ltd., Carey Hodges attributed much of Diaz's burgeoning success to the attention of Pitchfork. The website reviewed Diaz' self-released MillionYoung album, Sunndreamm, last year, and described it as "exactly what chillwave produced a stone's throw from South Beach ought to sound like."

Today Zach Kelly gives Diaz's Arcade Sound debut, the EP Be So True, a 7.6. Kelly writes:

"The music here sounds more synthetic than most current bedroom electronic projects, and Diaz reconfigures aqueous tones with an impressive array of rhythmic accents to give his productions momentum. But it's Diaz's vocals that lend a much-needed organic element. Though it's sometimes difficult to locate exactly what Diaz might be saying, since he often chops and pitch-shifts his already distant-sounding voice much like Washed Out's Ernest Greene does, lyrical sentiments take a backseat as his words melt into the lushness of his productions, often evoking a mood or emotion with a simple vocal intonation."

The brand-new national publicist for the long-running local band Senryu, who just happens to be the subject of a feature in this week's issue of Metro Pulse, has just released the band's song "Inkling," the title track from their new album, as an mp3. You can hear it here.

Senryu's having a CD release show at Pilot Light on Saturday, March 13.

Jim Turley, a Knoxville old-time fiddler who performed at Jubilee Community Arts' Jubilee Festival for 40 consecutive years, died on Tuesday, March 9.

Turley was expected to play at this year's festival, which starts on Friday. Instead, organizers will start the weekend-long event with a memorial performance by Turley's son, Dean, and Greg Horne, Earl Bull, Darrell Acuff, and others.

From JCA:

"A native of Boone County, West Virginia, and one time coal miner, Jim located to Knoxville after service in the Navy in WWII and education as an engineer.  He was much appreciated in the old-time music community in Knoxville and taught many younger musicians their first fiddle tunes.  Jim performed at the Laurel Theater's Jubilee Festival for 40 consecutive years."

There's one more big round of announcements for Big Ears, including some performers who had already been part of the official schedule released a few weeks ago and also including a number of local performers.

At the top of the list is Shelley Hirsch, an avant-garde singer (she uses what's called "extended vocal techniques) who'll be performing with Chattanooga's Shaking Ray Levis. They'll be on the same program with Tim Hecker and Ben Frost on Sunday afternoon.

Asheville math rock band Ahleuchatistas will play on Saturday and Sunday, and Baltimore's Videohippos are performing with Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez and Knoxville synth-pop duo Damaged Patients. Other Knoxville bands just added to the line-up are Argentinum Astrum, Mountains of Moss, Shortwave Society, and Warband.

The updated schedule is available here.

After a few scheduling bumps--their Jan. 29 gig was canceled because of snow, a later rescheduled show was canceled because of illness--the Lonesome Coyotes have finally nailed down their traditional early-in-the-year concert as part of the Knoxville Museum of Art's Alive After Five series. They'll play at KMA on Friday, March 12, at 6 p.m. Admission is $10; $6 for KMA members, free for those 17 and under.

The local Western swing/honky-tonk group, featuring Maggie Longmire, Steve Horton, Hector Qirko, Brock Henderson, Doug Klein, and Stan Turner, have played a January show at KMA since 2003, and have since become the series' most popular performers. They'd reformed in 2002 after a run in the late 1970s and early '80s that included a stint as the house band for the 1982 World's Fair.

Aftah Party, the local R&B/funk/hip-hop ensemble led by jazz pianist Donald Brown's sons Keith and Kenneth Brown, walked away with the grand prize at last night's final in the Square Room's Sound Off competition. It was a tight contest--Taylor Brown and Company finished a close second, and the two groups were exactly tied in the crowd response category.

Aftah Party nailed their performance with a dirty, funky, long version of Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" arranged for a horn section. Their set started slow, with an original song very reminiscent of Bobby Brown ca. 1990, but by the end of "Welcome to the Jungle" the outcome seemed pretty clear.

Ex-Nickel Creek singer/fiddler Sara Watkins, who performed at Tennessee Shines at the Bijou Theatre last fall, will play at the Square Room on Thursday, April 15. Watkins formed Nickel Creek in 1989 in Carlsbad, Calif., with her brother Sean and mandolin player Chris Thile. Since the band broke up in 2007, she's pursued a solo career; her self-titled debut was released in April 2009.

Jag Star's just announced the CD release showcase for their new album Static Bliss--the band's first local show in two years--at the Square Room on March 19. It will be the debut of Jag Star's new bassist, Brian Davis. Tickets are $8.

Shannon Stanfield, who was part of the local music scene for years as a journalist, photographer, and musician, died on Sunday after a two-year battle with cancer. Stanfield was a member of several local bands over the years, but is probably best remembered as the frontman of the country-rock band the Clintons, whose heyday in the late 1980s and early '90s helped establish the template for groups like the V-Roys.  

Stanfield also took photos for Metro Pulse, the News Sentinel, and Knoxville Voice, and wrote the Town Hound column on local music for the News Sentinel in the late 1990s.

Randall Brown at the News Sentinel wrote a brief obituary here. There's also a long tribute thread on Knox Blab. That thread includes a link to an mp3 of one of the Clintons' last shows, at Patrick Sullivan's in 2008.