concert announcements: May 2009 Archives

Wolves in the Throne Room is a black metal band from the woods around Olympia, Wash. The band's current tour in support of Black Cascade is its most extensive yet, and it's getting rave reviews. (See here and here.) WITTR's Deep Earth eco-spirituality is just a step or two removed from the pre-Christian paganism that informed the first wave of Norwegian black metal in the early 1990s, and the band shares an anti-humanist perspective with those classic Scandanavian bands, but their politics seem to generally head in an entirely different direction. WITTR is playing the Hideaway in Johnson City--which has quietly turned into East Tennessee's best venue for underground metal--on Saturday, May 30, with Krallice and A Storm of Light.

photo by Afton Larsen

Thirty years after "Rapper's Delight" became the first hip-hop single to go gold, the Sugar Hill Gang (a version of the original group, anyway) is coming to Knoxville for, of all things, the Tennessee Valley Fair. The New Jersey group--definite pioneers of the form, even if their origins as a studio creation of label owner  Sylvia Robinson do murk up the legacy a bit--will be performing alongside more traditional fair fare like Rick Springfield and Molly Hatchet on Friday, Sept. 18.

Pilot Light celebrates its ninth anniversary tonight with performances by Big Bad Oven, New Madrid, Eric Lee, and Emperor Ant, as well as some new bands that have formed just for tonight.

Doors at 10 p.m., music will star sometime after that. $5, 18 and up.

I wrote about Pilot Light and its owner, Jason Boardman, here and here.

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.)

Tonight: The slightly bent noise/art-pop of Magik Markers with It Is a Code at Pilot Light, or the genuinely fierce Nashville funk-and-R&B revue The Dynamites with Charles Walker at Barley's Taproom, 10 p.m. There's also The Melungeons at Patrick Sullivan's and local honky-tonk revivalists J.C. and the Dirty Smokers at Preservation Pub.

Saturday: Two chances to see Elvis Perkins in Dearlnad--a specail Saturday Blue Plate Special at WDVX and later at the Catalyst.

The Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound has unearthed a treasure trove of footage from Cas Walker's long-running local television show, and they want you to see it. TAMIS is holding a benefit performance in Maryville next month to screen the clips and host live music by local and regional perfomers connected to Walker's career.

From the press release:

Cas Walker wore many hats; grocer, politician, and long-time radio and television variety show host. Each job was done in Walker's unique tell-it-like-it-is style. Love him or hate him, Walker was a major force in Knoxville business and politics, and gave hundreds of area musicians a break on his long-running Cas Walker Farm and Home television program. Recently discovered film clips and rare video from Walker's long-unavailable local television program give testimony as to why Cas Walker's legacy endures almost a decade after his death. Featured are vintage commercials, musical guest spots (look for a young Dolly Parton!) and bloopers from Walker's surviving television programs. As an added bonus, TAMIS will be screening hilarious and previously lost Cas Walker television advertisements from the 1950s, unseen for over five decades. These vintage commercials feature the likes of Fred E Smith, Red Rector, and other well-known local entertainers.

Rounding out the program will be live country, bluegrass, and gospel musical performances from local musicians who played for Cas on his radio and television programs from the 1940s until the 1980s. Scheduled to perform are Cas Walker impersonator John Hitch (of local "Mayberry" fame), and wife Ruby, Luke Brandon, comedian Phil Campbell, western swing artists Sisters of the Silver Sage, Chet Atkins-style guitar picker Larry Oldham, Rita Cianciola, 90 year old Pappy "Gube" Beaver" (sponsored by Walker on WROL Radio in the 1940s), and legendary bluegrass band David West and the Cider Mountain Boys.

A special attraction will be the reunion of the surviving Randolph Family Band, a popular local radio act (WNOX, WROL) during the 1940s, along with a screening of a long-lost film made of the band in 1946 by Knoxville filmmaker Sam Orleans.

The show will be held at the Palace Theater in Maryville on Saturday, June 6, from 7-10 p.m. A $10 minimum donation is requested.

Stuff to do tonight:

• It's First Friday, so art+free booze all over downtown. 

* The Best of Knoxville Party with the Dirty Guv'nahs, Jon Worley and Cornbred Blues Revival, and DJ Slink at the Cider House. More free booze.

• The 1220 CD release show at the Catalyst.

• The Felice Brothers at Barley's Taproom.

• Southern Culture on the Skids at the Square Room.

• Celebrate the grand opening of Southbound Bar & Grill with some trashy women and Confederate Railroad.