Recently in local music Category

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.

That didn't take long. The same day we ran a story about Maryville cock-rockers Gun*Slinger, we also got an e-mail from the band's management informing us that singer Cole Graham, who founded the band in 2008, has been fired--just in time for the band's show at the Longbranch Saloon tomorrow night. Daniel Ott, whose brother Marcus plays lead guitar in the band, has been named as Graham's replacement.

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. 

New Year's Eve in Knoxville used to be Scott Miller Night. Even after the dissolution of the V-Roys in 1999, Miller kept up his annual Dec. 31 gig for several years. It's still going, in fact, but this year he'll be in Maryville, at the Shed, while the Dirty Guv'nahs take the coveted spot at the Bijou that night.

That pretty much cements the Guv'nahs as the most popular local band right now (as if three consecutive Best Band awards in Metro Pulse's Best of Knoxville voting hadn't already done that). It's too late to say you saw them when..., but there's a preview of the New Year's Eve show this Friday at the Bijou, with the band celebrating the official release of its second album, Youth Is in Our Blood. The Black Cadillacs are opening at 8 p.m., and a few tickets are still available.

Tickets for the New Year's Eve show are $20 and go on sale on Friday, Oct. 1.

The lineup for the second edition of the Square Room's Sound Off competition has been set, with 25 bands making it through the first round of cuts. The first night of the contest, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at the Square Room, will feature the Ibiza-style soundscapes of electronic trio Arpetrio, alt-rockers Johnny Astro and the Big Bang and Pegasi 51, and R&B/funk ensembles Soulfinger and Dishwater Blonde. The winner of that set, based on judges' scores and audience response, will move on to the final round in March.
 
The other 20 bands will face off against each other in similar sets on the first Wednesday of each month through February, with the winners playing against each other in March. The remaining bands who made it to the cut-off round are the Big Deuce, the Black Jack of Ballarat, Bone Prophet, Brimstone Treehouse, Elliot Collett, Dave Dykes and the Grateful Heart, Jason Ellis, the Fontinelles, the Gentlemen Conspiracy, the Great Great Pines, the Hotshot Freight Train, Lions, Danielle Madison, Madre, Davis Mitchell, Gene Priest and the Cardinal Sin, Rally, Silver Jubilee, Skytown Riot, and the Theorizt. Oh, and Todd Steed is going to emcee the series.
 
The overall winner gets studio time at Rock Snob Recordings, custom merchandise, an opening spot on an upcoming AC Entertainment concert, and up to $500 in gear. 

If you (and/or) your band want to get into the Square Room's Sound Off competition, you've just got a few days left to submit your application. The deadline for submissions is Monday, Aug. 30, which is now less than a week away.

The winner of the contest, which takes place between October and March, will get a two-day recording session at Rock Snob studio, $400 worth of customized merch from Nouveau Graphics, airplay on WUTK 90.3 FM, and a CD-release show at the Square Room.

Twenty-five bands will be selected for the competition. They'll face off, five at a time, at monthly showcases, with the winners of the first five rounds advancing to a final on March 2.

For complete rules and an application, visit the Square Room website.

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.