Steve Wildsmith

Wallypalooza founder Wally Miles (left) and emcee Waylon Whiskey

Remember this, party people — bloody marys. Find a good recipe. Pre-make some. Keep a gallon of it in the fridge before you head out to Wallypalooza 2012: The Fifteenth Anniversary, details of which were revealed this morning by the man himself, organizer Wally Miles.

Why the need for a vat of bloody marys, you ask? Because you won’t be in any shape to make them on the mornings after, and you’ll need them to get better quick — because Wallypalooza is spread out over four nights this year.

“After 15 years of Wallypalooza, both the legend and the expectations have grown to levels unimaginable,” Miles said. “To celebrate 15 years of something I didn’t forsee still existing after all these years, the goal is to make this the absolute biggest Wallypalooza of all time, for those who have only heard the legend, and for those who have attended and have come to expect a weekend they will never forget.”

Here’s the skinny:

• WHEN: March 1-4, 2012
• WHERE: The Thirsty Turtle (formerly Big Daddy’s, the site of many Wallypaloozas in years past), 2641 Highway 411 S., Maryville
• HOW MUCH: $5 per night
• HOSTED BY: Comedian Waylon Whiskey and members of the comedy troupe the Black Liver Society
• PERFORMERS: Labyrinth, Centric, German Deathwish, Cooter Punch, Joe Coe, Afterlife, Binfield, Divided We Stand, Psychosystem, Rockslyde, Shallowpoint, Catalyst, Big Trouble, Crome Molly, Warclown, The Aftermath, Rot Iron, One of the Fallen, Hollywood and Dirty D … and more to be announced

For those wondering what, exactly, Wallypalooza is … well, you’ve got to experience it. It began as a birthday celebration for Miles, a 1997 graduate of Maryville High School and a lifelong resident of Blount County (until recent years, at least). Miles invited friends to the lake in 1998, and they enjoyed an afternoon of music blaring from an old boombox. The next year, someone came up with the idea of getting a rock band to play for the annual gathering.

Over the next 14 years, the event was christened Wallypalooza and grew into the monster that it is today. And starting in 2008, when he booked three bands (Middle Finger, Stonemosis and Half of Something) at Nater’z Sports Grille in Maryville, it’s become a beast over which he has little control, at least in terms of how many people show up.

Read our cover stories on Wallypalooza from last March and last August.

And start doing liver squats or something, because your internal organ will require conditioning for this party.

Folks familiar with the East Tennessee entertainment scene probably know Laura Mullaney better as “Hellcat Harlowe” or “Miz Kitty,” the founder of the lovely ladies of White Lightnin’ Burlesque. For more than five years now, White Lightnin’ has provided area show-goers with laughs, gasps, titillation and provocative thrills.

What you may not know is that Mullaney was struck by a motor vehicle last month — Dec. 19 — and suffered serious leg injuries that are requiring a long convalesence. She can’t say much about the accident due to ongoing litigation other than she was a pedestrian, and that she’ll “be on hiatus as a burlesque performer while I recover. Hopefully I will be able to return to the stage by the end of 2012. Also, please mention the ladies of White Lightnin Burlesque will continue to perform in my absence!”

But while she’s gone from the stage, she’s not from our hearts — and on Tuesday, Jan. 31, a group of local comedians are throwing “Laughs for Laura,” a benefit to help cover Mullaney’s medical expenses. It takes place at 8 p.m. at Old City Entertainment Venue, 118 S. Central St. in Knoxville’s Old City, and it’s being thrown by a group of yuksters who call themselves the Black Liver Society and describe themselves as thus: “Black Liver Society is a branding of the best bar comics in the south, already in multiple states and spreading like herpes in a Waffle House bathroom. And now they bringing out some of the biggest names in comedy for East Tennessee to the stage for you. We are bringing the best of the dirtiest, drunkest, most entertaining comics in the South to the stage one night only to raise money for a damn good cause.”

Comedian Dave Wright will hosts the event, which will also feature special guest/White Lightnin’ performer Sassy Frass as well as comedians Riley Fox, Matt Ward, Justin Koontz, Trae Crowder, Waylon Whiskey and J.C. Ratliff. Admission is only $5 at the door.

Mullaney, a 1993 graduate of Blount County’s Heritage High School, started White Lightnin’ in 2006. The troupe was her brainchild, but she had a little help from other local ladies in getting it off the ground, and a lot of inspiration from her business trips to Las Vegas. Active in drama and art in high school, she studied theater at the University of Tennessee, but drama was unfulfilling.

“I wanted to be on stage, but I didn’t want to do productions; something about it was lacking,” she told us back in 2007. “I was into the gothic scene for many years, and I guess I still am, so I gradually started doing some other performance art.”

She also got involved working as a hair and makeup artist, which led to her trip to Las Vegas. Long a fan of burlesque, she had watch video clips of such classic burlesque pin-ups as Bettie Page and Tempest Storm, and she was also intrigued by the possibility of visiting Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce, a high-profile burlesque club at Vegas’s Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. A return trip to Vegas merited another visit to the Forty Deuce, and at the end of the night, Mullaney found herself talking to a few of the dancers who had just gotten off work and were dressed in street clothes.

“When I talked to them a little bit, I thought, ‘I really should do this,’” she told us. “That was in October (2005), and I went back to Knoxville and thought on it and started making phone calls.”

She picked eight girls as the core members of the troupe in 2006, and by February of that year, White Lightnin’ was off and running. From club shows at dance nights sponsored by the local goth scene to wine-and-cheese nights at the Knoxville Museum of Art, White Lightnin’ has been on a mission to entertain and to empower women, Mullaney said.

“It’s the art of the tease, and it’s actually quite modest,” she said of burlesque. “It’s for entertainment, and it’s very empowering. We wanted women of all shapes and sizes, because we want people to know that we’re real women, that we look great and that we have a good time. That’s what we’re all about. That’s the reaction we love, when girls come up after a show and say, ‘I feel really good about how I look.’ And we get a lot of response from the men, too – you’d be surprised at how many men aren’t looking for Twiggy.”

If you want to help out but can’t attend, consider checking out the “Hellcat Harlowe Assistance Fund” on Facebook.

Guitarist Seth Thacker of the metal band Straight Line Stitch released this statement on his Facebook page today:

“I have officially stepped down from Straight Line Stitch. SLS is something I will forever cherish and I will miss it deeply. Something things just aren’t meant to be, and at this particular point of my life SLS is one of those things. I will be forever grateful for all the fans and friends I have met on this journey. Time to turn a new leaf … I love you all! S”

Given that singer Alexis Brown moved back to her hometown of Clarksville, Thacker’s departure probably disqualifies Straight Line Stitch from being called a “Knoxville” band. But hey — the group got its start here, and Thacker’s memories involve plenty of fond East Tennessee ones, he told us in an interview last September. Best of luck to him and his bandmates.

Previous owners haven’t had a lot of luck with the spot at 4620 Kingston Pike in Knoxville’s Bearden neighborhood, but if we were betting peeps over here at The Daily Times, our money would go on Gina Truitt making something vibrant and viable out of it.

She’s certainly going to give it her all — The Well opens next month in that location, formerly the home of 4620 Jazz Club, which couldn’t survive long after owner Melissa Rosenthal died in a car wreck in 2007. It closed briefly, re-opened under new ownership and was purchased by Daniel Leal, who turned it into 4620 Reinvented. That place did OK, hosting artists like Toby Lightman and Wayne Hancock before changing names (and target clientele, becoming a gay bar) to Velvet … but for more than a year, it’s been vacant.

Now, Truitt — who used to run The Spot, a former midtown watering hole and patio bar, for 10 years and most recently managed Sunspot on “The Strip” and Barley’s Taproom in the Old City — is the property’s new proprietor. It helps that she’s plugged into the local music scene in a way few club owners are; after all, her sweetheart is local singer-songwriter Matt Woods, whose music and work locally is known and respected.

A brief description of The Well, from the venue’s website: “Our stage is the newest addition to Knoxville’s strong music scene. Moreover, we are the only place providing original local, regional and national talent west of downtown … The Well is a comfortable spot to enjoy food, drink and original live music. The Well offers a smoke-free environment with a separate smoking room. We are open to patrons 21 and up seven nights a week, hosting music for five. Look for nightly drink specials, half-price food on Sundays, vinyl record nights, afternoons with newly released CDs, guest chef nights and more.”

The grand opening is the week of Jan. 20, and by the look of the calendar on the aforementioned website, things are going to start off with a bang.

Congrats to Gina. Now do your part by supporting.

In February 2010, in a blog post announcing “the fake that sunk a thousand ships,” the solo record by Sam Quinn of the everybodyfields, we mentioned an album that the band — which includes Jill Andrews as co-founder/co-leader and the instrumental firepower of Josh Oliver, Tom Pryor and Jamie Cook — recorded shortly before (and probably during the process of) breaking up in 2009 was sitting on the shelves at Rock Snob Studios in Knoxville.

Quinn and Andrews have patched up their relationship, are pals again and the everybodyfields are playing one final show this year, the fourth since getting back together for Bristol’s Rhythm and Roots Reunion, and while the members won’t rule out playing together again at some point in the future, that final record will probably stay shelved, Quinn told me this week.

“It’s probably not ever going to happen,” he said. “I think the bulk of the work we did was pretty good, but recording in the middle of that period was tumultuous, and it wasn’t our best work. I think there’s a reason to keep it in the can right now. There were a few songs that were very good, but to be honest, I haven’t listened to it in ages.

“It might be something to go back and listen to and then we’ll go, ‘That’s pretty cool’ — or it might just sit up there. That was just a time when nothing was firing, and I think we were realizing that was probably as far as this thing was gonna go.”

New music is on the horizon from Quinn and Andrews individually, however. Quinn is putting together a more upbeat follow-up to “fake,” he said.

“I’m kind of taking the Wings sort of approach on it by playing bass,” he said. “I’ve got guitar players and electric guitars, and it’s sounding kind of laid-back, not unlike a slow Crazy Horse. It’s sludgy and slow and not-so-happy in parts.”

He hopes to play more shows in 2012, he added, while Andrews will continue to tour in support of “The Mirror,” her 2011 full-length.

“I’m mostly writing a lot, and getting together with a lot of people and writing for other people,” Andrews said, adding that local fans should expect another Jill Andrews show sometime in the first quarter of 2012.

R.B. Morris

He’s already done the tux thing, and he wouldn’t mind doing it again — but on Jan. 6, local singer-songwriter/poet/playwright R.B. Morris will get to check off another item on his bucket list.

As the kick-off to the “Alive After Five” concert series at the Knoxville Museum of Art (1050 World’s Fair Park Drive in downtown Knoxville), Morris will sit in with the Streamliners Swing Orchestra, a regular at The Capitol Theatre in downtown Maryville and a favorite of “AA5″ patrons. It’s a show put together by “Alive After Five” coordinator Michael Gill, and it’s been years in the planning, Gill told me this week in an email.

A few (5 or 6?) years ago, I interviewed R.B. for an ill-fated publication that went belly up before the story got printed, but I learned two surprising things about RB that made the effort worth it,” Gill writes. “One was that he had been an All-KIL (Knoxville Interscholastic League) basketball player in high school, and, two, that he had long had a desire to sing with a big band. I stored that away in my memory banks and vowed to myself that one day I would make that happen. To make a long story somewhat shorter, that day is coming January 6 at Alive After Five when the winter series premiers with The Streamliners Swing Orchestra, joined by special guest vocalist R.B. Morris.”

Morris credits Gill for making the collaboration happen, even though he and Streamliners bandleader Mike “Catfish” Spirko are still working out a time to rehearse for the performance.

“He immediately was saying, I know a bunch of standards,’ and I said, ‘That could be great; I wouldn’t mind doing that, but I would love to work up a couple of my own tunes,’” Morris told me. “I think I’ve got a couple that lend themselves to that — ‘Old Copper Penny,’ which (a friend) described as sort of a Tin Pan Alley song, and ‘Summer’s Breaking Down’ might be good. We’ll have to see what works out, though. It’s still their gig, but just the idea of singing with them is great.”

Whether he’ll wear a tux, however, remains to be seen. He rented one for a dinner concert he performed earlier this year at The Square Room in downtown Knoxville — mostly as a goof — but it turns out the show might have been good practice for the Jan. 6 show.

“I came out, playing it solo, and I sang ‘Moon River’ and ‘Days of Wine and Roses,’” Morris said. “I didn’t have the big band behind me, but those are potentially big band songs.”

Last year’s Waynestock weekend was born out of tragedy — the death of Andrew Bledsoe, oldest son of long-time News Sentinel music writer Wayne Bledsoe.

The organizers — Tim and Susan Lee, Steve Wildsmith, Mic Harrison, Wil Wright and Jason Knight — didn’t know what to expect. All they knew was that a friend was in pain and a lot of mutual friends wanted to do something, anything, to help. And so a festival was born.

Over three days at Relix Variety Theatre in Downtown North Knoxville, musicians played and fans came, and the Bledsoe family received an outpouring of support. It was such a beautiful weekend, filled with love and music and community, that organizers knew almost immediately they wanted to do it again.

In November, tragedy once again struck the music community when Knoxville expatriate Phil Pollard died suddenly in his Virginia hometown. Although Phil departed Knoxville a few years back, the legacy he left behind — and continued to return to contribute to — is monumental in the local scene. Numerous groups benefited from his talent, and the local scene benefited from his whimsical, quirky, intellectual personality. Whenever Phil played, it was truly a show; music and art and some sort of zany magic all combined to make for nights of wonder, laughter and creative genius.

He left behind a wife and three daughters, and once again the East Tennessee music scene is being called upon to give back. Waynestock 2: For the Love of Phil will be a fundraiser for the educational fund of Phil’s three girls. It will be held again at Relix Variety Theatre, and in the same spirit as the original Waynestock, it will be three nights of love and light and remembrance and celebration, all for a good cause.

Performers include: Thursday, Feb. 2 — Songwriters in the Round featuring Jeff Barbra and Sarah Pirkle, Greg Horne, Kevin Abernathy and Jay Clark; Jack Rentfro and the Apocalypso Quartet; Ian Thomas; and Christabel and the Jons. On Friday, Feb. 3 — Sara Schwabe and Her Yankee Jass Band; The Lonetones; Tim Lee 3; R.B. Morris; and King Super and the Excellents. A post-Waynstock after-party, featuring the deejays of Magic Hu$tle (Lil iFFy, Tom Ato and more) will begin at 1 a.m. and continue into the early hours of Saturday, Feb. 4. And rounding out the weekend on Saturday night — The French (featuring Phil’s brother-in-law, Brett Winston); The Theorizt; Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere; Senryu; and finishing off the evening, an All-Star Tribute to Phil, featuring members of his various bands and some of the titans of the music scene paying homage to the man so many knew and loved.

This year’s organizers also include Rusty Odom, editor/publisher of Blank News; and Wayne Bledsoe, the festival’s namesake. In putting together this year’s lineup, organizers wanted to maintain the spirit of community that permeated the original through inclusion of some of last year’s acts, while at the same time including as many of the acts with which Phil was associated as possible. The groups scheduled for Waynestock 2 will continue the Knoxville spirit of talent, grace and beauty of spirit that made the first festival such a weekend of magic, and organizers believe its connection to Phil and the people who loved him will make it every bit as successful.

Admission is $5 per night, and the music begins at 7 p.m. each night. Other activities are being planned around the weekend-long event, the details of which will be announced in the coming weeks.

It’s an opportunity for those who feel they’ve received so much to give back … a chance for remembrance and celebration … a time for musicians and fans of all genres, styles and types of music to come together and lift their hands in unity for a guy who’s spent his life uniting an amazing East Tennessee music scene through his words.

We hope you’ll join us. For more information, check out the website set up for this event — www.waynestock.org, and look for further releases and e-mail blasts as the event draws closer.

Jonathan Maness

Hoping for a repeat of the success of the “Friday Nights Live” series held during the spring and summer, organizers at Maryville College’s Clayton Center for the Arts are launching another concert series next month.

The “Cozy Winter Nights” series kicks off Jan. 28; all performances are in the Lambert Recital Hall, a cozy little theater in the Clayton complex that has some great acoustics and not a bad view of the stage from anywhere in the room. All performances take place at 8 p.m.; admission is $10 per performance. Here’s the lineup:

• Jan. 28: Knoxville singer-songwriter Jonathan Maness
• Feb. 4: Pigeon Forge performer/teen singer-songwriter Sam Hatmaker
• Feb. 11: Delta blues/roots-rock band Blue Mother Tupelo
• Feb. 18: Jazz combo Ensemble Swing Time Band
• Feb. 25: Knoxville Americana outfit Mountain Soul
• March 3: Humorous singer-songwriter “Sneaky” Pete Rizzo
• March 17: Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club

Tickets to the concerts go on sale Monday, Dec. 19; to purchase, or for more information, call the Clayton Center box office at 981-8590.

On My Honor — (from left) David Fear, Lucas Sams, Drew Justice, Jordan Garner and Trey MeHaffey

The show must go on, but it ain’t going on in Maryville.

After The Daily Times Weekend section ran a story on Thursday profiling the band and the show scheduled for tonight (Dec. 16) at Heritage Bethesda Church of God, 2525 Tuckaleechee Pike in Maryville, the guys in local pop-punk outfit On My Honor received an unexpected phone call at 10 p.m. Thursday night.

“Apparently, because of the article and words in it like ‘punk rock,’ people were calling the pastor (Rev. William “Buddy” Sweet) and saying they were going to report him to the pastoral board and have his license taken away,” guitarist Lucas Sams said. “So the pastor got scared and said we couldn’t do the show.

“I don’t really know what to think about that; we’ve never had that happened before. All the bands are totally positive, and there would have been nothing non-Christian going on. Half the band were Christian bands; everybody in our band is a Christian. And even if some people at the show weren’t Christian, I would think they would want to have something like a show that would bring them into the church.”

Sweet was unavailable for comment; however, his grandson — Storm Owens, a member of local Christian hardcore rock band East Old Topside and a guy instrumental in booking many of the shows held at Heritage Bethesda in the past, said, “The show has been moved due to unforeseen complications with the church and local community.”

“Shows at the church have always included Christian bands, so the frustration of the community is unfortunate and misled,” Owens said in a written statement. “The effort of the church is to provide a local place for both Christians and non-Christians to fellowship, just as Jesus fellowshiped with those that were non-believers in order to create a relationship and display the overwhelming love of Christ. This is the most important thing by far.”

All-ages rock shows have been taking place at the church since early summer of this year, and Thursday wasn’t the first time a Weekend story profiled a band performing there. In June, Weekend profiled local Christian metal band Morior Invictus. According to MI vocalist Joel Rainwater, his band had nothing but a positive experience there.

“We had no problems; in fact, I thought we were playing there again soon,” Rainwater said.

That remains to be seen; Owens said it’s too early to tell how complaints might affect future shows at the church. By Friday morning, Sams and his bandmates had worked to update all social media discussion of the show to reflect its new location — Sams’s house, 930 Mundy St. in Knoxville. It’s a much smaller place for a rock show, Sams said, but the guys in OMH have been advocates for the all-ages scene for too long to just call it off.

“It’s going to completely pack my house to its capacity, and the ironic thing is that I can guarantee you, nobody would have tried to bring alcohol to that church — but some of them probably will try to bring it to my house,” he said. “People wonder why younger people are so jaded by religion — this is why. They wonder why kids are going out and getting in trouble and doing drugs — that’s why.

“There’s nothing positive for them to do. The only place that has all-ages shows is a place like Valarium (940 Blackstock Drive in Knoxville’s Warehouse District), where a lot of people don’t want their kids to go because it’s downtown, and it’s a place that serves alcohol. So what else are they supposed to do?”

“I’m gonna find a way into your house / and it’s probably gonna freak you out …”

So says the protagonist at the heart of “I’m Just a Squirrel (Trying to Get a Nut on Christmas),” one of three holiday songs on “Brent Thompson’s Christmas EP,” available now for download on Thompson’s Bandcamp site.

Those familiar with Thompson’s brand of humor will revel in the beauty of this song, a ballad that follows the journey of a hungry, furry-tailed forest rodent as he sneaks into a house in search of food, risks obliteration (“Oh! Is that your shotgun? It’s time to say my prayers! I’ll remind you, if you shoot me, there’ll be squirrel everywhere!”) only to find a savior in Santa, who gifts the little guy his heart’s desire … and an iPhone 5.

It’s a song that could have horribly wrong, but Thompson has the chutzpah to pull it off with the tongue-in-cheek aplomb that’s made him such a great host on “Eleven O’Clock Rock,” the Internet TV show on Knox iVi that he’s hosted since its inception. Channeling Alvin and the Chipmunks as the voice of our song’s hero, he succeeds in crafting a nod to C + C Music Factory, Christmas and “Tom and Jerry.” The song, in fact, could very well serve as the basis for an animated holiday classic, were it to fall into the right hands. It’s some quirky brilliance courtesy of a heck of a talented and funny guy.

(And it’s not all — Thompson brings a jazzy, torch-song feel to both “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Christmas Song,” the other two tracks on this EP. Proceeds of the $5 cost go to the Ronald McDonald House, and the song can also be found on the “Homegrown for the Holidays: Volume 2,” the local Christmas music compilation put together by WFIV-FM, i105, to benefit the Ronald McDonald House as well.

The Knoxville scene is gifted with all sorts of talented folk, and Thompson is among that collective. He’s long had a penchant for the fun and the offbeat (remember Brent Thompson’s Wandering Circus?), and his “Squirrel” song is evidence that it’s still alive and well. This holiday season, it’s his gift to the rest of us, and — if you pardon our very bad pun — we give it two bushy tails, straight up and quivering.