Superdrag dudes wanna be sedated …
Speaking of “Funhouse” dudes in my aforementioned post, Mr. Senter gave me a tip about another upcoming Barley’s show, this one on Friday, Feb. 26. The Barley’s calendar simply lists the band as “Warthog: A tribute to the Ramones,” but a visit to the Superdrag website reveals some additional information:
“Back in March of 2009, Superdrag’s ‘Senator’ Tom Pappas, John Davis and Sam Powers enlisted the help of unstoppable drummer Joey Sanchez to put together a short set of Ramones covers for a Joey Ramone’s Birthday benefit gig in aid of lymphoma research at Nashville’s Mercy Lounge. They christened themselves Warthog for the occasion to honor the late, great Dee Dee Ramone, who penned the song of the same name (which also happened to be in the set that night). Anyway, they had such a great time playing, they’re bringing the Ramones tribute back for a couple more shows! They’ll be playing a half-hour set at The Basement’s fifth anniversary show on Feb. 6 in Nashville, and a proper headlining set at Barley’s Taproom (200 E. Jackson Ave.) in Knoxville on Feb. 26.”
Admission to that show will most likely be $5. Read last year’s cover story on Superdrag here.
Lucero returns to Barley’s Taproom
After a November show that pulled them from their usual Knoxville venue — Barley’s Taproom, 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City — Memphis rock outfit Lucero appears to be returning there on Friday, March 26. The Barley’s live music calendar for March lists the band as performing there that night as part of the monthly “Funhouse Presents” showcases, brought to you by that wacky duo Rob Levering and Derek Senter, hosts of “The Funhouse” from 8-10 p.m. every Friday on WUTK-FM, 90.3 The Rock.
We did a story on the band when they played The Valarium last November, and the group’s most recent album — “1372 Overton Park” — made my year-end best-of list for 2009. Check out Lucero online here; no word yet on how much tickets might be or who the opening act is — our fingers are crossed for Glossary, the Murfreesboro-based band that frequently collaborates with Lucero and just put out a new CD, “Feral Fire,” on Lucero’s Liberty and Lament label.
Other notable March shows at Barley’s: Shannon McNally on Friday, March 5 … The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker on Saturday, March 6 … a CD release show by Knoxville expatriate and Nashville singer-songwriter Matt Urmy on Friday, March 12 … and former Dixie Dirt front woman/singer-songwriter Kat Brock on Sunday, March 21.
UPDATE: Tickets to the Lucero show will be $13 in advance and $15 at the door; still no word on opening bands. (Still crossing fingers for Glossary.) Call Barley’s at 521-0092 for more information.
Hot Topic in Knoxville Center Mall holding Battle of the Bands
Think you got the chops to throw down in East Town? (Well … Knoxville Center Mall, although those of us who remember it back when it first opened can never go there or even discuss it without humming that gloriously quirky song by Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere, “East Town Mall.”) Then prepare yourselves, because that bitchin’ clothing/trend store known as Hot Topic is holding a Battle of the Bands competition on April 1 and 2.
It’s taking place in the store, and like most of the store’s live music performances, all sets must be acoustic. (Although if you need a small amplifier, one will be provided.)
The first band will go on around noon, the final band will wrap things up by 7 p.m. No word yet on details of judging or anything else, but if you’re interested in competing, call the store at (865) 637-7710 and ask for a manager to sign up. Details are also available on the Knoxville Center Hot Topic Myspace page.
The future is Unknown … for one night, at least …
Just got word from Sean Blair, GM over at Patrick Sullivan’s Saloon (100 N. Central St. in Knoxville’s Old City), that “The King of Country-Western Troubadours” — Unknown Hinson — will perform there at 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18. Tickets are $15.
Read our interview with him from last year, and take our word for it — if you’ve ever experienced an Unknown Hinson show, you’re in for a treat. See for yourself. Here’s Unknown Hinson on:
And finally, some pointers, if you will … words of wisdom from Unknown Hinson’s dental-afflicted mouth to our ears, from a cover story we did on him in August 200!
… on Love
1) “Always suit up before you make love. I am a firm believer in the condominium. We live in dangerous times, and I ain’t ashamed to tell a woman, ‘Look here, darlin’ — you’re pretty and all, but I don’t know where you been or what you been into, so give me a minute to suit up. If I don’t, I might get a touch of the AIDS or something, know what I mean?”
2) “Be good to the womerns. I like to think I’ve learned what they likes — womerns likes mens who shoot guns and sing country-Western music. Gene Autry, he shot guns and sang country-Western, and womerns liked him. Roy Rogers, he shot a gun and sang country-Western music, and womerns liked him. I shoot a gun, and I sing country-Western music, and womern’s likes me. I don’t see no argument there.”
… on Life
1) “Another thing I’ve learned — party liquor is a damn good antiseptic. You might have noticed from my photographs that I’ve got a slight dental affliction. My gums bleed and gets infected from time to time. When I start bleeding from the mouth, I just do eight or 10 shots of party liquor, and it not only helps kill the pain, it ensures my chart-topping mouth is free from disease. In particular, my party liquor of choice is the vodka in the half-gallon size. It’s clear. I don’t ever drink no party liquor I can’t see through. That’s dangerous.”
2) “One of the things I’ve learned the hard way, is that I’ve learned a lot about ice machines. I never stay in a hotel or a motel that ain’t got no nearby, working ice machine. Hell, when I got a woman in my room after one of my shows, and we’re having a drink, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna disrupt our romance by going out and looking for a damn ice machine. If I find one and it ain’t working, I check out of the hotel right then and there. I ain’t a dealing with that mess. A working ice machine is one of the most important fixtures a hotel or motel has to offer, in my opinion.”
… and on the Music Business
1) “Practice your guitar, or your drums, or your pianer or whatever you play, at least a half-hour a day. Don’t give up because, hell, you never know — success might be just around the corner.”
2) “Try to avoid a prison sentence if humanly possible — your record sales will drop off if you go into the joint like I did for 30 years.”
3) “Just write what’s in your heart. Write about what you know, because you can’t write about something you don’t know and something you ain’t experienced. If you try to, people see through it.”
4) “I tell young musicians and performers, never leave your wallet or your billfold in the dressing room. While you’re out there performing, somebody might sneak in there and steal your billfold, which contains your cash American monies and your condominiums.”
5) “Another thing I would tell the young up-and-coming aspiring artists — people will think you is a vampire if you have two pointed, sharp teeth like me and a thick, bountiful head of jet-black hair with a pronounced widder’s peak like I do and thick black sideburns and bushy black eyebrows like me and always dress in black tuxeders like me. But hell, if it makes them happy to believe I’m a vampire, that’s fine. It’s like believin’ in Santy Claus — if they want to believe it, that’s fine.”
6) “I advise the youngerns that wants to get into this racket — never, ever sign anything, except an autograph for one of your fans. I’ve signed record contracts, movie contracts, television contracts, publishing contracts and management contracts, and they’ve all earned me five damned dimensions of hell in my chart-topping life. Womern fans, though, are always wanting me to sign their breasts, which I’m happy to do. They’re happy to have my name emblazoned across their chests, and even though it makes the husbands and boyfriends jealous, it’s kindly becoming a national phenomenon. Some of ‘em even get it tattooed on there.”
7) “One more thing to the young folks wanting to get into this business — never get paid with a check for one of your concert performances. Have you ever tried to cash a check made out to Unknown? It’s impossible. Think about it.”
Clayton Center for the Arts tickets go on sale Friday
Friday is the big day — tickets go on sale for upcoming events at the almost-completed Clayton Center for the Arts, construction of which is wrapping up on the Maryville College campus.
Earlier this week, readers of The Daily Times got a glimpse of the new Steinway pianos in the recital hall; starting Friday, they can begin planning their social calendars around several of the events taking place at the center in the coming months. Those events include:
- Maryville High School Orchestra Valentine’s Day concert with special guest Mark Wagner: 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14. Tickets are $11 adults in advance/$14 at the door and $6 students.
- Jo Dee Messina: 8 p.m. Friday, March 26. Tickets are $36, $46 and $56.
- Grand opening gala: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 27. Tickets are $20.
- Contigula Brothers recital (benefit for the Adams Foundation, in the center’s Recital Hall): 2 p.m. Sunday, March 28. Tickets are $26 adults/$11 students.
- BANFF Film Festival: 2 p.m. Monday, March 29. Tickets are $10 advance/$12 day of screening.
- Delores Ziegler/John Wesley Wright vocal recital (in the Recital Hall): 8 p.m. Monday, March 29. Tickets are $15.
- Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys with Cherryholmes: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 29. Tickets are $24.50, $29.50 and $36.
- Ball in the House (five-man R&B vocal group): 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 30. Tickets are $20/$16 students/$11 Maryville College students
- “Our Town,” a production of the Maryville College Department of Theatre (in the center’s FLEX Theatre): Thursday, April 29 thru Sunday, May 2. $7/$5 Maryville College students
- Wood and Strings Puppet Theatre (in the FLEX Theatre): 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 14. $12 adults/$5 MC students
In addition, the Clayton Center for the Arts will serve as a local Tickets Unlimited outlet, allowing visitors to the box office to purchase tickets for most Tickets Unlimited events in the East Tennessee area. For more information, visit the center’s website, call the box office at 981-8590 or visit in person at 502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway in Maryville. The box office opens for business at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 5.
And now for something completely different … a spelling bee at The Pilot Light
The Pilot Light, that most excellent venue in the Old City (at 106 E. Jackson Ave.), is known for many things … but a spelling bee probably doesn’t leap to the forefront of most patrons’ minds.
Live music? Check. Art, film, theater and combinations of all of the above? Check, check, check and check. But given the hipster vibes that waft out the front door like thick fog, the fascinating but often befuddling graffiti that decorates the wooden walls of the bathrooms and the fact that Will Fist often works the door or tends the bar … well, it’s not exactly the sort of place where you’d imagine a spelling bee might be held.
Au contraire, according to organizer Liz Albertson. An urban planner by day, she’s also a long-time Pilot Light devotee, and after presenting her plan to owner Jason Boardman, she’s received an outpouring of enthusiasm from friends and acquaintances in the local music scene.
“We’re hoping it will be taken seriously, because we’re definitely going to ask some words that are hard,” she said. “We’ll have words along the lines of manias, obsessions, medieval weaponry — funny words that people don’t encounter in their everyday lexicon. We are expecting some laughs, but we hope people bring their A-game.”
It takes place at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 17 — and that 8 p.m. start time is by normal standards. (Pilot Light shows are notorious for starting late, so much so that most club-goers know to show up at “Pilot Light time” rather than at the predetermined starting hour.)
“We’ll let people sign up, cut it off around 8:30 and start shortly after that,” Albertson said. “It’s free to get in and watch, and it costs $5 to enter the bee. And you get a free (Pabst Blue Ribbon) with that, so we’re encouraging our entrants to be 21.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Albertson moved to Madison, Wis., for five years, where she obtained two master’s degrees and fell in with a group of quirky characters that provided her with part of the inspiration for the spelling bee idea. The competitions have always fascinated her, she said, especially “the home-schooled girl” who won the national bee in 1996 or 1997, she added.
“It was completely awkward and fascinating, and I think a lot of my peers have childhood trauma stories about a word they went out on or being freaked out on stage,” she said. “I think there are a lot of folks who are rebels now but have something in their pasts that makes them want to regain glory from a spelling bee gone awry. I thought it would be amusing, and it’s definitely not your average Pilot Light thing. We’ll see how it goes, and if it goes well and everyone has fun, we’ll do it again.”
So there you have it — an exhibition of knowledge masquerading as therapy at one of the hippest, most fun venues in town. If you’re a regular but have no musical inclination, Albertson pointed out, the bee will be an opportunity for you to get on stage. So far, she added, local rockers Adam Ewing (of Mountains of Moss) and Elizabeth Wright (of the Dirty Knees) have indicated excitement over the possibility of participating.
“It’s kind of amazing the outpouring of interest I’ve gotten from people over this,” she said. “I think people are pretty intrigued and wondering what in the world it’s going to be like.”
Blount woman gets her shot on CMT’s ‘The Singing Bee’
Blount County resident Ashley King Marsh wasn’t too keen on trying out for CMT’s game show “The Singing Bee,” but her mama made her do it.
Sure, it seemed like a good idea at first, she told The Daily Times — after all, she’d been a fan of the show in its previous incarnation on NBC and its new life on the Country Music Television network.
“It’s 60 percent country and 40 percent rock or pop now, so it’s mainly geared for the country listener,” said Marsh, who — as a fill-in deejay for WIVK-FM, 107.7, had more than a passing knowledge of country music.
“I’m a big fan of the show and was following CMT on Twitter when they announced they were going to hold auditions in Nashville last November,” she added. “I started gathering friends and family to all go up and try out, but when the time got closer, they started slowly backing out on me. Well, my mom and I were going to be in Nashville that weekend anyway, and at first I didn’t want to do it.
“I told her, ‘I’m not going because nobody else wanted to do it,’ and she said, ‘Yes you are!’ It was like I was 12 years old again.”
Hesitant at first, the casting director for CMT encouraged her to sign up and give it a try. She did, she had fun and two days later, she got the call. The network flew her to Los Angeles, where “The Singing Bee” is taped; she recorded her segment the next day and flew out the day after that.
“It was really a surprise, because I didn’t think I would be picked,” said Marsh, who’s prohibited from revealing how far she made it or whether she won the $10,000 prize.
Back home, in addition to her radio duties, she’s the owner/director of Ashley’s Dance Academy in Seymour. She and her husband, Micah (who coaches basketball at Alcoa High School), have three daughters.
Marsh’s “Singing Bee” segment airs at 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12.
Ashley King Marsh
The resurrection of Wallypalooza!
It seems our report last June of the demise of Wallypalooza, that annual birthday bash/music festival by founder Wally Miles, was premature. (To be fair, it seems Wally’s decision to call it off was premature; by October, he’d decided to do one more, with two caveats:
1. It will NOT be on my birthday. My family gets me this time!
2. Less is more. Less bands but it will be better, I promise….and I will be performing, whether it be with a new band or me playing with old friends.
As of the latest update, it’s a go for May 15, but the venue has yet to be announced. (Although last year, he pledged to hold it exclusively at Big Daddy’s Scoots and Sports Bar and Grill in Maryville.) No word yet on the bands, either, but hopefully he’ll be releasing that info real soon.
In the meantime, stay tuned to the festival’s Myspace page for more info.
Sarah Pirkle, Naughty Knots, Jay Clark and more help out a good cause
There are few ladies in music these days more gracious, kind and equally talented as Blount County fiddler Sarah Pirkle. A member of The Naughty Knots, the Maid Rite String Band and a frequent collaborator with her husband, singer-songwriter Jeff Barbra of The Drunk Uncles, she’s the real deal — big-hearted, super-cool and amazing to hear sing and play.
So when she throws her weight behind a benefit show that’s close to her heart, I can’t help but urge you to attend, help out and do what you can.
Here are the details:
Hearts For Hunter Benefit Concert and Chili Supper
6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20
Deane Hill Community Center, 7400 Deane Hill Drive, Knoxville
Pirkle writes that Hunter Graham, her cousin, “is a precious 17-month-old baby boy, who has a potentially life threatening disease, Menkes disease. On Feb 20, 2010 there will be a benefit concert at Dean Hill Community Center to help raise funds to send him and his mom and dad to the Family Hope Center in Philadelphia for treatment. Performers will be Andy & Sarah Pirkle, Jeff Barbra, Jay Clark, Van Eaton and the Naughty Knots. Suggested donation for adults $10.”
Benefit concert for Haiti set for Thursday
Sapphire, that swanky bar in downtown Knoxville located at 428 S. Gay St., is holding a fundraiser to help out with Haiti assistance on Thursday; three musical acts are on the bill, and 1 percent of the bar sales will be donated to relief efforts.
(From one of my favorite blogs, “The Sunsphere Is Not a Wig Shop”: “I know 1 % doesn’t sound like much, but if you’ve ever bought a cocktail at Sapphire you know that those proceeds will pile up quick. If you’re going out to drink or see live music anyways, why not do it for a good cause?”)
It starts at 8 p.m.; the lineup includes The Fine Line, Vera Noreva and Joe Dunn of Adoration. Click here for more info.