Steve Wildsmith

A cross between Rolling Stone, Soldier of Fortune and the Oxford American

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Shooter Jennings is more of a He-Man than Skeletor guy

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Skeletor

An astute listener has to ask: Did Shooter Jennings really have a Skeletor lunchbox as a kid?

A semi-autobiographical song on his most recent album, “The Other Life,” would seem to indicate so. The song — “The Low Road” — details a particularly fragile point in young Shooter’s life that led to his daddy giving him some fatherly advice:

“When I was in school some boys was pickin’ on me / pushed me down at the playground and I skinned my knee / Lord I wanted to cry, and it occurred to me / took my Skeletor lunchbox and took out his front teeth …”

No, Jennings said with a chuckle. It wasn’t strictly a Skeletor lunchbox.

“I had a He-Man lunchbox,” he told The Daily Times recently. “Sometimes a fan will tell me, ‘They didn’t make a Skeletor lunchbox!’ I know. They made a Masters of the Universe lunchbox. I’m obsessed with He-Man and Transformers. I’m more interested in that stuff than sports.”

He’s not a total sci-fi geek — the current wave of comic book movies don’t appeal to him so much, but he definitely considers himself a film bufshooterjenningsf.

“I heard ‘Spring Breakers’ is great, and I’ve heard mixed reviews on Rob Zombie’s new movie (”The Lords of Salem”),” he said. “I’m more of a horror buff than I am a comic buff, but I’m into that stuff. And I’m excited to see Zac Snyder’s ‘Superman’ movie.”

The best horror film he’s seen of late? The 2010 Canadian horror film “Beyond the Black Rainbow.”

“It’s really weird, sort Stanley Kubrick-y, and kind of slow, but there are three scary scenes that were absolutely terrifying,” he said.

Jennings performs (with opening act Kelsey’s Woods) at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 25 at “The Shed” at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson, 1820 W. Lamar Alexander Parkway in Maryville. Tickets are $20.

Catching up with: Carl Snow …

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carlsnowCall it “Old Rockers Week,” but we’ve been digging up some interesting stuff on some of the dudes who helped shape what the East Tennessee music scene is today.

In case you missed it, in today’s (May 23) edition of The Daily Times Weekend section, we profiled Chick Graning, he of Doyle High School, Teenage Love and alt-rock fame achieved through bands like Anastasia Screamed and Scarce. And the other day, the ol’ iPod shuffle brought a Carl Snow song to the deck, so we thought we’d check in with the grizzled ol’ rocker to see what he’s been up to of late.

Snow, in case you’re a casual local music fan, is a burly guitar-slinger whose list of bands over the years is as impressive as it is obscure: Koro, Red, Screamin’ Boy Blue, Big Stickmen, 30-Amp Fuse, Whitey, Birdhouse and THAT, just to name a few. He was Knoxville’s answer to G.G. Allin long before his protege Christopher Scum, but over the past several years, he’s dropped off the radar. He put out the album “Useless” a few years back, played some shows with the Carl Snow Band and re-emerged with Carl Snow’s Summer of Love around 2007, playing here and there until his bandmates departed for other opportunities and obligations. Snow, meanwhile, has waged an ongoing battle against Hepatitis C, and his health problems are the main reason he hasn’t played out in recent years.

“It’s hard for me to say, ‘Sure, let’s go play Budokan 12 weeks from now,’ because I might not be able to get out of bed,” he said.

He took the standard Interferon treatment for a year, but it didn’t take; neither did Ribaverin and any number of other drugs his doctors used to attack the disease. He just completed a recent round of chemotherapy, which was a failure as well, he said. But he’s not letting it get him down, because he’s working on a new album (due out in the next couple of months), spending time with his wife, Cindy, and enjoying where he’s at in life these days.

“Life’s good otherwise,” he said. “Recording everything you want to do, the way you want to, with absolutely no time pressure or no peer pressure, is fantastic. I’m doing a whole record again, but it’s a Carl record this time — it’s not all sweet and fluffy, like (”Useless”). It’s more like ‘Raw Power.’ I even actually play guitar solos all over it, and that’s really weird; I haven’t done that on tape since Whitey. It’s stripped down, just drums and bass and guitar — me, Mike Armstrong and guys that come in and out of the studio.

“I’m mastering everything over here (at his home studio, Moss Hill Media), and we’re doing everything pretty much — about 90 percent — analog. We don’t do anything unless it’s in one take. There’s no punch-that-in, punch-that-out. It’s fun, and I’m painting a lot, too. That’s what old rock ‘n’ rollers do — they paint and they do their better records when they’re dying.”

He laughs at the morbidity of the joke while acknowledging there’s a kernel of truth to it, but Carl Snow isn’t going down without a fight. Always a tattooed giant of a man, he continues to hit the gym regularly, and he’s gotten his bench press up to 450 pounds. Friends and peers who see him out occasionally — at places like Lost and Found Records, where he performed on Record Store Day back in April — remark that he looks good. And while he and Armstrong plan to play more dates in the months to come, he’s not looking to start a new band, he said.

“I don’t see any kind of band thing happening, really, unless some chipper little 20-something-year-old jumps up and says, ‘I wanna play bass!’” he said with a chuckle. “I’m too old to put up with BS, and there’s nowhere to play — besides, I go to sleep at 9. I definitely can’t do The Pilot Light; they’re not even open when I go to bed!”

Besides — not that he wants to sound like Dana Carvey’s “Grumpy Old Man” character from 1980s-era “Saturday Night Live,” and not that he cares if he does — playing live ain’t what it used to be, he said.

“There used to be an audience; now, there’s a crowd,” he said. “It’s not like they’re really there to hear music. So unless people say, ‘Yes, we want to hear you play the songs,’ I’m not going to waste my f—— time. That’s just the way it is now, and the people I run with, we’re all well over 40. Nobody wants to put up with an 18-year-old puking on his shoes.”

Written by wildsmith

May 23rd, 2013 at 11:35 am

Announcing the return of subbluecollar

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subbluecollar

subbluecollar circa 1997: clockwise from upper left, Dave "The Animal" Campbell, former bassist Tomoki Kunimitsu (a role now filled by Bryan Garvey), Joe McLemore and Kat Brock

In the late 1990s, before she would go on to front Dixie Dirt, singer-songwriter Kat Brock teamed up with her high school boyfriend Joe McLemore — the guy who taught her to play guitar — and drummer-about-town Dave “The Animal” Campbell to form the band subbluecollar.

The group released the “Daydreams” EP and parted ways amicably when Brock felt called in a different direction. McLemore and Campbell would go on to form The Coveralls with Bryan Garvey and Chris Canada, Dixie Dirt came and went, Brock moved to Nashville and then to Brooklyn, eventually coming back to East Tennessee four months ago with a trunk full of dreamy shoegaze home recordings. We’ll catch you up on her journey and the road back to Knoxville — she’s working at Tomato Head on Market Square and aiming to become a certified personal trainer — and on her upcoming solo show at The Pilot Light on Tuesday, March 26. Look for the story in Thursday’s Weekend edition.

The big news, though, is her journey back to rock. Her searingly personal songs are part of her, but back home, she wanted to have fun. Her first weekend in town, she called McLemore and the two played; wanting to start a rock band, she went to see The Coveralls at Barley’s Taproom.

“That’s when I realized that I don’t want to assemble a band; I want them,” Brock told me today. “They rock!”

And so subbluecollar is back in business.

“It makes me happy,” she said. “They have a brotherhood I can’t explain. It’s something I’ve never seen before, and it’s like their little sister came back. We have a history that really shows.”

They’ve been practicing hard for a show coming up April 20 at Barley’s in Knoxville’s Old City and are planning to hit the studio soon after; the bulk of the material is new, with only four songs from the late 1990s — “Trackstar,” “Rocketship,” “Funny Red Eyes” and “Anthem” — surviving.

“It’s just nice. Really, really nice,” Brock said.

Written by wildsmith

March 18th, 2013 at 10:28 am

Some parting thoughts on love and community and Waynestock 3 …

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waynestock

There was a moment during Waynestock 3 when the tragedy that spawned this whole beautiful thing came rushing back.

Kevin Abernathy was on stage, singing his heartbreakingly gorgeous song, “Love Alone.” It’s a track that first appeared on his sophomore album, “Beautiful Thing,” and one he re-recorded for his most recent solo effort, “Some Stories.” It’s also the song he played on stage at The Bijou Theatre during Andrew Bledsoe’s memorial service.

Working the front door with Andrew’s dad, Wayne — the guy for whom Waynestock is named — I caught a glimpse of it in the man’s eyes, which brimmed with tears. It wasn’t the only time he got emotional over the weekend — his remarks to the assembled crowd before the all-star jam that brought Waynestock to a close included a few as well — but it was a reminder of how Waynestock started.

“There would be laughter, bouncing off the walls … smiles in photographs up and down the halls … if you could live on love alone …”

The tears, however, were few and far between.

This year’s Waynestock rose money for the Community School of the Arts. Although the past two Waynestocks were held in response to tragedies — the death of Andrew in late 2010 was the catalyst for Waynestock 1, held in early 2011, and the death of beloved local musician Phil Pollard in late 2011 was the driving force behind last year’s event — this year was different. As one of the organizers, I freely admit my uncertainty of how well another Waynestock would be received without such visceral pain driving the momentum.

It’s human nature, really. When Andrew died, those of us who love Wayne wanted to do something, anything, to help our friend. Everyone we asked, from Daniel Schuh at Relix Variety Theatre (the gracious home of Waynestock since the beginning) to the musicians who played that first year to the sponsors who helped get the word out to the donors who gave of their time and equipment, agreed to take part without hesitation. The folks who came to see the music gave generously above and beyond the $5 cover. After such a weekend of magic and beauty, it seemed impossible that we could repeat its success.

But we did, last year. Again, tragedy was the catalyst, but remembrance and love became the legacy. And while there was no single beneficiary, no fallen friend or loved one, to whom Waynestock was dedicated this year, love remains the post-Waynestock emotion that best sums up the whole weekend.

“Tangled up in kisses, on the side of the road, still running on empty with a million miles to roll, if you could live on love alone …”

The doors opened Friday night to a dedicated group of Con Hunley fans who had driven all the way to Nashville and arrived four hours before he was scheduled to take the stage. Warrior-poet Black Atticus charmed and entertained, and Abernathy was the perfect lead-in to the night’s big event.

Every act who took the stage at Waynestock made fans of those in attendance who’d never heard them before, but the act that brought in the most people was Con Hunley, backed by Mic Harrison & The High Score. For Mic and the boys, it was a big deal; family members came to see them share the stage with an icon, and they were in fine form. Mic and guitarists Robbie Trosper and Chad Pelton provided killer licks and sweet backing vocals for Con’s amped-up brand of country soul, and when they opened the show (after Mic and the boys warmed up everybody with “The Colonel Is Dead”) with a rousing, juke-joint inspired version of “Livin’ on the Funky Side,” the exhilaration was palpable. Con’s older fans felt rejuvenated (and even got their balladeer fix on with a few of his slower-tempo numbers), and fans of the local music scene were content to watch in wonder as history was made with Hunley’s return to Central Avenue.

It was the sort of magic that defines Waynestock, and it would be repeated throughout the event. The Rockwells, absent from the local scene for a few years now (save for a single performance last May), were as enthusiastic as the dancers that crowded the stage during their set, with mild-mannered Tommy Bateman peeling off one killer pop-rock lick after another and Jonathan Kelly managing an impressive leap mid-song that would have made Pete Townsend proud. The Mutations, performing in front of a screening of the 1967 Peter Fonda flick “The Trip,” kept the dancers happy, with Harold Heffner getting down among them for a fired-up and impassioned version of Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away.” Yak Strangler, featuring Andrew’s brother, Rylan, on drums, wrapped up Friday night, and with winter weather moving in throughout the day on Saturday, the turnout for night two appeared, at first, to be in doubt.

Those who stayed at home missed a hell of an exotic set from Saturday’s two openers, the Gypsy jazz-influenced Kukuly and the Gypsy Fuego and the klezmer band Dor L’Dor. (Dor L’Dor dad/bandleader Ken Brown even brought out the shofar, the traditional Jewish ram’s horn pipe, for the group’s finale.) Johnny Astro and the Big Bang steered everyone back to the middle of the road with some straight-ahead American rock ‘n’ roll done to perfection, and the Americana outfit Guy Marshall proved that it’s East Tennessee’s answer to the beloved and long-running Murfreesboro band Glossary. Sam Quinn and his Americana power-trio co-horts — Tom Pryor and Jamie Cook of the Black Lillies — were the perfect lead-in to the grand finale.

“Too bad the heart has to have a mind, to tell it what to do when the eyes are blind …”

And once again, art and community and love were elevated into something else. Magic seems too hokey, too generic, to describe it, but what other word fits? What other word accurately captures the wonder of seeing the Tim Lee 3 (Tim and Susan Bauer Lee with drummer Chris Bratta) sharing the stage with Greg Horne, Mike McGill, Kevin Abernathy, R.B. Morris, Black Atticus and Jodie Manross? Atticus flowing smooth the lyrics of R.L. Burnside’s “Snake Drive” while the band powered behind him like a growling muscle car … the boogy-woogy honky-tonk of McGill and the rest howling through his original, “Women, Whiskey and Pain” … Sam Quinn, grinning like a madman and watching the Lees blister through his haunting takes on Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” and “Cortez the Killer” … Manross and Morris, trading lead as well as Bonnie Raitt and John Prine ever did on Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” … the whole damn family, wrapping up the night with a gloriously ramshackle version of Morris’s “Distillery” … that’s the stuff that Waynestock is made of. That’s the juice.

That is magic.

“There’d be no children troubled in their sleep, nothing else desired, nothing else to need, if you could live on love alone …”

After the house lights went up and the instruments were packed away and the last drinks poured, those of us who conceived of this thing felt like exhausted children on Christmas night. We take no credit for the creation of that magic, and like everyone else who walked away amazed and grinning and wearing those “did-that-just-happen?” expressions of slack-jawed joy, we recognize that Waynestock is so much more than just us. It’s so much more than Andrew Bledsoe and Phil Pollard, who no doubt were in the house and dancing and grinning along with the rest of us over the weekend. It’s so much more than the assuaging of grief and the remembrance of those departed and the banding together to overcome tragedy.

It is about celebration. It is about unity. It is about beauty and music and lifting up what is so good and right about this beautiful, brilliant and occasionally bizarre scene. It is about raising a flag in Happy Holler and declaring, “WE ARE KNOXVILLE.”

If we could live on love alone, then we would never have to leave Relix. The kegs would never run dry and the bottles would never dwindle. The sound would never be muddied and the instruments would stay tuned and the infinite possibilities of musical mayhem would play out for the rest of our days.

Love alone, unfortunately, isn’t always enough. And in a way, that’s OK, because Waynestock then becomes this bubble, this magical (yeah, yeah; there’s that damn word again) world to which a door is opened once a year and everything good about who we are as musicians and music lovers and human beings who call Knoxville, Tenn., home manifests itself in vibrant, vivid ways. Shutting that door for another year — and knowing there’s no guarantee it will open again — is bittersweet, but something tells me this will happen again. Part of me screams that it must. It’s too good, too special, to not revisit.

Besides, the key is simple … love. It opens the door. Love alone is all that’s needed to get back to the place that Waynestock shows us is possible. Love alone … well, sometimes it is enough.

Big things in the works for local rockers Divided We Stand

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dividedwestandDivided We Stand

A couple of weeks ago, rock band Hoobastank played a $5 show at The Valarium in Knoxville, and while many of those in attendance showed up to see the headliners, there’s little doubt they got rocked proper by opening act Divided We Stand.

“We’re a scene band, so we can bring it heavy or bring it for the ladies, and we did a little bit of both there,” joked DWS drummer Mike Russell, a Blount County native and Heritage High graduate. “We brought sexy back.”

Next Thursday, Oct. 4, Divided We Stand will return to The Valarium, this time on a bill with Gone in April, Shallowpoint, Johnny Newman and Nuclear Symphony. It’s a 7 p.m. show, and tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. For his band — which includes members Phil Zimny, Trevor Tucker, Randy Krouse and Joe Turner — to get to play the 1,000-person club twice in less than a month’s time is a good sign.

“We’ve wanted to establish ourselves with that venue for a while,” Russell said. “For our fans, we want to obviously start playing in bigger venues.”

Currently, the band is working on an album with noted local producer Travis Wyrick, formerly of Knoxville rock act Sage and the guy who helped bands like Jag Star, 10 Years, Pillar and Disciple define their sounds at his Lakeside Studios. So far, Russell said, the sessions have been more productive than expected.

“I don’t know if anyone can light a fire under your ass more than Travis,” Russell said. “I think Joe Satriani could go into his studio and leave with question marks. He knows how to get the best out of you, and when this record drops, it’s gonna blow some minds.”

Working with Wyrick and playing The Valarium has set the boys’ fields of ambitions burning, Russell said. The guys pride themselves on having a loyal local following, but they’re also interested in branching out beyond East Tennessee. It’s going to take a great deal of hard work, but he feels they’re up to the task.

“We can’t get complacent; on a small scale, we can accomplish big things, but there’s so much out there that’s bigger,” he said. “It’s a matter of work ethic, as far as how far you want to take it. We’re starting to take small trips — we’re playing Oct. 6 at Capone’s (in Johnson City), but there’s so much more than just playing music that’s involved behind the scenes. And business-wise, we’re trying to get all that stuff lined up.

“I think when we do that, it’s going to be great. You’ve got to walk before you run, and we’ve seen so many people try to take those big steps and fall flat on their faces. We’re trying to get a solid foundation as far as travel arrangements and equipment go. People around here may see a little bit less of us in the next year while we get all of these things together, but when we do put on a show, it’s gonna be big and be a good experience.”

Written by wildsmith

September 28th, 2012 at 10:33 am

Knox music royalty pays homage to Woody Guthrie

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woody

The Laurel Theater, that esteemed church-turned-concert-venue in Knoxville Fort Sanders neighborhood, is a beautiful setting in which to see a show, and it’ll be the perfect setting for a “History Songs: A Celebration of the Life of Woody Guthrie” that’s scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19.

To celebrate the 100th birthday of the American folk music icon, local artists — including Maggie Longmire, R.B. Morris, Jack Herranen, Sarah Pirkle, Jeff Barbra, Greg Horne and Daniel Kimbro — will gather to recreate Guthrie’s canon, from his dustbowl ballads and traveling songs to his more political songs and writings. When we caught up with Longmire earlier this month, she said the concert is a small token of appreciation on the part of East Tennessee musicians for Guthrie’s influence over the years.

“It’s something we’re looking forward to,” Longmire said. “There are shows going on all year to commemorate this, and some of the big guys are doing their shows at places like the Kennedy Center, but I think this one will be real interesting. It’ll be a mix of music and spoken word, and with everyone we’ve got, it won’t be a straight-edge show.”

Longmire counts among her favorite Guthrie songs “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” Guthrie’s tale of a plane crash of undocumented Mexicans on their way south out of California, and his scatching indictment of the treatment of the dead.

“You know how you have a song that sort of impacts you? There’s something about that one that tied it together, the telling of these horrific stories through folk songs, for me,” she said. “Sometimes, things just kind of line up, and that’s one I connected with and sang as a young folk singer.”

More information about Guthrie can be found here; the concert, which takes place at the Laurel (1538 Laurel Ave. in Fort Sanders), costs $12.

Brent Thompson brings “Write Nite” to Preservation Pub

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poster_final_draft

Local musician/actor Brent Thompson has a message for you: If you write, you’re a writer.

“Brent Thompson’s Write Nite,” which kicks off Thursday, Aug. 2, at Preservation Pub in downtown Knoxville, is designed to showcase the budding poet/playwright/author in all of us. It’s a combination performance showcase and open mic, and the goal is to encourage anyone who’s dreamed of putting pen to paper to share their works with other lovers of the written word.

“I’ve been teaching singing lessons at Morelock Music, and I realized in helping people with their voices that it’s the most vulnerable part of them,” Thompson told me this week. “It’s not an instrument you can play and people can say, ‘Clearly you just need to work on that’ — it’s what you’re given. So I started talking about this to some friends of mine, and they would say, ‘I like to write.’ And I would ask them, ‘Well, do you?’

“Writers write. If you’ve written something, you write. If you’re singing in front of me, you’re a singer. We somehow think that if we’re not the best at it, we’re not that thing, but I say, ‘You’re trying!’ This is all about being a validation of human expression. It’s about creating a really supportive room, because it’s really nice when people are valuing what your little brain thought of and how you look at the world.”

The former co-host of “11 O’Clock Rock” on Knox iVi, Thompson is a singer-songwriter who was approached by Pub owners Scott and Bernadette West about putting together a project for the Pub’s second-floor Speakeasy. After Knox iVi shut down several months ago, Thompson has found talent work in local commercial, TV and film (including the gig of “Professor Less Plaque” in a new international campaign for Maryville-based Den Tek). He’s teaching at Morelock, singing with the jazz combo Frog and Toad’s Dixie Stomp and working on an album. But “Write Nite” allows him to do what he does so very well — play host and hang out with some insanely talented people, writers both known and unknown.

“When Scott and Bernadette first approached me, I thought I could curate more music, but they already do so much music that I put it out there to get some feedback,” Thompson said. “At first I was thinking a variety show, or a talk show, and then I started thinking about what isn’t being served but has a large audience. I decided to focus on writing, and it started coming into focus. There are a lot of folks out there who don’t identify themselves as writers, but they took a class once upon a time and wrote something they really like but are embarrassed to share.”

The guest for the inaugural show will be University of Tennessee professor and poet Marilyn Kallet; future guests will likely include local hip-hop artist/spoken word performer Black Atticus and poet/playwright/singer-songwriter R.B. Morris. The setup will feature a microphone on the stage for the guests, a microphone in the middle of the audience to encourage audience questions and participation and a wireless mic on Thompson, who will work the room and engage the wait staff, bartenders and couples in the back booths who have no idea what they’re in for.

At the end of the night will be the “Haiku Hustle”: Cards and pens will be set up at the beginning of each show with a topic written on the board; participants can compose a haiku based on the topic, and at 8 p.m., the haikus will be read. The winner will be crowned the “Haiku Samurai.”

“This is 100 percent uncensored,” Thompson said. “Anything can be said. And it’s got a great therapeutic sort of feel. I’m really excited about it.”

“Brent Thompson’s Write Nite” will take place from 6-9 p.m. every Thursday in the Speakeasy.

Written by wildsmith

July 23rd, 2012 at 7:58 pm

Roane Co. High School students provide material for Knox collective of musicians

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The guy who conceived of a 119-song cycle five years ago is back with another magnum opus.

Doug Campbell, who put together a collection of songs each dedicated to an element on the periodic table back in 2007, has teamed up with some of the contributing musicians to that project for another massive collection of songs, this time setting poetry by high school students to music.

In 2008, those musicians — calling themselves The Elements — performed one time at Barley’s Taproom in Knoxville. Bill Ardison and John T. Baker were part of the project, and in the years since, Campbell has always sought ways to challenge himself, and his pals, musically, Baker told me this week.

“Doug loves to work with a big concept,” Baker said. “His wife is an artist, and she’ll make album covers for him to write music too. Another ongoing project he has is writing a song about each of the Greek and Roman gods.”

And then there’s Ardison. He’s a special education teacher at Roane County High School, and for the past five years, he’s conducted a week-long poetry composition course during the school year. At the end of the week, each student submits an original poem. Ardison takes the poems back to his compadres, who then set them to music for Ardison to deliver back to the students. It’s a project carried out with reverence to the source material and a responsibility for delivering something that sounds like magic to the budding poets, and that’s what makes it such a cool combination of musical creativity and community service.

“I wasn’t involved in the first two or three years, but this year I think I’ve staked my claim,” Baker said. “We got all the musicians we like to play with to contribute stuff to this, and we record the songs in the order they were turned into Bill. We only know the students by their initials, and we don’t change anything about the poems. We record them as written, misspellings and all.

“We try to hit every single musical style we can think of: We’ve done rap songs, metal songs, country songs, opera … and because Doug has a lot of friends who are musicians, there’s some really good musicianship on the project.”

The collective recorded 48 songs in 60 days, and you can download the whole thing for free over at DBLF Studios’ Bandcamp site. If you download the whole thing, you get a .pdf of the lyrics, and that’s the key to the project, Baker added.

“You can listen to the songs and they’re find, but you really get a sense of it if you read along to the lyrics,” he said. “Besides, all the songs are real short. I think the longest may be 3 minutes.”

And it’s free because the musicians aren’t interested in complicating the process by charging for the album, because the motives for putting it together are simple, Baker said.

“For me personally, it’s a wonderful exercise in songwriting,” he said. “When I’m writing my own songs, sometimes I feel like I’ve gotta be profound — like I’ve gotta say something and mean something. But when I’m doing someone else’s music, I don’t have nearly as much skin in the game, and I can just play. It’s so much lighter and more fun, and I think that’s the secret to writing songs. The best songs are carefree. It’s just a great songwriting tool, because it’s also a great exercise in learning how to fit lyrics into music you’ve written.

“On an emotional level, though, I remember when I was in high school, rock ‘n’ roll was the coolest thing I could imagine. It enriched my life and made my life worth living, and I also got really interested in the recording of it. If by doing this we can help a kid can feel like, ‘Something I made can come out sounding like a rock song; I might like to try to do that’ … it may only be a small percentage of them that thinks that, but if you can give anybody that notion, that makes me feel really good.”

Written by wildsmith

July 21st, 2012 at 7:25 am

Michael Franti: Opposition to gay marriage is dying

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michaelfranti

Reggae artist Michael Franti performed Friday night at The Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville, and a friend at the show reports it was about what you’d expect: Great reggae, with hardcore followers grooving mightily to Franti’s Bob Marley-inspired one-love vibe. (Opener Nic Cowan reportedly was a hard act to follow, my pal reports.)

I interviewed Franti for last Thursday’s edition of Weekend, and while our conversation focused predominantly on the music, we also chatted a bit about the gay marriage debate that’s been a flashpoint of this political season. The day before we talked, President Obama had come out in support of gay marriage, and Franti has a very Zen-like attitude toward the opposition to the issue.

“I don’t think it’s a homophobia — it’s just a generational thing,” Franti said. “In previous generations, people grew up with churches a lot more in their life than today. People in the gay community have made themselves visible and seen as the beautiful people they are; as a productive part of society; as kind and as helpful and willing to participate in the world as anyone else. I think it’s great these things are coming to a head now, and it’s a huge step with Obama coming out in favor of it.

“I think all of the things we view as advances in our society — freedoms like women being able to vote and black kids going to school with white kids — these are things that people struggled for for a long time, and now they’re taken for granted. Gay people can fight and die for our country, but they come back to a country where they can’t be married — I see that as something that’s going to go away on the very near horizon. Whether it’s gender, religious differences or whatever, people should all be treated equally.”

Written by wildsmith

May 28th, 2012 at 6:44 am

Jeff Barbra gracefully bows out of The Drunk Uncles

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The-Drunk-Uncles1The Drunk Uncles: (From left) Jeff Barbra, Mike McGill, Eric Keeble, Gordy Gilbertson and Aram Takvoryan

Jeff Barbra and The Drunk Uncles have parted ways, but both parties are reporting the split is amicable, mutual and in no way reflects any sort of bad feelings or bad blood.

Barbra, a Blount County resident who’s been working as a singer-songwriter, most often with his wife, Sarah Pirkle, for years, formed the Uncles with another local tunesmith (Mike McGill, who’s also doing the solo thing and playing as part of the Barstool Romeos with Barbra’s brother-in-law, Andy Pirkle), told us he simply feels led in another direction.

“It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, and it wasn’t an easy decision,” Barbra said. “But it’s like my pappaw used to say: If you can’t do something 100 percent, you shouldn’t do it at all. I’m just going where my heart leads me and trying to do what feels right.”

According to Barbra, the increase in church performances and house concerts with Pirkle has fanned the flames of his desire to have a conversation with fans. He and Pirkle were saved and joined a local church a couple of years ago, which led to the creation of last year’s gospel album, “Family Singing.”

“When we play in someone’s basement or in a church, you get to talk to people; really talk to them,” Barbra said. “A lot of times, that leads them to wanting me and Sarah to tell our story, which is as rewarding as anything I’ve ever done.”

In addition, the Sunday morning radio program “In the Spirit,” which he and Pirkle co-host for WFIV-FM i105, has brought the couple additional opportunities and is taking up more time, something he’s not complaining about at all.

According to McGill, the Uncles will soldier on, although the loss of Barbra will be a heavy one. At this time, there are no plans to mothball the retro-c0untry outfit, although carrying on will mean reconfiguring how the band — which includes bassist Aram Takvoryan, drummer Eric Keeble and fiddler/vocalist/songwriter Gordy Gilbertson — does so.

“We will fulfill all of our obligations, which includes a May date at Toot’s (Little Honky Tonk in Downtown North Knoxville) and another show in June,” McGill said. “Eric will probably play some electric (guitar), and I may, too. And Eric and Aram will both be singing, at least on harmony, to fill in that hole. We’re not sure how it’s going to work — we may have a couple of different drummers filling in — but the Uncles will go on.”

The band’s new album, which began last year at Music Row Studios, is still on deck as well, McGill said, but there’s no timetable for its completion — or whether it’ll be re-cut to reflect the band’s new lineup. Barbra’s songs, as well as his studio contributions before he left the band, are still planned for inclusion.

Both men say their friendship is intact, and neither rules out a return to the stage with the Uncles by Barbra, either as a guest or at some point down the road. For now, however, they’re focused on doing what’s best for them as individuals, and while it won’t be the same for them — or for the rest of us, for that matter — whenever the Uncles play “On Tap, In the Can or In the Bottle” or “Drunk Talkin’,” it’s with relief and admiration that we wish both parties the best on their new journeys.

“It’s a little sad, no doubt,” McGill said. “Going back to when Jeff joined White Oak Flats (the Sevier County-based show band that was a predecessor of the Uncles) and us playing together through the Uncles, we’ve had a lot of fun, and we’ve become more than friends; we’ve become brothers. We wish him nothing but the best, and we respect that he feels led to do something else.”

“No band is bigger than friendship,” added Barbra, who said that his resignation is effective immediately. “Those guys are still my best buddies in the world. We’ll still see each other, and we’ll still hang out and pick a little bit. But this is what I feel called to do now. I have no regrets, because playing with the Uncles and watching people get up and dance and have a good time was a whole lot of fun. But I’m looking forward to seeing where this new calling takes me.”

Written by wildsmith

April 16th, 2012 at 3:08 pm