Archive for the ‘Barley’s Taproom’ tag
R.B. Morris reschedules CD release show
Back in late January, we profiled local singer-songwriter/poet/playwright/man-about-town R.B. Morris and his new album, “Spies Lies and Burning Eyes.” (He even gave us three songs to give away off of it, which you can download at the bottom of this post.) It was for the final Friday of the month, and R.B. was throwing a CD release shindig on the 30th at Barley’s Taproom, 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City.
Unfortunately, a snowstorm hit, and although the show went on, it wasn’t as well-attended as he’d hoped. So he’s doing it again:
Hey Folks, my band is rescheduled for Barley’s on Friday April 2 for a CD release show for SPIES LIES AND BURNING EYES. I want to thank those hearty souls who made it out on the big SNOW night. We knew so many of you couldn’t make it, including our band coming over from Nashville! But for those who could we wanted the show to go on and so Hector and I played and Tim Lee & co. joined us and we had a big time. And Barley’s was great to keep the doors open when almost everyone else was canceling and closing. They also rescheduled us for Friday April 2 and gave me another chance to bring Dave Jacques, Paul Griffith, and Eric Fritsch over from Nashville to join me and Hector Qirko for an official full band release show for Spies Lies and Burning Eyes!
Please make it out and tell your friends too. I promise to open up a can of rock transcendence! And to help in this endeavor to persevere Jonathan Sexton and the Big Love Choir will open the show! Too cool.
$10 and starts at 9:30. See you there.
R.B. Morris, “Amsterdam”: right-click here (choose “Save Link As” or “Save Target As”)
R.B. Morris, “Plato’s Perfect World”: right-click here (choose “Save Link As” or “Save Target As”)
R.B. Morris, “Spy in My Brain”: right-click here (choose “Save Link As” or “Save Target As”)
R.B. Morris, “Empire”: right-click here (choose “Save Target As” or “Save Link As”)
R.B. Morris, “City”: right-click here (choose “Save Target As” or “Save Link As”)
Buy albums by R.B. Morris (including his most recent, “Spies Lies and Burning Eyes”): click here
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.
Black Lillies back in the studio
After a phenomenal year in 2009, the Black Lillies have slimmed down and hit the ground running. The band — Cruz Contreras, Taylor Coker, Tom Pryor and Jamie Cook — are in the middle of recording a follow-up to last year’s “Whiskey Angel,” which made our Top 10 of the best albums of 2009.
“We were in the studio last night until about 3 in the morning,” Contreras told me today. “We went in Thursday and started working on some rhythm tracks, and last night Billy (Contreras, Cruz’s brother/former CCstringband alum/fiddler extraordinaire) stopped by and did some overdubs. He just got this gig working with George Jones, so he’s even more busy than he usually is, and last night was the only time he had to come in and help out.”
The big news is the subtle shift in direction for the as-yet-untitled follow-up (”I have a name in mind, but I don’t want to jinx it,” Contreras said). After exploding last year with “Whiskey Angel,” the Lillies signed a management deal with local promoter Chyna Brackeen, who promptly sent the band out on a 40-date tour. Founding member Leah Gardner decided the pace was too much and gradually withdrew from the band, Contreras added.
“It was more than she wanted to commit herself to, so she’s no longer a part of the band,” Contreras said. “That was a pretty big deal, considering we did the duo vocals together from the beginning. But Jamie and Tom are both great vocalists, and now we’re doing three-part harmonies. I’ve considered bringing in another female vocalist, although really I’m not going to force that.”
For some shows — such as the one coming up on Friday, Jan. 29 at Barley’s Taproom in Knoxville’s Old City — local singer-songwriter Trisha Gene Brady of The Naughty Knots will provide female vocals, he said. And for the new record, the band is figuring out a way to expand in terms of both vocals and instrumentation.
“We’re actually not playing as many shows and just dedicating time to getting this recording done,” Contreras said. “For the last one, we recorded it in two days; I was kind of hellbent on getting it out right away. Usually when I make a record, I try to get it out in a month, but I think we’re going to make sure this one is just right and make it more of a studio recording. We’re looking at a March or April release.”
The new songs, he said, are more of a full-band collaboration. Although he wrote all of them, as he did with “Whiskey Angel,” the other members contribute to the arrangements in a way that expands the scope of the entire project.
“I’m really proud of the sound on the last record, and to a certain degree I wouldn’t mind making another one just like it,” Contreras said. “But the band has evolved really quickly — we have new grooves, new types of tunes and new instrumentation. I play some piano and some mandolin on this one, and the vocal stuff is going to be a lot different.”
Download “Midnight,” by the Black Lillies: Right click here (choose “Save Target As” or “Save Link As”)
Purchase “Whiskey Angel”: Click here
Van Eaton’s “Blood on the Ground” earns international recognition
Last March, we profiled “Blood on the Ground,” the most recent CD by local singer-songwriter Cary Van Eaton. It’s credited to Van Eaton and Friends, and it’s apparently a hit overseas. Cary recently sent out an e-mail letting us know that the website Ctrl Alt.Country listed their best albums of 2009, and “Blood on the Ground” made the cut:
Onze Top 30 van het jaar ( Best Of 2009 )
1. MALCOLM HOLCOMBE “For The Mission Baby”
2. JEFFREY FOUCAULT “Shoot The Moon Right Between The Eyes”
3. GREG COPELAND “Diana And James”
4. SAM BAKER “Cotton”
5. ISRAEL NASH GRIPKA “New York Town”
6. BUDDY & JULIE MILLER “Written In Chalk”
7. IAN SIEGAL “Broadside”
8. DANIEL NORGREN “Outskirt”
9. KRIS KRISTOFFERSON “Closer To The Bone”
10. ELVIS COSTELLO “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane”
11. VAN EATON & FRIENDS “Blood On The Ground”
12. KEITH MILES “Beyond The Headlights”
13. ROB LUTES “Truth & Fiction”
14. NAOMI SOMMERS “Gentle As The Sun”
15. DAVE RAWLINGS MACHINE “A Friend Of A Friend”
16. RICHARD LINDGREN “A Man You Can Hate”
17. STEPHEN SIMMONS “Girls”
18. THE WAILIN’ JENNYS “Live At The Mauch Chunk Opera House”
19. KERRI POWERS “Faith In The Shadows”
20. MISS MARY ANN “Selections 1993-2008, 15 Years On The Road”
21. AD VANDERVEEN “Faithful To Love”
22. THE OLYMPIC ASS-KICKIN TEAM “National Champions”
23. OKIESON “Cupboard Full Of Things”
24. RICHMOND FONTAINE “We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River”
25. JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT “Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit”
26. THE BAND OF HEATHENS “One Foot In The Ether”
27. LEEROY STAGGER “Everything Is Real”
28. TIM EASTON “Porcupine”
29. STEVE EARLE “Townes”
30. SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN’ & THE SEATSNIFFERS “Roadmasters”
“I think # 11 should have been higher, but that’s my opinion,” Cary writes. “LOL.”
Van Eaton and Friends perform at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, at Barley’s Taproom, 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City. Admission is free.
A LOOK AHEAD: Barley’s Taproom and The Square Room in 2010
In case you missed it, we’re breaking down the conversations we had in last Friday’s edition of Weekend with various movers and shakers in the local entertainment scene to give you an idea of how entertainment in 2010 is shaping up. Today: The Square Room, located at 4 Market Square in downtown Knoxville, and Barley’s Taproom, down at 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City.
BARLEY’S TAPROOM, 200 E. Jackson Ave., Knoxville’s Old City
It may not be any bigger, but it sure looks it — and that’s going to be the key, according to General Manager Rodney Lee, to the success of Barley’s Taproom in 2010.
In the fall, Barley’s underwent some serious renovations — the downstairs area was gutted and redesigned to accommodate a more fluid flow of foot traffic, a back deck was built and the outside patio was covered. The newly refurbished Old City restaurant and beer hall got its debut last month when fabled underground rockers the Meat Puppets played there. And while Lee wasn’t happy with the turnout for that show, admitting that he and his staff were slow in getting the word out, he saw the room’s potential.
“I think for the caliber of the band and that style of show, that you can say, ‘That’s our first go at it, so now we’ll give it a try more often,’” Lee told The Daily Times this week. “We’re definitely looking to do some more regional acts; it’s just that we’ve been limited in the past due to our capacity. It hasn’t changed greatly, but the appearance has changed enough to allow us to officially do some bigger things.
“The whole goal is to make people more comfortable at the shows we do have on a regular basis. Before if there were a lot of people here, you were just bumping elbows with everybody, and seeing that made us think that you could have had a better time if we had a little more space. Our other renovations — covering the patio and putting a deck out back — were done more out of convenience, but our goal with the downstairs was just to try to make everything a little more comfortable.”
Before the renovations, Lee said, the total building capacity was somewhere between 500 and 550 people. With the new design, 380 people can fit into the downstairs area alone. With an additional 270 upstairs and 150 outside on the patio, the total capacity is more than 700.
“We’re excited about that,” Lee said.
The first test of the new year will be accommodating crowds for a Jan. 28 performance by Bloodshot Records artist Justin Townes Earle, whose 2009 album “Midnight at the Movies” has been heralded as one of the best of last year.
“That’s the one we’re focusing on right now,” Lee said. “That’s always been the genre we’ve wanted to push. It’s those kinds of shows that have a big following regionally and in town that I think we’ll see the biggest benefit from.”
THE SQUARE ROOM, 4 Market Square, downtown Knoxville
While many venues struggled financially in 2009, finding creative ways to offset low turnouts to live music shows and sluggish ticket sales, one downtown Knoxville establishment — The Square Room — finished the year pleased.
According to talent buyer Ben Bannister, The Square Room — which first opened in December 2008 — saw a number of high-profile artists who “underplayed” the venue, performing in a venue that only holds half of the number of fans they could draw. The end result is an almost instant sellout, and an intimate concert in a setting that holds 550 people.
“We’ve just been blown away with how we’ve been received in the music community,” Bannister said. “We’ve been really blessed with the opportunity for big artists to underplay our room –¬ Imogen Heap, David Cook, Gavin DeGraw — and I feel really good and thankful that we’re just on the map and people know about us. That was the main goal in the first year, to just to get on the map and say, ‘We’re here, and this is what we do.’
“We had a hunch that Knoxville was wanting a place like us — a listening room, 500-capacity, intimate kind of atmosphere to see live music, and the response has completely affirmed that Knoxville really did want a place like this.”
The venue has also served as a showcase for local talent, Bannister added — several East Tennessee bands scheduled CD release shows at The Square Room, and the “Sound Off” band competition, which began a couple of months ago, will culminate in a March grand finale.
“One of the main goals when we set out was to be an incubator of local talent,” added Bannister, himself a singer-songwriter who’s no stranger to the struggles of musicians. “We wanted to get past that idea that Knoxville is segregated in terms of genres with everybody doing their own thing.”
Bannister and The Square Room staff have hustled over the past 12 months to get the word out about the venue — and in the coming year, he said, he hopes to reap the rewards. Feedback from both fans and from artists who perform there has been overwhelmingly positive, and venue organizers hope The Square Room will soon be a favorite stop of regional and national acts.
“I’m excited to see the relationships with the agents and the networks we’ve created continue to grow,” he said. “I feel like we’ve earned the trust of the artists who are going back to their agents and saying, ‘This is a really great room.’ Our hope is that we’ll continue to pull in caliber touring acts and grow them into the market. I feel like we’re really starting to find our place with what we do with the room.
“I just really want to become a place where we’re earning the trust of the fans. I’m tyrying to curate good music to where we earn the trust of a patron who says, I’ve never heard of (this band), but (The Square Room) has never steered me wrong before.”
Sweet! Meat Puppets hit Knoxville on Dec. 2
Good news for the first thing on a Monday. Opened the ol’ e-mail to discover one from Daffodil PR promoting the Meat Puppets. The uniniated may be familiar with Kris and Curt Kirkwood from their collaboration on Nirvana’s fantastic “MTV Unplugged Live from New York” album; they’ve been around a heckuva lot longer than that, however, and have overcome some pretty rough obstacles over the past five years to get back together and out on the road.
The abbreviated press release is here; check out the highlighted date (courtesy of me) …
On this tour, Meat Puppets will play 25 songs each night — new songs to rarities and reaching back into rarely played catalog. This has been a year of re-igniting old fans and making new ones along the way, so Meat Puppets will compile set lists from suggestions from fans, submitted to MeatPupSetList2009@gmail.com
Upcoming Shows: Dec 2 – Barley’s Tap Room – Knoxville, TN
Robinella bids farewell to regular Barley’s gig
Sunday marks the end of an era for Blount County girl and East Tennessee musical darling Robinella, who will perform her final regular gig at Barley’s Taproom in Knoxville’s Old City.
For the past 11 years, swing-dancers, jazz lovers, country fans and those who love the lilting warble of Robinella’s unique style of music could count on one thing — at 8 p.m., Barley’s would transform into a showcase for a local treasure. First with her ex-husband and later with the band he led — the CCstringband — she rose steadily through the ranks of East Tennessee musicians, releasing an album for Sony and a follow-up for the Dualtone label and landing steady gigs around the country, including a slot on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”
Despite absences here and there around the birth of her children — Cash, 5, and Beau, now 9 weeks old — and occasional breaks while she toured, Robinella always returned to Barley’s for a standing Sunday night tradition. Now, however, it’s time to bring it to a close, she told me today.
“I’m just ready to not have a regular show any more,” she said. “I’m going to pursue my career in a different direction and try to make it doing some other things. I’ve got my two little boys, and I’ll be doing some weekend shows and some weekend traveling a little bit, and we’re planning on some big things for the fall.”
That includes a long-awaited follow-up to her 2006 album for Dualtone, “Solace for the Lonely.” She’s leaning toward calling it “Black, White and Gold” — as we first reported last fall — and it’ll feature 13 new songs, she said. There are no plans to shop it around to labels either, she added.
“No way! No more labels — you don’t even need them,” she said. “All I need is a serious web designer. That’s all anybody needs anymore.”
As a treat for long-time lovers of her Barley’s show, another record — “Live From Barley’s” — will be released on Sunday night. Featuring 16 or 17 songs, it’s being mastered this week, she said, and will feature dialogue and commentary in addition to old standards and fan favorites.
Sunday’s show will also be a goodbye extravaganza with special guests, including her ex-husband, Cruz Contreras, on mandolin; local pedal steel ace Tom Pryor; and perhaps Cruz’s brother, Billy, on fiddle.
“The first set will be older songs with friends, and the second set will be newer material and the newer sound with the new band,” she said.
Planning out the setlist for her final Barley’s show has been a difficult task, she added.
“It’s hard! I’ve got my second set done, but I’m still trying to decide what to do for the first set with so many guests and soloists,” she said. “They’ll play for three or four songs, I think, and then someone else will get up there with me. We’re going to kind of roll like that.”
Sunday’s performance, it should be noted, is most certainly not the final one of her career — merely the end of her regular run of Barley’s gigs. She’ll always have a home at Barley’s Taproom, however, according to venue booking manager Robby Dubov.
“This is something we’ve been thinking about doing for a while now,” Dubov told me today. “Instead of putting Robin in her every Sunday night, I would rather get her in here two to four times a year for big shows, and that’s just impossible to do with a weekly thing. My goal is to get her in here on a Saturday night for standing-room-only shows.”
Sunday nights at Barley’s will continue to be geared toward roots music, Dubov added, with an emphasis on making it a listening room sort of environment. He’s talking with a number of local and regional bands and will rotate the lineup like he does with other days of the week; when Robinella releases her new album in December, there’s a good chance the show will be at Barley’s.
“We’ll always work closely with her, and she’ll always have a home here,” Dubov said. “We’re just both going in a little bit different direction.”
As for Robinella’s future, she’ll continue to play mom to her two boys and wife to her husband, Webster Bailey. The family calls Maryville home — they live on Lord Avenue — and if she ever does decide to perform a regular gig, it’ll be in Maryville, she said.
But before any such plans are made, she’ll take the time to mourn.
“It’s sad! It makes me sad to go, but I think, you know, you can’t play in one place for your whole career,” she said. “They’ve been real good to me there, but I think it’s going to be good for everybody to do something different on a Sunday. I’m playing a couple of shows in Birmingham and Atlanta, but right now, it looks like I won’t be back around until my December release.”
For more information on Robinella, visit her website. For more info on live music at Barley’s, visit the venue’s website.
Oh, the music you can find on Myspace …
Actually, strange/odd/weird music isn’t limited to Myspace. But there’s something perversely thrilling about discovering it right in your own backyard.
Take this band, for example. I’ll refrain from a direct reference to the band’s moniker, which I happen to think is obscenely clever in a darkly comic sort of way, but the music is pretty irreverent and raw and rocking as well.
It says the band is from Knoxville. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll see the band’s name on the dry erase marquee outside of Two Doors Down in downtown Maryville or on the chalkboard inside of Barley’s Taproom, which is a shame. I’d definitely take a picture of that.
I sent them a friend request. I wonder if they’ll add me?
Live music recommendations, or “stuff you won’t read on Friday but might have in the past …”
Sometimes, there just isn’t enough time or space to get to everything we think is cool and rocking in this area that you should check out. Like Saturday night’s show at Barley’s Taproom, 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City. It’s an unbelievable double bill: Backyard Tire Fire and Bloodkin, both of which we’ve written about in recent months. It’s hard-driving, jubilant Americana from a couple of underrated and under-appreciated bands, and to let this weekend go by without suggesting you go see them would be somewhat criminal on our part. The best thing about Saturday’s show? It’s only $5. FIVE BUCKS, people. You can’t get a combo meal at Wendy’s for that cheap. Take our word for it — it’s well worth it.
Read our interview with Backyard Tire Fire front man Ed Anderson — printed last October — by clicking here.
For our January story on Bloodkin and the band’s phenomenal new album — “Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again” — click here.