One Cool Guy

Last week's John Fogerty show at the World's Fair Park provided a nice contrast to a recent concert by another aging rocker. A few months ago, Eric Clapton played at Thompson-Boling Arena. He charged $50 a ticket, cluttered the stage with a useless 20-piece string section, and made the audience sit through a half-dozen tunes from his snoozable new album before doing anything halfway decent. And then he butchered half of the classics he did play ("Crossroads" on viola?). Fogerty charged half as much, made do with a simple five-piece, and hit the stage in a flurry of Creedence Clearwater Revival favorites. Unlike Clapton, he sounded like he still enjoyed his own music. And when he did throw in a few new tunes, they flat-out rocked. A little way into the set, one young audience member could be heard saying to a friend, "Man, he's done what, three or four songs, and they're all hits! That's awesome. That is one cool guy. A lot of people wouldn't do that." Right, Eric?

Do it for the Fort

These very pages have been reporting the plans to build high density housing in the historic—and just plain cool—Fort Sanders neighborhood. You can help fight it. The Historic Fort Sanders Neighborhood Association will be holding a benefit show to help defray their legal costs. The great R.B. Morris and the melodious Scott Miller from the V-Roys will be rockin' out for this cause on Aug. 21. The show will be held at the Laurel Theatre, 8 p.m., and the admission is $6—a small price to pay to keep a part of historic Knoxville out of the hands of ravenous developers.

Tchotchkes on Display

Zippy knows that all y'all need new crap to hang on your walls. I'm not knocking the old movie posters you have thumb-tacked up there currently, but isn't it time you had something a little bit more artistic? Or, at least, framed?

Now's your chance. The Knoxville Museum of Art is going Off the Wall, which means that you will have beaucoup de opportunities to buy some great stuff for a great price. Right now, all of this art is on display, but the serious action will explode on Aug. 8. It goes like this: An Open Art sale will kick off at 4 p.m. and will feature hundreds of small items like frames, mirrors, and books. At 6, bidding on donated knick-knacks—some pedestrian, some highly funky—will start. But the best part will be at 9, when bidding begins on works by local artists like Margaret Scanlan, Carl Sublett, Akira Blount, and Andrew Saftel. To cap it all off, martinis, cigars, and the music of Soul Sanction will be available from 7-11p.m. Admission is free until 6 p.m., and after that will be $20 for nonmembers, $14 for museum members, and $10 for CounterpARTs members. All proceeds will benefit the museum.

Once Again, With Feeling

Yet another group has formed from the ashes of former bands. Scott Campbell (formerly of Bluefish and the Fabulous Crows), Jim Williams (Hector Qirko Band), Phil Fuson (Dirt Clods and Huevos Diablos), and Billy Dean Attaway (Groove Taxi) are now the inscrutably named Spam Haiku. They'll play Charlie Pepper's every Wednesday, starting at about 9 p.m. Speaking of Spam, with all of these permutations of band line-ups, there has to be a Kevin Bacon-esque member of the scene—you know, a guy whom everyone can be connected to in three steps or fewer. Hmmm...

—Zippy "It's me, of course" McDuff