Inquiring Minds Want to Know

So what was the real reason behind the V-roys' break-up?

Is that live album ever going to come out?

Was the band really having problems with its label?

And what about that rumor that the 'roys had Nick Lowe interested in producing their next studio album?

So many questions, so few answers. Oh, we've got plenty of tantalizing gossip we could dish, but we'd really rather know the inside story. Unfortunately, according to drummer Jeff Bills, that story won't be coming out this particular week. He reports that the band is still enmeshed in getting clearances on self-releasing its live album (presumably from the group's former label, Steve Earle's E-Squared Records). Ironically titled Are You Through Yet?, the 17-track CD was recorded at the fabled Down Home in Johnson City last August. If they get the rights, the album will be released on the V-roys' website, www.vroys.com.

Other possible V-roys-related CDs include a new solo album from singer/guitarist Scott Miller, and a remastered solo album from singer/guitarist Mike Harrison that had previously been released on cassette several years ago. Bassist Paxton Sellers is planning on completing his degree at UT, while Bills—a consummate local player in many different bands over the years—will probably find another music project.

If there is a silver lining to be found here, it's that the V-roys' annual New Year's Eve concert promises to be an absolute blowout. Tentatively scheduled for the Tennessee Theatre with an array of other local groups, it should be a raucous farewell to one of Knoxville's best rock 'n' roll bands ever.

We'll be reporting the Story That Could Not Be Told Right Now as soon as we can...

Movin' On Up

In case you hadn't noticed, Knoxville's saddest crooner Adam Hill—formerly of the Satellite Pumps—no longer lives in the Scruffy City.

Hill followed his girlfriend to New York City, where she studies at NYU and interns at the Guggenheim Museum—giving Hill access to gala events like the opening of a Francisco Clemente show. Hill is in awe of the cultural opportunities he can enjoy in his new home, both as an observer and a performer.

"I walk up and down Bleeker Street and every place has some folky guy playing. In Knoxville, I could either play Tomato Head or Longbranch. Here, I'm overwhelmed by the vast majority of things it's possible for me to do."

With some 60 new songs written, Hill says he'd like to find a band and start playing around town next January. Is Hill nervous at all about playing his achy-breaky honky-tonk infected rock in the Big Apple? "God, no. I love to play. It's such a great high to play," he says.

Of course, there some things he misses about Knoxville. "The thing I hate is there's no horizon."

Fighting a dose of homesickness after he first arrived, Hill went down to Tower Records and bought a copy of the V-roys All About Town. "I looked at it and said, 'There's the Tennessee Theatre. That's home.'"

Local CD Review

Evil Twin
Extra Damned

Vile, ugly, and misbegotten, not having learned very much for all of their collective years of blasting punk and trash-rock through the rafters of sundry local dives, the members of Knoxville's Evil Twin nonetheless provide hours (minutes?) of listening pleasure on their latest full-length platter Extra Damned. Assuming, that is, that you're into this kinda thing.

And what this kinda thing is, of course, is essentially mid-'80's hardcore redux, replete with glam rock flourishes and hopped up on Sabbath-cum-Link Wray trash-metal riffage. Admittedly not the most original concoction ever to rattle your JVC's, but after a half-case of whip-its and a 12-pack of PBR, who gives a rat's ass about originality anyway?

From the meaty KISS riff of the opening cut "Gretchen" to the murky pop sensibilities of the anthemic self-titled closer, Evil Twin come on like some rattletrap delivery bus lurching madly out of control. Led by much-traveled "singer" and master of fecal poetry Rus Harper, the band not-so-deftly maneuvers between headlong punk and sinister metal. Leading the way are Harper's manic, profane screeds, delivered in a sneering, nasal bray that modulates haphazardly through tone and key, driven onward by rhythms that stagger through time signatures like a drunk on a funhouse floor.

It all gets pretty numbing after a while, and some of the songs are utterly forgettable. But cuts like "Puss," a bit of classic Rus-verse droned over creepy guitar effects and plodding bass, or the twisted metal gallop of "Prey" (Now I lay me down to sleep/I give to you my soul to eat) are good not-so-clean fun when noise, nihilism, and madness are the order of your day.

Perhaps Harper sums it all up best on the album's second song, "It," a hard-charging hardcore anthem wherein the greasy-locked howler defiantly leers "I know it's something/Something I did/Hope I do it again." Words to live by, if your band's name is Evil Twin. Extra damned, indeed.

Get Out Of The House

Thursday: Writer's Night Open Mic at The New City Café. No, it ain't just iambic pentameter about how cute kittens are.

Friday: On the Town '99 at Market Square. R.B. Morris, Jodie Manross, Jag Star, and The Ghosts. It's outside and it's where all of the cool people will be (that means you).

Saturday: The Boogeymen at The Spot. Go see what all of the fuss is about.

Sunday: Vienna Chamber Orchestra at UT Music Hall. Austrians know chamber.

Monday: Casey Jones at Hanna's Café. Jones is one of the better young singer/songwriters in town and his shows never fail to entertain.

Tuesday: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown with the Fabulous Thunderbirds and CJ Chenier and the Red Hots at World's Fair Park. Wrap it up. I'll take it.

Wednesday: 98 Degrees with Vitamin C, No Authority, and Many Moore at Thompson-Boling. Catch them now before the VH1 Behind the Music airs.

—Zippy "Scruffy This" McDuff