Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Changing the Station

More than 20 years ago, Joey Ramone sang: "Do you remember lying bed/ With your covers pulled up over your head?/ Radio playin' so no one can see/ We need change, we need it fast/ Before rock's just part of the past/ 'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me." We won't see the likes of Joey Ramone again, but his complaint has never been more true than it is today. Somewhere along the line, radio got real boring, uninspired. The people who own and control radio decided that listeners were just markets and all you had to do was figure out the right formula and you could sell lots of ads. Even college radio, once a refuge for creativity and original music, has taken up this approach, favoring computers over real live human beings. If the captains of radio were wasting their own time and money, it wouldn't bother me so much. But the radio airwaves are public domain—they belong to the public, not for-profit corporations or arrogant, self-serving institutions. First Amendment Radio hopes to change all that by starting a true community, non-commercial radio station. They have a location to broadcast from and are now trying to raise the roughly $2,200 needed for a good transmitter. They have about $500 at the moment. You can help them reach their goal by going to the spaghetti dinner fund-raiser Wednesday, Aug. 15, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Laurel High. You can also sign up to host your own show or get involved in some other way.

Local CD Review

Bob McCluskey
Emergency Lunchbox (Lynnpoint)

Originally released in 1994, Emergency Lunchbox has just been re-released in CD format. Rated a year or two ago by us as among the best local albums released in the '90s, this formerly hard-to-find gem was described by Todd Steed as "...Perhaps the most intimate and honest release ever recorded in Knoxville...recorded at home on a four-track...[capturing] Bob at his best: relaxed, and...drenched in self-examination and beer." Though McCluskey's lyrical wit and sarcasm are present—trademarks from his days as main songwriter for the Taoist Cowboys and the Estradas—it's his penchant for wistful musings that suffuses this quiet, introspective album. Though it's unlikely McCluskey's vocal or playing skills will ever win any awards, the spare instrumentation and homemade feel of the recording serve to heighten the focus on his melancholy vocalization of the mundane. To take just two examples: On "Clothesline," he wonders plaintively how to reach beyond the ordinary when interacting with his parents to show his love for them. On the very next cut, "Stupid Things," he laments not having a significant other to share his commonplace, "stupid" thoughts with (though "And I wonder who squashed ole Sasquatch/And who locked up the Loch Ness Monster" aren't exactly common ruminations). Add some instrumental pieces, mix in some meditations on childhood ("Grasshopper"), loneliness ("Nobody Cares for the Drunks"), and relationships past and present, good and bad ("Nice Night to Do Laundry," "You Beautiful Thing," and "You're Not a God," which contains possibly my favorite line from the album: "I compare you to sunsets, not sunsets to you"), and you'll find Todd Steed's assessment ("Bob takes the everyday and makes it art and makes it interesting") to be accurate.

Student Filmmakers Find Audience

This year, March's Valleyfest Film Festival received two tapes from two local students—high school students. While our little-film-event-that-could screened plenty of work by college kids, this work by the younger set didn't have a category. That's going to change for the 2002 festival, where the application fee will drop to $15 for local high schoolers who want to have their work judged and exhibited. Call 577-7711 for more information on this program.

But in order to make up for lost time, one of those two student entries from this year will be screened at Downtown West on Thursday, August 9 at 7 p.m. Farragut High's Jerod Hollyfield's "Walls," about the stories security cameras might capture, will make its big screen debut. The admission price will be $3, a small price to pay to support local young film visionaries.

Go.

Thursday: 1945 at the Pilot Light. Alternarock with a local flavor.

Friday: Last of the Red Hot Lovers at Theatre Central. A Neil Simon comedy about adultery.

Saturday: pete. with Alpha Zulu at Blue Cats. Extreme rock from a band who insist on a lower-case letter and a period. Also, Chelle Rose and the Nanahally River Band at Patrick Sullivan's. Lenoir City native comes home from Nashville.

Sunday: Robinella and the CC String Band at Barley's. Local bluegrass-meets-jazz standards combo that'll knock you down, nicely.

Monday: Women Out Loud featuring Kim Baxter, Donna Lee Van Cott, Mindy Smith and Jamie Short at Tomato Head. Benefit for the Animal Welfare League, which'll kick off at 7 p.m.

Tuesday: Ponder whether or not dogs also think of these as the dog days.

Wednesday: First Amendment Radio spaghetti fundraiser dinner at Laurel High School. If you wanna know why, read the above blurb....

—Emma "It is a sad salvation" Poptart