Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Eye on the (Web) Scene by Electroboy

This time around we're going to look at some band websites from a design perspective. HQBand (Hector Qirko's outfit) is spartan but, somehow, funky. Click on "Dirk's World" to see saxophonist Dirk Weddington as a tater tot. The site's cleanly laid out, easy to navigate, and features cool photos and—very important—downloadable music. One of their songs will be featured on a blues compilation CD being released by MP3.Com, too! And did I mention Dirk Weddington as a tater tot? It's at www.hqband.com.

Disgraceland Records, home of, well, lots of cool bands, including Apelife, The HaveNots, Stateside, The French Broads, Electroboy faves The Nevers, and a bunch more, has a very cool and professional website. The "Listen" page has streaming and downloadable music, and there are lots of pix, guestbooks, and other items to tickle your fancy. It's at www.disgraceland.com. No tater tots, though.

UT Battle-of-the-Bands champs and Warped Tour performers Copper have a simple but well-done website, with a unified rock 'n' roll aesthetic. Lots of very cool pix of the band (I guess I should mention that one of 'em's my brother) and several downloadable tunes, two of which have never been released on CD. Also a very comprehensive "news" and "events" section that lets you keep track of where they'll be playing. Try www.copper-music.net.

Come-from-nowhere Metro Pulse Best of Knoxville winners See Through Human (formerly known as Surface) have a nice site except for the annoying popup ads. They have some downloadable songs, and what's advertised as the most comprehensive selection of links to Knoxville music anywhere. Could be—they have a lot. Visit www.surfacerock.com.

Local CD Review

Straight Line Stitch
The Barker

The bad news is that local boys Straight Line Stitch suffer from the same dearth of imagination afflicting most heavy rock acts in existence at the turn of the millennium. The good news is that the Knoxville four-piece ply their frayed wares with more ferocious intensity than most of their better-known contemporaries, a purists' mutant fervor that salvages relatively standard metal grooves from the scrapheap of the ordinary. Consequently, their new four-song EP The Barker is almost paradoxical, encompassing at once all that's good and most of what's bad in metal today.

All-too-familiar moves manifest themselves in abundance on The Barker — sludgy and detuned guitar frameworks, profaned hip-hop gestures and the sort of raw-throated vocal anguish that has become the rote standard of high-decibel rock. But Stitch drops in the post-hip-hop flourishes with a light touch, and the molten girders of six-string menace have a visceral and tangible structure—actual riffs that give vent to the rage, rather than directionless mono-chordal vamps.

And though the vox may be something you've heard before, the Straight Liners strip away the whining and posturing nonsense of acts like Korn and Limp Bizkit and deliver the goods in the fashion that all truly good metal should—fierce, volatile, and potent, like a straight shot of nitro with a hot gasoline chaser.

Go.

Thursday: Terrance Simien and the Mallet Playboys at Market Square. Son of a gun, we're gonna have some fun on the bayou!

Friday: Dr. Fritz at Knoxville Museum of Art. A David Ives (whose name always means weird, strange, and fun shows) one-act paired with a short reader's theater piece as performed by Theatre Knoxville. And this is your last chance to catch it.

Saturday: Honey Festival at American Museum of Science and Energy. Travel up to Oak Ridge to sample (and learn about and/or make candles from and/or play with) sticky bee vomit.

Sunday: Cherry Valance with the Bitter Pills at Pilot Light. Smells like kick-ass indie garage rock.

Monday: HQ Band at Manhattans. Did someone say tater tots?

Tuesday: Einstein Simplified at Patrick Sullivan's. Because it's time you saw this ruddy band of improviteers.

Wednesday: Cowboy Junkies and Tim Easton at Blue Cats. For reasons, read the above.

—Emma "Pondering the relative merits of a free market system in the days of a global economy" Poptart