Metro Pulse/Music/Dixie Dirt

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Kat Brock and Dixie Dirt make their own space

by Joe Tarr

Kat Brock loves to play music for an audience—she's compelled to do it actually. Armed with her guitar, she's a commanding presence on stage, giving visceral performances that are filled with pathos. Although she's been playing live for a decade or so, the Brock who takes the stage with her band, Dixie Dirt, is not the same Brock who will be playing a couple of songs into the set.

"When I first get on stage, I'm nervous as shit," she says. "It attacks my bowels. It's really hard for the first 30 seconds. I visibly shake, I know it. I never know the exact time when it happens, but I have some out-of-body experience. I don't necessarily watch myself doing it, but I don't feel like I'm doing it. I absolutely get in some zone where I feel like I am not playing the chords or singing the words."

There is something undeniably ethereal about Dixie Dirt shows, and it isn't just Brock. At times the band—with Angela Bartlett on guitar, Brad Carruth on bass and Simon Lynn on drums—plays almost like a jazz outfit, each improvising off of each others' playing as they ride through waves of delicate, hypnotic rhythms and fierce crescendos.

The music is more-or-less straight ahead guitar rock, but it doesn't follow any standard verse-chorus-verse structure. Neither does it drift into intricate prog-rock pretensions, thanks in large part to the exceptional but raw guitar work of Brock and Bartlett, who trade off between rhythm and lead.

Brock weaves her voice through the music adeptly. It's a plaintive, soft voice that often cracks and is off-key. But somehow it all seems to fit. "Kim Deal is the one who made me want to start singing. And when I started singing, it was really easy to play in her range. I started realizing I'm a Southern girl, and I have a lazy Southern accent, so why not sing that way." Today, she finds vocal inspiration from the likes of Robert Johnson and Neil Young.

Not quite a veteran in the Knoxville music scene, Brock has certainly paid her dues. She's played in Mars Hill, subbluecollar, and Fire/Fighter. She's giving most of her attention these days to Dixie Dirt, although she continues to play solo gigs. "When I play solo I do songs just to get them out of my system. A lot of songs I'll only do solo," she says.

Brock moved to Nashville for a spell last year. She didn't play in any bands while she was there (she spent most of her time delivering packages for Federal Express). However, she did write quite a few songs. "I wrote so much stuff in Nashville because I did nothing but work my ass off, smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey and write songs in my kitchen. Most of the songs are about here," Brock says. She also met Lynn and Bartlett in Nashville, and recruited them to return with her to Knoxville.

When they added Carruth (of Liftoff) on bass, everything seemed to click, Brock says. The group is currently recording an EP of songs, working with Todd Steed. It's due out this spring.

"They remind me of Sonic Youth, not so much the music, but that they're all for one, one for all. They play as a unit," Steed says. "They totally fit together as one voice. It's not four separate parts fighting it out."

Steed says he also loves the group's bold musical stretches. "They definitely have extended musical sections. They're not afraid to just let it go. The songs are 8 or 9 minutes long. It may be an EP, but it could be a long EP...They just let it rock out."

Many of the songs germinate in jam sessions between Brock and Bartlett, but Brock adds that, "I feel everybody has an equal part in the songwriting process."

Brock does write the lyrics. "One thing I've come to learn in my songwriting process is that lyrics are just part of the whole," she says. "Lyrics need to be thought out, but it's the way you sing them that matters. I'm not a poet."

"I think all of my songs are about friendship. The more I live, the more I realize I don't need things or popularity—I need companionship. I need to give as well as receive. My friends are my greatest inspiration. I get so much out of sitting on my porch with my buds drinking beer. I can write 10 songs about that."

Brock says her attitude about music has changed over the years, and she's come to realize that what's meaningful is the act of playing it, rather than a finished song.

"When I was younger, it was how I got stuff out—this is my explanation for how I act a particular way. Now, it's just a process. I seriously think I'd die if I couldn't do it."