Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Justin Time

Knoxville ex-pat Justin Sinkovich is back in town this week with his Chicago-based quartet Atombombpocketknife. We're always glad to see Justin, especially when he has a new album in tow (on the way cool Windy City indie label Southern Records). The disc, a blazing post-punk testament called God Save the ABPK, is a welcome wall of sound. Justin's singing and songwriting have never been better. (Anyone who remembers his ear-shattering, lung-ripping shows with Thumbnail may be amazed he can still sing at all.) He's still not what you'd call a popster, but the songs are littered with jagged pieces of melody (� la Sleater-Kinney), and a few tracks have a lullaby elegance reminiscent of Sonic Youth in their moody moments. Mostly, though, it rocks like hell. I think this is what that new ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead album was supposed to sound like. Anyway, the ABPK is on tap this Friday at Pilot Light, along with Bath Marat and Sterling.

Local Book/CD Review

Rus Harper
Dogfood for the Soul

As poetry-on-the-page, much of Dogfood for the Soul—longtime local punk rocker and general transgressive Rus Harper's new CD of spoken word performances and an accompanying booklet of poems—is standard underground verse, descended from Alan Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski and with a layer of Jim Carroll's gutter grime heaped on top for contemporary grit.

On disc, though, Harper's contempt oozes through the speakers; his scorn for hypocrisy and middle-class values drips off his tongue, his steady, even delivery enlivened by audible sneers when he's taking shots at his most frequent targets: the religious, the rich, politicians, the good-looking and the popular.

The most effective poem of Dogfood is "Bullies," a small and vivid scene that recalls the angry young poets of Great Britain in the '50s more than the American counterculture: 'You're weird' said the kid with the comfortable life./The weird kid smirked, said 'I'll kill you, motherfucker.' It has the tight, shocking punch of the best short poetry, and succeeds both on the page and on the CD. The runner-up, "Meeting," imagines Harper in a room full of corporate suits. The twist is that he figures he's "the only freak in the room that doesn't belong to a Middle Eastern death cult."

The descriptions of Fort Sanders and Harper's pets are convincing and even touching. Unfortunately, the sneer too often rises to self-righteousness, and Harper dismisses too much without consideration. He's much better at dramatizing the significance of small, ordinary events than he is at political or philosophical diatribes. Dogfood for the Soul loses focus when his targets get too big or too vaguely defined, but when he closes in on the things that really matter to him the poems work well.

Rus Harper, R.B. Morris, Steve Hampton and Chris Bidwell (with Paul Wise on theremin) will present spoken word works on Saturday, May 4, 9ish, at the Old City Java. And there will be no monetary cost.

Go.

Some weeks the stars align and make Knoxville the center of the entertainment universe. Think there's nothing to do? Then you're just not trying. I'll gauran-damn-tee that virtually everyone can find something worth getting off of the couch for this weekend. Or stay in and whine. Your choice.

In addition to Atombombpocketknife on Friday, Rus Harper and company on Saturday, we have:

Thursday: Kid Rock at the Civic Coliseum, Jethro Tull at the Tennessee and/or local jazz great Donald Brown on Market Square.

Friday: Roy Book Binder at the Palace Theatre in Maryville. One heck of a storyteller for kids of all ages. Or head out to Jonesborough for the Pangaea World Music Festival, which runs Friday through Sunday and will feature Ralph Stanley, Trout Fishing in America, seminars on music-related topics like technique and instrument repair, food, drinks and trinkets. If pictures in the dark is more your thing, check out the Cyclops Video Festival—UT's bi-annual screening of its students' best projects—at Downtown West.

Saturday: You've got pop-rock, indie-rock, classical, and bluegrass: Superdrag at Blue Cats, Stinking Lizaveta at Pilot Light, Knoxville Chamber Orchestra at the Bijou, or Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver at the Palace. Plus the Towanda Richards Film Festival—same as above, but for film—at Downtown West.

Sunday: Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with your Mexican product of choice.

Monday: Bernie Worell and the WOO Warriors at Blue Cats. Former P-funk set your bootie on fire.

Tuesday: D.A.M.O. with Cul de Sac at Pilot Light. One of the formative minds of CAN.

Wednesday: Jazz with Dave Douglas at Blue Cats or the one, the only Percy Sledge at Howard Johnson Plaza. (Sledge will also be playing Thursday night.)

Whew. I'm tired and the weekend isn't even here yet...

For more info on any of these events, please check out the calendar.

—Emma "Would you like some cheese?" Poptartwith Matthew T. Everett and Jesse Fox Mayshark