Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

It's a cold, rainy night in December, and for lack of anything better to do, you decide to flip on the old MTV. Between shots of J. Lo's pricey booty and Christina Aguilera's barely clad patootie, a strangely dissonant apparition emerges. Could that really be RB Morris and Hector Qirko? And are they playing... "Goldfinger"?

Your eyes and ears don't deceive. Rocker Morrisreally is crooning the classic tune known to many as Shirley Bassey's divine jurisdiction; and if certain accounts are to be believed, making a damn fine job of it too. Nor is he the only one. An advertising campaign due to debut around Thanksgiving uses James Bond tune renditions from six of Knoxville's finest acts (and a couple dozen New York bands) to promote 007 films on TNN. The ads will appear on networks owned by TNN's parent company, Viacom, including MTV and VH1. This national exposure—TNN alone reaches 85 million homes—is due in no small part to the work of our own Atmosphere Pictures, a video production company headquartered above Cup-A-Joe in the Old City.

Atmosphere has been a participant in The Nashville Network's "rebranding" as TNN since the station dropped its niche three years ago in favor of more general programming. One of TNN's highest-rated programs is Star Trek: The Next Generation; the network enlisted Atmosphere Pictures to promote those reruns.

TNN next hired Atmosphere for a series of Bond spots documenting the "street racer" subculture of young men driving souped-up Japanese cars. Meanwhile, a New York director shot a series of ads with Big Apple bands playing covers of Bond themes. But TNN management thought the musical spots suffered without voices of the heartland.

"'You know what? We're getting all these power pop bands,'" Atmosphere founder Scott Colthorp recalls producers saying. "Can you pull something together here?"

"Pulling something together" entailed hurried phone calls to the musicians who immediately sprang to mind: Morris and Qirko; Evelyn Jack, who turned in a gut-wrenching performance of "Diamonds Are Forever"; Louise Mosrie and Apelife, who separately covered The Spy Who Loved Metheme "Nobody Does it Better"; and Donald Brown and Dave King, who each played the James Bond theme in their own way (Atmosphere called Scott Miller as well, but he was unavailable due to a family illness).

For the artists, TNN's urgency meant learning, practicing, and recording songs in as little as 24 hours, all pro bono.

"This is quick to bring this on me. This is two pages, baby doll," Jack recalls telling director Colthorp. Originally asked to memorize the piece, Jack convinced Colthorp and the TNN producer to let her use sheet music. Turns out she didn't need it. With eyes closed, she immersed herself in the song.

"I think that others who were around maybe were brought to tears," Jack says of her vocal performance, which was recorded both a cappella and accompanied by Brown on piano.

Morris says he, Qirko, and bass player John Steel didn't set out to change "Goldfinger," but circumstances created a song with marked differences from the original. With no drums, the trio's arrangement was minimalist.

"That's the opposite of how Shirley Bassey did it, in a way," Morris says. He called the original "a very strange piece of music. It's very orchestral. It has strings, kettle drums, and horns, too."

While he wouldn't mind the publicity, Morris isn't getting worked up about the end result.

"I don't know what they'll end up doing with it. These things come and go... Could be that the whole thing is pulled, or they take me out and play someone else's."

Jack, who performs solos at area churches and sings backup on the latest CDs from Gran Torino, St. Somewhere, and Left Foot Down, seemed more optimistic about the promos' potential.

"I hope it will really blow up, because it's about time for me. I'm ready for it."

You've probably seen Atmosphere's work before—they've made ads for KAT buses, St. Mary's Hospital (think baseball-playing nun), and WBIR. The WBIR series, entitled "Roots," featured local artists telling stories of their Appalachian ancestry, and won a Gold National Advertising Award, or "Addy." Musicians featured were Sparky Rucker, Evan Carawan, and...wouldn't you know it... RB Morris.

Go.

Thursday: Wait, it's Thursday night and there's no Sundown show? Well, go see Knoxville's genuine rock 'n' roll rebel, RB Morris, and his gee-tar slinging sidekick, Hector Qirko, at the Preservation Pub.

Friday: Todd Steed is becoming the great chronicler of life in the City of Almost. He knows you better than you do. Go see what you're all about when Steed's band Apelife plays the Pilot Light.

Saturday: Will Keys and Evergreen play banjo pickin' mountain music at Laurel Theater.

Sunday: If drinkin' don't kill him, her memory will. Go see George—playing at Foothills Fall Festival in Maryville—before one of those two demons finally does him in.

Monday: All this broken-heart drinkin' music got you down? Unwind with the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra at 4620.

Tuesday: Pellissippi State faculty recital features piano quartet and Latin American dance. Hell, it's free.

Wednesday: It's your life.

—Emma "I'm too old to read this column" Poptart with Tamar Wilner