Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Lack of Space

When the Tennessee Theatre closes at the end of the month for renovations, Knoxville will temporarily lose a great venue that fits a niche not met elsewhere in the city.

With a capacity of 1,500 people, the theater has been a grand stage for a number of acts just a step below arena popularity: Steve Earle, Sonic Youth, Wynton Marsalis, Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, King Crimson, Alison Krauss, Herbie Hancock, Bonnie Raitt, Tricky, Wilco, Tony Rice, the Roots, Bill Cosby and the Buena Vista Social Club. Without the Tennessee, will Knoxville miss out on shows like this?

The next step up from the Tennessee is the Civic Auditorium, which fits about 2,500. That's too big for many of the acts that would play the Tennessee, but some could work there, says Ashley Capps, of AC Entertainment, which books the Tennessee. "The auditorium is a great option for some things," he says. "But you can't go into the auditorium and do half the house and have people feel good about it."

Seating about 780, the Bijou Theatre is about half the size of the Tennessee but it could host many of the shows that the Tennessee does. While the Bijou is the best-sounding house in the city, it is woefully underused as a music venue right now. Under new management for the past year and half, the theater's management hopes to eventually book more music acts. However, they're focusing on music theater while they try to pull the theater out of debt, says LarJuanette Williams, the Bijou's associate producer. "We're just trying to get our bearings and keep our doors open right now," Williams says. "We have found a small niche in musical theater.... Hopefully, we'll be able to open the doors to incorporate more concerts and put more local bands on stage."

The Bijou's management hopes to eventually hire someone to book music shows for them. But Williams doesn't foresee a push on music shows for another year.

AC booked two shows at the Bijou in the past year—Jerry Jeff Walker, which was selling poorly and was moved to Blue Cats, and Jerry Douglas, who postponed to a date that wasn't available at the theater.

"Unfortunately, for the last few years, it's been increasingly difficult to do events in the Bijou," says Capps, who says that securing dates is probably the biggest issue. "There's been some contradictory philosophies and some of it's been hard to work through... We hope to have some fruitful discussions with the Bijou in the near future and see what we can work out. It's magnificent venue for a lot of things."

He says there are about eight acts he's hoping to put into the Bijou this year.

As for temporarily losing the Tennessee Theatre, Capps says he'll look at a variety of venues, including the Bijou and Civic Auditorium. Many shows might be held outside and the new Convention Center is also a possibility. "If we've got a show, we'll try to make it work. The other side of the coin is the Tennessee is going to be back and better than ever," Capps says. "The year and a half it's going to be closed will go by in the blink of an eye."

Local Review:
Evergreen Street, Evergreen Street

"It is what it is," the opener on Evergreen Street, is a Latin flavored classic rock song cleanly recorded and flawlessly executed. Songwriter and vocalist Sean McCollough sings in the nasal smoker's rasp of Van Morrison or Jim Croce, while drummer Phil Pollard and keyboardist Geol Greenlee handle their parts with grace and restraint. Unfortunately, "It is what it is" shows a comfort with style otherwise absent from this record.

Evergreen Street projects very little energy and no grit. True, these are probably the two hardest things to capture on tape, but they're essential for a classic rock album. McCollough never lets go with his singing or his playing, and the band follows his lead. The title track is a love song to '70s rock that fails to rock. Even "4 AM," a barroom Dixieland song, sounds timid and calculated.

So all the focus is on the lyrics, which are at best unimposing and at worst grandiose and preachy. McCollough seems to go out of his way to stay out of the picture, even on autobiographical songs. Either he keeps the focus broad ("Roll Like a River") or throws up a smokescreen of cliches and meaningless phrases ("Getting Over Susan"). "It was way too simple/ But it was way too complicated." I see. Wait, no I don't. "We were far too shallow/ But we were far too deep." Ahh.

The only personal lyric I could find was in "Fakin' It." "Now I stand up on this stage/ Got my guitar in my hand/ By the time I reached this stage/ You know this was not what I had planned." It's the only picture of Sean McCollough on the whole record and if he's going to make sweeping statements about freedom or love, it's not enough.

—Madame "I'd rather be the devil than go creeping to the cross" Georgie with Joe Tarr and Jonathan Kelly