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Fulmer's Follies

It was a fairly pleasant ending to a not-so-pleasant season for Tennessee head football Coach Phil Fulmer when his Vols finished the regular season 10-2 and ranked no. 6 in the nation. Coming off a disappointing 8-5 record in 2002, the Vols carried the burden of great expectations this year, and Fulmer caught most of the flack when it appeared this team year's might be another underachiever.

By mid-season, the team had logged a handful of distinctly unimpressive wins and a couple of key SEC losses—including a 41-13 drubbing at the hands of detested rival Georgia. The Vols' struggles generated plenty of heat for the coaching staff; one "fan" even created an entire website devoted to seeking Fulmer's removal as head coach. Some folks apparently have lots of time on their hands.

But a funny thing happened on Fulmer's way to the U-haul rental; the Vols won the remainder of their games after the Georgia debacle, a string that included a stunning 10-6 road upset of mighty Miami. At season's end, the Vols had not only tied for the lead in the SEC East division race, but had fallen just this short of a prestigious BCS bowl bid. With the team set for a Jan. 2 Peach Bowl date with Clemson, maybe the closet critics and Sunday afternoon quarterbacks will shut up for a while—at least until next season begins.

The Buzz on Peterson

Timing is everything, especially if your name is Buzz Peterson, and you've just achieved one of the biggest recruiting coups in University of Tennessee basketball history. In November, ESPN announced that UT head basketball Coach Peterson had signed a contract extension that would keep him at UT through the 2008-09 season. The extension increases Peterson's salary by $69,000, bringing his total package to more than $850,000.

The Hmmm factor comes into play when you consider that the ESPN report coincided with Peterson's signing of McDonald's All-American Jackie Butler, a studly 6-11, 250-pound center from McComb, Miss., (19.5 ppg, 17.3 rpg, 5.3 bpg) who most observers consider to be the best high school big man who has ever committed to UT.

Naturally, the coincidence sparked speculation that the raise was a bounty of sorts, a de facto reward for Butler's capture. But Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton assured that details of the extension had actually been hammered out in the spring, then finalized in October. Whatever you say is fine with us, Mike.

AD-man Hamilton

After a protracted (and sometimes embarassingly mishandled) search by now-deposed University of Tennessee President John Shumaker, UT senior associate athletics director Mike Hamilton was at long last named to succeed departing Doug Dickey as head athletic director this summer.

Apparently, the now-notorious Shumaker offered the long-suffering Hamilton (an 11-year veteran of UT athletics, and most locals' choice for the job) the position only after being jilted by Wake Forest AD Ron Wellman, and probably University of Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione as well.

After this very public string of blundered negotiations, Shumaker lamely claimed Hamilton was his first choice all along, and offered him a four-year contract with a base salary of $240,000. Hamilton is now six months into his tenure as UT's new AD.

Shumaker, in the meantime, has vamoosed to parts unknown after messy revelations concerning his love life, his personal expenditures and his travel habits while at UT. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Asia in Tennessee

Italian film starlet Asia Argento rolled into Knoxville (fresh off her newfound mainstream success co-starring with Vin Diesel in the big-budget actioner XXX) to direct and star in her own production, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. The daughter of European scare-meister Dario Argento, Ms. Asia didn't do any press for the duration of her stay in Knoxville this fall, but she was highly visible shooting scenes in and around the downtown area.

The movie is a coming-of-age tale in which Argento plays the drug-addled mother of a boy in small-town West Virginia. Rumor has it that co-stars Peter Fonda and Marilyn Manson also snuck into town under the radar and shot scenes for the film. Renowned shop-lifting enthusiast Winona Ryder also appears in Heart, although her parts were reportedly filmed in Los Angeles, much to the relief of local Wal-Mart security personnel.

Superdrag's Last Show?

Poppy, rockin' quartet Superdrag, Knoxville's biggest rock 'n' roll export of the last decade, played what could be their final concerts this summer after the band announced they were taking an indefinite "hiatus" in June.

The beginning of the end was bassist Sam Powers' announcement in spring that he was exiting the group to start a family with wife Laura; shortly thereafter, his bandmates followed suit. Over the summer, the group played a trio of shows in Knoxville (at Blue Cats), Nashville, and, later, Boston that may prove to be Superdrag's last.

If that's the case, it was a long, wild, mostly fun ride for the band, an odyssey that produced four full-length albums (two on major label Elektra Records, two on the independent Arena Rock Recording Company), an EP, an independently-produced compilation and a handful of glorious singles. The fellows also got to meet—and often perform with—many of their own musical heroes, luminaries such as Ray Davies of the Kinks, Alex Chilton and Big Star, and Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices. Those of us who witnessed their last Blue Cats show did so with tears in our eyes, hearing one last time the songs that soundtracked our youth in the 1990s.

Frontman and chief songwriter John Davis lives in Nashville now, and word has it that he's on the verge of signing a deal as a Christian recording artist. Drummer Don Coffey works at the local 613 music studio, while co-guitarist Mic Harrison is pursuing a solo record of his own.

Will the boys ever take the stage together again? No one is ruling it out. And there are probably two new Superdrag releases upcoming, including a live set recorded last summer, and a retrospective with several unheard studio tracks. Fingers crossed...

CCstringbizzy

Your year pales in comparison to Robinella Contreras'. The lead singer and namesake to the CCstringband put out a fantastic major-label debut release with a video on Country Music Television in support, played on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, opened for Americana darling Kasey Chambers on a cross-country tour, bought a tour bus, and is now pregnant. The band also garnered kudos from both Metro Pulse and the News Sentinel with Best Bluegrass Band nods. You probably sat around all year drinking wine from a box, eating peanut M&M's longing for your ex-girlfriend. The album ranked #28 for the year on the Americana Music Chart compiled by the Americana Music Association, and, at press time, the video for "Man Over" was at number 18 on CMT and climbing. Because of the impending pregnancy, the band is limited in its touring options—which is good for us, but bad for the rest of America. Robinella is back with a weekly gig every Sunday at Barley's with her husband Cruz, and promises regular special guests.

Scott Miller Skidding Up

Sophomore slump be damned! This year was a very good year for Knoxville's favorite Virginian Scott Miller and his band The Commonwealth. After releasing his second Sugar Hill CD Upside/Downside in mid-June, Miller has been busy touring, and the record has been busy getting plenty of radio airplay. Co-produced by Miller and Commonwealth keyboardist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Eric Fritsch, Upside/Downside is a bit more stripped-down production-wise than his Sugar Hill debut Thus Always To Tyrants (produced by RS Field), but is still full of tunes that have helped Miller gain a very passionate legion of fans that continues to grow with each record and live show. And help from Tim O'Brien and Patty Griffin on the record doesn't hurt, either. From the rockin' kick-off song, "It Didn't Take Too Long," to the Neil Young-meets-Booker T. instrumental "Chill, Relax, Now" that serves as the segue tune between the "two sides" of this record, to the soon-to-be hit "Amtrak Crescent," Upside/Downside shows just how much ground Miller can cover—a skill that helps to set him apart from many other newcomers to the Americana music world. Miller also was busy touring with the band, as well as doing numerous solo dates. The bulk of the gigs were headline shows, but he also shared the stage opening for the likes of Alexandro Escovedo, Tim O'Brien, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, and yes, Cheap Trick, where Bun E. Carlos himself made a beeline to Miller after his set to tell him how much he enjoyed it.

Upside/Downside spent three weeks at the number one spot on the Americana Music Chart (based on radio airplay and composed by the Americana Music Association), and a very healthy 12 weeks in the Top Five. The disc was just named the number four Americana record of the year according to the chart, and it ain't done yet. Miller and his merry band of Commonwealth music-makers will be taking off on a promotional tour aboard the real Amtrak Crescent train to support the third single from the disc named after the east-coast train that travels from New Orleans to New York City. As his website proclaims, "The Muletrain boards in New Orleans...just like the song says," on Jan. 21 after a show at The Parrish House of Blues in the Crescent City. Stops/shows in at least 12 more towns along the way will take place, and the train/concert tour ends up in New York City on February 11 with a show at Tribeca in the Big Apple. Scott and the band will be wrapping up 2003 and ringing in 2004 with his traditional New Year's Eve gig, taking place this year in the beautiful lobby of the Knoxville Marriott. And with a successful 2003 almost behind him, and a very bright 2004 ahead, the NYE bash is sure to be one of the biggest parties in East Tennessee that night.

Bud Band

No Knoxville band had a more interesting or busy year than Jag Star. The group started out with a tour of U.S. bases throughout the Middle East, including stops in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kyrgyzstan. That alone is the coolest thing any Knoxville band did, but there were several more to follow. The band played at the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles as finalists for the New Music Awards: they were selected by Dick Clark in an early cut. They lost the competition but enjoyed the experience. They were also sponsored by Budweiser and featured in a cool advertising spread in Vanity Fair's music issue. For an encore, the band did a second USO tour, this time through sunny South Pacific. The band is looking forward to recording again soon.

Bands that Split

It's the natural course of events for local bands to break up. They split; we move on. But it's harder to take when said bands are popular, talented and seem to be headed for bigger things beyond Knoxville's scene. In 2003, we witnessed the demise of at least four prominent local bands: the Jodie Manross Band, Gran Torino, Left Foot Down and the Bitter Pills. JMB cited four members with different goals; Manross is currently performing solo, while Laith Keilany, Nathan Barrett and Andre Hayter play in assorted collectives and pick-up projects. Gran Torino and Left Foot Down, both well-established bands managed by Ted Heinig's 26.2 Music, played their last shows in January (LFD's on New Year's Eve). The Bitter Pills, who put on some of the damnedest shows in town, called it quits in February. Most of its members left town altogether. Maybe it was this year of division (or a sense of inevitability) that inspired one new band to name itself Divorce.

Hoppin' Jam

A sunny October day, a new park, and scores of varieties of beer. The Seventh Annual East Tennessee Brewer's Jam drew about 2,000 to the newly redesigned World's Fair Park, and was an unqualified success, reminding some of the jovial fairs of medieval times. But the skies darkened only 12 days later, with the sudden death at age 50 of Tom Rutledge, the festival's chief organizer.

Eclectico Rossini

The best all-around festival of the year was this year's Rossini Festival in April, which eclipsed even that of the year before. Held in conjunction with the Dogwood Arts Festival, the most unlikely festival success in Knoxville history somehow combined opera, bellydancing, bagpiping, upscale crafts, and lots of wine, beer, and fine Italian food on a couple of blocks of Gay Street.

Yee-Haw: Making Us Hip

Yee-Haw Industries, Knoxville's coolest claim to fame, furthered its influence on our downtown by hosting art openings in a large empty loft in the Woodruff Building on Gay Street. UT graphic arts students interning with hip design duo, Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, showed their work and increased the creative energy downtown by several degrees. Yee-Haw also had a hand in the planning and execution of First Friday, a downtown-wide open house for art galleries and other merchants. The first event on Oct. 3 kicked off with a parade of artistically (and temporarily) tattooed women and was punctuated by various hobnobbing receptions at neighborhood galleries. First Fridays in November and December perpetuated the momentum of a new tradition that will pick up speed in 2004. Yee-Haw wrapped up 2003 by representing the whole state of Tennessee in I.D., the International Design magazine's 50th anniversary issue. As Martha Stewart says, it's a good thing.

Alumni Gym Reopens. Mostly.

After being closed for renovation for almost four years, the Alumni Memorial Gym, (now bearing the fancier title of Auditorium) opened classrooms, offices and, after some pushing from student dancers, the only dance-appropriate studio on campus. The star of the show is the opulently remodeled auditorium that boasts gorgeous woodwork and amazing acoustics. The School of Music wasted no time in holding numerous concerts and recitals on the stage, but we wonder when the gym, er, auditorium will ever again host the kind of bands that made it one of the Southeast's best rock venues in its heyday. In the past 30 years, the gym hosted Thomas Dolby, Stray Cats, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the Clash, the Pixies, the B-52's and scads of other noteworthy bands. Particularly significant moments in Alumni's musical history include U2's opening gig for the J. Geils Band circa the 1980 and Hillel Slovak's final show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers before his heroin overdose in 1988.

East Tennessee AIA Chapter Celebrates 50 Years

In 1953, the architects of Knoxville couldn't have fathomed the brilliance of structures like the Sunsphere, the Gateway Visitors Center or the multitude of fascinating parking garages that populate our city's urban center. To make sure these and other structures built in the past half-century didn't go unrecognized, the East Tennessee chapter of the American Institute of Architects polled the public to find out which buildings they found most notable. Most of the respondents turned out to be architects, who gave educated and well-worded commendations to a variety of Knoxville's most visible and visually striking modern structures. After being whittled down to a list of 50 (plus one for good measure), the results were unveiled at a well-attended soiree at the Knoxville Museum of Art (which itself made the final cut). The Sunsphere, irreverently left off the list of notable structures, loomed jealously over the event.

R.I.P. Addie Shersky

Soon after Harold's Deli celebrated its 55th anniversary at the same location and with the same proprietors, one of them, Harold's wife Addie Shersky died after an extended battle with cancer. Holiday eggnog at Harold's hasn't seemed the same without her.
 

December 25, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 52
© 2003 Metro Pulse