Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

C’mon, C’mon, C’mon, C’mon Back To Me

AC Entertainment promised to up the ante on this year’s Sundown in the City concert series, and they’ve done just that. The free Thursday-night series opens April 8 on Market Square with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, as reported here a few weeks ago. Late last week, some additional shows were made public in the Tomato Head’s email newsletter, which managed to scoop all of Knoxville’s rather lazy media, Metro Pulse included.

The series has been reduced to 12 shows this year, down from 15 and 25 in previous years. But check out this lineup: The Tony Rice Unit (April 15), The Wailers (April 22), The Flatlanders featuring Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock (May 13), Galactic (May 20), Gillian Welch (May 27), and Yonder Mountain String Band (June 6). Acts for the April 29, May 6, June 3, 17 and 24 shows have not been finalized yet, but imagine the possibilities.

The city administration has proposed pitching in $100,000 to the series, with $50,000 to be refunded from the initial profits, but City Council must first approve that amount.

Profits after that go 50 percent to AC, 25 percent to the Market Square merchants association, and the 25 percent to the Arts Alliance.

They Say It’s Your Birthday

Don’t call him “over the hill.” He’s at the top of his game. Jazz pianist, composer, professor and all-around awe-inspiring guy Donald Brown turns 50 on March 28, and his pals are throwing one helluva birthday bash.

The East Tennessee Jazz Society will host the shindig at Dr. Max and Lisa Cheng’s Giant Panda restaurant on Sunday, March 28 starting at 7 p.m. The guest list is already a who’s who of Brown’s jazz-playing compatriots and/or fellow UT instructors including Rusty Holloway, Keith Brown, Mark Boling, Bill Swann, Don Hough, Paul Harr, Vance Thompson, plus other friends and fans who want to take the stage for a musical tribute. The birthday honoree himself will likely be “convinced” to perform at his own party. “Just try and stop him,” chides the invitation. So leave all those black-wrapped gag gifts about senility and incontinence at home. This 50th birthday party will be about honoring the advantages of aging gracefully and growing wiser. We can’t think of a better role model than Donald Brown.

Local CD Review

The Pink Sexies
Rock and Roll Mustache Ride (Wrecked Em Records)

There’s something about live performances of the Pink Sexies that leave you wondering whether the group is a rock band or a performance art troupe. The shows are entertaining, make no mistake. Singer Hamo Braham tends to take over the show— sometimes beginning with the sickest of jokes—and once the band fires up, he wanders into the audience, singing into the faces of terrified audience members and fighting off body slams from those who rise to his challenge. It’s like GG Allin without the shit and blood.

There’s something brilliant in the way Hamo can make rock ’n’ roll feel menacing and dynamic and fun. But it also gets a little tiresome. (At one show I was clipped in the brow with the microphone stand as Hamo was tackled by a fan and tumbled backwards over a couch.)

The band’s new CD, Rock and Roll Mustache Ride, may not definitely answer the question of what the hell this band is all about. But it demonstrates that beyond the theatrics, the Sexies are a damn fine punk rock band. This is a tribute to the tightness of the band—William DeLeonardis (bassist who writes most of the music), Fred Roscoe (guitar), and Jason Stark (drums). Stylistically, the Pink Sexies draw mostly on punk and post-punk bands of the late-’70s, early ’80s, but there’s a soulfulness that creeps in from time to time.

The production makes Hamo’s lyrics—mostly indecipherable live—clear; many people probably wish they weren’t. As with his amazing illustrations, Hamo’s lyrical humor is twisted, morbid and pretty damn funny. Take “A Teenage Breakdown” in which he sings about a girl who blows her boyfriend’s head off. The chorus goes, “honey honey honey/ what’s this mess/ you got cum on your hands/ you got blood on your lips/ (how about a little kiss).”

It’s liberating to laugh at the most disgusting things you can think of. And that’s sort of what the Pink Sexies are all about. Listening to this record—or seeing the band live—makes you want to jump around. Which you can do at the Pilot Light this Saturday, March 27, for the CD release show.

Go.

Thursday: Go ask Jodie about her trip to L.A. at Urban Bar and Grill.

Friday: Check out that weird UT art show above the Brewery, then swing by Manhattan’s for the wonderful Ghosts and then catch Dixie Dirt at the Pilot Light. Drink plenty of water.

Saturday: I already told you—go see the Pink Sexies at the Pilot Light.

Sunday: Happy Birthday, Donald!

Monday: Don Caballero at the Pilot Light. Indie instrumental rock.

Tuesday: Susie Betts plays bluegrass at the Corner Lounge! How East Tennessean!

Wednesday: I’m jealous of your life. What are you doing out there. You’re probably having a drink at that bar and trying to get into you-know-whose panties and joking with those friends of yours I don’t even know while I am sitting here all alone in the snow having no fun. Man, man to man, I hardly know you so why are you doing this to me.

—Joe Tarr, Paige M. Travis