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We’ll Miss You
One of the moodiest, spookiest bands Knoxville’s had in years is calling it quits. Blackgrass will play its final show July 18 at Barley’s and then release its final, 11-song CD titled Hope, in August. Fiddle player and professional photographer Christian Lange reports that the band’s demise is due to natural causes.
“Scott [Trowbridge] is moving to D.C. to go to law school, Kevin [Walford] is having a baby, and I am getting together with a guitarist Ryan Flaherty to start a new project—a gypsy jazz kind of sound. Roman [Karpynec] is also involved with another two guys, and they’re getting that off the road.”
Although the band was “a little melancholy” about the break-up during the band’s last rehearsal, Lange says they are excited about the new release. “It’s our best material to date, and that’s why we felt strongly about recording and releasing Hope,” he says. “Even though we won’t be around to support the CD.
“It’s been a really rewarding three years playing with these guys,” he adds.
Wanna Buy a Really Cool Bar?
Just north of downtown on Central Avenue, the old Corner Lounge sits empty, breaking hearts of drunks and music lovers all over Knoxville. Although the bar was wildly popular, owner Mike Moore shut the doors a couple of months ago, saying the nightclub business wasn’t for him. An auction was planned for May, but he cancelled those plans, saying the economics didn’t work out for him. Moore says he plans on more aggressively marketing the club in the coming weeks. “Having taken a little break, I’m actively putting it on the market this week, actively seeking a new buyer for it, or someone to lease it,” he says.
If you’re interested (and we hope someone is), call Moore at 567-1038.
Atlantis Rises
Some bands head North for a music festival, others go South. Last week we reported on the Rockwells’ upcoming trip to Cincinnati’s Midpoint Music Festival. They’re not the only groups trying to generate an industry buzz. More than 2,500 bands submitted music to the Atlantis Music Conference in Atlanta, with just 260 being selected. Among them are Knoxville’s Copper and Louise Mosrie, who recently moved to Nashville. There were 10 bands selected from Tennessee for the conference, which will be held at the Downtown Renaissance Hotel on July 21-24.
CD Review
The Everybodyfields
Half-way There: Electricity & the South
The Johnson City trio of Jill Andrews, Sam Quinn and David Richey make music that’s channeled through decades of melancholy folk and country. Influenced by Gillian Welch and Uncle Tupelo as well as those artists’ roots in Appalachian ballads and coal miner songs, the Everybodyfields wallow in slow, trudging dirges made even more heartbreaking by weeping steel guitar and three-part harmonies. Bars, whiskey, moonshine stills, and even the Tennessee Valley Authority make requisite appearances in the disc’s11 tracks. It doesn’t seem right that these people in their early 20s can express such soulful sadness, but there is catharsis and beauty here too.
Derivative in the best sense, Halfway There sounds much like Jay Farrar’s cuts on Uncle Tupelo’s ode to folk and country March 16-20, 1992. If sadsack folkies have a patriarch, it’s Farrar, who seems to have a ghostly presence here. The Everybodyfields have done him one better by writing lyrics that do more than just evoke pictures and places. Andrews and Quinn, who share lead vocals, grasp the importance of storytelling in folk music, in letting interesting characters speak, like in “TVA,” a recollection of bringing power to the mountains: “I don’t need no dam or no damn FDR making power for some other factory. Well they can have their reasons whatever they are, and take them back to their Authority. And God the father said, ‘Jesus Christ, I don’t know about this electricity. They use the day to steal the nights and make my waters rise. And trying to take my job away from me.’” It’s good to know that Appalachia still inspires songwriters to put stories into song, especially when they are this well crafted and lovely.
The Everybodyfields will perform with fellow Johnson City rockers Rob Russell and the Sore Losers, plus former Knoxvillian Adam Hill of Nashville, on July 17 at Patrick Sullivan’s.
Go.
Thursday: The Bob Maxon Trio is playing at the Urban Bar & Grill. If the music is too loud, you can always step out on the patio, the best one in Knoxville.
Friday: Check out Murfreesboro’s moody rockers, Glossary, at Oskie’s.
Saturday: Check out two Metro Pulse favorites, Leslie Woods and The Rockwells, at the Pilot Light.
Sunday: Say goodbye and thanks to Blackgrass at Barley’s.
Monday: Monday is a good day for Bad Weather Blues at the Preservation Pub.
Tuesday: A stranger is someone who sits very still at the kitchen table, looks down at his knuckles, thinks someday we will laugh about this, doesn’t believe it.
Wednesday: Take up knitting.
—Paige M. Travis, Joe Tarr
July 15, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 29
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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