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Guess Who
Halloween 2003 was on a Friday night, making the collective celebration of clubs in the Old City overflow out to the sidewalks and into the streets. Always careful to avoid the fire marshal’s definition of capacity, the Pilot Light filled up early, causing many fans of the club’s now-annual masquerade show to wait outside or find another drinking hole to haunt. This year’s parade of pseudonymous players may be easier to catch owing to the 31st landing on a Sunday, causing many area clubs to plan costumed holiday events for Saturday or Sunday, or both.
This year’s line-up at the Pilot Light features five local bands or collectives impersonating Devo, Sonic Youth, The Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain and the Muppets house band, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
Traditionally, the true identities of the local bands behind the famous acts are kept hush-hush until the big event, but Eye has a partial inside scoop on the musicians behind the masks.
Harold Heffner of the Cheat and Pilot Light co-owner Jason Boardman are collaborating on Devo, and Chelsea Horror is tackling the moody rock of Jesus and Mary Chain.
We’ve got no clue about Sonic Youth, but our best guess about the Pixies is Dixie Dirt; who else better to capture the harmonies and stage presence of the Deal sisters? Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on our part.
One thing we know for sure is: the Muppets house band will be invoked by a local outfit that ranks high on the cute ‘n’ cuddly meter: The Rockwells. Guitarist/keyboardist Tommy Bateman is Dr. Teeth, the band’s gold-toothed leader. Brother Trace Bateman will don a red wig to be the only-slightly-tame drummer Animal. (If anyone has a spiked collar for him to wear, it’ll save him a trip to the local sex shop.) Jonathan Kelly takes on the role of the mustached Sgt. Floyd Pepper, and Fred Kelly assumes the position of Zoot.
“We’re not going to be fabric-y,” states Tommy, “although color is still up in the air.” The puppets’ colorful costumes won’t be as much of a challenge as the Muppet Show theme, which will open the set. The horn-heavy theme with its show-tune structure, initially gave the band fits with the rest of the Muppet Movie songs. But the Batemans, who have been listening to the soundtrack and watching the film since they were wee tots, depended upon their familiarity with the songs and worked out the tunes for a four-piece band.
One insider reports that recent band rehearsals have been sidetracked by additional viewings of The Muppet Movie. Research or mere entertainment? We’re sure the study will pay off on Sunday.
The show starts at 10 p.m. Admission is $5, which goes directly to club improvements.
Open Arms
If you’ve heard the sweet sounds of power ballads emanating from Market Square lately, it may mean that the Hard Knox CafÉ is gearing up to open. We’re not above rumor-mongering—especially when the topic at hand is in our front yard of Market Square. One of our intrepid Eye correspondents was casually tooling past the storefront of the long-awaited (long overdue?) comedy club/live rock karaoke club, when she heard the unmistakable sounds of Journey blaring behind the bolted glass doors. “They had to be a professional band,” our reporter states, “not your run-of-the-mill cover band.” Perhaps they were preparing for a Halloween gig at a private party, but we prefer to believe they were the element that’s going to change karaoke as we know it in Knoxville. What little we’ve heard about Hard Knox is that it’s a live-band karaoke bar; the phenomenon is also known as rockaoke (although the term seems a bit tepid, garnering only three hits on a Google search). We can’t imagine what Market Square will be like when Hard Knox patrons are competing with Macleod’s regular karaoke belters on weekend nights.
Go.
Thursday: Rev up your weekend with the Camaros at Preservation Pub.
Friday: Carve a pumpkin, then go see the Ghosts at Manhattan’s.
Saturday: Put together a last-minute costume and go down to the Old City. Enter a contest. Crash a party.
Sunday: Now it’s really Halloween. Reminisce about your trick-or-treating days. Hear the Coveralls impersonate Aerosmith at Barley’s.
Monday: Swear off candy. At least until Christmas M&Ms come on the market. Which will probably be next week.
Tuesday: Test your theory that laughter burns calories by joining the gang at Patrick Sullivan’s for Einstein Simplified improv comedy at 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Welcome back... Mitch Rutman is playing the Downtown Grill and Brewery every Wednesday now.
—Molly Kincaid, Paige M. Travis
October 28, 2004 • Vol 14, No. 44
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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