Good News and Bad News

Good news
Tomato Head minister of information Brian Sherry would like it made known that both the Market Square and Maryville locations of the restaurant are available as performance/exhibition spaces for live music, films, plays, lectures, dance, art, performance art and any other related subjects you may dream up. In the past, the restaurant hosted after-hours performances from the likes of Bright Eyes, Low, Do Make Say Think and Eugene Chadbourne as well as showing films such as Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend and Chris Marker’s Grin Without a Cat. A few clubs and performance spaces have sprung up since the Head’s heyday as Knoxville’s premiere venue for upcoming indie or avant-garde musical acts and challenging films, so the restaurant wishes to offer its space for events that might fall outside of the normal parameters on Sunday and Monday evenings. Interested parties should contact brian@thetomatohead.com or call 981-1080.

More good news
By the time you read this, ground should have been broken at the Knoxville Skatepark, located in Tyson Park. Wednesday, Aug. 8 was the opening, with both Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam and Knox county mayor Mike Ragsdale having made appearances. We’ll let you know if either attempted an ollie.

Even more good news!
The always-interesting Home Movie Day will be taking place Aug. 11 at the East Tennessee Historical Society Center at 601 S. Gay St. from noon to 4 p.m. The nationwide event allows anyone to bring in home videos or films and screen them for the public. A great historic preservation, anthropological, regional studies or old–fashioned, voyeuristic bonanza, you’re welcome to drop in and out all day to take a peek at your friends’ and neighbors’ private memories offered up for public consumption.

Will this good news never end?
The Bijou announced its Fall Festival of the Art slineup, and it’s pretty impressive. Coming to town in the next few months will be John Waters, the Yard Dogs Road Show, Bela Fleck, Anoushka Shankar, the John Abercrombie Quartet and Tord Gustavsen Trio, among other interesting acts foreign and domestic.

Do we have any bad news?
Maybe some weird news. We received an email addressed to “Medford’s Black Record Collection fans and acquaintances” (didn’t realize we were either), detailing the band’s problems with Patrick Sullivan’s, and why they won’t be performing at that venue or Sullivan’s affiliates Backroom BBQ or Manhattan’s in the near future. We’ll not go into the sordid details, but it has something to do with sound problems, monetary rewards (and the lack thereof) and some rude behavior on the part of Sullivan’s management. Interested parties can visit the band’s MySpace page (Remember: Don’t Google “Medford Black’S” — it’s “Medord’S Black”) and click on the “About Patrick Sullivan’s” blog entry for their account of the night in question. Toward the end, the confrontation with the manager makes him seem like a Damon Runyon character – very exciting stuff.