2007 Rotations

It’s been said repeatedly — in these pages and elsewhere — that there are plenty of Knoxville bands making music every bit as good, and in many cases better, than internationally known bands in similar genres. If you caught a bad performance, don’t get out much or just flat-out don’t think it’s possible, several local CD and record releases this year store the proof in their digital surfaces and vinyl grooves.

On the poppier side of things, The Tenderhooks released Vidalia, a sweet- sounding album so wonderful it makes you want to cry. Stewart Pack released a Beached Whale of a recording that showcases his own pop savant stylings, and The Rockwells were in the right Place and Time with their excellent sounding pop-rock disc.

Mr. Mack followed up 2006’s inescapable “Where You From” with the hyper-boasting of “So Fly,” complete with a catchy children’s chorus.

Mic Harrison and the High Score received a lot of acclaim on the alt.country front with Push Me on Home. Local mainstays Jeff Heiskell’s Soundtrack for an Aneurism and Downtown Randall Brown’s Quart Jar featured support from a bevy of local talent.

Young pop-punksters Crabs Are Scavengers put out both an EP, Human Fashion, and the full length CD Apple Tree Thief. Metal-punks punishers Sadville weren’t folling around on their LP Make Ready the Cross. Whitechapel had quite a year, unleashing their brutal metal epic The Somatic Defilement before inking a deal with Metal Blade records for an album due in 2008.

The Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight basically created a genre with their self-titled release, as did Double Muslims with their Errors of Menace + 2 7-inch. Seven inches were barely enough to contain the menace of Woman’s Open Letter b/w Black Black record, and the always easy Whisk-Hutzel put out with the first compilation vinyl record representing Knoxville in years with Music To Steal To.

The CD-R “industry” continued to flourish, helped along by the leg stretching on a two-CD set from New Madrid, a Black Sarah CD seemingly written in lightning and a trio of recordings from Bright Shuttle.

Damn Creeps released a DVD directed by Wes Caylor that is comprised of career-spanning live performances, and doubles as a documentary on alcoholism. And DBLF Studios gets the award for most ambitious, amusing, and surprisingly consistent (considering the length) recording with Periodically, a three-CD-R concept album based on the periodic table of the elements. That’s 119 songs in all, from Doug Campbell, Bill Ardison and numerous supporting players, but they’re more than carefully crafted pop tunes; listen closely and you get a crash-course in chemistry, sort of like a rock-geek’s Schoolhouse Rock.