www.roanoke.com

Here's some good advance notice for bands looking to play and eat some chili. Jenny Lee, at Greenvale School, sent me this e-mail to beef up entertainment for the 31st Annual VA State Championship Chili Cook-Off, on May 1. If you want to get on the gig, contact Jenny at 540-342-4716 or jlee@greenvale-school.org. She promises "free admission, bowls of chili, and cold drinks for all band members!"

>LOCAL TALENT NEEDED FOR THE CHILI COOK-OFF!

>The 31st Annual VA State Championship Chili Cook-Off is looking for local musicians who would be willing to donate a one-hour performance at the 2010 Chili Cook-Off on Saturday, May 1, 2010!  In exchange for your generous donation of talent, your band will receive wonderful visibility at one of Roanoke’s largest and most well-loved events!

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Bassist Keith Carper, who died on Sept. 22, left behind a lot of friends in his hometown, Roanoke, as well as his adopted Texas. A memorial fund has been set up to cover medical expenses that Carper left behind.

Go to www.keithcarper.com to donate, or send your donation via mail to Keith Carper Memorial Fund, c/o Whistling Pig Music, P.O. Box 935, Dripping Springs, TX 78620. For more information, call Central Texas Music Service/Whistling Pig Music at 512-858-9215, or go to KeithCarper.com or Gruenehall.com.

Working on a story for tomorrow's paper and thought I'd post some paragraphs here ...

Roanoke Civic Center’s management company and a local advertising and sponsorship agency could put a lot of new advertisements on, in and around the civic center — and even give the venue a new name.

Read full print story here.

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Technically, only one of these CDs is local, but more about that later.

> Kat Mills, a coffeehouse and FloydFest favorite, has a new CD out. It's called "Townie" (Sweet Cut Music) and you can find it via her Web site, katmills.com. I haven't had a chance to listen to it, but knowing her music and live performances relatively well, I'm guessing it's a laid-back, folkie affair with strong lyrics and confident performances. Mills herself wrote in an e-mail: "I made this one in Virginia, and it's got a nice homey, live, back-porch feel."

Next, let's check in on a couple of musicians who used to ply their trade around the valleys but have since moved to Oregon.

> James Miley was a jazz instructor for a while at Virginia Tech, but he's since joined the faculty at Willamette University, in Salem, Ore. He continues Bug, a band with his guitar-playing brother, Jeff Miley. Check out their new record, "The Gadfly" (Origin) at bugtet.com. This is a great bunch of players.

> Kevin Selfe is a friend of the late and (sometimes) lamented TimesCast. Selfe, who has a degree in meteorology from N.C. State, is a bluesman by trade, and he would come over to our studio, talk about the weather and play some tasty blues licks. That segment was a favorite of mine. For the past couple of years, Selfe has been in Portland, Ore., where he has embedded himself nicely into that town's roots scene.

Selfe took his guitar, his harmonica and his band name, The Tornadoes, with him. The act is releasing a new record, "Playing The Game." You know what to expect from Selfe -- tight and tasty playing, and a solid backing band -- you can hear that on this record. Release date is Oct. 2. More info at kevinselfe.com.

I'm psyched to get this thing rolling, but I need your ideas to help make it rock.

We're going to base it on the local artists database that we already have in effect at http://rtstories.com/artmuseum/local_artist_search. Here's an example of an artist's page -- http://rtstories.com/artmuseum/local_artist_search?appSession=109108587222881.

Of course, we're going to rejigger it to make sense for bands/musicians.

So, tell me what you think we should include for each band, and what genres we should include. Thinking broad brush, I want acts to be able to put a photo, upcoming show dates, links to audio/video and social networking pages. Genres would be rock, bluegrass, old-time, country, jazz, blues, etc., with subgenres included. If you're a band looking for players, you can add that. If you're a player looking for a gig, you can  add that.

So fire away. Let's make this thing kick some big behind.

What a crazy youtube.com discovery. Go to the bottom of this clip to read the back story about how I came to find these videos. At the end of the vid, you'll see options for more clips from that long-ago show at the Coffee Pot.

More than 25 years have passed since a show that the Coffee Pot’s owner, Carroll Bell, calls his room’s claim to fame.

About 1983, a post-Allman Brothers Band Dickey Betts came to the Pot with BHLT and Friends — including Allmans' keyboardist Chuck Leavell and drummer Butch Trucks, and frontman Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie fame. The USA television network taped and broadcast the concert.

Bell said he made a videotape of the show, then lent it to a friend. Since then, Bell has forgotten who borrowed it, and that person has never returned it, Bell lamented on a recent night at the Pot.
Turns out, some of that performance is living on the World Wide Web. A Google search turned up BHLT performing “Ramblin’ Man,” “Rain” and “Nothin’ You Can Do” on YouTube.

The latter clip (embedded above) shows a raucous crowd “getting ready for some jammin’ tonight ... waiting in line to jam with a new supergroup of American rock” at “our USA hot spot tonight, the Coffee Pot in Roanoke, Va.,” according to the host.

Check out both videos at blogs.roanoke.com/cutnscratch. And hey, if you’ve got that old video cassette, why don’t you drop it by the Pot. If you can identify the show host, let me know.

— Tad Dickens

Music is what started MySpace.com's virtual media shower, and it's the only thing that can keep it relevant.

After a few years on the site, I still get a tremendous number of band add requests. Most of them do not impress me, but today I found a couple that I really liked.

Let's start with the Milwaukee, Wisc., band Jail. This band can rock hard, but it understands dymanics and the importance of tempo diversity. The songs combine straight-up rock with elements of cowpunk, garage, psychedelic. The song "All It Was" carves out an early-Radiohead-meets-Toadies sound, with such self-deprecatingly strange lyrics as "I fell out of the cab, and soiled my pants, and nobody cared at all.

Jail tours all over the country, so maybe it will come here, and we can see if its live chops are up to its MP3 standard.

The other band I had to big up this afternoon is Marcella and the Forget Me Nots, led by The Puppini Sisters Marcella Puppini. She bills it as an all-girl post-apocalyptic cabaret orchestra, and that sounds about right to me.

Check out the MySpace page's opening cut, "What Have You Done to Your Face," in which Puppini castigates a friend who went under the plastic surgeon's knife at least one too many times. But the strongest cut is "To The Water," a slow and spooky number, darkened by cello.

According to band publicity, it will release a record in October 2009. Maybe Pippini and cohorts will come over here from the UK for some touring.

Troy Gatrell's latest project, Way, Shape, or Form, jammed the Roanoke Library on Thursday evening. On the video for below, the band, with Gatrell on drums and keys, comes off like a combination of Steve Khan and Incubus. That is actually a cool combination.

Look for the band's CD, "Trapezoid Campaign."

Aaron Parker is on bass here, and Justin Brown is playing guitar. Video by Hans Moore.

Somehow, this slipped through the cracks for me, but a U2 tribute band is coming to play at Corned Beef & Co. tomorrow night. The band is called 2U, which just cracks me up to begin with.

But one of my fellow Roanoke Times employees has a different take. She thought it was a little depressing that such an iconic band from our youth now has a tribute act hitting the clubs. What about all those Journey tribute bands, I asked? Those seem to make sense somehow, she said.

We have Tool, Metallica and other tribute acts who travel into town, and apparently a 311 tribute act based right here in the Noke. Do you like to go hear tribute bands? Do they cheapen the idea of the real bands for you? Or is it just a discounted chance to hear quality renditions of these acts' hits, performed by players who are really into the whole tribute thing?

Third and final audio clip of the day from the Nikki Glaspie show this afternoon at Jefferson Center.

First solo is Hairston's, and he takes the melody to some hot places. Glaspie follows, showing how a great drummer can solo so musically. She said after the show that she hopes to be back soon. About 55 people in the Jeff's rehearsal hall were happy to hear that. Let's hope she draws 155 next time.

Her father, Enos Glaspie, told the crowd that Nikki would be playing at his church, House of Agape Fellowship, 913 E. Main St, Salem, tonight and Sunday night, at 7 p.m.