The City of Alcoa’s FreedomFest, the City’s 39th edition of the overwhelmingly popular Independence Day celebration is set for Saturday, June 24, 2017 at the Alcoa Duck Pond.

Today, Saturday, June 24, 2017
6 PM - 11 PM

Food, music, inflatables, climbing wall, face painting, and FIREWORKS!

Summer on Broadway in downtown Maryville.
Today, June 24, 2017
From 8:45 AM TO after 5 PM

Activities include, Smoky Mountain DockDogs Big Air competition at the Greenbelt Park Theater, the Farmers’ Market and the craft vendors open for business on Broadway, with the Napa Classic Car Show at the Blount County Courthouse parking lot, and the McNabb Center Big BBQ Bash.

Robert Higginbotham Blues Jammers at 3 p.m
Hops in the Hills craft beer festival starts at 5 PM
Music by the Dirty Dougs at 5:30 PM

The Smoky Mountain Blues Society has their Third of the year Blues Cruises this Sunday afternoon, June 25th on the Star of Knoxville Riverboat. We had a tremendous turnout for last years cruises and this year should be a banner year also. Join us for three hours of Mighty Blue. They are dedicated to playing "modern era" blues, circa 1950-1980, alongside some soul and funk classics! A local favorite from Knoxville, TN.
(link...)

Tickets are $16 in advance and $20 day of show. Smoky Mtn. Blues Members receive a $3 discount. Boarding at 3 PM, cruise from 4 to 7 pm. Hope to see you there. Call the Riverboat Company Mon-Fri from 10-4 and some Sat.(hrs vary)at 865-525-7827 | 800-509-2628 for tickets.
Check out the SMBS website for more info
(link...)

Hope to see you there.

CNet asked around their office for some click-bait material. The question: what's your favorite performance in a science fiction movie. Here's the first thing that pops up:

(Click image for bigger)

See for yourself here...

I guess it's possible there are millennials who don't know that these events actually occurred. Then there are all the conspiracy nuts who believe the moon landings were faked. Not sure which is dumber.

Some new releases listened to on Spotify today:

Steve Earle & The Dukes, So You Wanna Be an Outlaw: Pretty good.

North Mississippi Allstars, Prayer for Peace: Like it.

Lorde, Melodrama: ???

Dan Auerbach, Waiting on a Song*: Meh.

Chris Robinson Brotherhood, High is Not the Top*: OK, then.

Stanton Moore, Night People feat. Maceo Parker*: Brings the funk.

(*Only listened to one song.)

Curiosities to explore further:

Cookin' on 3 Burners, Lab Experiments: Mixin' Vol. 1: Pretty cool.

Kraftwerk, 3-D The Catalogue: Impressive live compilation.

Sounds like a pretty good idea...

Central Cinema launches crowd-funding campaign for independent movie theater in Happy Holler

"...a locally owned and locally programmed single-screen cinema showing classic movies and new releases that wouldn’t otherwise screen in the area. William Mahaffey and Nick Huinker are calling it Central Cinema, and they’ve officially launched a GoFundMe campaign and announced some details."

Follow the link for more info and a proposed floor plan...

The Mrs.: Hey, can you stop that and put on the other version?

Me: OK (fumbling around with a remote and a mouse).

The Mrs.: Whats the problem? You can't stop it? Why is that so hard?

The Mrs.: (watching me try to find artist The Beatles) You just passed up the Bs. It was right there.

Me: I'm scrolling down to the 'The's.

The Mrs.: That's stupid. Did you do that or did it come that way? Can't you fix it?

Me: That's just how it works. And for future reference, you don't trash talk a man's stereo.

The Mrs.: That's not a stereo. It's a computer.

In the speech, which is just over 4,000 words long — and about 27 minutes, in an accompanying recording — Mr. Dylan shows that he has been thinking about the question too, and gave a defense detailing his literary and musical influences, and ending on a note that every lit major should know.

Bob Dylan Delivers His Nobel Prize Lecture, Just in Time

Bob Dylan 2016 Nobel Lecture in Literature

Behold the Apple Homepod

More expensive than Amazon Echo. Dumber than Google Home. More proprietary than Sonos.

Oohh, it has room correction? For a beer can speaker?

What were they thinking? Reeks of desperation. And snake oil.

(Not shipping yet. Not yet FCC approved.)

Saw Todd Rundgren at Bijou Wednesday evening.

Not at all what I was expecting.

Interesting show. A lot of production with graphics and videos, dancing. Todd did choreographed dancing with his backup singers.

As far as I could tell all but maybe 2 songs were new. At least new to me.

Pretty good. I would have liked to have gotten a few more of the old tunes in there somewhere.

I attended his one man show at Tennessee in 2003. This was a stark contrast.

Wow. Really feeling old.

I have to ask, though. Do we really need all these remastered reissues? (Disclaimer, I haven't heard it yet.)

The outtakes on some of these commerative reissues are sometimes interesting. But the album as released was what the artist(s) intended. The outtakes didn't make the cut. Usually for good reason.

Anyway, this is a pretty historic reissue, so I'll check it out. But the original was pretty much perfection. Not only in terms of the writing and the music and the recording and production, which were all ahead of their time, but also capturing the essence of the changing culture at the time. Not sure how you improve on that.

SEE ALSO: Inside the Making of 'Sgt. Pepper'

Gregg Allman, dead at 69...

Very sad news. Contrary to the Rolling Stone headline, the Allman Brothers Band was not a "Southern rock" band. They were a sophisticated and highly accomplished blues, jazz, rock and jam band from the South. RIP Gregg. Go be with Duane and Berry and Butch and kick some ass.

From the City of Knoxville...

This next Open Streets event starts with the puppeteers and mobile fun-makers at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 21, at Magnolia Avenue and North Chestnut Street. The Open Streets event runs through 6 p.m., with Magnolia closed to vehicular traffic for four hours between North Chestnut and Randolph streets. There's a small loop onto East Depot Avenue as well.

From Knox County...

On Sunday, May 21 from 2 to 6 p.m., Knoxvillians are invited to walk, bike, jog or dance their way through town at Open Streets Knoxville. The spring 2017 event will take place in East Knoxville with Magnolia Avenue from Randolph St. to North Chestnut St. closed to all motorized traffic. This allows attendees a day of biking, walking, dancing and playing safely in the streets!

More info:

Open Streets Knoxville returns May 21

Open Street Knoxville's 4th Pop-up Street Celebration!

Microbreweries to Welcome Open Streets Crowd on Magnolia, Depot

Lisa Plawchan will moderate a discussion on the local plans for Wear Orange Day, June 2nd to raise gun violence awareness during the DTV show airing on Friday, May 19, 7:30 PM. Guests David Twiggs with Moms Demand Action and Terry Walker Smith with Mothers of Mission Survivors will talk about the Save Our City From Gun Violence benefit concert to take place at Scruffy City Music Hall. Tune in to learn more about Wear Orange Day and what needs to be done to fight gun violence in our community.

DTV streams live every Friday evening at 7:30PM on the CTV website

or on your cable channel at:

Comcast Channel 12
Charter Channel 193
Wow! Chaannel 6
ATT U-verse Channel 99

I really want to get hep to the streaming scene, daddy-o.

As mentioned previously, I tried Tidal HiFi a couple of times. Loved the sound quality and depth of their catalog, but their UI is awful and discovery features are weak to non-existent.

I had tried Spotify before, and liked the UI, the extensive catalog, and especially the discovery features which are awesome. But the sound quality from the desktop app was disappointing to say the least.

I decided to try Spotify again after I discovered (remembered?) that my Denon AVR has Spotify Connect built in and thought I should at least check it out.

They provide a simpler link than the suspiciously difficult path the FCC site provides.

John Oliver herds viewers to FCC website

Support Net Neutrality survey on FCC web site

Barack Obama is taking some heat these days for accepting a princely sum, to deliver a speech to a Wall St firm. Of course, he has also gotten some support for the apparent cashing in on his publicly funded notoriety. Naturally, I have an opinion as well. Naturally, its not simple.

WalletHub has a new report identifying the most fun states based on 22 key indicators.

With pure enjoyment in mind, WalletHub’s number crunchers compared the 50 states across 22 key indicators of a jolly good time that won’t break the bank. They range from movie costs to accessibility of national parks to casinos per capita.

Tennessee is ranked 41st, in the top ten least fun states. Now I have to disagree with some of these results. There is no way Tennessee is just slightly more fun than Kansas. South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana are in the top ten most fun states. I've spent time in all of these states. Top ten most fun? Not sure about that. Florida is 13th and California is 15th. At least they are in the top 15.

Not one of the criteria, but Tennessee is also great because of the central location, easy access to so many destinations​.

The Smoky Mountain Blues Society has their First of the year Blues Cruises this Sunday afternoon, April 23rd on the Star of Knoxville Riverboat. We had a tremendous turnout for last years cruises and this year should be a banner year also. Join us for three hours of great blues/rock music with Tommie John Band. A local favorite that also represented East Tennessee at the 2017 International Blues Challenge in Memphis this past February.
From Knoxville, TN

Tickets are $16 in advance and $20 day of show. Smoky Mtn. Blues Members receive a $3 discount. Boarding at 3 PM, cruise from 4 to 7 pm. Hope to see you there. Call the Riverboat Company Mon-Fri from 10-4 and some Sat.(hrs vary)at 865-525-7827 | 800-509-2628 for tickets.
Check out the SMBS website for more info.
(link...)

Hope to see you there.

Bill O'Reilly fired from Fox News...