Just as Austin, Texas has always been a place that nourishes bands and songwriters that are too individualistic and unique to fit within the rigid structure of the Nashville or L.A. industry machines, Knoxville has fulfilled that same role in Tennessee.

One of the sadder recent musical events was the break up of Knoxville's V-Roys. The first band signed to Steve Earle's E-Squared Records, the V-Roys put out two intelligent, engaging albums of rootsy studio work (1996's "Just Add Ice" and 1998's "All About Town") and a farewell live record, "Are You Done Yet?". They had an instantly likeable sound that was both familiar and yet hard to give a sensible lineage. Their lyrics were brainy and modern, yet unpretentious, even earthy. Described by some as alt-country and by others as roots rock, the V-Roys' sound wasn't purely anything, but rock, folk, pop and country were all in the mix.

With the band's breakup, boyhood friends and former V-Roys Mic Harrison and Jeff Bills formed a new label, Lynn Point Records, and have released two projects, Harrison's "Don't Bail" (produced by Bills) and "Punt," a 1992 recording of Bill's college band, Taoist Cowboys. For V-Roys fans, these records are required listening, for these are the seed packets the V-Roys' grew from. All the elements are here in these two discs: the '60s sensibilities, the precise, clean playing, the intelligent, energetic songs with neat hooks.

The V-Roys could sing a heartbreakingly simple tune like 'Hold On To Me' on one track, then crank up the voltage, reverb and testosterone ("Sometimes I want some mother's milk/Sometimes I want some meat/ But when I want them both/You better get away from me") on the next and just blow audiences away, like on 'Winding Down' or 'Strange.' As "Don't Bail" shows, Harrison had already mastered those diverse skills before becoming a V-Roy.

"Don't Bail" is a wonderful set of catchy songs, some of them quirky and humorous, others simply literate and true. Harrison's greatest composing skill may be in the area of the "reminiscing about lost love" category. In the mountain music-ish 'Parking Lots,' Harrison paints vivid pictures and scores telling points with the simplest of images.

We walked through the fields together
Wind messin' up your hair
We talked about forever
Those fields are parking lots now

'Kiss the Bride' is similar to the song the V-Roys were probably best known for, the biting, ironic 'Goodnight, Loser.' Whereas in 'Goodnight, Loser,' the singer watches as the girl leaves a bar with another guy, in 'Kiss the Bride' the singer comments on the marriage of his former lover to another man. The sentiment is just as witty, sardonic, and selfishly vicious as that expressed in 'Goodnight, Loser.'

When they're walking down the aisle,
Eveybody's got a great big smile
Would it piss 'em off if I kiss the bride?

On the rocking 'Small Town,' Harrison and former Taoist Cowboy Scott Carpenter demonstrate the guitar attack that presaged what a V-Roys live show would sound like, while Harrison bemoans the fact that "this small town gets so dark late at night."

Harrison gets humorous on another quirky, off-center folk-rocker, 'Yard Sale.' This song could easily have come from the Todd Snider songbook, with its jesting look at yard sale logic and etiquette. Daniel Moore plays a growling, distorted, fuzz-toned lead guitar track that is a perfect fit for the subject matter. The voice-over white trash comic dialogue that ends the track is worth the price of admission to Harrison's marginal world.

"Don't Bail" is filled with melancholy songs and laments, but probably none so melancholy as the beautiful, sparse 'Beer and Gin.' With nothing but an acoustic guitar and a bit of harmonica and a scant taste of harmony vocal, Harrison quietly and philosophically confronts the musician's demons.

It's another Sunday mornin' trying to get me up again
And I didn't heed the warnings, don't mix beer and gin
And they're trying to get me to go to church but I don't think they are gonna win
I've been reading from my Bible, smelling like beer and gin

Harrison has a new band called The Faults, consisting of former V-Roys bassman Paxton Sellars and Knoxville music scene veterans Robbie Trosper on guitar and Jason Peters on drums. A Lynn Point press release notes about Harrison's new project: "No longer constrained by alt-country's frustrating limitations or their suit-and-tie-professionalism (the V-Roys always performed in suits and ties), Harrison led his troops into new musical waters." The release describes the new band as harder rocking and edgier than the V-Roys. The Faults will have an album of new originals out on the Lynn Point label in late April. (Bills played drums on the recording but is not touring with the band, as he is concentrating on getting Lynn Point on a solid business footing.)

The Taoist Cowboys represent an almost forgotten but highly interesting musical era. "Punt" was recorded in Knoxville in 1992 and was only sold as a cassette tape. Taoist Cowboys (the play on words is reinforced by a cover photo of Don Meredith grimacing in pain and being helped off the field by two other Cowboys) were Bills on drums and three youngsters who have become mainstays in the Knoxville music scene to this day: bassist Brad Deaton (now playing in a Knoxville band called Evil Twin), and guitarists Bob McCluskey and Scott Carpenter.

McCluskey wrote most of the songs on "Punt." He had a penchant for dueling guitar tracks and out-of-the-ordinary song situations and lyrics. Scott Carpenter's background was in hot country picking, and together he and McCluskey forged a pop styled garage band sound. But don't fool yourself that this was a bunch of punk kids thrashing around crazily without any direction or sonic sense. While it may seem oxymoronic, this was a highly polished garage band that could play well and that took their lyrics and harmonies very seriously.

After seeing the grainy black-and-white photo of a group of skinny college kids ­ one in a Dixie Beer T-shirt, another in a Tony Dorsett #33 Dallas Cowboy jersey, and the bassist in an Alice Cooper T-shirt ­ I wasn't expecting much, and I certainly wasn't expecting the hook-laden power-pop rock sound that emerged. The lyrics were surprisingly good and the playing was seasoned, tasty and often intense. There is a musical accomplishment and polish on "Punt" that says this ensemble was neither "garage" nor "punk," though stylistically there are bows toward both. The more I listened to the CD, the more I got the feeling that this must have been one exciting band to have encountered in a bar on a Friday night in a campus town like Knoxville.

Some of the work, like Carpenter's 'Marigold,' is strikingly similar in its innocent tone and presentation to the early work of The Hollies, like 'On a Carousel.' In the liner notes, Lee Gardner notes that McCluskey "wrote songs as if still in touch with a boy's dream of the world, even in its complicated, wearying midst." Perhaps the song that best illustrates these traits of McCluskey's songwriting is 'Mind Chime', the most musically sophisticated and pleasing cut on the CD. A disarmingly charming pop-flavored tune, the song demonstrates McCluskey's keen sense of observation and his ability to create an interesting lyric from the seemingly mundane.

She and me went down to see a local game of Little League
Didn't know what we were doing there, I guess I thought we were funny to even care
There were parents screaming at their kids, gossiping under their breaths
We just sat there squinting in the sun, smellin' hot dogs, popcorn and bubble gum

For gut-busting laughs there is the dissembling, quixotic 'Sweeping The Building,' in which the singer has taken a job as a janitor to be closer to his lust object, a high-heeled, business-suited corporate executive. "She's my one and only corporate queen/She's the reason this building's so clean/'Cause I'm sweeping the building, sweeping the building, sweeping the building/for her love."

Bills is moving ahead quickly with several other projects by former Taoist Cowboys on the Lynn Point label. One project dear to Bills' heart is a re-release of Bob McCluskey's previous 1994 solo album, "Emergency Lunchbox," which Knoxville's Metro Pulse Magazine described as "perhaps the most intimate and honest release ever recorded in Knoxville" and included on their list of greatest Knoxville albums. Known for eccentricities and insightful originality in his songwriting, McCluskey's "Emergency Lunchbox" includes such interesting song titles as 'It's A Nice Night to Do Laundry' and 'Nobody Cares About The Drunks In This Town.'

Lynn Point is also releasing an album of new original material by McCluskey's current band, The Estradas. Bills indicated that McCluskey was "putting the finishing touches" on this project now and that he expects the album to be available this summer.

Bills describes former Taoist Cowboy Scott Carpenter as "a man of many talents." While currently employed as a Knox County public defender, the former V-Roys webmaster and "svengali" also finds time to play in two Knoxville bands, The Geishas and Chris Pelton and the Cold Ponies. Carpenter is married to the accomplished former Judybats keyboardist Peg Hambright, who played fiddle on some of the Taoist Cowboys' tracks and played fiddle and accordion on the "Don't Bail" album.

Knoxville is one of those places where musicians are able to fly below radar, to duck below the demanding radio trend line and, in so doing, to create unique, interesting, eclectic, hard-to-pigeon-hole music. Despite their age, both "Don't Bail" and "Punt" are just such music. Neither record is ever liable to climb the charts or create a big media buzz, but they have aged well, maintaining their original high-spirited vitality despite the passage of time. And if these are examples of the aesthetic of Lynn Point Records going forward, we have some vibrant and intellectually interesting new records to look forward to in the near future.

Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

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