Indicators finally reschedule gig in Knoxville

IF YOU GO

The Indicators with The Fairmount Girls and The High Score

WHEN: 9 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Patrick Sullivan's Saloon, 100 N. Central St., Knoxville's Old City

HOW MUCH: $5 (includes admission to Lucille's and Manhattan's)

CALL: 637-4255

ON THE WEB: www.theindicators.com

By Steve Wildsmith

of The Daily Times Staff

After The Indicators April 11 show at The Pilot Light was canceled due to a scheduling conflict, Knoxville native Mike Goldman wasn't worried.

It was only a matter of a few weeks, he thought, before his new band landed another gig in the town where he performed as a member of The Estradas (which, at the time, featured former members of The V-Roys). But as spring turned to summer and summer rolled into July, Goldman found himself still without a Knoxville date.

At last, the band landed a gig Saturday night at Patrick Sullivan's in Knoxville's Old City. Even for a part-time musician, the wait was an excruciating one.

``One of the things is, everybody in this band has a really good day job and a really good life in Atlanta,'' Goldman said during an interview conducted a few months back. ``If we were all 22 and our only option was washing dishes, it would be more fun to be out in a van, making no money and doing shows.

`But I wouldn't want to give up the life I have now to do that. I work for an environmental consulting firm, and it's really fun, rewarding work. [Drummer] Dave McNair has a great house, a wife and daughter, and he did all of that in his other bands, Magnapop and Oh-OK. He doesn't want to do it again, and it's just not something we as a group would want to do. We want to do it like this.''

``This'' is some of the best-sounding pop-rock to come along in a while. The band's most recent album, ``Kill the Messenger,'' takes a number of similar-sounding artists -- The Replacements, Steve Earle, Foo Fighters and Slobberbone, among others -- tosses the whole screaming mess into a blender and churns out some pop that's impossible to keep from playing loud on the drive home after a long day at work.

Goldman formed The Indicators in 1998 after moving to Atlanta and hooking up with McNair. The band originally got together as a gimmick to take part in a Clash vs. Sex Pistols tribute night, but the guys soon came up with enough original material for a clever-sounding EP: ``All Fun and Games 'til Someone Puts an Eye Out.'' Goldman and McNair remained at the center of the group as the lineup changed over the next several years, but the band still managed to release a full-length CD in 2000, ``Beauty Is a Whore.''

After the release of ``Beauty,'' the line-up solidified as guitarist/songwriter Ken Morton and bassist Michael Arnett joined the band. Establishing a steady tour route through the Southeast, the band went to work on ``Kill the Messenger,'' released in March.

The power-pop sounds of ``Kill the Messenger'' may be reminiscent of any number of other great-sounding bands, Goldman said, but the similarity is a coincidence.

``As far as absolutely going for a sound, we just plugged in and opened our mouths and this is what came out,'' said Goldman, who also played in such local bands as the Ray-O-Vacs, Birdhouse and Jackie and the Tumble Kings. ``It kind of hit us about halfway through -- we all thought, `Wow, we're really onto something.' We did the backing tracks in the space of about two days, and we just started overdubbing from there.

``Once they started to take the forms of actual songs, once we had the vocal tracks and were putting down solos, we all said, `Wait a second, this is going to work out well.' We started calling friends in other bands who can do what we can't, people who can sing really, really beautiful, because Ken and I just kind of howl.''

Although he's been gone from Knoxville for a while, Goldman still keeps up with what's going on in the Knoxville music scene. He's recently enjoyed the sounds of Todd Steed's ``Knoxville Tells'' album, and he's long known a couple of the guys in The High Score, with whom The Indicators will share the bill Saturday night at Patrick Sullivan's.

``I really like Scott Miller's stuff, too -- and Scott actually married my ex-wife,'' he said. ``His stuff is really great, and I thought the Faults record was really great. The music industry itself makes me really nervous. There's not that many people I would want to talk to, much less work with. It's just not an industry I'd really want to mess with. I can't think of anything you could do to work your ass off for five years and wind up in debt, through no fault of your own.

``Rock in general is really kind of a weird thing. You hear about how dismal it is, but I'm hearing just as many records that I like. I just think it's that the good stuff is always hard to find and the crap is always right in your face.''