A few weeks ago, after I caught about 45 minutes of the recent MTV Music Awards—an award show in which everyone vies to show the most contempt for the medium, yet no one leaves his award on the podium—I felt really miserable about something I’ve always loved: rock ’n’ roll music. As I watched the Smashing Pumpkins almost apologetically claim their “alternative” status, followed by the arena-pop posturing of the Cranberries, I tried to remember the last time the music had moved me to tears, or laughter, or a swell of defiance. Instead, the insufferable, everybody-knows-this-is-nowhere tone of the performances and presenters just pointed out how smug, dispiriting, and neutered of power and passion much of the so-called alternative scene has become.

I’ve felt that way before—every year, in fact, when the Grammy nominations are announced. Yet something always comes along that reminds me of the music’s unruly promise, a streak of resilience or triumph or rebellion that somehow can’t be suppressed. Such a moment occurred a couple of Mondays ago at an impromptu gig by indie-rock heroes Yo La Tengo, who spent their one free night in town on the tiny stage at Lucy’s Record Shop before an enormous last-minute crowd.

Lit only by flashlights hung from the ceiling with twine—which produced a goofily magical glow, like candlelight glancing off a glitter ball—the Hoboken/New York trio played an off-the-cuff selection of new material, sweetly hushed covers (of Peter Stampfel, John Cale, and NRBQ), and songs from their acclaimed Painful and Electr-O-Pura LPs. Guitarist Ira Kaplan, bassist James McNew, and drummer Georgia Hubley frequently traded instruments and lead vocals, demonstrating throughout a command of dynamics few rock groups ever master. Kaplan’s screaming-moon-traveler guitar solos stung with the shock of the new all night; his spastic Farfisa solo on “Sudden Organ” carried hypnotic sonic frenzy to the point of brinkmanship.

But the group’s climactic jam with members of the Nashville band Lambchop, on the Yo La’s “I Heard You Looking,” a stately spiral of noise from the Painful LP, was the evening’s finest moment. Over a bare-bones chord progression not unlike a high-school graduation march, instruments crashed and swelled in a cacophony of mesmerizing intensity. As the piece neared its cathartic end, Kaplan wrung divebombing squeals out of his guitar, Lambchop’s Scott Chase and Allen Lowrey flailed their percussion instruments, and John Delworth and Scene associate editor Jonathan Marx pounded Kaplan’s Farfisa keyboard like a slab of tough meat. It was never less than exhilarating.

That Yo La Tengo would use its one night off—from recording its new album here with Roger Moutenot, who also produced Electr-O-Pura and Painful—for a hastily assembled live show says a lot about its attitude toward performing. That it would charge only $5 and allow all ages says even more. Even apart from that, however, the evening had a ragged-ass, friendly, spontaneous feel that seemed more like a late-summer house party than a typical Nashville club gig. The opening set by Lambchop—for my money, the most visionary and constantly evolving group in Nashville in years—contributed to that feel, especially when the band erupted into the Bar-Kays’ joyous “Soul Finger.” It was rare to witness cameraderie onstage between an opening act and a headliner, and rarer still to hear such inspired results.

Too many local bands focus all their energy on recording and landing record deals—perhaps because they’re sick of playing half-empty clubs for lifeless Nashville audiences. That’s too bad, because the interaction and happy accidents of live performance produce sparks of inspiration that rarely translate to tape. At its finest, as Yo La Tengo and Lambchop proved last week, rock ’n’ roll fans those sparks of inspiration into a bonfire.

Jack Ingram, a young Texas singer recently signed to Rising Tide Records in Nashville, will enter the studio this week with producers Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy. As his choice in collaborators indicates, Ingram isn’t a down-the-line, mainstream hat act. “We wanted to make sure we got somebody who understood where we were coming from,” Ingram says. “It’s a different angle, and Steve definitely understands that stuff.”

Ingram comes off like a clean-cut Jerry Jeff Walker searching for the soul of country music. Having developed a big following in the Southwest through his rowdy live shows, he’s a personable performer who balances an obvious love for traditional honky-tonk with original compositions and left-field covers.

“I saw Jack play, and he just blew me away,” says Ken Levitan, who managed Ingram before becoming president of Rising Tide. “There were five managers there, and every one of them ran after him after the show. He’s an excellent young talent, and he has incredible drive. There’s something to be said for somebody his age to be working 150 dates a year over a broad region. He’s a good songwriter, and we want to make an edgy record with him.”

Since 1992, Ingram has put out three do-it-yourself albums: Jack Ingram, Lonesome Questions, and Live at Adair’s. The first two albums sold more than 20,000 copies, while the live record sold as much as the first two combined. Like Walker’s Lost Gonzo Band, Ingram’s road musicians have garnered a reputation as a particularly dynamic and rowdy unit that provides lively support for their leader. They perform Thursday at Exit/In.

Lucinda Williams will perform some of her new songs Oct. 10 at the Writers in the Round symposium at MTSU. We advise you not to wait to hear them on her new album, the arrival of which should coincide roughly with the return of Halley’s Comet. Joining Williams at the symposium will be her father, acclaimed poet Miller Williams; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler (A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain); and Will D. Campbell, author of the classic Brother to a Dragonfly. The symposium, a program of the Tom T. Hall Endowment in Mass Communication, is free and open to the public in Room 104 of the Bragg Mass Communication Building.

Elliptical dispatches: One of the most interesting covers we’ve heard lately is of Robert Cray’s slinky R&B hit “Smoking Gun,” transformed into an ominous, deeply unsettling bluegrass tune by The Del McCoury Band on its new CD The Cold Hard Facts. If you’ve never connected film noir with banjos, bounce a laser off this baby....

Don’t miss Jason & the Scorchers’ sizzling take on “Drugstore Truck Drivin’ Man,” the late Gram Parsons’ hilarious up-yours to Ralph Emery. It appears on the Scorchers’ new CD, Clear Impetuous Morning. The CD features several songs cowritten with Tommy Womack, including a grinding midtempo rocker called “Cappuccino Rosie” with a vise-grip of a chorus....

R.B. Morris makes his first full-band appearance since July at the Sutler Thursday night. Morris has been recording tracks with producer R.S. Field for an album due early next year; guests on the upcoming LP include Al Kooper and Steve Conn....

Other upcoming shows at the Sutler include Atlanta’s Cigar Store Indians (Friday), a popular rockabilly combo whose recent Landslide Records LP scored big at Americana radio. And make a date now for Nov. 14, when yodeling king Don Walser, the Pavarotti of the Plains, makes a rarer-than-rare Nashville appearance at the Franklin Road club....

Nashville’s most underrated rock trio, Iodine, has some enthusiastic fans behind the boards at MTV Sports. The weekly program featured Iodine’s “Flyboy” in its segment a several weeks ago. Earlier in the year, the show featured “Rosie’s Funeral,” another song from the band’s 1995 album Maximum Joy....

Bela Fleck, the Marco Polo of the banjo world, can be heard performing with East Indian musician Vishwa Mowan Bhatt and Chinese erh-hu player Jie Bing Chen on a new album called Tabula Rasa. Issued by the Water Lily Acoustics label, the Eastern-sounding album combines Fleck’s banjo with violin, flute, mohan vina, and percussion....