Three Nashville rock veterans — Joe Blanton (guitar, lead vocals), Jonathan Bright (drums, vocals) and Mike “Preach” Rutherford (bass, vocals) — have formed a new group to do a little time traveling. Called 91 Rock Live, the group pays tribute to the music broadcast in the 1980s and ’90s on WRVU, also known as 91 Rock, the student-run radio station at Vanderbilt University. The late, great station was an influential champion of the city’s burgeoning indie-rock scene. “We were fortunate to live in a place where that kind of a station existed,” Blanton says. Bright first had the idea a couple of years ago for the group, which will give its first performance Friday night at Eastside Bowl. They will perform songs by a number of artists from that era, including Raging Fire, Walk the West, Bill Lloyd, The Questionnaires, The White Animals, Royal Court of China, Swing and Jet Black Factory. On a number of songs, the group will be joined by some of the musicians whose music they’ll be performing. The show will be presented like a radio program with former ’RVU DJ Heather Lose acting as a live DJ. Lose will introduce the mini-sets of songs performed by the band, and in between, she’ll play actual station promos from back in the day.
7 p.m. at the Volume Lounge at Eastside Bowl
1508A Gallatin Pike S., Madison
