Pilot Light, Knoxville’s nonprofit home for original and experimental music, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with an all-day block party in the Old City this Sunday, Sept. 14, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Ripley Scott interviews the incoming directors and previews the event.
Since I started writing about Knoxville music, one name has been mentioned in 100% of my conversations with local artists.
It’s not the name of an audio engineer or a fellow musician. It’s not even the name of a person. It’s Pilot Light, the Old City venue that’s been the beating heart of Knoxville’s underground music scene for 25 years.
100% isn’t coincidence. It’s not even synchronicity. It’s proof of cultural gravity.
Hip-hop artist J. Bu$h once told me Pilot Light showed him he never had to compromise himself or his art.
“That space never sacrificed integrity,” he said. Then he started talking about Kat Brock, guitarist for Knoxville band Super Bachelor, and how watching her onstage was like seeing Pilot Light personified.
“I saw Super Bachelor perform recently, and Kat… Kat is what that refusal to compromise looks like on stage.”
What J. Bu$h didn’t know then, what no one knew then, was that Kat would soon be named Pilot Light’s next executive director, taking the reins of the nonprofit from founder Jason Boardman in January of 2026.
Looking back, it reads like prophecy.
On Sunday, Sept. 14, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Jackson Avenue will shut down for a block party that doubles as Pilot Light’s 25th birthday.
From the four-way stop in the Old City and continuing down East Jackson Avenue, the street will be closed to traffic and opened to sound.
Three stages will cycle through what the Pilot Light’s team describes as “rapid fire performances”: a main stage, a smaller one and a street setup where the magic can happen at eye level.
You can come and go as you please, but there’s plenty to keep you around a while.
Beer will be for sale, yes. But this isn’t a festival built on wristbands and drink tickets. It’s a celebration thrown in partnership with the Tennessee Arts Commission, a gift to the community from the community.
The lineup is stacked and stretches across time, with musicians and bands that performed at the Pilot Light the first years it was open. One of the youngest groups, Antidie, has band members younger than the venue.
Pilot Light is older than some of its bands, younger than some of its legends. Somewhere in between you’ll find Weird Ian playing a set with his daughter, proof that this isn’t just a “scene thing.” It’s family.
Step into the building itself and you’ll see a different kind of show. Posters from old gigs will plaster the walls and a slideshow will cycle through photos of nights that mattered more than anyone knew at the time.
And then there’s the bathroom. Not the one you know, but a temporary replica built for the block party.
A bathroom people can graffiti and sign, the way many a rebel has done before them, except this time it’s sanctioned. It’s the perfect wink at the kind of chaotic reverence Pilot Light has nurtured, if not created.
Members who joined during this year’s membership drive will pick up their cards and a special poster designed and printed by Brian Baker listing every first-year member’s name. It’s a new tradition, but it already feels right on point.
Merch will include T-shirts by BJ Alumbaugh based on the Pilot Light sign in the window, created by Mitchell Garza, as well as posters by Sarah Shebaro.
Kat sees the party not just as Pilot Light’s birthday, but as a celebration of Jason Boardman himself, a small way of naming what he has contributed the city.
None of this would have happened at all without Jason. He didn’t set out to carry Pilot Light for a quarter century, but that’s what he did.
Through global shutdowns and nights when the crowd could be counted on one hand, he kept the lights on.
What built up over time was more than a list of bands. It was a kind of proof that Knoxville could sustain a space where risk wasn’t punished but encouraged.
George Rutsyamuka, who’s stepping in alongside Kat as artistic director in January, put it this way: “Jason kept the doors open for 25 years, and that accumulated into local cultural history.”
Now the torch passes, not to extinguish and restart the flame, but to tend it. The same Kat Brock J. Bu$h once called “Pilot Light personified” steps in as executive director this January.
Beyond the stage, she brings a myriad of talents and skills from years as a career attorney and a history of standing her ground as a multidisciplinary artist.
George takes the lead on artistic vision, curating the calendar with the kind of care only someone who’s been on both sides of the stage can offer. (His band Basic Letters, one of my current local favorites, takes the main stage at 6:45 p.m. on Sunday.)
George recently returned to Knoxville from New York. He says Knoxville moves slower, but that’s what makes room for experimentation.
“A scene doesn’t happen spontaneously,” he told me. “It grows from people showing up for one another. Pilot Light became that hub for Knoxville.”
Pilot Light has often been described as Knoxville’s “living room.” That’s true enough; you’ll still find people crammed shoulder to shoulder, leaning against walls or lounging on the edge of the stage.
Call it a living room if you want, but that misses the danger. It’s also been a sanctuary, a testing ground and sometimes the only place in town willing to give a new sound a shot.
That’s the through line running under this anniversary. Not just nostalgia, but necessity.
Pilot Light is 25 years old. Jason lit the flame, Kat and George are tending it now, but this room has never belonged to one person. It’s Knoxville’s.
And if you’ve never walked through those doors, Sept. 14 is your chance. The street will be closed, the stages will be humming and the bathroom walls will be waiting for your name.
What keeps it alive isn’t complicated. Folks won’t stop lighting fires again and again, maybe because they learned from Pilot Light: once a flame takes hold, you don’t snuff it out. You keep feeding it.
Learn more about Pilot Light, including upcoming shows and how to show your support, at the website here.
10 a.m. – Maspeth
10:15 – Joseph Allred
10:30 – Weird Ian
11 a.m. – Savannah Wolfgramm
11:15 – A Certain Zone
11:45 – Forest Floor
Noon – Alice Galerina
12:15 – Mountains of Moss
1 p.m. – Stupid Future
1:15 – Meob
1:30 – BJ Barbee
1:45 – Hell Bop
2 p.m. – Matt Nelson
2:15 – Niuscientia
2:30 – Antadie
2:45 – Postcard Nowhere
3 p.m. – Earwig Deluxe
3:15 – Dexter and Charlie
3:30 – Duck Butter
3:45 – Glad I Didn’t Get My Stupid Wish
4 p.m. – Ex-Gold
4:15 – Day and Age
4:30 – Cave Deco
4:45 – Veggie
5 p.m. – J Bu$h
5:15 – Nightjar
5:30 – Rockwells
5:45 – Todd Steed
6 p.m. – Bark
6:30 – Nick and Emily
6:45 – Basic Letters
7 p.m. – Dirty Knees
7:15 – Super Bachelor
7:30 – Psychic Baos
7:45 – Eatin’ Out
8:30 – Feral Kytty
8:45 – Dark Mountain Orchid
9 p.m. – Attic Eyes
9:30 – Frank Hurricane
10 p.m. – DJ Mini Tiger After Party
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