A sidebar can serve many functions.
It can be used as a quick promotion for a band, a show, or a record. It can be used to alert the local music community that someone has had their gear stolen, or to announce the opening of a new music-related business. This week the sidebar has one function only, to offer a tip of the hat to one of the Chattanooga music scene’s unsung heroes, a selfless man whose contributions to music in this area are second to none. That man is Tom Foote, and by all accounts he is a hell of a guy.
An artist (see Tony Mraz’s piece on page 10), a veteran musician, a legend in the DIY scene and an author and publisher of the long-running zine Spare Change, the Reverend is many things to many people but his most enduring legacy to the punk scene has to be his role as the man behind the basement venue Anarchtica, Chattanooga’s version of the Mercer Arts Center and a place where most of the Chattanooga punk scene cut its teeth. Local record store owner Amy Mayfield had this to say about the man and his impact:
“Tom…has taken on the job nobody wants, a bunch of wild bands and wayward kids trashing his basement every night for the sake of rock and roll. He deserves a medal and we should all be providing him a cleaning service for life for what we have put his home through over the years, myself included.”
A gallery of Foote’s work will be shown at Mayfield’s All Killer No Filler record store in Coolidge Park this Friday from 9 to 5 and Sunday evening will feature several acoustic sets from local musicians interspersed with selected readings from Spare Change by Foote himself.