Actionslacks are an American indie rock band, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, long associated with the region's Noise Pop scene. Actionslacks formed in Northern California's East Bay in 1994 when ex-Pillbox members Tim Scanlin and Mark Wijsen met drummer Marty Kelly and discovered a mutual appreciation of late-70s English punk rock, 1980s American post-punk and guitar-based New Zealand indie rock; the band played one gig in Berkeley, California under the name King Friday but changed their name after Scanlin realized he "just couldn't be in a band named after a puppet." The band soon became a regular on the San Francisco and West Coast club circuit and released the "Tugboat Mutiny" b/w "A. C. R. O. N. Y. M." 7" single on their own Permanent Records imprint. In 1996 the band's first full length, Too Bright, Just Right, Good Night was released on the Minneapolis Skene! label. Actionslacks' second LP, One Word was recorded in 1997 and released in 1998 by the Arena Rock Recording Company; the band toured with labelmates Harvey Danger and an ascendant Death Cab for Cutie in support of the record.

Wijsen left the band in late-1998 and Scanlin and Kelly began working on more pop-oriented songs, first with producers Greg Freeman and Jeff Palmer and with new band members Aaron Rubin and Chuck Lindo. The Scene's Out of Sight was recorded in the fall of 1999 with producer/engineer J. Robbins at John Vanderslice's Tiny Telephone recording studio and released in early 2001 by the Self-Starter Foundation; the band's following grew in part due to well-timed promotions with Napster, various song placements in television shows and video games, a strong showing on college radio. Prior to touring in support of the album, Rubin left the band and Lindo took time off to attend to other projects. Enter new permanent bassist Ross Murray and touring guitarist/singer Doug Modie. In 2002 Scanlin moved to Los Angeles and the band began a continuing long-distance relationship. Full Upright Position was written and recorded between 2001 and 2003 in various studios in California and Washington, DC. J. Robbins once again engineered and the band produced, venturing into the far-ranging territory of multi-instrumentation, eloborate arrangements and stylistic diversity.

The album's release was complicated by Kelly's relocation to Maine in late 2003 and record label issues. The band managed to tour both the East and West coasts, adding keyboard/vocalist Darice Bailey to help reproduce the band's new sound. Actionslacks took a semi-hiatus beginning in late 2004, with occasional live appearances and writing sessions amid individual projects and family life. In early 2008 the band was reinvigorated by the idea of a new writing and recording paradigm, writing new tracks via online collaboration and meeting up at Tiny Telephone to rehearse and record over the course of 8 days with engineer Aaron Prellwitz; the resulting collection, which marks a return to the aggressive yet tuneful punk sound of The Scene's Out of Sight, was self-released as Kids With Guitars in spring 2009. Downloaders were invited to pay however; the long-distance writing approach was repeated in late 2009 and culminated in a recording session at Tiny Telephone. While gathered the band celebrated its 15th anniversary with a show at the Bottom of the Hill.

The six songs recorded during the session made up the band's final release, 2012's self-titled EP. Too Bright, Just Right, Good Night One Word The Scene's Out of Sight Full Upright Position Full Upright Position Acoustic Companion Never Never Shake Baby EP Kids With Guitars Actionslacks "Tugboat Mutiny" b/w "A. C. R. O. N. Y. M" / "Space-Age Heart" "John Hughes" b/w "Operator" "John L. Sullivan" on Ten Years of Noise Pop "Annie Oakley" and "Perfect G" on Inside X DVD and CD Sampler "Iodine" on Until the Shaking Stops: A Tribute to Jawbox Selections from The Scene's Out of Sight appeared on Road Rules on MTV ca. 2001–2002 Selections from The Scene's Out of Sight appeared on The Real World ca. 2001–2002 "Tad Loves Kimberly James," "The Scene's Out of Sight' and "Joan of Arc" appeared in NBC's All About Us in 2001 "Joan of Arc" featured in the Australian program Out There "Joan of Arc" featured on Fuel TV "The Scene is Out of Sight" was used as background music in an Adidas commercial that aired during the X Games in 2004 "All You'll Ever Need To Know" featured in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy episode #133 "My Favorite Man" featured on Roswell DVD release Selections from Full Upright Position featured on MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge "Moneypenny's Theme" featured on The Real World "Shining Jewels," "Simple Life," and "Cut Above" featured in ABC's Men In Trees 2007–2008 season "Joan of Arc" appeared in the pilot episode of CBS's The Ex-List, October 3, 2008 "We Are Not the Losers" appeared the "Double Down" episode of ABC's Castle, 2009 "Joan of Arc" played in the background of a night club scene in Personal Velocity "I Hope This Makes It Easier For You" and "The Scene's Out of Sight" appeared in Amped 2 for Xbox

East Tennessee comprises the eastern third of the U. S. state of Tennessee, one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely Bledsoe and Marion. East Tennessee is located within the Appalachian Mountains, although the landforms range from densely forested 6,000-foot mountains to broad river valleys; the region contains the major cities of Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee's third and ninth largest cities, respectively. East Tennessee is both geographically and culturally part of Appalachia, has been included— along with Western North Carolina, North Georgia, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, the state of West Virginia— in every major definition of the Appalachian region since the early 20th century. East Tennessee is home to the nation's most visited national park— the Great Smoky Mountains National Park— and hundreds of smaller recreational areas.

East Tennessee is called the birthplace of country music, due to the 1927 Victor recording sessions in Bristol, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has produced a steady stream of musicians of national and international fame. Oak Ridge was the site of the world's first successful uranium enrichment operations which paved the way for the atomic age; the Tennessee Valley Authority, created to spur economic development and help modernize the region's economy and society, has its administrative operations headquartered in Knoxville and its power operations headquartered in Chattanooga. Unlike the geographic designations of regions of most U. S. states, the term East Tennessee has legal as well as socioeconomic meaning. East Tennessee, along with Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee, comprises one of the state's three Grand Divisions. According to the Tennessee State Constitution, no more than two of the Tennessee Supreme Court's five justices can come from any one Grand Division; the Supreme Court rotates meeting in courthouses in each of the three divisions.

The Supreme Court building for East Tennessee is in Knoxville. A similar rule applies to certain other commissions and boards as well, to prevent them from showing a geographic bias. East Tennessee includes parts of three major geological divisions— the Blue Ridge on the border with North Carolina in the east, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in the center, the Cumberland Plateau in the west, bordering Middle Tennessee; the Blue Ridge section comprises the western section of the Blue Ridge Province, the crest of which forms most of the Tennessee-North Carolina border and consists of the highest parts of the state. The Blue Ridge is subdivided into several subranges— the Iron Mountains, Roan Highlands, Bald Mountains in the north, the Great Smoky Mountains in the center, the Unicoi Mountains and Little Frog and Big Frog Mountain areas in the south. Most of the Blue Ridge section is forested and protected by various state and federal entities, the largest of which include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee National Forest.

The Ridge-and-Valley section called the Tennessee Valley or "Great Valley," is the region's largest and most populous section. It consists of a series of alternating elongate ridges and broad river valleys oriented northeast-to-southwest; this section's most notable feature, the Tennessee River, forms at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers in Knoxville, flows southwestward to Chattanooga, where it enters the Tennessee River Gorge. Other notable rivers in the upper Tennessee watershed include the Clinch, Watauga, Little Tennessee, Hiwassee and Ocoee rivers. Notable "ridges" in the Ridge-and-Valley range include Clinch Mountain, Bays Mountain, Powell Mountain; the Cumberland Plateau rises nearly 1,000 feet above the Tennessee Valley, stretching from Cumberland Gap at the Tennessee-Kentucky-Virginia border southwestward to the Alabama border. The "Tennessee Divide" runs along the western part of the plateau, separates the watersheds of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Plateau counties east of this divide— i.e. Cumberland and Scott— are grouped with East Tennessee, whereas plateau counties west of this divide are considered part of Middle Tennessee.

Three counties— Bledsoe and Marion— are located in the Sequatchie Valley, a long narrow valley in the southern part of the Cumberland Plateau. These three counties were traditionally part of East Tennessee; however and Marion counties were reassigned to the Middle Tennessee grand division circa 1932. Marion County was returned to East Tennessee, but Sequatchie County remains part of Middle Tennessee. One notable detached section of the Plateau is Lookout Mountain; the Official Tourism Website of Tennessee has a definition of East Tennessee different from the legal definition. The major cities of East Tennessee are Knoxville and the "Tri-Cities" of Bristol, Johnson City, Kingsport located in the extreme northeasternmost part of the state; the Blue Ridge section of the state is much more sparsely populated, its main cities being Elizabethton and Tellico Plains. Crossville and Jasper are prominent cities in the Plateau region. Cities and towns with 10,000+ population (2016 estimat