NEWS: CMT’S NASHVILLE OFFICE HIT WITH EXTENSIVE LAYOFFS
>> PAGE 8
FOOD & DRINK: NOKO SURPASSES ALL EXPECTATIONS
>> PAGE 25
MUSIC: DIY VENUE DRKMTTR LOOKS AHEAD TO A NEW ERA
>> PAGE 31
THE MISSING MIDDLE
How zoning policy has frozen the city’s wealthy neighborhoods, concentrating development along corridors and in low-income areas
BY ELI MOTYCKA
Street View: Wildflower Project to Bring Indigenous Species Back to Nashville
Planting will happen over the next year, with wildflowers emerging in the spring and summer BY
LENA MAZEL
Paramount Global Hits CMT’s Nashville Office With Extensive Layoffs
Among those let go from the locally based network is media veteran Leslie Fram BY
BRITTNEY M c KENNA
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
COVER STORY
The Missing Middle
How zoning policy has frozen the city’s wealthy neighborhoods, concentrating development along corridors and in low-income areas BY
ELI MOTYCKA
CRITICS’ PICKS
Sabrina Carpenter, Fear Fest, The Shindellas, Helen LaFrance: A Retrospective and more
FOOD AND DRINK
Heart of the Matter
East Nashville’s Noko surpasses all expectations BY KAY WEST
Cheap Eats: Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint — Pulled-Pork Sandwich and a Side — $10.99
The local barbecue staple has a faith-restoring sandwich BY KELSEY BEYELER YONIC
Hometown Date
If I take my boyfriend to my hometown, what will be left for him to see? BY HANNAH
HERNER
Come Together
Ahead of the inaugural Drkmttr Fest, the venue looks ahead to a new era of music, community and activism BY JAYME FOLTZ
A Livin’ Thing
Before Jeff Lynne’s ELO says farewell, a close look at the group’s pop mastery BY P.J. KINZER
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out Troye Sivan and Charli XCX at Bridgestone Arena BY HANNAH CRON
Lorne Almighty
Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night gets the vibes right BY D. PATRICK RODGERS
Toy Story
Pharrell Williams’ animated Lego biopic is an entertaining, whimsical, one-sided tale BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
by Eric England
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HALLOWEEKEND
Saturday, October 26 + Sunday, October 27, trick-or-treat at the science center as you explore seasonal science with themed activities and crafts.
Biologist, paleontologist, or doctor, dream up the perfect spooky STEM costume for your visit to the science center.
Pick up a piece of allergy-friendly candy at different stations around the building.
Celebrate Día de los Muertos with Conexión Americas on Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.
Discover more about this exciting weekend of events
WILDFLOWER PROJECT TO BRING INDIGENOUS SPECIES BACK TO NASHVILLE
Planting will happen over the next year, with wildflowers emerging in the spring and summer
BY LENA MAZEL
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
METRO COUNCILMEMBER JORDAN HUFFMAN grew up in Greeneville, a small town in northeast Tennessee. Whenever his family drove into Asheville, N.C., for dinner or a show, he’d look out the car window at the flowers.
“I was always fascinated, when we crossed the state line, at all the wildflowers that would be around,” he tells the Scene
These wildflowers were the result of careful urban planning by the North Carolina state government. “It was really based on North Carolina having a really, really good wildflower program,” Huffman says.
When he ran to represent Nashville’s Metro Council District 14, Huffman knew he wanted the same for Tennessee: a program reintroducing native plants on highway verges, parks and public spaces. Now he’s putting that plan into action through the Metro Wildflower Project.
In March, Huffman passed Metro Council bill RS2024-319, requesting that the Nashville Department of Transportation and Metro Parks Department “establish and implement a wildflower program” planting indigenous wildflowers and plants native to Middle Tennessee on suitable pieces of public land.
At sites across Nashville, the Metro Wildflower Project will plant indigenous species including black-eyed Susans, bundleflowers, New England asters, goldenrods and prairie clover. They’ll also plant Tennessee coneflower, a species of echinacea indigenous specifically to Middle Tennessee.
Wildflowers play an important environmental role, supporting pollinators like bees and butterflies and the ecosystems that depend on them. Goldenrod, which is commonly misattributed as a cause of seasonal allergies (its pollen is actually animal-borne), supports late-season pollinators and dozens of butterfly and moth species. Black-eyed Susans are a larval host plant to some insects and a food source for birds. Purple prairie clover prevents soil erosion, supports pollinators and provides a food source for birds and small mammals.
Tennessee coneflower is both environmentally and historically significant. Last decade, dedicated botanists removed it from the endangered species list, and it’s part of a family of plants that Indigenous Americans have been using medicinally for hundreds of years.
Because of their naturally deep and extensive root systems, indigenous plants can also soak up storm water runoff more effectively than grass. These root systems can aid the city’s ongoing
flood resilience efforts alongside the existing projects converting some flood-prone developed areas into much-needed natural floodplains — crucial considerations in light of the immense damage recently sustained by neighboring North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
The Wildflower Project could also save transportation departments time and effort. When planted on steeper verges, indigenous plants require less frequent maintenance than grass medians. While it hasn’t been definitively proven, Huffman says seeing wildflowers in an area could make people less likely to litter too.
In the first phase of the Wildflower Project, native plants will be reintroduced in one or two areas within each council district that supported the legislation. Metro Parks will also plant in a few initial spots, including Ravenswood Park, Shelby Bottoms and Bells Bend. The Nashville Department of Transportation’s Beautification Commission will implement the first phase this year; they’ll partner with Metro Parks to implement the second phase in 2025.
Next year, “the goal is to have this as an item in the mayor’s operational budget,” Huffman says.
He tells the Scene he’s pitched about $100,000 to roll out the second phase of the program, split among departments to pay for operating costs like seed, preparing planting sites and kits to test soil pH. NDOT is also planning to plant wildflowers as part of its Complete Streets program.
Before local leaders can make the city a better place for butterflies and bees, Metro will also need to prepare the ground for the wildflowers’ arrival. Huffman has ordered a special seed mix, and he’s also gone back to the people responsible for the wildflowers of his childhood: the North Carolina Department of Transportation. NCDOT told Huffman about the best practices they learned in 25 years of their own wildflower program, including planting indigenous plants alongside the wildflowers.
North Carolina’s program is partially funded by selling a specialty license plate, something Huffman hopes Nashville could do in the future. While NDOT is implementing the Wildflower Project’s first phase, Huffman also hopes to get the Tennessee Department of Transportation involved. While the city and state government have been at odds for years, Huffman says wild-
flowers are one cause that can bridge most ideological gaps. “If there’s anything that we can agree on, it’s probably going to be wildflowers,” he says.
Overall, the response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive. “I’ve not met many people that are anti-wildflower,” says Huffman. “They’re pretty nonpartisan.” As Huffman’s bill passed through committees and the Metro Council, the conversations centered on how to make sure the wildflowers thrive. Huffman met with the Metro Council’s Pollinator Committee to develop best practices for planting, ensuring the right light and soil balance for the specific varieties planted in each spot.
Now these efforts are nearing a conclusion. Planting will happen over the next year, and in the spring and summer, the wildflowers will start to emerge. They’ll make the city less likely to flood, prettier and easier to maintain. And for Nashville’s bees, birds and butterflies, the flowers will be a welcome sight. By the time the monarch butterflies arrive at Ravenwood Park’s Monarch Meadow next year, Huffman says they’ll have more flowers than ever before.
PHOTO:
ERIC ENGLAND
METRO COUNCILMEMBER
JORDAN HUFFMAN
PARAMOUNT GLOBAL HITS CMT’S NASHVILLE OFFICE WITH EXTENSIVE LAYOFFS
Among those let go from the locally based network is media veteran Leslie Fram
BY BRITTNEY M c KENNA
THE MUSIC AND MEDIA industries are accustomed to layoffs. Each has endured the challenges associated with digital media for decades now, as well as the seemingly endless rounds of restructuring and layoffs that accompany them. Paramount Global — the parent company of streaming service Paramount+ and numerous other brands, including Nashville’s long-running cable channel Country Music Television — is one of the latest to enact such changes. Late last month, Paramount Global laid off numerous employees at CMT. The layoffs are part of a broader restructuring at Paramount Global, which is slated to merge with media production and finance company Skydance Media in a multibillion-dollar transaction during the first half of 2025. Paramount Global also owns the cable networks VH1, BET, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Showtime, among others. The layoffs at CMT come on the heels of an August announcement from Paramount Global of plans to reduce its U.S. workforce by 15 percent, or roughly 2,000 employees. Paramount is just one of many large corporations having to scale back, with major 2024 layoffs including significant cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery in July; Electronic Arts (EA) and Vice Media Group in February; and Sports Illustrated, Pitchfork and Universal Music Group in January, to name a few.
Laid-off CMT employees include vice president of production Quinn Brown, director of music and talent Stacey Cato, executive assistant Bryana Cielo, senior producer Jennifer DeVault, senior vice president of music and talent Leslie Fram, vice president of production management Heather Graffagnino, senior manager of music and talent Abbi Roth, senior director of
production Ray Sells and senior manager of music and talent Jordan Walker.
In an Instagram post, Fram reflected on her 13-year tenure at CMT, during which she became a local face of the network and an institution in herself within Nashville’s country music industry. Fram played a key role in much of the network’s more popular programming, including the fan-favorite CMT Crossroads and a “resurrected” version of CMT Storytellers. She also helped found and champion some of CMT’s recent diversity efforts, including the especially popular Next Women of Country program and the newly beloved Equal Access program.
In addition to thanking former colleagues and reflecting on her broader tenure at the network, Fram writes, in part:
“Among my proudest achievements has been our decade+ support of women with CMT’s ‘Next Women of Country,’ a program that has helped promote and elevate over 100 female artists on all platforms, and our efforts to move the format forward in areas of inclusion and diversity… We soon founded an initiative called CMT ‘Equal Play’ – 50/50, male/female parity across all CMT video hours. With this momentum, we strongly encouraged the industry to play, sign and support more women and to make equally bold moves to help cement a format-wide commitment to women and equality.”
The comments beneath Fram’s post reflect the breadth and depth of the artistic community she served, with messages of gratitude and sup-
Graduate students at Vanderbilt University filed for a union vote with the National Labor Relations Board, a major step toward representation for 2,200 student-workers on campus. Vanderbilt disputes recognizing graduate students as employees and immediately filed a motion to delay the NLRB process. On Friday, administrators sent a mass email to grad students with arguments against unionization. Student organizers have been laying the groundwork for a union vote for more than a year. The United Auto Workers of America, a national labor powerhouse, has helped students through the unionization process. Better health care, dental care coverage and higher yearly stipends — which currently range from $34,000 to $38,000 — top students’ list of demands from Vanderbilt.
port from genre veterans like Martina McBride, contemporary stars including Carly Pearce and no shortage of up-and-comers like Madeline Edwards, herself a 2022 Next Women of Country honoree.
In an email conversation with the Scene, Fram shares that she plans to stay involved with Equal Access, though she says she’s not able to share how or in what capacity. She says her current focus is “helping those on [her] team that were affected [by the layoffs] and helping them with their job searches.”
This recent round of layoffs isn’t CMT’s first dust-up with Paramount in 2024. In June, Paramount deleted all of CMT’s online news content as part of a broader purge that included the entire MTV News web archive, which dated back to 1996. Comedy Central’s web archive was also wiped out, with losses including entire seasons of series like The Daily Show and bonus video content for shows like South Park. Some of this deleted material is still available on YouTube or other streaming services, but much seems lost for good.
What will become of CMT’s programming is currently unclear, as these layoffs left the network with a skeleton crew of staffers, some of whom will work only through the end of this year. What is clear, though, is that it’s a painful loss for both Nashville and the country music industry, and a grim reminder of the industry’s precarity.
The Scene contacted Paramount Global last week to request comment on plans for CMT but did not receive a response in time for publication. The Scene also contacted several laid-off CMT staffers for comment; all but Fram declined to participate. ▼
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee will take the reins of Imagine Nashville the lengthy engagement study that unveiled recommendations for the city’s future in February. Commissioned in part by wealthy benefactors like John Ingram, Imagine Nashville surveyed more than 10,000 residents to identify prevailing sentiments, challenges and trends in the city. The study found that low-income families feel increasingly isolated from city growth and sense an expanding divide between rich and poor, among other broad challenges, like a lack of affordable housing and deficient public transportation. Imagine Nashville chairs John Faison Sr., Alex Jahangir and Renata Soto handed off implementation of the plan to CFMT CEO Hal Cato last week, tasking Cato with 30 action ideas like increasing the city’s housing supply and supporting small businesses.
Top Tennessee Republicans immediately politicized the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene, writes Scene contributor Betsy Phillips, going after FEMA and immigrants as emergency needs mount in the state’s eastern foothills. The same GOP senators and congressmen — Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, and Reps. Andy Ogles, Tim Burchett and John Rose — complaining about the federal government voted against FEMA funding just weeks ago, Phillips says. It was a grave media miscalculation meant to score cheap talking points as emergency responders rush to help disaster recovery.
Members of the Lipscomb University community are grappling with the institution’s identity following a statement that appeared on the school’s website earlier this year. Found among seven other tenets on the “Heritage” section of the private university’s “What We Believe” webpage, the statement addresses the institution’s belief around “A Commitment to God’s Design for Marriage.” It states, in part, “We believe that from the beginning God designed marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman.” Current and former faculty express discomfort with the statement and the effect it could have on the university’s LGBTQ population.
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OCTOBER 10-13 & 17-20
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WITNESS HISTORY
This Gibson J-45—with “Keep Hope Alive” taped to the body—was played by Joy Oladokun at multiple appearances, including the White House signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act and the Love Rising benefit concert at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena in March 2023.
From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music
artifact: Courtesy of Joy Oladokun artifact photo: Bob Delevante
THE MISSING MIDDLE
How zoning policy has frozen the city’s wealthy neighborhoods, concentrating development along corridors and in low-income areas
BY ELI MOTYCKA
EARLY ON A FRIDAY, Antone Christianson-Galina ducks out of Bongo Java and into a light rain. He passes the short block of shops and restaurants across from Belmont University. He lives on the periphery of campus in a townhome, along with a few roommates. On his right, a grassy courtyard dotted with shady trees and lawn chairs opens up in front of Sterling Court Apartments.
“More of the city should feel like this,” he says, gesturing around. “Like a college campus.”
Three years ago, Christianson-Galina started to seriously consider buying a house in Nashville. He grew up in the city, and banking on a stable career in data science, he figured he’d be able to find something small close to his friends in a walkable neighborhood near the urban core.
“I was losing a bunch of bidding wars,” he tells the Scene. “The housing market was going crazy. I have a high level of education, supportive parents, no college debt, a tech job — all those advantages and I couldn’t figure out a starter home. That means most people are probably even more screwed than me right now. I realized this is becoming an existential issue for every millennial. Gen Z is even more toast.”
From there, Christianson-Galina joined the Affordable Housing Task Force convened by community advocacy group Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) — “They were, and continue to be, big players in this space,” he says — and quickly realized the problem is bigger than just a hot real estate market. He contacted a Metro councilmember for help securing a spot on the small commission that oversees the Barnes Housing Trust Fund, a $30 million-per-year grant-making pot tasked with spurring affordable housing development. Now the committee’s vice chair, Christianson-Galina is 10 months into his first term.
Christianson-Galina notes that while the Barnes Fund is delivering units for low-income Nashvillians — a segment of the population that is in dire need of increased housing supply — affordable housing is also vanishing for middle-class earners.
“Regulations, zoning and planning make it really hard for developers to meet the need in middle-class housing,” he says. “We need massive zoning reform to build more, denser housing because there are just too many of us now. There’s enough old-timers, empty-nesters and neighborhood associations with big single-family homes blocking progress. What they’re doing — even if they don’t know it — is creating a future without us. A Nashville without families, without
ANTONE CHRISTIANSON-GALINA (RIGHT) WITH HIS FIANCÉE AND THEIR ROOMMATE
young people, where all houses are inherited or traded between the rich.”
In May, Christianson-Galina got engaged.
“We want to start a family, like they did,” he says. “We don’t want to get back from our honeymoon and move in with our roommates.”
Young people have flocked to Nashville over the past decade, drawn to a high quality of life, growing job market and world-class entertainment. Children who grew up in Nashville are moving back, many to start families near friends or grandparents. But the city’s population has begun to level off. Middle Tennessee suburbs — Wilson, Rutherford, Montgomery and Sumner counties — are growing even faster than Davidson County. Nashville’s low density — the city is in the 41st percentile when it comes to population-weighted density — puts it among peers like Oklahoma City and Jacksonville, rather than Durham, Charlotte or Austin.
Metro’s affordable housing study from 2021 prescribed 4,800 new units a year if Nashville hoped to stave off a worsening housing crisis. The city’s unhoused population steadily increases each year, driven by a housing market that has dramatically outpaced incomes. Commutes get longer, shouldered by the lowest earners who live the farthest away from the city center.
Rather than growing Nashville’s most sought-after neighborhoods like Sylvan Park or Lockeland Springs, planning and zoning regulations have forced additional units into apartment blocks on busy streets. With each proposal comes a fresh wave of public opposition, rehashing decades-old complaints about the existential threats posed by hypothetical new neighbors.
A particular proposal moving through the Metro Planning Commission pits current residents of Silo Bend, a 169-unit condo complex built in 2021, against 120 new units going up next door. Just a few years ago, older residents used the same language to oppose their current homes.
“As a resident of this community, I believe it is essential to voice concerns that this amendment on Zone 1 of Silo Bend to add an additional 120 units will have a negative effect on the rest of the community that already owns, and resides here,” reads a form letter sent by dozens of residents to Planning staff. “I urge the City Council Planning Board to carefully consider the objections raised by myself and other concerned residents regarding this proposed building project. It is essential to prioritize the long-term well-being and sustainability of our community over short-term gains.”
Building still happens within single-family enclaves, but when restricted to one or two units, developers maximize square feet, producing cavernous modern residences from Oak Hill to Inglewood, Belle Meade to Edgehill. Neighbors complain about these too. They trade one family for another and command multimillion-dollar prices, keeping population density static across vast tracts of Nashville.
The squeeze toward extremes — mass apartment blocks on Dickerson Pike, Charlotte Pike and Eighth Avenue and huge single-family homes in between — and a missing supply for
middle housing (multifamily housing types such as townhomes, duplexes, multiplexes and courtyard apartments) have evolved directly from the jungle of restrictions, regulations, market forces and political pressure tended by the Metro Planning Department.
What does (and doesn’t) get built comes down to the complicated game playing out today on every Nashville street. Councilmembers and advocates have targeted the city’s zoning code as outdated rules for last century functioning mainly to preserve rather than bring the city into the future. Within the department, planners proceed cautiously, unwilling to upset Nashville’s current housing equilibrium despite formal recommendations and growing evidence that density could bring homes back within reach for the city’s next generation.
TO UNDERSTAND THE evolution of land use in Nashville, look for a 19th-century mansion. Several still stand, thanks to private and public rehabilitation, marking the original single-family homes that anchored thousand-acre estates for the lucky few on Nashville’s outskirts. One — the original Bowling family Sylvan Park estate at 4501 Nebraska Ave. — was recently revamped into a grand single-family home. The Grassmere Historic Home is part of the zoo; Merritt Mansion has become a gallery for developer AJ Capital. Other historic mansions, like Belle Meade or Two Rivers or Riverwood, are museums and wedding venues. Some have been razed. Most if not all were renovated frequently through the centuries.
Wealthy from plantations, politics, real estate and the slave trade, these lineages — Acklen, McGavock, Harding, Porter — gradually sold off tranquil meadows and glades around the turn of the 20th century. These stately homes are now the outliers presiding over modern neighborhoods that have grown around them.
“In the wake of the streetcar, line extensions sprang up Belmont Park, West End or Acklen Park, the Richland-West End neighborhood, and then Belle Meade,” writes Christine Kreyling, former architecture and urban planning critic at the Scene, in her 2005 book The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City. “The subdivision of the historic plantation of the Harding family into spacious lots for ‘country homes’ on winding roads was the ultimate symbol of the decline of the landed gentry and the rise of the new commercial class.”
Sterling Court, the brick multifamily apartment building in the middle of Belmont-Hillsboro, arrived in 1915. Such a dense project in a historic, well-organized neighborhood would be daunting to build today, even if an owner had the patience (and money) to take it through the uncertain rezoning process. It’s a glimpse into a different kind of housing stock, like the rowhouses or tenements that serve today’s young families in Philadelphia and Boston.
Nashville’s modern zoning regime arrived swiftly on the heels of the civil rights movement. Apartments buildings, once allowed conditionally in all residential zones, were severely restricted in the early 1970s after a building boom spurred by post-Fair Housing Act federal
subsidies to integrate the suburbs. Tweaks, like 1984 restrictions on duplexes, reflected the interests of existing homeowners who opposed more affordable forms of housing nearby. Lot size minimums were tightened throughout the 1990s to prevent owners from further subdividing property. Updates continued throughout the decades, including a comprehensive rewrite that downzoned thousands of parcels to single-family housing, which took effect in 1998.
Ten years after Kreyling and the Nashville Civic Design Center produced The Plan of Nashville, which praises neighborhood walkability and speculates about how to court investment downtown, the city was exploding with money and residents. The Metro Planning Department produced NashvilleNext, a comprehensive plan to guide future city development, after extensive public engagement. A year later in 2016, the Planning Department published its first and last NashvilleNext annual report.
Pleas for modernized zoning reform are woven throughout its 80-page action plan.
“Amend the zoning code and subdivision regulations as needed to provide increased opportunities for innovative housing types including, but not limited to, accessory dwelling units, alley houses, cottage developments, triplexes, quads, manor houses and courtyard flats, multi-generational housing, and single occupancy units,” reads one goal recommended for the ensuing one to three years.
Another states the problem plainly: “Expand the use of context sensitive and scale appropriate missing middle housing types as a matter of right.”
In peer cities, zoning code reforms have followed soon after new or amended comprehensive plans. Austin recently passed a suite of reforms, including lower minimum lot sizes and three homes on most residential lots, as outlined in its Imagine Austin plan. Atlanta is currently rewriting its zoning code to align with a comprehensive plan update. But nearly a decade after NashvilleNext was adopted, Nashville’s zoning code remains largely as written in 1998. NashvilleNext also formalized an additional layer of control over Nashville’s neighborhoods. Each urban block was designated either Neigh-
borhood Maintenance (NM) or Neighborhood Evolving (NE), novel inventions within the Metro Nashville Planning Department.
In September 2023, city planner Olivia Ranseen prepared a slide deck for Planning Department director Lucy Kempf and assistant director Lisa Milligan, pointing out what seemed like an arbitrary binary driving unequal outcomes. She found that the definitions of NM and NE are difficult to pin down or apply broadly, functioning mainly to justify additional development in some places and prevent density in others. Designations are based largely on a neighborhood’s support or opposition to new development, rather than objective criteria like infrastructure capacity, proximity to amenities or the existing built environment. The ill-defined binary has led residents and builders to believe that an NE designation marks an area as a redevelopment free-for-all and an NM designation casts an area as complete or off-limits for growth.
Ranseen’s study supported a 2021 internal report by three Planning Department staffers, which found that a neighborhood’s race and income, rather than the built environment, better predicted NE designations and project approvals by Planning. The result has driven high-impact development toward the city’s low-income and majority-minority neighborhoods while locking up opportunity in the city’s most desirable residential areas.
Both studies found the department was executing a pro-growth policy for minority and/ or low-income neighborhoods, rather than white or wealthy neighborhoods. Decisions appeared to respond to angry neighbors and political pressure rather than expanding access to high-opportunity neighborhoods — the exact opposite of planning best practices and the city’s pledges for housing diversity, affordability and equity. Planning departments in other cities have found similar disparities in their land use policies. Louisville, for instance, developed a Confronting Racism in City Planning & Zoning project to guide equity-based reforms. But in Nashville, internal assessments of race and class disparity in land use policy have not led to public efforts at reform.
“I started doing research and presenting
STERLING COURT
PHOTO:
analysis to the department on how we should approach and upzone neighborhoods,” Ranseen tells the Scene. “I was continually met with pushback. I learned very quickly that the department thrives on doing nothing and is very afraid of public pressure. We give the Planning Commission the best, technical recommendation based on best practices and NashvilleNext. We shouldn’t care about public pressure.”
As she began her third year at the department, Ranseen became increasingly disillusioned with Planning Department leadership, specifically Kempf and Milligan.
“I was continually let down, ignored, disciplined — basically just told to shut up,” Ranseen says. “I brought up how middle housing continued to be ignored. I brought up how we don’t seem to be making progress on NashvilleNext. After that, meetings would pop up on my calendar where leadership would try to intimidate me and tell me to drop it and tell me to find a new job.”
She left the department in the spring of this year for a job at the National Zoning Atlas.
While Planning puts out comprehensive citywide and neighborhood studies, the department’s power rests in its project recommendations. Anything that can’t be built by right must secure approval from the Metro Council, which receives recommendations from the Metro Planning Commission. The Metro Planning Commission gets its recommendations for approval, disapproval or approval with conditions from city planners, who review applications for rezones and Specific Plan (SP) Districts. If the Metro Planning Commission disapproves a project, it can still earn council approval with a two-thirds vote, rather than the simple majority required with Planning Commission approval.
Planning recommendations do not always determine a project’s fate, but they provide substantial initial momentum. That push saves developers lots of time and money otherwise spent revising or arguing projects. It gives tremendous power to those who know the system well and can decipher the preferences of department leadership.
“Not every maintenance area is the same as every other maintenance area,” Milligan tells the Scene. “Not every evolving area is the same as every other evolving area. And not every property within a maintenance area is the same. We look at every individual request on its own merits. We look really closely at every request and evaluate dozens of factors and whether or not something would be appropriate. Every piece of property is going to be different because its context is different.”
Both Milligan and Kempf broadly acknowledge the importance of increasing density, especially middle housing in areas dominated by single-family houses, but flag a variety of factors that hold back denser development. They point to two new ongoing projects — a Unified Housing Strategy and Housing and Infrastructure Study — as essential information to identify factors that hold back density. They also say strict requirements by the Metro Codes Department have stifled multifamily units, specifically triplexes and quadplexes, which are prohibited
in most neighborhoods under the department’s current zoning.
“We are conducting that analysis because we think it’s a worthwhile question to evaluate,” says Kempf. “The absence of smaller-footprint multifamily from the code is one issue that we’re looking at.”
MILLIGAN, THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT’S assistant director for land development, references recent zoning work by Colby Sledge, the two-term former councilmember in Wedgewood-Houston, and Rollin Horton, the current district councilmember in The Nations, as glimpses of what might come next.
Sledge helped marshal an Urban Design Overlay through Planning and council in 2021 that relaxed zoning restrictions around Wedgewood-Houston and Chestnut Hill, which previously allowed only low-density single-family homes and some duplexes. This process, called “upzoning,” opened the door to triplexes and quadplexes by right, meaning property owners do not have to haggle with Planning or neighborhood opponents to build multiple units. The UDO also lists certain structure and design requirements, establishing a stronger sense of architectural compatibility in the neighborhood.
Horton took his seat on the council last fall with the same idea. His initial plans for a UDO in The Nations stalled with the Planning Department, so he began developing the necessary legislation with council staff. The Nations needs a grocery store, says Horton, and businesses want more patrons. More amenities and more value come with more people.
“All of these problems we have as a city — like rising homelessness, increasing urban sprawl, mounting car traffic, congestion, middle-class families being priced out of the city — are caused by our outdated and byzantine zoning code,” says Horton.
Horton also carried a suite of bills alongside Councilmember At-Large Quin Evans Segall meant to chip away at certain aspects of city planning unresponsive to today’s needs. The collection, termed NEST (Nashville’s Essential Structures for Togetherness), produced mixed results.
Multifamily homes are often complex to build, requiring rezonings and approvals and time and money, skewing the final product toward luxury apartment buildings. One answer was a bill commissioning a pattern book of preapproved designs and schematics for builders who want to build medium-density housing. That passed 37-1. A second piece that enables residential building in commercial-zoned parcels passed the council in July. Two others are pending studies with the Planning Department, including an effort to reform fireproofing requirements. Horton has high hopes.
“Europe, Japan — all the advanced economies have adopted this,” says Horton. “This bill would legalize the picturesque rowhouses that you see in Copenhagen or Amsterdam, but they’d be higher-quality and more affordable.”
The two bills sponsored by Evans Segall that would have explicitly legalized duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes in single-family neigh-
borhoods drew the fiercest opposition both within and outside the chamber. The legislation stalled amid opposition from councilmembers, specifically District 3’s Jennifer Gamble, who described the approach as “nuclear.” The chamber settled on Planning’s Housing and Infrastructure Study as a stopgap.
“The 10 or 20 people who show up at a public meeting are frankly not representative of the people who are working three jobs to afford a home, or the people who have young kids who can’t come to the meeting because they’re in the middle of bedtime and can’t afford a sitter because their mortgage is so high,” says Evans Segall.
“What you see in Portland, Arlington, Minneapolis, Montana or Maine is that the bigger parts do not typically pass the first time all at once. It takes multiple efforts. We are asking people to accept change, and that can be really hard.”
SOME POCKETS OF the city offer a peek into a different reality. Ranseen points to Long Boulevard, where a design overlay embraced multifamily housing 20 years ago, as proof positive for how density brings affordability, walkability and quality of life. Evans Segall makes the prudent point that more housing brings more property tax dollars. That observation, and Christian-
son-Galina’s reflections on Belmont, remind us that functioning neighborhoods need not be only for the wealthy few.
Zoning reform is not a relevant topic for cities that are dying. People drive demand, and money follows people. As the city changes, it’s becoming clear to residents that the rules serving Nashville’s past will struggle to serve its future. Rather than figure out ways to expand housing, the cornerstone for a stable life, nearly 80 percent of urban housing stock has been functionally frozen as “neighborhood maintenance.” Satellite cities like Oak Hill, Forest Hills and Belle Meade add additional zoning restrictions to protect huge single-family lots.
The effect has been seen as much as felt. Formerly working-class and middle-class neighborhoods, like Inglewood or The Nations, have become more exclusive enclaves. Protections in one part of Nashville force concentrated, high-impact construction elsewhere, like Madison and Antioch. Conditions worsen in the city’s older apartment complexes, particularly in Southeast Nashville, where families have few other options.
As one planner puts it: “We’ve paused the American Dream.”
Alex Pemberton contributed to this article.
PHOTO: ERIC
APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN THE NATIONS
REMEMBERING GENE WILDER
RUNNING ON SAND
OPENING NIGHT
S
REMEMBERING GENE WILDER
YANIV
S ATU R D AY, O C TOBE R 1 9
GO R DON J C C AT 7 P M
FOL LOWED BY C LU B YANI V
AVENUE OF THE GIANTS
MON D AY, O C TO B ER 2 1 BE LC OU R T TH E AT R E AT 7 P M
SHOSHANA TUES-THUR, O C TO BE R 2 2– 2 4 VI R T UA L
MARTHA LIEBERMANN: A LIFE STOLEN
MON D AY M ATINE E MON D AY, O C TOBE R 2 8
S P ON S O R LUN CH AT 11 : 30 A M G ORDON J C C AT 1 2 P M
NASHVILLE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
KIDNAPPED: THE ABDUCTION OF EDGARDO MORTARA
IRENA’S VOW T H U R S D AY M ATIN E E T H U R S D AY, O C TOBE R 3 1 G ORDON J C C AT 12 P M
RUNNING ON SAND
S ATU R D AY, N O VEMB E R 2 B E LLEVUE
CLOSING NIGHT THE CATSKILLS
TUESDAY, OCT 15 5:00 PM AT AB
Cocktail Supper Catered by Corner Market
SATURDAY, OCT 19 AT GORDON JCC
Come for the �lm and stay to learn to play the card game Yaniv MONDAY MATINEE LUNCH
MONDAY, OCT 28 11:30 AM AT GORDON JCC Lunch Catered by Take Away Catering
OCT 12 | 7:30 PM
Tucker Biddlecombe, conductor Peter Otto, conductor and leader
calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 16
MUSIC
[ISN’T THAT SWEET?]
SABRINA CARPENTER
“Please Please Please” isn’t just the title of a Sabrina Carpenter song. If you’re a fan, it’s also what you were recently screaming at your computer screen, desperately trying to score tickets to her now-sold-out Short n’ Sweet Tour stop at Bridgestone Arena. With the current tour, the onetime Disney Channel star has created a touring it-girl event that plays off of childhood-sleepover tropes — with nothing kid-friendly about it. She incorporates games like spin-the-bottle, opens with a pre-recorded scene of her in a bubble bath and tops it all off by wearing glittery lingerie. Her witty, sex-positive lyrics about navigating relationships are reminiscent of late-night conversations with a best friend, giggling (or crying) over the newest situationship. If you scored tickets to the Nashville show — congratulations, you’re sure to feel right at home amid the bows, pink and shimmer that Carpenter will bring to Bridgestone Arena alongside opener Griff.
KATIE BETH CANNON
7 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA
501 BROADWAY
AMANDA SHIRES PAGE 18
ROYAL COURT OF CHINA & VALENTINE SALOON
PAGE 20
EXPERIENCE HENDRIX
PAGE 22
THURSDAY
/ 10.10
FILM [THE DARK SIDE]
FEAR FEST
The best spooky-season fare isn’t all for grownups, and it’s going to give you more than just thrills, chills and gore — though a given film may provide all three, as well as some points to think about for a long time to come. The Franklin Theatre’s Fear Fest runs all month, and it’s packed with thoughtful features to fascinate both seasoned and budding horror aficionados. This week’s offerings — Jordan Peele’s masterful Get Out (screening Oct. 10), Ari Aster’s bewitching debut Hereditary (Oct. 11) and Stanley Kubrick’s slow-burning Stephen King adaptation The Shining (Oct. 14) — are genuinely terrifying to fully grown folk, and in some spots truly gruesome. Meanwhile, The Addams Family (Oct. 10), Coraline (Oct.11) and Coco (Oct. 12) look at important things in our everyday lives through the lens of what might be thought of as fantastic or creepy; plus they’re suitable for youngsters while entertaining anyone. The Oct. 27 screening of ParaNorman continues the all-ages offerings, while The
Thing on Oct. 20 and a double feature of Psycho and the original Halloween on Oct. 31 are a couple additional highlights for adults. Check out the full rundown and watch for updates at franklintheatre.com. STEPHEN TRAGESER THROUGH OCT. 31 AT THE FRANKLIN THEATRE 419 MAIN ST., FRANKLIN
DRAG [A DIVA WHODUNIT]
DEATH DROP: A DRAG QUEEN MURDER MYSTERY
Woven Theatre and Play Dance Bar are kicking off the Halloween season in style this weekend with a brand-new immersive show — Death Drop: A Drag Queen Murder Mystery. Penned by Woven’s own River Timms, the story follows four queens as they strut their stuff, competing in a series of splashy lip syncs for the coveted title of “Miss Evening Delight.” As you might guess, the competition is fierce, and sparks soon fly. But when one of the competitors turns up dead, the party really takes off — and no one will leave until the devious killer diva is found. Jack Read and William Kyle Odum direct a fab cast, including Blake Holliday as our scene-stealing host Lil’ Lambchop, along with Casanova as Aretha Flowers, Story as Dolly Fartin’, Vanity
as Mother Superior and Virginia Tea as Chanel L’amour, plus Sterling Thompson, Christina Ashworth, Meg Sutherland, Katy Schmidt and Miles Gatrell. Packed with glitz and glamour, this is one whodunit that really slays. AMY STUMPFL
OCT. 10-31 AT PLAY DANCE BAR
1519 CHURCH ST.
[TAKE IT LIKE AMANDA]
MUSIC
AMANDA SHIRES
I won’t name names, but if you’ve seen a certain super popular Americana act this year and thought, “It sounds like something’s missing,” I humbly present you with the perfect remedy: fiddling superstar Amanda Shires. She’s got a voice like Dolly Parton and the artistic vision of Fiona Apple, and she’s carving out a space that’s all her own. It’s been a few years since Shires released new music, as her last solo album Take It Like a Man came out in 2022 and her supergroup The Highwomen debuted their self-titled record in 2019. New music is reported to be coming soon from both projects, but in the meantime, listeners have the perfect opportunity to hear Shires perform old favorites — and maybe even debut some of the new work she’s been teasing on social media. Before she takes the stage at Exit/In on Oct. 10, take a walk through Shires’ back catalog and be reminded how lucky we are to have such a visionary artist walking our streets.
HANNAH CRON
7 P.M. AT EXIT/IN
2208 ELLISTON PLACE
MUSIC
[TO A WORLD YOU WANT TO LIVE IN] JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT
RESIDENCY
De la Soul tells us that three is the magic number; for celebrated songsmith Jason Isbell and his crack band the 400 Unit, it would seem that said mystic numeral is in fact eight. Isbell’s annual residency at the Ryman grew steadily longer over the past decade and seems to have topped out at eight shows (its length for the past couple years in a row). This year’s run comes in the wake of a year-and-a-half of touring the rock-forward Weathervanes, and as usual, Isbell & Co. will use the opportunity to spotlight a bunch of phenomenal artists whose opening sets you do not want to miss. This year the complement includes a wide range of great songwriters who are women. Revered novelist Alice Randall, whose work as a Music Row songsmith was recently recontextualized on the fantastic album My Black Country, appears on opening night Oct. 10. Garrison Starr, who’s been bringing Deep South storytelling to the rest of the world for three decades, follows on Oct. 11, with Mary Gauthier (whose landmark 1999 LP Drag Queens and Limousines was celebrated for its 25th anniversary at AmericanaFest) on Oct. 12 and the superb mother-daughter duo of Liz and Caitlin Rose wrapping up the first leg of the series on Oct. 13. The run picks back up with Matraca Berg on Oct. 17, Iris DeMent on Oct. 18, Gretchen Peters on Oct. 19 and Kim Richey joining in for the finale on Oct. 20. STEPHEN TRAGESER
OCT. 10-13 AND OCT. 17-20 AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N
[FEED ME, SEYMOUR!]
THEATER
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Since 2009, Studio Tenn has built its reputation on polished productions of contemporary classics and musical theater favorites. That trend promises to continue as the company opens its 15th season with Little Shop of Horrors. Premiering off-off-Broadway in 1982, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s beloved “man-eating musical” serves up a bevy of iconic songs, like “Somewhere That’s Green,” “Suddenly, Seymour,” “Skid Row (Downtown)” and the title song. Artistic director Patrick Cassidy has gathered an impressive cast here, including New York City-based actor and musician JP Coletta as Seymour, along with Savannah Stein, Meggan Utech, Maya Antoinette Riley, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, Brian Michael Jones, Matthew Carlton, Garyon Judon and more. Musical director Randy Craft leads a terrific band, and I’m eager to see what the always reliable Matt Logan has cooked up in terms of set and costume design. With campy humor and plenty of heart, Little Shop of Horrors offers a twisted treat — and a perfect way to kick off Studio Tenn’s new season. AMY STUMPFL OCT. 10-27 AT THE TURNER THEATER AT THE FACTORY AT FRANKLIN
230 FRANKLIN ROAD
MUSIC
[CAME OUT SWINGING] THE WONDER
YEARS
Few bands capture existential angst quite like The Wonder Years. As the punk rock pride of South Philadelphia, this band has long staked its claim as a go-to for chronicling life’s awkward, uncomfortable moments in nuanced songs. The Wonder Years return to Nashville with a deep bench of repeat-worthy albums, including the college-backdropped The Upsides, the comingof-age concept LP (and now-classic pop-punk entry) Suburbia I’ve Given You All … and the mournful No Closer to Heaven, which features “Cigarettes & Saints” — for my money, one of
the best modern rock songs about grief. The band tours in support of 2022’s The Hum Goes on Forever, an album about fatherhood, aging anxiety, estranged family and Korean baseball. The tour includes a co-headlining slot from fellow Pennsylvania band The Menzingers, a rock-solid punk outfit touring in support of 2023 album Some of It Was True. Support on the bill comes from Liquid Mike. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER 7:30 P.M. AT MARATHON MUSIC WORKS 1402 CLINTON ST.
FRIDAY / 10.11
MUSIC
[WELCOME TO THE SHINDO] THE SHINDELLAS
Nashville-based R&B girl group The Shindellas are having quite the busy fall. Earlier in the month, they held a livestreamed benefit concert for the Harris-Walz campaign, and in late September, they started a biweekly Fridaynight residency, Welcome to the Shindo, at The Eighth Room. After serving as an opening act
for October London earlier this year, where they said they usually performed just three songs, the ladies will go all-out for this show, performing songs from their albums Hits That Stick Like Grits and Shindo. They will also have special guests, DJs, themed performances and more. At this point, you’re probably wondering what the hell “shindo” means. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, it’s a unique seismic scale that measures the degree of shaking in the event of an earthquake. It’s quite a bold thing for this trio to say their music can make the earth move. But if you’ve ever listened to these gals sayng, you know they can rattle your senses. Their residency runs biweekly through Nov. 8.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
7:30 P.M. AT THE EIGHTH ROOM
2106 EIGHTH AVE. S.
[SAY “OH”]
MUSIC
VAMPIRE WEEKEND
There aren’t a lot of still-active bands from the 21st-century indie boom, which lasted roughly from the mid-Aughts through most
PHOTO: MICHAEL SCHMELLING
VAMPIRE WEEKEND
THE SHINDELLAS
of the 2010s. Bands wading in the remaining waters of the actual-independent-label movement of the ’90s and the Meet Me in the Bathroom explosion of the early 2000s found extensive success in this period, but for too many reasons to get into here, many of them are no longer culturally relevant outside their niches. But those twee Ivy Leaguers from Vampire Weekend are still kicking, each of their releases commanding attention from the online music-sphere. As a major fan of the band, I like to think their staying power is solely due to the strength of the work. Five albums in, VW has continued to find ways to be innovative with their well-defined, Paul Simon-aping sound, adding new grooves and flourishes with each new record, including April’s Only God Was Above Us. Two albums after the departure of founding member Rostam Batmanglij (who pops up here as he did on 2019’s underrated Father of the Bride), Ezra Koenig and company strike a perfect balance between FOTB’s laidback brilliance and the complex production of their early efforts. New York duo Cults will open. LOGAN BUTTS
7 P.M. AT ASCEND AMPHITHEATER
310 FIRST AVE. S.
MUSIC [RELEASE THE BATS] THE EXBATS W/HAMSTERDAM & JUSTIN AND THE COSMICS
For all the criticism Bronny James faces for being on the same basketball team as his dad LeBron, it made for an interesting off-season NBA storyline. While they don’t get quite as much coverage as the Los Angeles Lakers, Arizona’s Exbats are led by a father-daughter duo — something almost unheard of in rock ’n’ roll. With five full-lengths and a handful of other releases, Inez and Kenny McLain have been both prolific and brilliant. Their catchy tunes, quirky lyrics and twangy reverb remind me of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, had Lee
Hazelwood been Nancy Sinatra’s dad instead of whoever her real dad was. Their punchy, vintage-flavored dance music sounds like a basement party in 1968. The country-tinged riffs of Justin and the Cosmics have a similar respect for mid-20th-century hits, recording their 2023 LP at Memphis’ Ardent Studios, where classics by Big Star, Sam & Dave and Led Zeppelin were put to tape. Show up early for a promising rookie in the leadoff hitter slot — Nashville’s newest indie-rock sensation Hamsterdam. P.J. KINZER
8 P.M AT BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
FILM [OLD-SCHOOL GHOUL] UNIVERSAL CLASSIC MONSTERS
It’s that spooky-ass time of year, and Full Moon Cineplex will be getting into its vintage scary movie bag this weekend to play some golden-age monster movies from Universal Studios. It starts with the iconic double feature of Tod Browning’s Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi and his hypnotic stare as the legendary bloodsucker, and James Whale’s Frankenstein, with Boris Karloff stomping around as the revived monster. (Attendees can also buy a package where they can see Dracula and get their haunt on at Full Moon’s Slaughterhouse afterward.) Karloff will be back again the next night, coming out of his tomb in The Mummy This will be followed by Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, in which Lugosi steps into the monster’s clunky shoes and goes toe to toe with Lon Chaney Jr.’s hairy hellion. And on Sunday, we’ll be getting some Technicolor terror with the 1943 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, starring renowned Invisible Man Claude Rains as the deformed opera lover. Visit fullmooncineplex.com for showtimes.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
OCT. 11-13 AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX
3455 LEBANON PIKE
SATURDAY / 10.12
ART [MEMORY PALACE] HELEN LAFRANCE: A RETROSPECTIVE
When Helen LaFrance died at age 101 in 2020, The New York Times ran an obituary that quoted her biographer Kathy Moses Shelton. “She’s a self-taught Black artist who paints
her memories of a particular time and place,” she wrote. “She grew up under Jim Crow. She was ten when the Great Depression hit.” That extraordinary perspective is just one of the things that sets LaFrance apart from other great outsider artists like Grandma Moses or Howard Finster. LaFrance is in a class of her own, and a large collection of her work will be available for Nashvillians to view at this retrospective at The Forge on Willow Street. The exhibition includes many of her iconic memory paintings, which depict the rural and domestic life she remembers from childhood. Church picnics, country fairs, classroom scenes and vegetable stands are all envisioned in extraordinary detail in LaFrance’s signature simple but sophisticated approach. These iconic works will be displayed alongside a selection of her later paintings, which are known as “Revelations.” Don’t miss this opportunity to see one of the great 20th-century artists in an intimate setting. An opening reception will be held 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER THROUGH NOV. 12 AT THE FORGE 217 WILLOW ST.
MUSIC
[ANGELS & DEVILS CO-BILL] ROYAL COURT OF CHINA &
VALENTINE SALOON
Saturday night, a pair of popular Nashville rock bands from the late ’80s and early ’90s — Royal Court of China and Valentine Saloon — are sharing a bill in The ’58 at Eastside Bowl. The idea for the show originated in January when Valentine Saloon bassist Dean Tomasek saw Royal Court of China play at the Jeff Fest, the benefit concert for Nashville rock legend Jeff Johnson. Tomasek’s band had recently reformed, and he suggested to Royal Court lead
HELEN LAFRANCE: A RETROSPECTIVE
BROADWAY
Live Music at ON
singer Joe Blanton that the two bands play a show together. Blanton liked the idea and had a suggestion of his own. “Let’s put together a single and have a little A-side/B-side fun with it,” he told Tomasek. Both bands went into Blanton’s studio, The Underground Treehouse, and cut a side for the dual single, which hit streaming services last month under the title Angels & Devils. For the A-side, Royal Court of China rerecorded “Love Long Gone,” a song of theirs that appeared in the 1989 film Lost Angels. The B-side features Valentine Saloon’s cover of Hawkwind’s 1975 underground hit “Kings of Speed.” Royal Court will open the show with Valentine Saloon closing. DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT THE ’58 AT EASTSIDE BOWL 1508 GALLATIN PIKE S.
regional talent back to Broadway.
OCTOBER LINE UP
10.3 The Malpass Brothers
10.5 Karen Waldrup
10.6 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Chris Canterbury, Faren Rachels
10.8 Billy Montana, CJ Solar, Heath Warren, Ethan Anderson
10.9 Eric Paslay’s Song In a Hat w/ Kristian Bush, Emily Landis
10.10 Natalie Hemby - The Truth About A Song
10.12 Ty Herndon & Jamie O’Neal - Songs and Stories
10.13 Living The Write Life Presents - The Heart Behind The Hits Writers Round
10.14 Songwriting with: Soldiers Presents Nashville Hit Writers Round w/ Mary Gauthier, James House, Danny Myrick, Trent Willmon
10.15 Cigarettes & Pizza w/ Aaron Raitiere, Wynn Varble
MUSIC
[IT WAS COMING ALL ALONG] MAGGIE ROGERS
Following her summer performance at Bonnaroo, Maggie Rogers will bring her Don’t Forget Me Tour to Bridgestone Arena this weekend. She stunned fans at Bonnaroo’s Which Stage in June with her powerful vocals, working the space between genres and incorporating elements of pop, folk and rock. Rogers has compared her latest album, April’s Don’t Forget
younger generations to understand the impact Jimi Hendrix had on popular music and culture during his brief but prolific three-year solo career. Nowadays, it seems as if Hendrix’s legacy is more often relegated to the high school hippie section of chain store clothing aisles or wrapped around a package of nauseating incense named something like “Burple Haze” than anywhere near the forefront of social thought. But consider the sheer power of “Machine Gun,” recorded live on New Year’s Day in 1970. With the very first note of his solo — a piercing, feedback-laden scream from the wall of Marshall amplifiers behind him — Hendrix stood in bold defiance of the Vietnam War and the conservative Nixon-era paranoia that mirrors America’s current political climate. In honor of the iconic guitarist and songwriter’s trailblazing legacy, the Experience Hendrix Tour has hit the road for the first time in five years with a slew of contemporary Hendrix acolytes in tow. Those include Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Zakk Wylde, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Eric Johnson, Dweezil Zappa, drummer Chris Layton — who’s best known as one-half of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s legendary rhythm section, Double Trouble — and many more. What better way to shake up the establishment during a night out in Guitar Town? JASON VERSTEGEN
10.16 Salute The Songbird With Maggie Rose and Special Guest: Grace Bowers
10.17 Wade Hayes
10.18 Julie Roberts
10.20 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kev Mac, Mark Irwin, Jenn Schott
10.23 Craig Campbell Class of ‘89
10.24 Josh Weathers w/ Special Guest Jordan Rainer
10.25 McBride & The Ride
10.28 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Trannie Anderson,Jacob Rice, Paul Sikes GET TICKETS AT CHIEFSONBROADWAY.COM FOLLOW US @ChiefSBROADWAY om cha ons, t s, eeple committed to mmi
Me, to a Sunday afternoon — full of the sort of peace and sustainability she’s been working hard to incorporate into her career. Rogers is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and she recently told The New Yorker she wanted to figure out “how to create a more sustainable structure around a creative practice.” Her efforts produced a masterpiece that has garnered comparisons to the groovy-ness of Fleetwood Mac and the experimental nature of Björk. Her joyful demeanor is sure to be on display Saturday night at Bridgestone. Ryan Beatty opens. KATIE BETH CANNON
7:30 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA
which is why our writers’ rounds are dedicated to celebrating the brilliant minds behind some of today’s most iconic songs.
501 BROADWAY
7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
119 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
WEDNESDAY / 10.16
MUSIC
[GET ON THEIR WAVE] FIDLAR
Rock music is so, so much better with FIDLAR in it. The California surf-punk band — known for blurry-eyed songs that are sometimes snotty, often earnest and always, always catchy — returned last month with Surviving the Dream, the band’s first LP in five years. Self-produced and cut in East Los Angeles, the 13-song Surviving the Dream finds FIDLAR balancing some of its loudest songs to date — like howling opener “Fix Me” and punk rock ripper “Get Off My Wave” — with melodic earworms, such the ukulele-backed “Sad Kids” and beachy cut “Making Shit Up.” In the words of singer Zac Carper, “This record is about doubling down on what you love.” And as we dig into this long-awaited collection of FIDLAR tunes, let’s only hope it isn’t another half-decade before the next album and Nashville tour stop. Sugar Pit plays main support; Hans Condor opens the show. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
TUESDAY / 10.15
MUSIC
[ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS] EXPERIENCE HENDRIX
As blues-based guitar rock seems to age further into obscurity, it can be difficult for
Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose
Craig Campbell Class of ‘89
Cigarettes &
Raitiere, Wynn Varble
16
6:30PM
JOY JORDAN-LAKE
with SUZANNE CRAIG ROBERTSON at PARNASSUS Echoes of Us
6:30PM LOUISE ERDRICH with ANN PATCHETT at MONTGOMERY
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18
HEART OF THE MATTER
East Nashville’s Noko surpasses all expectations
BY KAY WEST
SHOULD YOU ARRIVE at Noko after dark — increasingly likely as we segue to shorter days and longer nights — the view from the parking lot at the curve where Eastland Avenue meets Porter Road is dramatic. The brick exterior is painted black, and two beams of light illuminate the wall-mounted “NOKO” sign. The graphic logo’s block letters are also on the front door, which offers not a sliver of a glimpse inside, adding a touch of mystery to the tableau.
Should you also know that Noko was named 2023’s Best New Restaurant by Eater Nashville, and if you have failed multiple times — even weeks in advance — to snag a reservation for a party of four later than 5 p.m. but before 9 p.m., your expectations will be high.
Inside the roomy foyer, one wall composed of chopped logs — cut and stacked by founders and partners Jon Murray, Wilson Brannock and executive chef Dung “Junior” Vo — foretells wood fire as a primary cooking source. The website adds “Asian-inspired” and “Asian traditions” to signal its culinary direction, which beyond grill, embers and smoke, includes crudo, Japanese vegetables, crispy and stir-fried rice and two types of bao.
The concept of hospitality differs from culture to culture — ebullient and boisterous (looking at you, Italy), reserved and restrained (as I imagine Copenhagen’s Noma), warm-like-a-biscuit-dripping-with-honey Southern.
Noko’s style conveys genuine warmth from the first greeting at the host stand, positioned between the entrance and the bar/lounge with a large community table. In the main dining
room, visible through a lead-paned glass wall, the service is graceful, polished and attentive. While Chef Vo directs the action in the open kitchen where leaping flames from the grill warm people seated at the chef’s counter, Murray and Brannock perform functional (filling water glasses, removing plates), intentional and interactive table touches in both rooms.
Our first such encounter was with Murray, who, shortly after we were seated in a corner directly under a speaker, came to our table to greet us. One member of our party asked if the music could be turned down — instead, he cordially moved us to a table on the opposite side of the room. While we appreciated the cozy embrace of another corner table — which was indeed quieter than the first — Noko has the same sound issues as countless modern restaurants built out in rooms with polished concrete floors, high unfinished ceilings, wood tables bereft of linens and lots of glass, all of it bouncing about the clatter of dishes and chatter of diners. The Washington Post recently ran — with sound effects and diagrams — a lengthy feature, “Why restaurants are so loud, and what science says we can do about it.”
To be clear, the noise issue did not diminish the many pleasures of our experience there, nor prevent me from stalking online reservations to return and try the many things we missed the first visit.
One of those items was almost the edamame, which my eyes skipped over in the wood-fired section before landing on dry-rub ribs and the famous platter-size 42-ounce Angus beef
Tomahawk. Thankfully, Murray course-corrected us and had a bowl dropped at our table. As God is my witness, it was an edamame epiphany, and I will never again be satisfied with any version but Noko’s — infused with smoke, crisped with char, drizzled with truffle oil and sprinkled with sea salt. Power up the chopsticks on the place-setting triptych that includes an indigo linen napkin
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
LOBSTER BAO
BURNT ENDS LETTUCE WRAPS
BLUEFIN TUNA CRUDO
Noko
neatly folded atop a small ceramic plate.
The cocktails will make you wish for a spot in their R&D lab. Who thought of blending Wagyu fat-washed Angel’s Envy with smoked orange oolong demerara for the Noko Old Fashioned, or that a Rich Girl in a glass is vodka, passionfruit, rice orgeat, tiki bitters and toasted almond? Spirits purists will delight in more than a dozen sakes by the bottle or glass. Three zero-proof cocktails — including a house-made Phony Negroni that had me at Tasmanian pepper berry — bring the party to non-imbibers.
On the raw side, Noko is known for its crudo — hamachi and bluefin tuna, and both shine (so get both). Six slices of shimmery yellowtail fan across a shallow pool of citrusy yuzu ponzu, each with a dot of bright-red yuzu-chili paste and cilantro microgreens. Bluefin tuna is so rich it holds its own with pickled wasabi, truffle mustard soy, black sesame seeds, crispy slivers of fried onions and a bright-green nest of wakame.
We were torn between the crab fried rice and the tuna crispy rice. “Delicate” is not normally a word that applies to fried rice, but it does here — rice kernels take on a light-brown hue and beefy flavor from Wagyu fat, molded into a disc, dotted with bits of egg yolk and sliced scallion, topped with a small mound of sweet crab meat. Judging by the photos I’ve subsequently seen, the tuna crispy rice is the more interesting of the two, an interpretation of sushi using crisped rice as the platform for chopped raw tuna striped with sweet soy and spicy aioli.
To paraphrase someone I know who described the mainstream appeal of Olive Garden as “not too Italian,” P.F. Chang’s is “not too Chinese,” and nothing on its menu became more mainstream by virtue of its meh-ness than the lettuce wraps. I mean, ground chicken and factory-farmed iceberg lettuce? I would have skipped “lettuce
wraps” at Noko had those words not been preceded by “burnt ends” and followed by “beef belly, spiced honey glaze, carrots and bibb lettuce.” The smoked bite-size pieces of beef were as exquisitely fatty as beef’s porcine barnyard buddy. Do not skip the lettuce wraps. Or the smoked chicken, which redeemed my many disappointments of dry and stringy smoked chicken with plump cuts of skin-on white and dark meat so juicy and tender I’d like to know Vo’s secret. Brine? Marinade? Sous vide? The side of wood-fired bok choy and ramekin of wasabi white sauce made it a happy meal.
It is my job to sample all the desserts so you don’t have to, and cull it down to the one you must have. If you’re gluten-free, that would be the hōjicha (green tea) cake by Daisy Bakes with matcha buttercream and white chocolate crumble. If you gluten, dive into the decadent coconut cake embellished with wood-charred pineapple, toasted coconut, caramel and lime zest. Our server Kylie insisted we try the ube (a purple Asian yam) gelato by Black Box Ice Cream. Bless her for that.
In fact, bless Noko for its mission statement and core values, featured right there on the website landing page — the partners’ commitment to creating a sustainable, happy work environment for their staff, which means health insurance, four-day work weeks and two weeks of paid vacation. Believe me, it shows. They also donate 1 percent of their profits to the Nashville Children’s Alliance.
Noko’s food, beverage, ambiance, aesthetic and service do indeed surpass all expectations raised by Eater’s pick, positive-plus print reports and members of online review sites scrambling for accolades. I couldn’t agree more. But what lingers for me is how Noko leads with its heart. You can’t go wrong with that. ▼
MARTIN’S BAR-B-QUE JOINT — PULLED-PORK SANDWICH AND A SIDE — $10.99
The local barbecue staple has a faith-restoring sandwich BY KELSEY BEYELER
MOST PEOPLE ALREADY know to turn to Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint — which has half a dozen locations in Middle Tennessee — for food as dependable as it is delicious. For those looking for an affordable yet filling option, check out the sandwich section of the menu. Though its several offerings vary in price, the pulled-pork sandwich and fried chicken sandwich sit at the lowest end of the spectrum at $10.99 — and that includes a side. The fried chicken sandwich is solid, topped with pickles and honey mustard. But when in Rome (Martin’s), do as the Romans do (eat West Tennessee-style whole-hog barbecue).
I’ve had a lot of stringy, soggy, mushy pulled pork sandwiches in my life. So many that I’m typically averse to ordering them. But Martin’s has restored my faith in what a pulled-pork sandwich can be. The hearty helping of pulled pork that’s placed between two perfectly baked buns has a deep, smoky flavor. The slaw it’s topped with adds color, texture and variety of flavor. While Martin’s adds barbecue sauce to the sandwich, they don’t douse it. (Though no one is stopping you from adding extra sauce to yours.) With seven different sauces, you’ve got options. My go-to is the Devil’s Nectar, which hits the palate like a regular barbecue sauce but rounds out with a significantly spicy finish.
There are also lots of side options to accompany your sandwich. I prefer the homemade chips, which — dusted with a delicious seasoning blend — offer a lovely, crunchy element. I add the chips to my sandwich. If this is sacrilege, I don’t care, because it’s awesome. If you have extra chips, they keep surprisingly well, which is rare when it comes to fried potatoes.
Owner Pat Martin started something special when he first decided to share his barbecue expertise with Nashville nearly 20 years ago. We’re lucky to still have access to it through Martin’s expanding empire. ▼
PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
COCONUT CAKE
ART SHOW & SALE
HOMETOWN DATE
If I take my boyfriend to my hometown, what will be left for him to see?
BY HANNAH HERNER
Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
FOR AT LEAST A decade I’ve daydreamed about getting serious enough with someone to take them on a “Hometown Date.”
This idea was planted in my head by The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, two shows that my friends and I follow the way other people follow sports. The Hometown Date episode is my favorite. Contestants take the romantic lead to their hometown, introduce them to their family and do very curated activities. You’re tasting syrup, you’re milking cows, you’re riding a Ferris wheel, you’re being lightly threatened by the parents of the person you’re dating. If there’s a little calamity, even better.
I’ve thought about introducing a man to my family in a way that’s unique to us: on the family farm playing cards, eating grapefruit pie, taking a walk to the creek. My Hometown Date itinerary has changed many times, but now it feels like there’s little left to visit.
When I started my Hometown Date dream at 19, I wanted my date to meet my grandparents. Now, at 29, I have none left.
for thinking my hometown is boring (even though I used to think the same thing). It’s hard to accept the fact that if I had met someone worthwhile a few years ago, a lot more of my itinerary would still have been intact.
I envy my childhood friends and family members who got to complete their own Hometown Dates. They moved about the highlights of the area as a “we” with a special guest, while I panicked about whether I’d ever get to do it and tried not to regress to a teenage attitude in the home of my teenage self.
I could adapt to some changes, but now, with the death of my grandmother, it feels like an endpoint. Because she didn’t travel, she was the reason I was tethered to Norwalk.
Do you have to see where someone is from to know who they are?
It’s something I’ve talked about at length with my boyfriend. He won’t get to experience these places. He won’t get to see my younger self playing a tennis match or performing in a dance recital, nailing a marching band halftime show or twirling a baton along a parade route.
OCT. 31 – NOV. 3 9:30 - 5:30 DAILY
Shelby Bottoms Nature Center 1900 Davidson Street | 37206
For details visit: friendsofshelby.org/artshow or scan code
This show will continue online at chestnutgroupshow.com
Painting “Chilly Sunset” by Chestnut Group member Judson Newbern. PRESENTED BY
I spent a lot of time on High Acres golf course, where my Grandma Carol lived. Now it looks like Jurassic Park, with tall weeds having taken over the grounds.
I felt safe and peaceful in the house I grew up in on Ridge Road. The new owners put sheep in the barn that used to be our playhouse. They let the landscaping overgrow and the white picket fence decay. I don’t recognize the place that was once my refuge from life’s stressors.
If I could, I’d take my boyfriend to Berry’s, the restaurant where I spent so many afternoons sitting across the booth from my Grandma Jan. She always sat facing the door so she could see all of her friends come in. Now the booths are gone. Earlier this year, Grandma Jan went too. So did Sugarcreek Restaurant, where my brother and I got chicken fingers and lemonade with my grandparents at least once a week.
A key part of the Hometown Date fantasy was always that he’d get to see my parents’ salon and spa, and get a haircut there. He’d have to field questions from the salon girls who never knew me to have a boyfriend at all. My parents sold the salon last year and moved to Nashville. Norwalk, Ohio, is a part of me, and I’m still working out how big that part is. I loved it, and I also really wanted out — to a city where there are more choices. I worry that if I ever do get to the Hometown Date level, I’ll resent the person
I have to believe the person I am now is the best version of myself. But when people meet when they’re younger, they get to know more versions of each other. Whoever I end up with also won’t know the version of me who smoked Black & Milds, who was the arts editor of the college newspaper, who liked to spend her free time interviewing bands, who loitered around record stores and rode public transit. I do have people who can vouch for her existence, though — my college roommates, my high school friends.
I was meant to share my childhood home with my mom and dad and brother. I was meant to have snowball fights using the barn as a base with my neighbor Kira. My cousin Lydia remembers our childhood basement, where we performed song-and-dance numbers together.
My childhood friends knew my grandma. My best elementary school friend Madison sat with me in the booth and shared fries with us many times after school.
My Aunt Suzie never missed a dance recital. I loved sharing tennis with my doubles partner Kayla.
I believe we’re not meant to try and share everything — all the parts of our lives and versions of ourselves — with one person. It can’t all be distilled into one Hometown Date. My loved ones and my loved places (past and present) hold a piece of me. Try as he might, my boyfriend won’t know the Norwalk I wanted him to know, or younger Hannah, but he knows who she grew up to be.
I wish I could download all of my experiences to him, but he’s going to have to piece it together, one date at a time. ▼
Bluebird on 3rd featuring BRINLEY ADDINGTON, EMILY
sugar pit & hans condor jet w/ super american eagle slenderbodies w/ tim atlas john early the young fables w/ young mister cursive w/ gladie jessie baylin w/ lydia luce & lockeland strings mildlife w/ adam halliwell little stranger w/ jakobs castle, jarv, & damn skippy Drake Milligan w/ kylie frey YEah rocks! ft. Daena, Rosa Rodriguez, & Lady Couch (12pm) My So-Called Band: 90s Halloween! (9pm) julie w/ frost children & her new knife mark ambor w/ kenzie Kendell Marvel's Honky Tonk Experience The Lemon Twigs w/ slippers
Blaine Bailey (7PM) Lilly Hiatt, Justin Webb & The Noise, & HotHead Wave (9PM) belles w/ trevor martin (7PM)
exbats ft: Hamsterdam (8:30PM) noeline hoffmann (7PM)
sean c kennedy w/ liz king (9PM) zoe jean fowler (7PM) caroline carter ft. ky j. brandes & zack whisler (9PM)
lila forde w/ claudia b. (7PM)
tristan mcintosh w/ brother people (9PM)
anna tivel w/ andrew combs (7PM)
trace mountains w/ silvie (9PM)
steve wynn
richard lloyd (of television) (7PM) the wans & the super american eagle (9PM) john smith (7PM) dizgo w/ omcat (9PM)
pure intention w/ outside dog & reddix-young
MUSIC
IN THE HEART of Nashville’s music scene, an important shift is underway as beloved all-ages venue Drkmttr embarks on a new chapter as a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. With their inaugural two-day fundraiser Drkmttr Fest just around the corner on Oct. 19 and 20, the small venue’s organizers intend to revitalize its relentless commitment to community, accessibility and independent music.
Since its inception in 2015 with a crowdfunding campaign organized by booker and musician Kathryn Edwards, Drkmttr has been a haven for artists and music lovers, fostering creativity and connection. The venue has moved twice, settling into its home on Dickerson Pike in 2019. Drkmttr has weathered numerous other challenges, ranging from the DIY venue closures following the deadly 2016 fire at Oakland, Calif.’s Ghost Ship to COVID-19 and beyond, meeting each with determination and belief in the venue’s mission.
As live music returned after pandemic lockdown, so did Drkmttr’s calendar, brimming with shows featuring punk, rap, metal, pop and much more. Local up-and-comers and touring acts have found a home here, and the venue hosted one in a national series of massive abortion-rights benefit events in January. As resilient as Drkmttr and its community are, the pressures facing independent venues have only increased. Olive Scibelli, who co-owns the venue with Edwards and co-manages it with Edwards and Chappy Hull, explains that the decision to become a nonprofit was born out of both necessity and vision.
“We’re just trying to swim around in this industry and make sure we survive,” Scibelli says. “If a place like Drkmttr closes, you know, you really have no venues that are really, truly grassroots, and fewer places for people of all ages to play.”
In the spring, Edwards, Scibelli and their team ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to help bridge the financial gap as they applied for nonprofit status. Now that the venue’s application has been approved, an array of new opportunities for grants and other sources of funding are available. Their transition to nonprofit status empowers the venue to make a more significant impact in breaking through the glass ceilings that often stifle voices advocating for change.
The festival takes place on both an indoor and an outdoor stage, and the lineup perfectly embodies the unapologetically avant-garde nature of the venue. Saturday’s afternoon headliner is former Nashvillian and expert songsmith Katy Kirby, while Athens, Ga., post-punk endeavor Pylon Reenactment Society takes over that night; Nashville guitar hero William Tyler headlines Sunday afternoon, and Kansas post-punkers Sweeping Promises cap off the festival that night. The fest will also showcase local talents like Budge, Husband Stitch, Soft Bodies and Total
COME TOGETHER
Ahead of the inaugural Drkmttr Fest, the venue looks ahead to a new era of music, community and activism
BY JAYME FOLTZ
Wife, alongside touring acts such as Kal Marks, Margaritas Podridas and Nightosphere.
Founded in 1979, the original Pylon came to an end when guitarist Randy Bewley died in 2009. Pylon Reenactment Society came about a few years later when a new group of musicians formed around lead singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay. In February, the Society released Magnet Factory, its first album of new music. Hay is eager to share the new material (as well as favorites from the first two Pylon LPs) with the crowd at Drkmttr Fest: “It will be new to us and the audience,” she tells the Scene
William Tyler has long been one of Drkmttr’s most passionate supporters, praising the venue
for its unwavering dedication to the local creative scene and its role as a vital space for independent artists. Over the past three decades, he’s seen firsthand how spaces like Drkmttr (and its predecessors like Lucy’s Record Shop) breathe life into Nashville’s arts scene, stimulating the grassroots creativity that the corporate entertainment world ignores at best and stifles at worst.
“These places are essential to fostering and growing the soul of a creative community,” says Tyler. “And with corporate hegemony running amok in the entertainment industry now, independent venues of all kinds — cinemas, clubs, galleries, open-minded ‘third spaces’ — are like the flowers sprouting through the concrete sidewalks.”
In addition to the stellar music lineup, the festival will feature a vendor market and a Drkmttr merch booth as well as a community yard sale where attendees can purchase unique goods that have been donated. Scibelli notes that the items will be priced like a traditional thrift store,
with the idea that the yard sale will provide an accessible and affordable way for festivalgoers to support the venue.
Amid the celebration, however, she remains acutely aware of the challenges facing Drkmttr, particularly the marginalized groups the collective is dedicated to uplifting.
“I don’t feel like things have changed for the better,” Scibelli says, referencing the ongoing struggles faced by the LGBTQ community in general, and trans individuals in particular, in the current political climate. “That’s what makes me want to double, triple down on Drkmttr and all the work that we’re doing. It’s needed now more than ever.”
The venue is responding to the political environment with a mural project designed to celebrate trans joy — a visual reminder of the importance of representation that will welcome all who enter the space to be part of an ever-evolving community dedicated to diversity and empowerment. The project will begin during the festival and is intended to be completed by Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20.
Looking ahead, Scibelli envisions the festival as a starting point for even bigger dreams. “Maybe we can actualize my block-party idea next year,” she says with a laugh. For now, Drkmttr continues to be a testament to the strength of community and the unwavering spirit that fuels the creativity that represents Nashville at its best. ▼
Drkmttr Fest Oct. 19-20 PHOTO:
PHOTO: JOSHUA RISH @VONRPHOTO
DRKMTTR CO-OWNERS
SCIBELLI (LEFT)
KATHRYN EDWARDS
4
A LIVIN’ THING
BY P.J. KINZER
LIGHT ORCHESTRA is one of few bands who can make up an entire set list from songs that are not just hits but have also been embedded into our collective unconscious.
The slick, funky and bittersweet “Evil Woman,” bashed out hurriedly after the rest of 1975’s Face the Music was finished, has soundtracked many a stroll down the cereal aisle in the ensuing years. The electrically effervescent “Mr. Blue Sky,” penned after a literal parting of clouds put an end to weeks of writer’s block, has been a morning shower staple practically since Out of the Blue was released in 1977. “Showdown,” a song from 1973’s On the Third Day that John Lennon particularly enjoyed, had a second life in the ’90s on the soundtrack to Kingpin, which in turn inspired its use in a Michelob commercial that aired during the Super Bowl in 2022. Despite their familiarity, these songs haven’t become sonic wallpaper; just try not to sing along when you hear one. The U.K. band’s iconography, a blend of neon jukeboxes and flying saucers, is appropriate for its rich palette of gritty rock, unbeatable pop hooks and layers of symphonic sophistication. The group has dissolved and re-formed a few times since its inception in 1970, most recently in the 2010s under the moniker Jeff Lynne’s ELO; this is the iteration of the band led by the puffball-coiffed cofounder and lead singer. A pair of friends who caught the Bridgestone Arena stop on their 2019 tour described it as a musical home-run derby, with Lynne and band launching classics over the outfield wall to explosions of applause. I had a tinge of regret for not buying tickets; luckily, there’s one more opportunity to see the group,
when their Over and Out farewell tour of North America comes to the ’Stone on Friday. Native Brit Lynne grew up a working-class kid in Birmingham — the same industrial town that birthed metal godfathers Black Sabbath — and got his start as a musician with what was essentially a broken toy. “I don’t read music or anything,” Lynne said in a 1986 radio interview for Westwood One’s Startrack Profile. “I just got a guitar — it was a plastic one, the first one I had, off a friend of mine who’d had it since he was a little kid. I learned a few tunes on one string, up and down the neck. It only had one string on it.”
As a teen in the early ’60s, Lynne frequented youth dance clubs where a local rock act called The Nightriders played. Their lead guitarist Roy Wood left to focus on his new project The Move, and Lynne was drafted in. Quickly, the rookie proved himself to be something special, and the band changed its name to The Idle Race and reorganized themselves around his work. Their eponymous second album from 1966, produced and mostly written by Lynne at age 21, was a psychedelic pop masterpiece that earned comparisons to The Beatles. However, high praise from critics and fellow artists (including Marc Bolan and the Fab Four themselves) couldn’t turn it into a hit.
Eventually, Wood asked Lynne to join him and drummer Bev Bevan in The Move. As they made that band’s final two albums, another progressive sound that was clearly its own thing began to emerge, and thus was born the always lush, never languid rock ’n’ pop of ELO. Between 1971 and 1986, they released 11 studio albums. Though they never scored a No. 1 on Billboard’s
main singles chart, they were a consistent presence in the Top 40, both in the U.K. and the U.S., for the better part of 15 years.
In his next act, Lynne stepped out of the spotlight and spread his wings as a producer and sometime side player. In 1987, he produced George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, which put the Quiet Beatle back on the pop charts. Then came legendary supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, a kind of Americana archetype made up of Lynne, Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. Simultaneously, Lynne helped Orbison make a major comeback in 1988 and produced Mystery Girl, which was released in 1989 shortly after Orbison’s death; Petty’s five-times-platinum solo LP and rock ’n’ roll touchstone Full Moon Fever came a few months later.
As the list goes on, it’s clear that Lynne, his cohorts and his grand vision have shaped multiple generations of pop music, for fans and fellow musicians worldwide. (If you like Cheap Trick, The Flaming Lips, Daft Punk or The Lemon Twigs, Lynne is one person you can thank.) If all pop geniuses have to eventually transition from active participant to past master, there’s little better of a legacy to leave behind. ▼
ELECTRIC
PLAY THE TRACK FAST, NOT SLOW
BY HANNAH CRON
IN TENNESSEE, the beginning of October is fall break season, when everyone you know with school-age children flocks to Dollywood or Panama City to soak up the last few warm days of the year. Oct. 2 at Bridgestone Arena was a bit more “spring break” — or perhaps Spring Breakers — as Nashville kept Brat Summer going for one more night.
The jam-packed stop on co-headliners Troye Sivan and Charli XCX’s SWEAT tour brought a full-on rave to Music City’s friendly neighborhood Enormodome. English DJ and rapper Shygirl got the crowd primed for a night of high-octane fun. Backed by swirling images of colorful blobs and butterflies straight out of a baby sensory video, the producer and MC bounced about and broke it down to anthems about being “the main character” as well as an (all-caps) “FREAK.” It was a short and sweet burst of cardio before the relay race of the rest of the night.
After a quick cool-down, a team of dancers kicked off the main event as Sivan sang the appropriately titled “Got Me Started.” While Sivan joined the dance crew in re-creating the choreography from the music video, his tiny red undies from the video wardrobe sadly did not make an appearance.
After two more songs — whose staging featured some suggestive mic placement and Sivan dancing around in a pair of fringed khaki pants that recalled a costume from The Lion King Broadway show — the lights darkened once again. The focus shifted to the front of the stage and a large green fabric cube with “brat” written on each side. As the sheets dropped, a cloud of fog dissipated to reveal Charli XCX, ready to lead the crowd in back-to-back bangers: “365,”
“360” and “Von Dutch,” all essentials from the evolving album that is Brat (which has yielded one expanded edition and a forthcoming remix album). The singer was decked out in what’s become a very Nashville look, with an embellished white tank top and a voluminous veil. Maybe the pop star, who is engaged to The 1975’s George Daniel, is considering Nashville for her own bachelorette party?
Rather than perform separate sets, the co-headliners mashed up their repertoires into one extended set. They swapped off hosting duties every few songs and sprinkled a few duets throughout the show. The stage itself featured asymmetrical screens and scaffolding to create a multistory performance space. A raised catwalk through the middle of the pit gave both performers and their dancers a place to immerse themselves in the crowd, separated only by a cage. (Shoutout to Nashville stage-production wiz and friend of the Scene Jonny Kingsbury for his work on this tour.) During Charli’s cheeky Billie Eilish collab “Guess,” the screens revealed that there was a crotch cam beneath the stage, answering the undergarment-related questions posed in the song.
This was a night with no slow songs — just nonstop dancing. The crowd was clearly feeling themselves, and the performers mentioned several times how much they could feel the crowd’s love and energy (and recognized Nashville’s reputation as a town with crowds who like to party). The whole room seemed to sync up during Charli’s vulnerable “Sympathy Is a Knife” and Sivan’s 2018 hit “My My My!” The only real disappointment: Sivan did not bring out Kacey Musgraves (currently on tour elsewhere) to perform their duet “Easy.” It’s not nice to tease, Troye!
There couldn’t have been a more perfect sendoff to Brat Summer. It was a rare night without worries or cares — about work, school, the election or anything else. Just vibes and a cathartic release to lose yourself in. It seems Charli and Troye knew that what Nashville really needed was a good party, and they delivered. ▼
10.13 9
LEFT HAND HOTDOG, THE OKAY GREATS, THE CATASTROPHES $5 WED 10.16 5
WRITERS AT THE WATER FREE 9
GUNKWATER 3: DROUGHTS, SCORCHED VALIKA, ASYLUM, FOLLOWSHI ,CUMSHOT WOUND
Saturday, October 12
CONCERT AND CONVERSATION
Night Train to Lovenoise
A Generational Journey of Black Music in Nashville
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER presented in partnership with lovenoise, nmaam, and wnxp
Sunday, October 13
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Joe Fick
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, October 19
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Saturday, October 19
SONGWRITER SESSION Lauren Hungate NOON · FORD THEATER
WITNESS HISTORY
Museum Membership
Receive free admission, access to weekly programming, concert ticket presale opportunities, and more.
Saturday, October 26
SONGWRITER ROUND
Tribute to Wayland Holyfield 11:30 am · FORD THEATER
Saturday, October 26 POETS AND PROPHETS
Hillary Lindsey 2:30 pm · FORD THEATER SOLD OUT
Sunday, October 27 CONCERT AND CONVERSATION Rosie Flores 2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, November 2 HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Saturday, November 2
SONGWRITER SESSION Twinnie NOON · FORD THEATER
LORNE ALMIGHTY
Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night gets the vibes right
BY D. PATRICK RODGERS
“A LEVEL OF ADRENALINE typically reserved for fighter pilots and heroin addicts.” That’s how, during a Q&A following a screening of Saturday Night at last month’s Nashville Film Festival, director Jason Reitman described the rush that Saturday Night Live’s cast and crew experience each week. Joined for the Q&A by his casting director John Papsidera and NaFF programming director Lauren Thelen, Reitman also compared Saturday Night to the German film Victoria, the works of filmmaker Michael Ritchie, “Robert Altman on methamphetamines” and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Saturday Night follows then-30-year-old SNL creator and producer Lorne Michaels across 90 real-time minutes on the night his show premieres: Oct. 11, 1975. The film features a stacked cast and a cavalcade of cameos, and Papsidera and Reitman’s casting here is something special. While Saturday Night doesn’t feature a lineup of dead-ringers for the original SNL cast, per se — with the exception of relative unknown Matt Wood, whose resemblance to John Belushi is at times breathtaking — there’s something spiritually true about these performances.
As Michaels, The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle oscillates between youthful arrogance and the abject panic of a man in over his head. As Garrett Morris, Lamorne Morris (no relation) embodies middle-aged existential crisis, wondering what the hell he, a Juilliard-trained thespian, is doing amid a swarm of white 20-something comedy upstarts. Ella Hunt doesn’t necessarily
TOY STORY
Pharrell Williams’ animated Lego biopic is an entertaining, whimsical, one-sided tale
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
I GOTTA ADMIT — it’s a cute gimmick.
Piece by Piece, the documentary/biopic hybrid about superstar producer/rapper/singer/fashion designer/tastemaker/mogul Pharrell Williams, is a look at this man’s career, strictly featuring animated Lego material. (I’m kinda surprised it isn’t called The Lego Pharrell Movie.) It’s a bold — some might say unnecessary — move for Williams to make a toy story out of his life so far. (It won’t be the craziest musical biopic we’ll get this season; U.K. pop star Robbie Williams plays himself as a CGI monkey in the upcoming Better Man. For real.) It might also be the first vanity project your kids dig more than you do. But Williams, being the staunch practitioner of materialism (whether it’s the philosophical belief or just a preoccupation with material items) that he is, crafts a magical, musical mystery tour in which fantasy and reality are not only blurred, but very textural. Filmmaker Morgan Neville, who already has a proven track record getting amazing stories out of musicians (20 Feet From Stardom) and beloved media figures (Won’t
resemble Gilda Radner all that much, but her warmth pours off the screen. As Episode 1 host George Carlin, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is unrecognizable and impossibly cool. As both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Succession’s Nicholas “Cousin Greg” Braun is hilarious.
And that’s an assessment that could be applied to most of Reitman’s decisions here: maybe not technically accurate, but spiritually true. Over the course of Saturday Night’s runtime, a whirlwind of technical mishaps, political machinations and moments of kismet befall
LaBelle’s Lorne Michaels. The things that happen as the young producer tries to get his show to air — a show that he defends as being avantgarde and cutting-edge, not simply a variety or sketch show — are largely inspired by real-life events. Did Milton Berle (played here deliciously by J.K. Simmons) lurk around 30 Rockefeller Plaza, creeping out the cast? Did Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien) attempt to hook up with every woman in sight? Did Michaels’ co-producer cousin Neil Levy get too stoned and lock himself away in a room? Yes indeed, a lot of that stuff really did happen. Did it all happen on a single night in 1975? Don’t be ridiculous. The real, the apocryphal, the semi-real and the completely fabricated all come together here in a mosaic that shows us how opening night felt Reitman also noted while in Nashville last month that he considered filming Saturday Night as a single-shot film, though the logistics
You Be My Neighbor?), interviews Williams about his early days growing up in Virginia Beach, Va., when he realized he sees colors (known as synesthesia) when hearing music like Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish.” Although Williams considered himself something of a hood outcast (dude was a big fan of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos growing up), he still hung out with future stars Timbaland, Missy Elliott and Pusha T. He also became besties with Chad Hugo, his partner in hitmaking production duo The Neptunes.
Mostly consisting of footage (interviews, music videos, archival clips) reanimated by Pure Imagination Studios (the team behind many animated Lego projects), Piece is a colorful trip down memory lane for both Williams and the audience. Anyone who grew up in the early 2000s knows how omnipresent Neptunes-produced songs were, and Piece shows how the boys were there for everyone, from Britney to Busta. One sequence features Hugo and Williams in a recording studio, recording one artist after another by pulling a lever.
Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake and Kendrick Lamar are a few of the stars who show up in Lego form to talk about how The Neptunes supplied them with career-changing beats (which are shown here as literal, pulsating contraptions built by Williams). The funniest testimony comes from rapper turned Drink Champs podcaster N.O.R.E., who reminisces about the bump Williams and Hugo received after producing his hit “Superthug.”
of that would be nightmarish. Having most recently wrapped 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and this year’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (he co-wrote both with his Saturday Night co-writer Gil Kenan and directed the former, while Kenan directed the latter), Reitman has proven he can handle big budgets and complicated shoots. A single-shot version of Saturday Night would’ve been an incredible feat, had he managed it, but the film doesn’t suffer without it.
With SNL’s 50th season now underway, it’s fascinating to look back at the galaxy of talent and circumstances that swirled around Michaels as he tried to deliver this mutant showbiz baby. Saturday Night Live, half a century in, is now a known quantity. But on Night 1, everyone — from the adorable Cooper Hoffman as then-freshman NBC exec Dick Ebersol to Willem
Dafoe as menacing NBC honcho David Tebet — wanted to know just what the hell kind of show this thing was even supposed to be. It’s a question Michaels dodges until the last possible moment, of course. And most would argue that the answer he finally delivers — which I won’t spoil here — couldn’t be applied nowadays. But in the film’s final moments, with chaos swirling, and drugs circulating, and the set still being built, and network bigwigs watching dubiously, Michaels’ statement feels spiritually true. ▼
Saturday Night R, 109 minutes
Opening Friday, Oct. 11, at Regal and AMC locations
Of course, since this is also a music biopic of sorts, we get the obligatory low moments — like when, after his grandmother died, a lonesome Williams started churning out mediocre songs for greedy-ass music execs. But we also get the eventual comeback-heavy third act, when now-family-man Williams finally becomes the pop star he always wanted to be, thanks to a chipper Despicable Me 2 soundtrack contribution turned infectious global phenomenon — “Happy.”
At one hour and 33 minutes, this is an obviously condensed version of Williams’ history. We don’t get into the messy stuff: his falling-out with “Milkshake” singer/ protégé Kelis, that sordid “Blurred Lines” business with Robin Thicke, and Williams’ first solo album, which tanked (though I liked it). N.E.R.D., the rock-rap group he formed with Hugo and childhood friend Shay Haley, is barely mentioned, even though the soundtrack is pad-
Opening wide Friday, Oct. 11
ded with N.E.R.D. tunes. There’s definitely no mention of Pharrell working with Diddy, and we certainly don’t get into Williams and Hugo’s current nonexistent relationship. (Hugo is suing Williams for “fraudulently” trying to claim the Neptunes’ trademarks for himself.)
Williams and Neville are more about creating a whimsical, all-ages popcorn flick with highs and lows, rejection and redemption. (Even when Williams and Hugo meet up with Snoop and his crew, the room is cleverly covered in smoke from “PG Spray” cans.) It is telling that, in the movie, Williams says he wanted to do a Lego movie so he could break things down by tearing them apart “brick by brick, so it makes sense.” Since biopics are generally known to be partially fact-based and heavily embellished, with Piece by Piece, Williams finds the most eccentric, entertaining and, of course, playful way to tell if not the whole story, then at least his side of it.
Piece by Piece PG, 93 minutes
1 Domains
6 Result of a bad investment
10 Hollywood, with “the”
13 Aptly named novelist Charles
14 Like the secretary of commerce, in the U.S. presidential line of succession
15 “To” words
16 Tried getting on a Jumbotron, say
18 Unit equivalent to 16.5 feet
19 Spacecraft name since the 1960s
20 Fund, as a 401(k)
22 Inverse trig function
24 Approaching empty
25 Loud, in a way
26 The Raptors, on scoreboards
27 Enjoyed some cozy reading
30 Natural treatment for insect bites
32 Aetna alternative
33 “Easy there, Fido!”
36 Paperless means of entry
40 Spanish city on the Costa del Sol
42 High-fat diet
43 Attacked imaginary enemies, in an idiom
48 Debtor’s letters
49 Big name in bubbly
50 “1” for the set {1, 2, 3}, in brief
51 “Au contraire!”
53 Kids’ toy that comes in a can
55 Like home devices with advanced capabilities
56 Polite address
57 Made money dishonestly
61 What a high-altitude balloon might be mistaken for
62 What Comic Sans is “sans”
63 Crane lookalike
64 Corral
65 Peer group?
66 Famous ’50s flop DOWN
1 Museum of Bad ___ (Boston attraction)
2 Vintage car inits.
3 Swallows one’s pride
4 Arranged temporarily 5 “Peace”
6 Moon lander acronym
7 Dinner with minimal cleanup
8 Scarecrow topper, perhaps
9 Horse-drawn carriage
10 Island that’s home to most of the world’s wild orangutans
11 “Ditto!”
12 Equine hybrid with striped legs
14 Looney Tunes nickname
17 Brink
21 Where overflow stock might be kept
22 Slightly
23 Hershey candy wrapped in gold foil
24 “The Three-Body Problem” author ___ Cixin
28 “What do you even need me for?”
29 Singer DiFranco
31 Ill will
34 Interdict
35 Like the Rockefellers, Roosevelts and Rothschilds
37 Fannies
38 ___ mess (English dessert)
39 Trumpet
41 National spirit of England
43 Excites
44 “L’chaim!”
45 Annoy over time
46 The long way there?
47 Noted facial feature of Einstein, informally
52 Really put off
54 Vaccine shot, e.g.
55 Letters on some lotion bottles
58 Member of the fam
59 Nail holder
60 Show commemorating its 50th season in 2024, in brief
PUZZLE BY JOE DEENEY
LEGAL
FORECLOSURE
WHEREAS, Doug Brown and Christy Brown, married, executed a Deed of Trust dated April 17, 2018, of record at Instrument No. 20180425 -0038710, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee (the “Deed of Trust”) and conveyed to R. Rick Hart, Trustee, the h ereinafter described real property to secure the payment of certain indebtedness (“Indebtedness”) owed to Renasant Bank (the “Lender”); and WHEREAS, default in payment of the Indebtedness secured by the Deed of Trust has occurred; and WHEREAS, David M. Anthony (“Trustee”) has been appointed Substitute Trustee by Lender by that Appointment of Substitute Trustee of record at Instrument No. 20240625 -0047386, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, with authority to act alone or by a designated agent with the powers given the Trustee in the Deed of Trust and by applicable law; and WHEREAS, Lender, the owner and holder of said Indebtedness, has demanded that the real property be advertised and sold in satisfaction of said Indebtedness and the costs of the foreclosure, in accordance with the terms and provisions of the loan documents and Deed of Trust. NOW, THEREFORE, notice is hereby given that the Trustee, pursuant to the power, duty and authority vested in and imposed upon the Trustee under the Deed of Trust and applicable law, will on Wednesday, November 6, 2024, at 1:45 o’clock p.m., prevailing time, on the steps of the historic Davidson County Courthouse, 1 Public Square, Nashville, Tennessee 37201, offer for sale to the highest and best bidder for cash and free from all rights and equity of redemption, statutory right of redemption or otherwise, ho mestead, dower, elective share and all other rights and exemptions of every kind as waived in said Deed of Trust, certain real property situated in Davidson County, Tennessee, described as follows:
Legal Description: The real property is described in the Deed of Trust at Instrument 20180425 -0038710, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, as well as the subsequent modifications listed above.
Situated in the County of Davidson, State of Tennessee.
Land in the 10th Civil District of Davidson County, Tennessee, being Lot No. 13 on the Plan of Fox Chase Meadows, of record in Book 5200, Page 194, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, to which reference is hereby made for a more complete description thereof.
from all rights and equity of redemption, statutory right of redemption or otherwise, ho mestead, dower, elective share and all other rights and exemptions of every kind as waived in said Deed of Trust, certain real property situated in Davidson County, Tennessee, described as follows:
Legal Description: The real property is described in the Deed of Trust at Instrument 20180425 -0038710, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, as well as the subsequent modifications listed above.
Situated in the County of Davidson, State of Tennessee.
Land in the 10th Civil District of Davidson County, Tennessee, being Lot No. 13 on the Plan of Fox Chase Meadows, of record in Book 5200, Page 194, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, to which reference is hereby made for a more complete description thereof.
Being the same property conveyed to Doug Brown and Christy Brown by Deed recorded in Book 5666, Page 92, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee.
Map/Parcel No: 007 -00 -0 -137.00
Street Address: The street address of the property is believed to be 1860 Fox Chase Drive, Goodlettsville, Tennessee 37072, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description here in shall control.
Other interested parties: Internal Revenue Service; Sunbelt RentalsRegion 4 (an Ohio Corporation; Waste Management Inc. of Tennessee.
THIS PROPERTY IS SOLD AS IS, WHERE IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER, WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AND SUBJECT TO ANY PRIOR LIENS OR ENCUMBRANCES, IF ANY.
WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, THE PROPERTY IS SOLD WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO TITLE, MARKETABILITY OF TITLE, POSSESSION, QUIET ENJOINMENT OR THE LIKE AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, CONDITION , QUALITY OR FITNESS FOR A GENERAL OR PARTICULAR USE OR PURPOSE.
As to all or any part of the Property, the right is reserved to (i) delay, continue or adjourn the sale to another time certain or to another day and time certain, without further publication and in accordance with law, upon announcement of said delay, con tinuance or adjournment on the day and time and place of
SUBJECT TO ANY PRIOR LIENS OR ENCUMBRANCES, IF ANY.
WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, THE PROPERTY IS SOLD WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO TITLE, MARKETABILITY OF TITLE, POSSESSION, QUIET ENJOINMENT OR THE LIKE AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, CONDITION , QUALITY OR FITNESS FOR A GENERAL OR PARTICULAR USE OR PURPOSE.
As to all or any part of the Property, the right is reserved to (i) delay, continue or adjourn the sale to another time certain or to another day and time certain, without further publication and in accordance with law, upon announcement of said delay, con tinuance or adjournment on the day and time and place of sale set forth above or any subsequent delayed, continued or adjourned day and time and place of sale; (ii) sell at the time fixed by this Notice or the date and time of the last delay, continuance or adjournment or to give new notice of sale; (iii) sell n such lots, parcels, segments, or separate estates as Trustee may choose; (iv) sell any part and delay, continue, adjourn, cancel, or postpone the sale of any part of the Property; (v) sell in whole and then sell in parts and consummate the sale in whiche ver manner produces the highest sale price; (vi) and/or to sell to the next highest bidder in the event any high bidder does not comply with the terms of the sale.
Several Notice of Federal Tax Liens have been filed by the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, including: (1) that instrument dated March 9, 2021, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20210316 -0034301, Register’s Office or Davidson County; (2) that instrument dated December 8, 2022, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20221219 -0130966, said Register’s Office; (3) that instrument dated June 19, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 2 0230626 -0048177, said Register’s Office; (4) that instrument dated September 15, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown and Christy C. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20230925 -0074958, said Register’s Office; (5) that instrument dated September 27, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown and Christy C. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20231006-0078769, said Register’s Office; (6) that instrument dated October 6, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 202310160080936, said Register’s Office; (7) that instrument dated February 9, 2024, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 202402230012374, said Register’s Office; and (8) that instrument dated April 1, 2024, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20240415 -0026327, said Register’s Office.
Being the same property conveyed to Doug Brown and Christy Brown by Deed recorded in Book 5666, Page 92, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee.
Map/Parcel No: 007 -00 -0 -137.00
Street Address: The street address of the property is believed to be 1860 Fox Chase Drive, Goodlettsville, Tennessee 37072, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description here in shall control.
Other interested parties: Internal Revenue Service; Sunbelt RentalsRegion 4 (an Ohio Corporation; Waste Management Inc. of Tennessee.
County; (2) that instrument dated December 8, 2022, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20221219 -0130966, said Register’s Office; (3) that instrument dated June 19, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 2 0230626 -0048177, said Register’s Office; (4) that instrument dated September 15, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown and Christy C. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20230925 -0074958, said Register’s Office; (5) that instrument dated September 27, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown and Christy C. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20231006-0078769, said Register’s Office; (6) that instrument dated October 6, 2023, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 202310160080936, said Register’s Office; (7) that instrument dated February 9, 2024, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 202402230012374, said Register’s Office; and (8) that instrument dated April 1, 2024, against Douglas W. Brown, of record at Instrument No. 20240415 -0026327, said Register’s Office.
Timely notice has been given by the Trustee to the Internal Revenue Service by certified mail, as required by 26 U.S.C. §7425(b). The sale of this property will be subject to the right of the United States to redeem said property pursuant to 26 U.S.C. §7 425(d). Substitute Trustee will make no covenant of seisin, marketability of title or warranty of title, express or implied, and will sell and convey the subject real property by Trustee’s Quitclaim Deed as Substitute Trustee only.
cluding rights of redemption of any governmental agency, state or federal; and any and all prior deeds of trust, liens, dues, assessments, encumbrances, defects, adverse claims and other matters that may take priority over the Deed of Trust upon which this foreclosure sale is conducted or are not extinguished by this Foreclosure Sale. This sale is also subject to any matter that an in spection and accurate survey of the property might disclose.
THIS 1st day of October, 2024.
David M. Anthony, Substitute Trustee
EXO LEGAL PLLC P.O. Box 121616 Nashville, TN 37212
david@exolegal.com 615 -869 -0634
NSC: 10/3, 10/10, 10/17/24
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& RESTORATION:
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
Opryland
This sale is subject to all matters shown on any applicable recorded Plat or Plan; any unpaid taxes and assessments (plus penalties, interest, and costs) which exist as a lien against said property; any restrictive covenants, easements or setback lines tha t may be applicable; any rights of redemption, equity, statutory or otherwise, not otherwise waived in the Deed of Trust, including rights of redemption of any governmental agency, state or federal; and any and all prior deeds of trust, liens, dues, assessments, encumbrances, defects, adverse claims and other matters that may take priority over the Deed of Trust upon which this foreclosure sale is conducted or are not extinguished by this Foreclosure Sale. This sale is also subject to any matter that an in spection and accurate survey of the property might disclose.
THIS 1st day of October, 2024.
PAYING TOP CA$H FOR MEN’S SPORT WATCHES!
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Opry Mills Mall Nashville Shores Lakeside Resort
David M. Anthony, Substitute Trustee
NEIGHBORHOOD DINING & DRINKS
El Fuego Mexican Restaurant
EXO LEGAL PLLC P.O. Box 121616 Nashville, TN 37212
Flamie’s The Hot Chicken Factory Roma Pizza & Pasta
david@exolegal.com 615 -869 -0634
ENJOY THE OUTDOORS
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Shelby Bottoms Nature Center
Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park Centennial Park
Timely notice has been given by the Trustee to the Internal Revenue Service by certified mail, as required by 26 U.S.C. §7425(b). The sale of this property will be subject to the right of the United States to redeem said property pursuant to 26 U.S.C. §7 425(d).
THIS PROPERTY IS SOLD AS IS, WHERE IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER, WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AND SUBJECT TO ANY PRIOR LIENS OR ENCUMBRANCES, IF ANY.
WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, THE PROPERTY IS SOLD WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO TITLE, MARKETABILITY OF TITLE, POSSESSION, QUIET ENJOINMENT OR THE LIKE AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES OF MERCHANTABIL-
Substitute Trustee will make no covenant of seisin, marketability of title or warranty of title, express or implied, and will sell and convey the subject real property by Trustee’s Quitclaim Deed as Substitute Trustee only.
This sale is subject to all matters shown on any applicable recorded Plat or Plan; any unpaid taxes and assessments (plus penalties, interest, and costs) which exist as a lien against said property; any restrictive covenants, easements or setback lines tha t may be applicable; any rights of redemption, equity, statutory or otherwise, not otherwise waived in the Deed of Trust, including rights of redemption of any governmental agency, state or federal; and any and all prior deeds of trust, liens, dues, assessments, encumbrances, defects, adverse claims and other matters that may take priority over the Deed of Trust upon which this foreclosure sale is conducted or are not extinguished by this Foreclosure Sale. This sale is also subject to any matter that an in spection and accurate survey of the property might disclose. THIS 1st day of October, 2024. David M. Anthony, Substitute Trustee EXO LEGAL PLLC
