Nashville Scene 12-29-22

Nashville was home to an iconic theme park like no other in the country. And in 1997, it was shuttered for ‘no compelling reason.’

BY LAURA BROWN

CITY LIMITS

Rideshare Drivers Fill the Gap in Hospital Transportation 6

Limited resources at specialty transit services as well as pending changes exacerbate existing issues

BY HANNAH HERNER

State Republicans Attack Nashville Aid Efforts for Immigrants Seeking Asylum 6 Hagerty, Blackburn, Lee intervene after learning that ICE tapped Nashville as a waypoint for asylum-seekers

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Metro Council Gives Initial Approval to Titans Stadium Deal .................................. 7 Nonbinding terms sheet one step toward city backing for multibillion-dollar project

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

COVER STORY

Opryland, USA

Nashville was home to an iconic theme park like no other in the country. And in 1997, it was shuttered for ‘no compelling reason.’

BY LAURA BROWN

CRITICS’ PICKS

The Sight and Sound Top 10 at the Belcourt, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, Greasy Neale Organ Trio, New Year’s Eve Shows, WWE: Monday Night Raw, Justin Townes Earle Tribute and more

MUSIC

A Mac Gayden Mixtape 25 Ahead of the Nashville legend’s gathering at 3rd and Lindsley, we consider a collection of essentials and hidden gems from his vast catalog

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

Big Feels .................................................. 26 The Nashfeels party never stops

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

The Side Player Sidebar Survey 27 Talking with superb instrumentalists Austin Willé, Megan Coleman, Larissa Maestro, Tripper Ryder and Robbie Crowell

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

FILM Primal Stream: Best Physical Media of 2022

From ’70s sci-fi to trashy

FOOD AND DRINK

Belly Up .................................................... 21

FatBelly Pretzel brings its creativity to the East Side

BY KELSEY BEYELER

Veg out: Toasted Bucatini at TENN 22 Housed in a downtown boutique hotel, TENN serves contemporary Southern fare

BY SARAH STEWART

Not only does his expressive look like he is always smiling -BUT- his ears also seem to have a mind of their own. Up, down, a little bit of both. One just never knows what ears you’ll see on top of his head. Which, almost instantaneously, puts a smile on any hooman that is with him! Yup. His energy, looks, and outgoing/happy personality is totally infectious. He is an active boy who is always ready for an outside adventure. Luca also has great inside potty manners, very smart, very silly, and when he sits for you, just get ready that his next “trick” is to jump up and lick you in the face! Yup. Luca is ready to fill your heart with so much love and laughter.

It’s been a historic month for former President Donald Trump. He notched another loss among his political endorsements, with the solid defeat of Herschel Walker by Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s Senate runoff election. This brings his midterm endorsements to a resounding overall flop. As The New York Times recently described it, “Herschel Walker’s loss in Georgia delivers another blow to the former president in a state that has been emblematic of his struggles when it comes to endorsements.” In fact, as Politico recently wrote, the damage done to Trump’s reputation and endorsement strength from the midterm election results is a clear sign that his iron grip on the GOP is weakening. “Amid a sea of safe choices,” Politico reported, “the former president backed some candidates that could deeply dent his endorsement reputation.”

Proof of weakening endorsement power, combined with the Republican Party’s growing dissatisfaction with Trump’s deadweight presence, would certainly make for a bad month. But that amounts to a quiet day for Trump. Criminal referrals to federal law enforcement had to have made for the worst in a succession of bad days. As The Atlantic’s David Frum puts it so directly, “Justice is coming for Donald Trump.” He continues: “Every effort to hold Donald Trump accountable has been thwarted by those who made it someone else’s job. Not anymore.”

Frum — interestingly enough, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush — is not the only GOP player to express clear dissatisfaction with Trump and his growing trash heap of misdeeds. One of Trump’s earliest supporters was Tom Marino, the former congressman from Pennsylvania. His recent statement spoke volumes. “I will not support Trump, in fact, I will campaign against him,” he wrote in a letter to The New York Times. He continued: “Our country deserves a person who is mature, respects others and is honest to lead our nation.” It doesn’t get much more direct than that!

Well, the words of Mitch McConnell,

if you can believe it, were arguably even more damning. Speaking in response to the Jan. 6 Committee’s recommendation that the DOJ pursue criminal prosecution of Trump for his role in the attack on the Capitol, McConnell said, “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day.” McConnell’s expression of dissatisfaction with his former president is a rallying cry to many other GOP leaders, who are finally beginning to express concern over the mounting evidence against their former leader. As noted by NBC News: “Trump was the first president in American history to be impeached twice. Now, he is also the first president to be formally referred by Congress for potential prosecution.”

What have Tennessee’s leaders said recently about Trump? Has Sen. Marsha Blackburn acknowledged his role in the Capitol attacks? Has she agreed that his policies created discord and anger the likes of which this country has seldom seen in the modern era? No. The Trump transition team member has remained silent.

What about Gov. Bill Lee? Has he commented on the situation that the GOP finds itself in? No.

Our state leaders here at home and in D.C. have remained quiet on the fact that their party’s de facto leader has just been referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges. Just another day at work for our extreme, far-right public servants!

Bill Freeman

Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post, and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

‘JUSTICE IS COMING FOR DONALD TRUMP’ — AMERICA RESPONDS TO TRUMP’S MISDEEDS AND ELECTION INTERFERENCE

PHOTO: BRIAN CAHN/ZUMA WIRE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

DONALD TRUMP AND MARSHA BLACKBURN

RIDESHARE DRIVERS FILL THE GAP IN HOSPITAL TRANSPORTATION

BY HANNAH HERNER

Apatient with two broken legs, a broken arm and broken ribs was released from TriStar Skyline Medical Center in October, but her family in Kentucky couldn’t come pick her up. So the hospital called a rideshare driver. When Steven Henry showed up in his Honda CRV, nurses helped the patient, who was wearing just a hospital gown, into the car.

“I thought to myself, ‘She should be going home by ambulance,’ ” Henry says. “That was just patient dumping.”

The Lyft app told him ahead of time that it would be a long drive, but he didn’t know he’d be relied on to help the woman into the house once they arrived. In fact, he wasn’t supposed to, per company guidelines. So when he arrived in Kentucky and the patient’s family wasn’t physically able to get her into the house, Henry had to place her on the lawn and call an ambulance.

With spotty coverage from insurancesponsored rides and Nashville’s public transport services as well as a lack of drivers for specialty vehicles, hospitals rely on Uber and Lyft to fill in the gaps when a discharged patient doesn’t have a ride home.

Driver Andrew Holm was put in a similar position in October when nurses helped a patient into his car from Nashville General Hospital. He asked if she was ambulatory, and the nurses said yes. During the less-than10-minute drive to the address the hospital had entered on her behalf, the woman defecated in his car. There was no one home at the address he was directed to, she didn’t have a key, and she was asking for help.

“I can’t help you get in, and I can’t help you get out,” Holm tells the Scene. “It’s against the rules. I’m not going to touch you.”

She moved herself to the curb and called an ambulance.

Holm took that ride in an effort to keep a streak — an incentive in which, for example, the rideshare company offers a bonus of $21 to accept the next three rides without refusing any. After that experience, he says he is more selective. His acceptance rate is down

to 65 percent from his previous 90-plus, he says, and he hasn’t accepted a hospital ride in three months.

Joy Evans, moderator of a Facebook group for local rideshare drivers, says it’s not uncommon for drivers to refuse a hospital ride because the patient can be in bad shape and the driver doesn’t want to be responsible. Plus, when the ride is hailed by a hospital, there might not be a tip. Even so, drivers risk being deactivated for discrimination if they refuse too many.

Marcia Colone is responsible for care coordination and transition management at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The hospital typically operates under a patient-assistance policy guided by its legal and finance department, restricting rides to 25 miles and forbidding the hospital from interfering to arrange a ride if the patient has insurance that could pay for it. She says the public health emergency declared for COVID allowed them to financially assist patients in a way they otherwise would not be able to — though once the emergency period ends (likely in April) it will become more challenging again.

“That means that those patients we have to find other ways to get them discharged and wherever they’re going from the hospital,” Colone says. “It sounds easy, but it is not.”

When the public health emergency ends, VUMC will no longer be able to step in to help on longer rides or when TennCare or WeGo Access (WeGo’s application-only program for the elderly and disabled) rides aren’t available. Kevin Jackson, project manager in Colone’s department, says it’s been especially tough to get TennCare-sponsored rides in the last year.

“TennCare has that 30-minute to four-hour window, that they have to fulfill that transportation,” Jackson says. “A lot of times, due to their lack of staffing, those routes don’t get fulfilled. The [health emergency] waiver allows us to have an extra measure in place, just in case as a backup plan. If those rides don’t get fulfilled, we can cover that transportation if needed.”

Medical transportation brokers have been

around for decades, explains Mindi Knebel, CEO of Kaizen Health, which Vanderbilt uses for about half of its non-emergency rides. At Vanderbilt, Kaizen contracts with seven local agencies to offer more than 30 types of rides — including Uber, Lyft and taxis, as well as wheelchair-accessible vehicles, stretcher vans, ambulances, vehicles with car seats, door-to-door services, door-through-door services, bed-to-bed services and more secure behavioral health and prison transports. What’s relatively new to the field, however, is the addition of Uber and Lyft drivers into the fold, and workforce issues at more specialized contracted transportation services that have taken hold in the past year.

In 2018, Uber introduced a limited model called Uber Health with a health care provider-facing interface that allows providers to request rides on behalf of patients who may not have access. It’s now in use at 3,000 health care organizations nationally, including 80 in Tennessee.

“They need someone to help them navigate the system, explain their benefits, get them where they need to go,” says Caitlin Donovan, global head of Uber Health. “We built [Uber Health] for that group of users that can really tackle those most vulnerable populations at scale.”

In 2021, Lyft launched Lyft Pass for Healthcare, which is meant to allow patients to arrange rides via the app that are paid for by sponsoring medical providers, social services organizations or government insurers. Lyft declined an interview request, directing the Scene to its website and driver policy information.

Ascension Saint Thomas’ practice is similar to Vanderbilt’s, though the hospital declined to comment further on the ins and outs of its process.

“During the intake process, we help each patient develop a personalized plan to meet their transportation needs,” the hospital says in a statement. “When situationally appropriate, we will cover the cost of the patient’s transportation home via rideshare.”

Nashville General acknowledges services like Kaizen and Uber Health and their usefulness, though reps clarify that the hospital is not actively using any such services at the moment.

“Hospital staff may utilize transportation services for anyone experiencing a transportation challenge,” Nashville General says in a statement. “Patients seen in a procedural area must be accompanied by a responsible adult upon discharge, regardless of the mode of transportation. Any usage outside of these instances will be investigated.”

When it’s time for patients to go home, hospitals are incentivized to get them on their way rather than use resources to have patients wait in the facility. With the unpredictability of hospital discharge timing and more hands-on transportation services not always having enough drivers to handle demand, drivers like Holm and Henry answer the call to help out — whether they anticipate it or not.

“I am a human being, and a lot of these people are being thrown out of the hospital and I’m the last act of kindness,” Holm says. “I can only be the neighbor that I need to be during the ride, but there’s things I can’t do. If they have an emergency, I have to call 911.”

STATE REPUBLICANS ATTACK NASHVILLE AID EFFORTS FOR IMMIGRANTS SEEKING ASYLUM

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Republican leaders are opposing the efforts of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and local nonprofits to transport asylum-seeking immigrants who have already been screened by border officials. Recent statements by Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, and U.S. Sens. Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn threatened to derail weeks of planning by DHS and local nonprofits to coordinate aid and logistic support for migrants passing through Nashville.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement initially contacted local partners, including the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, for help coordinating travel logistics for immigrants awaiting court dates for credible asylum claims. That’s according to attorney Lisa Graybill of the National Immigrant Law Center, who told media that the individuals have already been interviewed by an asylum officer and were found to have a credible fear of persecution if they were to return to their home country. The federal government had identified Nashville as a waypoint between ICE’s New Orleans office and individuals’ final destinations within the U.S. before reaching out to local partners.

Individuals released from ICE detention have been determined to not pose a risk to public safety and keep a final destination on file with DHS, according to the agency. The federal government’s Alternatives to Detention program, which monitors individuals awaiting immigration legal proceedings, uses “technology, case management, and other tools to manage noncitizens’ compliance with release conditions,” per a statement from ICE.

Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, hosted a call with media after GOP leaders released hostile statements and Lee made a Dec. 21 appearance on Fox News. Luna explained that aid groups in Nashville had been working to secure airline vouchers, clothing, donations, hotel rooms and temporary shelter in churches for immigrants attempting to connect with family members ahead of the holiday season.

When TIRRC looped in local and state government officials, Republican leaders recast the effort, omitting key details about migrants’ legal status. Hagerty, Blackburn and Lee incorrectly characterized the immigrants as “illegal” in media appearances and press releases. Skrmetti

Hagerty, Blackburn, Lee intervene after learning that ICE tapped Nashville as a waypoint for asylum-seekers

and Lee attempted to connect asylum-seekers to fentanyl deaths in the state and characterized ICE’s transportation plans, which had been under consideration for weeks and included notifying state and local officials, as a political machination by the Biden administration.

“Late last night, we learned of the President’s plan to bus ICE detainees to Tennessee,” said Skrmetti in a press release on Tuesday. “Tennesseans should not be forced to bear the burden of the federal government’s ongoing failure to secure the border. The Attorney General’s Office joins Governor Lee and our federal delegation in demanding the administration abandon their plan to release detainees into our state.”

At the time, no immigrants had been sent to Nashville. There were no concrete plans from ICE to do so at the time of publication.

According to Luna, TIRRC will continue to organize voluntary aid from Tennesseans to immigrants who are awaiting court dates, which would formalize the United States’ offer of legal asylum, a right extended by the federal government.

The Rev. Robin Lovett-Owen of Christ Lutheran Church on Haywood Lane drew direct parallels to the Christmas story in her remarks to media.

“We prepared to do what churches are called to do: to help those in need,” says Lovett-Owen. Her

congregation has been involved in TIRRC’s immigrant aid efforts. “What is most important to us as people of faith is that no one goes hungry, cold or homeless this Christmas.”

At-Large Metro Councilmember Bob Mendes also spoke on Wednesday’s media call in favor of aid efforts. Mayor John Cooper has a long history of favoring TIRRC as a political lifeline for appointments, press conferences, task forces and policy consults related to immigration. But Cooper’s office has remained silent even as Lee criticized local aid efforts on Fox News.

In keeping with a recent trend among GOP leaders, Lee, Hagerty and Blackburn reserve particular ire for Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, technically the top ICE executive. A contingent of proTrump House Republicans has spent the year pushing articles of impeachment on Mayorkas, whom they cast as a rogue ideologue strategically manipulating the country’s immigration machinery for Democrats rather than a career executive struggling with a vast and unwieldy bureaucracy. In this instance, Republicans have demonstrated their party’s eagerness to extend its position on closed borders to include refugees who have been deemed eligible for asylum by ICE officers.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

METRO COUNCIL GIVES INITIAL APPROVAL TO TITANS STADIUM DEAL

Nonbinding terms sheet one step toward city backing for multibillion-dollar project

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

The Metro Council voted 27-8 last week to approve a nonbinding terms sheet related to the city’s plan to help fund the construction of a $2.1 billion enclosed stadium to replace Nissan Stadium.

The vote was a first step in the process, and as the terms of the agreement are nonbinding, future negotiations between the council and the Tennessee Titans remain. Mayor John Cooper and his office have backed the proposal and served as an intermediary between the Metro Council and the NFL organization.

The Metro Council also voted to authorize a 1 percent increase in the city’s hotel tax, revenue from which will go to paying for the stadium’s construction. Other funding mechanisms include a sales tax redirect from inside the stadium and more than 100 acres surrounding it. Development of that “campus” will be a critical component of the project, as the city seeks to enlist developers in an effort to bring mixed-use structures and parks to the area in part consisting of parking lots. Metro is also seeking to study whether

the area’s past and present industrial uses could have left harmful amounts of dangerous chemicals in the to-be-disturbed soil.

Other financial elements of the Titans stadium deal include $500 million from the state and a significant contribution from Titans ownership and the NFL.

Cooper’s push for the new deal has been based on his contention that the original Nissan Stadium lease that brought the Titans to town leaves the city on the hook for billions of dollars in repairs. A replacement stadium, with a new lease, his office argues, would alleviate long-term financial obligations. Opposed Metro councilmembers, citing economic research, contend that new stadiums do not create new spending, but rather redirect it from other areas, meaning the long-term sales tax redirect for the area around the stadium could mean tax revenues that otherwise would go to schools, public safety or citywide infrastructure will instead help pay for the stadium. Opponents also question whether repairs to Nissan Stadium would cost as much as Cooper and the team have contended. EMAIL

BY LAURA BROWN

In the decade since The New York Times christened Nashville “the nation’s ‘it’ city,” there has been no shortage of profiles and travel pieces about our town. There have been drop-ins from coastal publications and television programs, all clamoring for a look at a city that has seen enormous growth in the 21st century.

But this story isn’t about that Nashville. This is a story about the Nashville of the late 1990s. Before the internet, before 9/11, before the bachelorettes descended on Lower Broadway and Nashville found itself a tourist destination for live music and partying. Back then, the biggest tourist attrac-

tion in the area was a music-centric theme park called Opryland USA.

Opened in 1972, Opryland was a popular destination that featured roller coasters and other rides, along with a plethora of live shows that highlighted Nashville’s unique performing arts talent. For a time, the park accompanied both the Grand Ole Opry House — home of Nashville’s iconic Grand Ole Opry radio program since 1974 — and the Opryland Hotel, an architectural marvel featuring an indoor jungle and a river flowing through it. If you find a Nashville native and ask one of us about Opryland, you’ll probably hear us wax poetic with nostalgia for a park that now lives only in our collective memory. What few seem to remember is the clumsy nature of its rushed closure by ownership group Gaylord Entertainment 25 years ago this month.

This is the story of a bad — and very unpopular — business decision. Old newspaper reporting and Gaylord’s financial filings reinforce current company executives’ call that the decision was a “mistake.”

This is the story of how a beloved local landmark was sold out from under the city that made it.

OPRYLAND USA OPENED just eight months after Disney World. It continuously added attractions and rides for the next three decades, and for every year it was open except one, it was Nashville’s top tourist attraction. It had an average of 2 million visitors a year, and employed approximately 2,500 people per season, many of them foreign exchange students and high school students. It was a huge source of job training and career prep for local teenagers.

“Opryland put Nashville on the map,” says Butch Spyridon, who has served as the head of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp since 1991. “With conventions, bus tours and family vacations, they built all of it in the very beginning. They had a rightful seat at the table, and Nashville was doing pretty good at that particular point in time. But everything happened out there off Briley. Our whole industry was on that campus.”

By 1995, Opryland ownership group Gaylord Entertainment, amusement-park trade press and others were positively glowing

about the park’s success and profitability.

“To say officials at the Opryland theme park are delighted with how the park has developed over the years would probably be an understatement,” reported the Nashville Banner in 1995.

Opryland had an incredible lineup of unique roller coasters and other rides. There was the Screamin’ Delta Demon, a bobsled coaster that was the only one of its kind. Chaos was a psychedelic indoor roller coaster that involved a spectacular light show and clever design. It has a twin, a ride called Revolution at Belgian theme park Bobbejaanland, which is still in operation and experimenting with modern technological innovations like virtual reality headsets worn while on the ride.

Then there were the water rides. The Grizzly River Rampage was a whitewaterrafting ride realistic enough that it was used as the course for qualifying rounds ahead of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

There was the Hangman, a huge, inverted steel coaster that launched in 1995 and

Nashville was home to an iconic theme park like no other in the country. And in 1997, it was shuttered for ‘no compelling reason.’

PHOTOS: NASHVILLE BANNER ARCHIVES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION, NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

PHOTO: NASHVILLE BANNER ARCHIVES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

cost Gaylord $8.5 million to build. When it opened, its first ride was broadcast on morning TV. I remember stuffing my shoes with extra socks so I would appear tall enough to ride it, but I was tall enough only once — the last time I went to Opryland, in the summer of 1997, when I was 9. Hangman was open for only two summers at the park.

The railroad that looped around the park had three beautifully restored antique coalburning locomotives that carried people through the park’s patches of trees. The three engines were so beloved that they had names: Beatrice, Rachel and Elizabeth.

It was all brought together by an antique carousel that was hand-carved in Germany, the centerpiece for Opryland’s suite of kids’ rides.

But what really made Opryland special was its unwavering dedication to music. The theme park featured several daily shows and hosted frequent concerts, all featuring members of Nashville’s incredible and growing cast of local musicians. Occasionally, a country music star would make a cameo. Legend Roy Acuff was one frequent celebrity sighting — park patrons would often find him sitting on a park bench signing autographs. The Grand Ole Opry House — which was completed in 1974 and is to this day the home of the Grand Ole Opry — was adjacent to the park.

In 1996, Opryland was the top tourist attraction in Nashville. According to Spyridon, the park was the catalyst that launched Nashville’s growth as a big city. “Prior to the park, the only reason to come to Nashville was to go to the Grand Ole Opry,’’ he told the Nashville Banner at the time. “What the park began to do was create a destination attraction that we needed.”

Which is why the park’s closure came as such a shock.

On Dec. 31, 1997, Opryland closed its doors forever. It was ultimately razed by

Gaylord Entertainment and turned into the multimillion-dollar Opry Mills shopping mall, a gargantuan shrine to capitalism. My family had been Opryland season ticketholders, and we went to the park after church multiple times a month for most of my early childhood. I had just turned 10 when Opryland closed. Its closure was my first broken heart.

Gaylord executives say Opryland was profitable up until the end.

The deal happened so fast it gave the community whiplash. In late August 1997, at the end of the summer season, Gaylord executives were denying a rumor that had caught fire among park staff and visitors. “That’s a ridiculous idea,” Gaylord VP Alan Hall told the Nashville Banner on Aug. 30, 1997. “We’re not going to level the park.”

Maybe not so ridiculous. On Halloween 1997, news broke to the Nashville community that Opryland had only two months left to live. Gaylord partnered with the Mills Corp. on the build of the new property. Details of the deal between Gaylord and Mills are sparse in public documents, but Mills invested more than $225 million in capital to build Opry Mills, and Gaylord maintained a 33 percent ownership stake in the new venture. The Opryland Hotel and the Grand Ole Opry House would be unaffected by the deal, and the new complex would be built around them. It would have an IMAX theater, a bowling alley, an ice skating rink and more than a million feet of retail space.

“Reporters this week ferreted out news that the 25-year-old Opryland theme park, once the brightest star in the Gaylord constellation, is being converted into a retail shopping-entertainment complex that will include specialty stores, live music, amusement rides, perhaps movie screens and skating rinks,” reported the Nashville Banner on Oct. 31, 1997. “It’s a $225 million investment in the belief that a fresh approach

can tap a massive new customer base. Further details are scheduled to be made public Tuesday morning at a function at the Grand Ole Opry House, an appropriate forum for the announcement.”

The reasons given at the time seemed reasonable enough, even though there wasn’t a lot of strategy or analysis to back them up. Attendance at Opryland USA declined slightly in 1997, which was partially due to an uptick in visitation for the 1996 season, the park’s 25th year. The park didn’t have nearby land available for expansion, and it sat unopened during the winter months — a mall would be more valuable year-round.

“The real dilemma was that theme parks have to add something significant every three to five years,” says Spyridon. “Opryland wasn’t losing money, but it wasn’t growing revenue. It was very static, and Gaylord knew they would have to commit a capital investment every three to five years to keep it up-to-date. Roller coasters are 10 to 20 million-dollar investments.”

This was of course before the e-commerce boom, and Gaylord executives, without proper due diligence, decided a giant shopping mall would be more lucrative than a longtime theme park. (It should also be noted that the plan was to build this megamall in a known flood zone, something that would come back to haunt it a little more than a decade later.)

“The public was shocked,” says Spyridon. “The sentiment was absolutely, ‘Don’t take our park away.’ But the decision was done, and obviously Gaylord is a private company. The political conversation was similar — ‘We don’t want to lose the park.’ I think Gaylord tried to soften the news by saying they were going to develop this mall, and it was going to have park elements. They did a pretty good job of convincing people that there would be theme-park-type elements that didn’t come to fruition.”

Spyridon says initial drafts of Opry Mills seemed inspired by the Mall of America in Minnesota. “I looked at massive renderings that showed rides in parking lots and rides in the mall, but the idea was never fully baked.”

Within two weeks of the closure announcement, a chorus of outraged Nashvillians called for the city to purchase and save the park, prompting Mayor Phil Bredesen’s office to issue a statement that read like a death notice: “To preserve the park in its current form seems to be virtually impossible.” Gaylord VP Hall told the Nashville Banner that no, there was no way they would donate any of the rides to the city. No amount of crying from residents or politicians would change that.

Within three weeks of announcing it would close, Opryland had sold most of its major rides to Premier Parks, the Oklahoma City-based company that operates Six Flags, for around $10 million. A few of them would be repurposed as other rides in other theme parks around the country. Hangman was repurposed and is now a ride called Kong at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California. Most of the roller coasters, including the Screamin’ Delta Demon and Chaos, were left to languish in an overgrown field in Indiana before being sold for scrap metal.

In later SEC filings, Gaylord reported costs of $40.2 million related to the closing of the park, including costs to scrap the rides.

THE RUSHED CLOSURE of Opryland had a significant impact on both the local economy and the future of tourism in Nashville. The park was Nashville’s top tourist attraction for the 26 years it was in operation, and its closure led to a decline in tourism to Nashville for the rest of the 1990s.

The tourism industry in Nashville was nowhere near what it has grown to now, and after the park shuttered, it went into panic mode.

“It was, ‘What are we gonna do? We’re dead,’ ” says Spyridon. “We probably lost about 40 percent of our summer business, and it took us down over the course of a year. We were down about 20 percent overall in terms of lost business, which was, fortunately, because the convention business was good. It took a giant chunk out of summer and it forced us to regroup. NCVC put together a campaign called Strength in Numbers, which raised $1.5 million to launch a rebranded marketing effort to position Nashville as a year-round destination. We didn’t have the luxury of lamenting the loss. We had to take the cards we were handed and turn it into something. So we tried to focus on digging our way out. It took us three years to get back to 1998 numbers. Then 9/11 happened, and it took us another three years. I remember talking to the downtown bars — and there weren’t very many then — and I said, ‘We have to look at downtown as a museum by day and a theme park by night.’ We had to use our history and legacy and tell Nashville’s story differently to overcome the impact of the Opryland decision. But Nashville is a stronger, better, bigger destination today. It forced us to become a citywide destination instead of an Opryland destination.”

The community fretted over the loss of the park, not to mention the rushed manner

MAP OF OPRYLAND

of its closure — which left no time for locals to provide input or react to the loss of such a large economic driver and local employer. City officials decried the fact that the emotional attachment of the community to Opryland was not weighed heavily enough in Gaylord’s decision.

“We’ve been very happy with the children working at Opryland,’’ a local parent told the Nashville Banner after the closure. “It was a safe environment, and the people they worked with and for were always really good. I never worried about them walking to their cars. There was just something really special about Opryland. I can’t put my finger on it. They were outside a lot — they were outside where they couldn’t be constantly thinking about what they could spend their money on.”

A scathing letter to the editor ran in the Nashville Banner in January 1998, ripping Gaylord for “placing profits ahead of pleasing the public.”

“As I come home to Nashville on holiday from Memphis, it comes as no surprise to me that the Opryland show park is closing down,” the letter read. “Gaylord Entertainment Company has no desire to touch us citizens in a way that will have a positive,

everlasting impression on our lives. It has one interest: MONEY! PROFIT!”

A few years later, buried at the bottom of a 2004 Tennessean article, Gaylord executives admitted that the decision to close the park had been made without due diligence — that no strategic analysis or business planning had actually taken place. As reported by Barron’s in 2000, the country music business was “flat as a raccoon in the middle of a highway,” and Gaylord’s low stock price at the time reflected “the slump in country.”

“Current Gaylord Entertainment Co. executives say they’ve found no evidence that former decision-makers even had a business plan for Opryland USA theme park, let alone any strategic analysis that led to closing it,” read the 2004 Tennessean piece.

“ ‘It’s clear that the closing of the park negatively affected the number of tourists that visited Nashville in the summer,’ Gaylord spokesman Greg Rossiter said, noting that it affected the number of leisure travelers staying at its Opryland Hotel, as well as every other hotel nearby. ‘The current management team has found no compelling reasons why the decision to close the park was taken in the first place.’ ”

Former Gaylord CEO Bud Wendell, who ran the company from 1991 to 1997, did not mince words over his opinion. Management’s decision to close Opryland was the “dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” he told WPLN in 2018. “And the people that were responsible for it, I would think today would look back on it and say, ‘Yeah, it was a dumb, dumb decision.’ But they felt they could get a greater return on that piece of acreage out there if it were a mall as opposed to a theme park — America’s only musical theme park.”

On Nov. 12, 1997, just days after news of the park’s imminent closure was announced, the Nashville Banner ran an anonymous letter that proved to be prescient. “The public must wake up to stop this kind of destruction of our children’s dream place,” it read. “I urge the management of Gaylord to find an alternative way to increase its corporate profit without disturbing the operation of Opryland theme park. Failure is certain if you choose any other path.”

Opry Mills opened on May 11, 2000. The timing was terrible. The dot-com bubble had just popped, leading to a mild recession. And consumers were slowly beginning to shift their shopping habits away from department stores and toward e-commerce. Gaylord’s business found itself in dire financial straits thanks to mismanagement of its hospitality profile, and oddly, an overinvestment in Christian music dot-coms. By the end of 2000, Gaylord CEO Terry London had resigned, and its board of directors mulled over discontinuing operations of the business entirely.

“There was no vision, direction or consistent leadership in that era of Gaylord until [current Ryman Hospitality CEO] Colin Reed came along,” says Spyridon. “They were going to be a hotel company, or they were going to be a tech company — they literally had no definitive direction.”

At the end of 2002, Gaylord sold the rest of its 33 percent stake in Opry Mills to Mills Corp. for $30.8 million, less than the $40.2 million it spent closing and dismantling Opryland USA — though Gaylord also offloaded more than $50 million in debt in the transaction. Within five years, Gaylord was completely divested from a property that had previously been turning a consistent profit.

By 2007, Mills Corp. was desperate to dump its share in Opry Mills as well. Mills reported significant accounting errors from 2001 to 2004 due to misconduct of executives and accounting professionals. At the time, public relations officials for Mills would claim that most of the errors were made in “good faith.”

Ultimately, Simon Property Group — a massive real estate trust that invests primarily in shopping malls and outlet centers — ended up with full ownership of Opry Mills by 2007, less than a decade after Opryland USA closed. The 2008 financial crisis hit soon after, accelerating the economic conditions that turned consumers away from malls. Between 2007 and 2009, 20 percent of the malls in America were forced to close.

In 2010, historic flooding in Nashville inundated the mall with 10 feet of standing water, and the entire property had to be remediated. A rumor went around at the time that Opry Mills’ Aquarium Restaurant had flooded, sending sea life out into the flooded

concourse of the mall. This rumor of course wasn’t true. But the flood didn’t just damage the mall. The Opryland USA video archives were also damaged in the 2010 flood. Nashville videographer Brandon Vestal has been collecting interviews and footage to replace what was lost in the flood. He is currently working on a documentary — which he calls a “love letter” to the park.

“I want to highlight the everyday aspect of the park and re-create the sights and sounds for those who remember,” says Vestal. “As far as reliving Opryland, the documentary also follows Ryan Crowder, who is rebuilding Opryland in virtual reality. Between the documentary and VR, we want to provide a glimpse of Opryland to a new generation.”

(Vestal is seeking home videos and photos of the park to rebuild the archives. If you have anything to share, reach out to him at brandon@vestalvideo.com.)

After the flood, Opry Mills closed for almost two years as it fought with its insurers over its claim to rebuild. In the end, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that Simon could take only $50 million on a $200 million policy because the mall had been built in a known flood zone.

BUTCH SPYRIDON DOESN’T LIKE to look backward, instead choosing to focus on building Nashville tourism for the future. But he agrees with Gaylord executives that the decision to close the park was a mistake.

“I thought it was a mistake then and still think so now, but Gaylord didn’t ask our opinion or advice,” he says. “We had to pick ourselves up and pick the industry up, and I feel good about our recovery. But it would have been more fun to do with the theme park.”

“Opryland USA is gone, but Opryland is actually still here,” says Vestal, who goes on to quote something Opryland Hotel visionary Jack Vaughn once said in an Opryland employee video.

“

‘It’s the people. It’s you. You are Opryland, and don’t you forget it.’ I’ve been amazed by how deep Opryland runs in the veins of those who made it happen. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with the original leadership, the entertainers, the train conductors — everyone carries the park forward with them. It’s a huge family that extends to the kids who spent their summers there, like me. … If you’re wondering why Nashville boomed, look no further than Opryland USA.”

I like to imagine what Opryland might be like today. I imagine the park as leaning heavily into the tourism renaissance that Nashville has seen over the past decade, growing as much as the honky-tonks of Lower Broad. I like to imagine the park as a linchpin in a more family-friendly Nashville tourism experience. Similar to how Dollywood has evolved in East Tennessee, Opryland could have been a huge driver of economic development here in Nashville.

I imagine Opryland as a place constantly evolving in its dedication to art. I imagine riding Chaos and experiencing a custom laser light show with a soundtrack created by locals. I imagine pop-up concerts by country stars at one of Opryland’s pavilions.

Instead we got a mall. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO:

CRITICS’ PICKS

WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO

FILM [PERFECT 10]

THE SIGHT AND SOUND TOP 10 AT THE BELCOURT

Overshadowed as of late by the general chaos and disorder at Twitter in general, Film Twitter was recently rocked by the release of the 2022 Sight and Sound Film Poll, in which 1,600 critics and directors from throughout the world are surveyed to come up with something approximating a Casey Kasem-style promenade through the history of cinema. It’s released once a decade; the 2012 edition shook things up with Vertigo displacing Citizen Kane at the top of the list. And now, the 2022 list revealed Chantal Akerman’s magnificent exploration of a life in routine breaking out of such a situation — Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — at No. 1. There was a great conflagration, with lots of people ecstatic that S&S was recognizing a legendary film written, directed and shot by women, and others proclaiming the list illegitimate because of wokeness or quotas or more to that effect. The Belcourt, because it can, is stepping up and presenting the 2022 Sight and Sound Top 10 so that each of these films can be seen in a theatrical context. This is key to the cinematic experience, as anyone who has tried to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey at home will tell you. Though the presentation of In the Mood for Love will be the recent 4K revision/ restoration version (thus making Wong Kar-wai the George Lucas of the directors represented here), this is a collection of 10 literally world-changing films, each getting multiple showings across the two weeks of the series. This is your chance to immerse yourself in the greatest works of film art we as a culture have. Dec. 29-Jan. 12 at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. JASON SHAWHAN

ANNIVERSARY EVENTS

Stones River National Battlefield is a remarkable place, a substantial green space criss-crossed with walking and biking trails connected to Murfreesboro’s municipal greenway system. While the city has grown expansively over the past two decades, the national park has remained

TIM CARROLL’S ROCK ’N’ ROLL HAPPY HOUR

FRIDAY,

DEC. 30 The 5 Spot

a place to get lost for a while and reflect on the march of progress. It covers an extensive site near the Stones River where a Civil War battle was fought spanning the end of 1862 and the start of 1863. After leaving Nashville on Dec. 26, 1862, the Union army engaged the entrenched Confederates outside Murfreesboro on Dec. 30 in a harrowing, bloody conflict. The battle raged through Jan. 3, when Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg ordered the Army of Tennessee to retreat and leave Murfreesboro to the bruised and battered Union troops. Each year between Christmas and New Year’s, the park hosts daily talks and walking tours highlighting different aspects of the conflict. This year marks the 160th anniversary of the battle, and one highlight of the special complement of free programs is a suite of half-hour presentations on Dec. 31, with readings of diaries and letters from soldiers who fought there. There are few ways to learn the history of the war that are as vivid and visceral as a walk through the site around the time that troops would have been fighting and sleeping on it. Dec. 2631 at Stones River National Battlefield, 3501 Old Nashville Highway, Murfreesboro STEPHEN TRAGESER

FRIDAY / 12.30

MUSIC [ROCKING HAPPY HOUR] TIM CARROLL’S ROCK ’N’ ROLL HAPPY HOUR

If you want to get your New Year’s weekend off to a rockin’ good start, head over to The 5 Spot after work on Friday for Tim Carroll’s Rock ’n’ Roll Happy Hour. Carroll, one of the unsung heroes of Nashville’s rock scene for more than a quarter-century, has hosted the most rocking happy hour in the city for almost a decade. Backed by bassist Cullen Tierney and drummer Justin Amaral, he serves up two-and-a-half hours of nonstop, original rock ’n’ roll every Friday. This week, Carroll’s show will include material from his hot new record In a World of Hurt, which was released on Dec. 14. It’s the sixth release — five albums and an EP — he has recorded at Dave Coleman’s Howard’s Apartment Studio since 2018. The album features 11 tracks with all the elements we’ve come to expect from Carroll — simple lyrical truths with a dash of humor, swaggering guitar riffs and incendiary leads. Carroll is a guitar man through and through, and like his weekly shows, the album is a reminder of that. 6 p.m. at The 5 Spot, 1106 Forrest Ave. DARYL SANDERS

COMMUNITY [LONG SHADOWS]

STONES RIVER NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD 160TH

PHOTO: STARR BARLOW

STONES RIVER NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD 160TH ANNIVERSARY EVENTS

MUSIC

MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS

Back in the early ’80s, there were plenty of folks in the music industry who advised Chip Davis against doing a Christmas album. But more than 35 years later, Davis’ Mannheim Steamroller is still going strong as one of the most successful Christmas music acts of all time, with more than 31 million albums sold within that genre alone. In fact, Billboard recently included four of the band’s albums on its list of “Top 25 Holiday Albums” — more than any other artist. Balancing elements of classical, New Age and rock music, Mannheim Steamroller continues to win over fans with its unique take on familiar carols, often accompanied by show-stopping multimedia effects. You can check them out for yourself Friday, as the popular band returns to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center to close out its annual Christmas tour with what promises to be a memorable performance. 8 p.m. at TPAC’s Jackson Hall, 505 Deaderick St.

STUMPFL

GIMME GIMME DISCO — A DANCE PARTY INSPIRED BY ABBA

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is going to be freezing cold. During this dark time of year, one of the few things that can help chase the shadows away, that can take me through the darkness to the break of the day, requires clinging to the sun-kissed perfection of the 2008 ABBAinspired musical film Mamma Mia! (or, of course, its follow-up, 2018’s Mamma Mia!

Here We Go Again). Nashville will be feeling more like ABBA’s home country of Sweden than the Greek island where the film is set, but that’s no reason to skip this dance party featuring the hits of ABBA and other disco favorites. 9 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. STEPHEN ELLIOTT

MUSIC [SAY IT AIN’T SNOW, JOE]

GREASY NEALE ORGAN TRIO

It’s been a full century since Cincinnati Reds outfielder Alfred Earle “Greasy” Neale won the controversial 1919 World Series before stepping away to pursue a career as a three-sport college coach on the diamond, the gridiron and the hardwood.

But fortunately for Nashville folks, Greasy lives on in the bouncing bass lines of a local organ jazz ensemble named for the storied athlete. Snow Day, the combo’s first album, is a late-comer that might be one of the best records this town has released in 2022. The sound touches on South American jazz, funky soul and even a cover of the late Angela Lansbury’s title song from Beauty and the Beast. It’s the perfect soundtrack for polishing off a cocktail or two from the staff at The Blue Room. 8 p.m. at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, 623 Seventh Ave. S. P.J. KINZER

MUSIC [FLOAT DOWNSTREAM]

THE LONG PLAYERS PLAY REVOLVER

The February 1964 arrival of The Beatles in the United States marks the beginning of rock ’n’ roll as a kind of music that wasn’t completely in the rock ’n’ roll genre. The quartet’s combination of Carole King and Gerry Goffin-derived songwriting and vocals that evoked the so-called girl groups that were popular in the early ’60s pushed popular music into directions that culminated in their best album, 1965’s Rubber Soul. The August 1965 release of “Yesterday” silenced critics who believed the band was just a gimmick — not that The Beatles were necessarily above using gimmicks to get their message across. So it makes sense that the gimmick of 1966’s Revolver is the avant-garde, as you can hear in the skirling tape loops and guitars on “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Still, the greatest track on Revolver is “Eleanor Rigby,” a brilliant song that tapped into the ’60s trope that took alienation — and loneliness — as a first principle. Revolver is also when Paul McCartney decisively became the leader of the group, and if he never rose to the visionary heights of John Lennon’s crazed 1967 track “I Am the Walrus,” he proved himself an all-around pop master on “For No One” and the ebullient Stax Records rip “Got to Get You Into My Life.” Check out the recent reissue of Revolver, which peaks with several guitar-driven versions of “Got to Get You Into My Life,” and hear the whole thing performed live by an elite group of mostly Nashville musicians. Led by guitarist and singer Bill Lloyd, The Long Players have been performing great renditions of classic

rock albums for several years, and Friday’s show also features singer Hans Rotenberry, who has led power-pop band The Shazam for three decades, along with John Salaway, Trisha Brantley, Rick Schell and Ben Goldsmith. 8 p.m. at 3rd & Lindsley, 818 Third Ave. S. EDD HURT

MUSIC

and locals SecondSELF. Make sure to catch the out-of-towners Tiger Sex, a visceral touring machine who’s been playing all over the Midwest this fall with the likes of Murphy’s Law, Wednesday 13 and The Stools. 7 p.m. at Drkmttr, 1111 Dickerson Pike P.J. KINZER

[ANOTHER

YEAR FOR ME AND YOU, ANOTHER YEAR WITH NOTHING TO DO]

PRE-NYE PUNK PARTY

If you’d rather wrap up 2022 in black leather attire than black tie, DIY hideout Drkmttr has you all set. Not in his wildest dreams or filthiest nightmares did Dick Clark imagine such a rockin’ New Year’s Eve-Eve. The creature-feature sleaze rock of scene veterans The Creeping Cruds and a herd of upstart punx will be closing out the year in the pit. The gig also features the bristles-and-studs riffs of Tank Rats, Murfreesboro’s anime enthusiasts Oi!takus,

DEC. 30-31

MUSIC [AULD ACQUAINTANCE]

NEW YEAR’S EVE SHOWS

As is tradition in Music City, your options for saying goodbye to the old year with a show are myriad. Here’s a thorough — but by no means complete — rundown of happenings for New Year’s Eve. Keep in mind that NYE events often sell out quickly, so get tickets early, or at least check venue websites and social media before you head out.

MUSIC

[THE PASSION OF THE CHRIS] CHRIS CROFTON

Stand-up comic, rock ’n’ roller and longtime local fixture Chris Crofton recently returned from a decade in the trenches in L.A. There Crofton added new chapters to a story that began in the comedy clubs of New York, where he developed his act onstage before coming to Music City and fronting the riotous, aptly named Alcohol Stuntband with miscreant-barfly compatriots during the 2000s. In 2018, he issued a well-received LP, Hello It’s Me, and last January celebrated 10 years of

If you’re looking to get way out of town, Pelham, Tenn.’s The Caverns hosts country rockers The Steel Woods for NYE. Speaking of Panic, Athens, Ga., rock duo Bloodkin will be playing a WSP pre-show up Gallatin at Eastside Bowl on Friday that accompanies a Big Lebowski and Kingpin-themed bowling tournament. Funky Friday plays a post-Panic show that starts Friday at midnight, and Bloodkin will be back Saturday afternoon for an acoustic brunch gig — see the Eastside Bowl site for all the details. Meanwhile, beloved ’90s tribute ensemble My So-Called Band takes over the ’Bowl to ring in 2023 on Saturday night.

The municipal extravaganza New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash includes performances in Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park with highlights including Kelsea Ballerini, Sheryl Crow, Brooks & Dunn, Jimmie Allen, Little Big Town, the Zac Brown Band and The War and Treaty (plus Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan if that’s your thing); the show will also be broadcast live on CBS stations. For the jam fans in the audience, Georgia’s own Widespread Panic takes over Bridgestone Arena for a two-nighter on Dec. 30 and 31. Old Crow Medicine Show continues their tradition of saying goodbye to the old year from the Ryman, with shows both Friday and Saturday supported by Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway Americana Music Association Emerging Artist of the Year (and recent Scene cover star) Sierra Ferrell has a New Year’s Eve Circus Spectacular planned at Brooklyn Bowl

A few blocks deeper into Madison, Shannon McNally holds court at Dee’s in high Southern rock style. Heading back toward downtown, pop ’n’ rocker Sunshine Scott headlines New Year’s East at The East Room with help from The Sewing Club, Bluphoria and Otnes. Meanwhile, the Sweet Tea Dance dance party takes over The Basement East for NYE, while Fly2K throws it back to the ’90s and Aughts with their NYE TRL Countdown Show featuring a live band and VJs at The 5 Spot

Heading over the Cumberland, Acme Feed & Seed has a Disco Rodeo New Year’s Eve Party Countdown for you, while jazz and R&B heroes The Wooten Brothers will post up at Rudy’s Jazz Room for The Get Down New Year’s Eve Guilty Pleasures take rock and pop fans back to the ’70s and ’80s at 3rd and Lindsley, while songsmith Marc Broussard and his full band have three shows (8 p.m. Dec. 30, 7 and 11 p.m. on Dec. 31) at City Winery

Down at the Station Inn, Mike Bub convenes a star-studded group of country, old-time and bluegrass instrumentalists including Jenee Fleenor, Trey Hensley, Rob Ickes, Mary Meyer, Scott Vestal and Kurt Storey Their Rockin’ NYE Show’s festivities include a eulogy for 2022 and a greeting of the New Year’s baby. Funky dance-pop duo Cherub, meanwhile, brings The Brummies and Gibbz on An Adventure Into the New Year at Marathon Music Works, and rockers supreme Thelma and the Sleaze gather Jenny Wood, El Siren and MAANTA RAAY for New Year’s Sleaze at The End Dec. 30-31 at various locations

STEPHEN TRAGESER

AMY

[FRIDAY NIGHT AND THE LIGHTS ARE LOW]

SIERRA FERRELL

KELSEA BALLERINI

sobriety — experiences that have given him newfound, hard-earned clarity of intent, which (full disclosure) he employs as an advice columnist for the Scene’s recurring Advice King feature. “I don’t separate music and comedy anymore — I’m in the best mood when I have a guitar on, even if I’m not playing it,” Crofton, who turns 54 in April, tells the Scene. “Part of why I quit drinking was to learn to accept bombing. If you can handle that without drugs and alcohol, you can handle anything.” Here he’ll be performing material from a new record, due in ’23, and resurrecting East Nashville-centric Stuntband classics like the iconic “Dickerson Pike” with openers Justin and the Cosmics as his backing band. Show up early for prolific DIY pop savant Brett Rosenberg, alias Quichenight. 9 p.m. at The 5 Spot, 1106 Forrest Ave. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

SUNDAY / 1.1

man at the wheel. ’Mania season technically begins at the Royal Rumble at the end of January, but the build to that often kicks into gear after Christmas, particularly on the TV broadcasts that don’t get jammed up with competition from the calendar or college football. If that sexy discussion of wrestling scheduling doesn’t convince you: Consider the joy of the id-ish release of watching impossibly attractive human beings throwing each other around for three hours after three weeks of being trapped inside with relatives you only mildly tolerate, unable to go outside because it’s 13 degrees for some reason. Wrestling is the best. 6:30 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway J.R. LIND

TUESDAY / 1.3

MUSIC [STANDARD TUNING] LONG JON

2022 got off to a trashy start in Nashville. The city was forced to suspend curbside recycling pickup on Dec. 21, 2021, after its recycling pickerupper filed for bankruptcy, leaving residents with tall stacks of junk for weeks before pickup resumed in February 2022. We’re not saying that’s going to happen again, especially since the city went out of its way to ink contracts with two separate waste-collection companies to prevent future stoppages. Still, the holidays tend to produce a lot of trash, so it’s nice to know where your local residential waste dropoff center is if you can’t wait for your next curbside pickup date. Nashville operates four convenience centers that accept most forms of residential waste and recyclables: East Convenience Center (943A Dr. Richard G. Adams Drive), Ezell Pike Convenience Center (3254 Ezell Pike), Omohundro Convenience Center (1019 Omohundro Place) and Anderson Lane Convenience Center (939A Anderson Lane). There are also 10 recycling-specific drop-off spots throughout the greater Davidson County area, including in Brentwood, Antioch, Green Hills and Old Hickory. Don’t expect a gross city landfill, either — while individual sites vary, the drop-off point closest to me is a tidy spot located near the wonderful Two Rivers Park in Donelson. You can visit nashville.gov/departments/water/ waste-and-recycling for more information, including hours and exactly what’s accepted at each center. Hours vary at various sites around Nashville COLE VILLENA

MONDAY / 1.2

WWE: MONDAY NIGHT RAW

The post-Vince McMahon era of the WWE that began in earnest at SummerSlam in Nashville in July has, by and large, lived up to the promise it showed with that stellar event at Nissan Stadium. Now the new regime is building to its first WrestleMania without the old

As bluegrass supergroups go, Long Jon features a brace of excellent musicians who don’t always identify as bluegrass players. This doesn’t bother me, since I often wonder if hewing to all those standard tunes and approaches doesn’t prevent bluegrass from being a truly modern genre. (Yeah, I appreciate Billy Strings, who brings a certain energy to the enterprise.) As is also often true in a music town where everyone seems to think they own country music and wants to guard it against, you know, innovation, bluegrass sometimes seems like a fallback position. Tonight’s show at storied bluegrass venue the Station Inn is one of those events that might prove my theories wrong, since Long Jon sports the talents of picker Charlie Worsham, whose 2022 award for acoustic guitar playing from the Academy of Country Music is a welldeserved accolade for a superb musician. Worsham has toured with the likes of Taylor Swift, and his 2021 single “Fist Through This Town” is an interesting — and rockedout — complaint about how Nashville treats its musicians poorly. Worsham has been touring with Hot Country Knights, a jokey country-bluegrass project headed by country star Dierks Bentley, who is also a member of Long Jon. The group is fleshed out by Ben Helson, Dan Hochhalter and Cassady Feasby, who join Steve Misamore and Tim Sergent in the eternal search for the perfect bluegrass moment. 8 p.m. at the Station Inn, 402 12th Ave. S. EDD HURT

WEDNESDAY / 1.4

the hooks and solos but also isn’t afraid to show a vulnerable side. Heart-on-sleeve standouts like “Tongue Tied” and “The Many Lines of Your Shapes” conjure rollcredits music for coming-of-age epics not yet written. Locals Shakira Chinchilla and Rico Del Oro support. 7 p.m. at The End, 2219 Elliston Place CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

[SONGSMITH’S TRIBUTE]

MUSIC

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE TRIBUTE

The death of singer, songwriter and guitarist Justin Townes Earle in August 2020 deprived the world of a superbly talented musician who was just getting started. By the time of his death, Earle — the son of Steve Earle — had been in something of a career lull after making his mark with the 2010 album Harlem River Blues. I think this was the result of changing fashions and not a commentary on the quality of the younger Earle’s work, which remained excellent throughout his career. Justin Townes Earle was 38 when he died, and that’s an age when many musicians are forced to rethink their approaches. In some ways, Earle embodied the impulses

of Americana music — a genre that had changed considerably in the decade after the release of Harlem River Blues. As a musician committed to writing frankly about the unguarded moment, Earle was a student of the way blues musicians combine candor and deception, and he might not have felt at home in the expanding universe of Americana. After the pandemic began to change the music business, he seems to have been affected by the isolation it required. Talking to Rolling Stone’s Jonathan Bernstein about Earle in early 2021, Nashville musician Steve Poulton said: “He needed an audience. He was used to having one: putting that energy out, and getting it back.” Steve Earle recorded an album of his son’s songs, J.T., that was released in 2021. It’s loose, intense and superb — one of the best records of the year. Wednesday at the Ryman, Steve Earle heads up a tribute show to Justin Townes that will feature Jon Langford, Amanda Shires, Elizabeth Cook and Emmylou Harris. They’ll play songs from his songbook on his birthday. 7:30 p.m. at the Ryman, 116 Rep. John Lewis Way N. EDD HURT

MUSIC [SOUTHWESTERN MEDICINE]

MOZART GABRIEL

Intriguingly monikered Mozart Gabriel comes to us from Taos Pueblo, N.M., with a grip of gutsy, emotive tunes reflecting his Navajo Nation roots and omnivorous tastes. Through touring this work, which hits on glam, pop-punk, acoustic folk, electric blues — and that’s just scratching the surface — Gabriel caught the ear of Jared Corder of Nashville alt-rock greats *repeat repeat, who mixed 2021’s Eager Within the Fire and cameo’d on one track, “Across Seas.” Equal parts high-energy rippers and monster ballads, the seven-song collection piles on

COMMUNITY

[UN-TRASHIN’ THE CAMP] DROP BY YOUR LOCAL RECYCLING CENTER

SPORTS [HAPPY BRAWL-IDAYS]

MOZART GABRIEL

BELLY UP

FatBelly Pretzel brings its creativity to the East Side

BY KELSEY BEYELER

On a recent weekday around lunchtime, FatBelly Pretzel Bakery and Deli’s new location on Gallatin Avenue is buzzing with customers as reggae music plays. The walls are painted black and yellow, complete with a muffuletta mural on one side and pretzels and playful cartoon faces painted on the other. The staff is friendly and patient, and the atmosphere — not to mention the food — elevates what could be a typical lunch break into an unexpectedly enjoyable lunchtime hang. This isn’t by accident.

“FatBelly is about making people smile, making people feel special and connected,” says co-owner Levon Wallace. “We strive to do so by (hopefully) making the best possible version of that comforting classic that you came here for. Be it a classic FatBelly

pretzel, a crispy-cheesy StuffedBelly, a chocolatey PretzelCrunch Cookie or a piledhigh FatBelly Sando worthy of your lunch break.”

Though this location is relatively new — it opened in late October — you might have heard of FatBelly before. Since 2020, Wallace and his wife Kim have been slinging their savory offerings around town via farmers markets, pop-ups and online orders. Before that, Wallace worked as a culinary director for Strategic Hospitality and opened a Cochon Butcher outpost. The Wallaces pivoted to pretzel-making during the pandemic. (Read more about the birth of FatBelly in Levon Wallace’s August 2020 interview with Chris Chamberlain for the Scene’s food and drink blog, Bites.)

These days, the case at FatBelly Pretzel overflows with gorgeous delectables. You’d be remiss not to try a pretzel, obviously — but even then, you have options. The salted, everything and cinnamon sugar pretzels are all vegan, and all awesome. Their somewhat irregular shapes make for a range of textures. In his chat with Chamberlain, Wallace described them as a “hybrid Bavarian-style pretzel, with crispy arms and a nice chewy fat belly.” You can choose from an array of house-made dipping sauces, ranging from cream cheese and horseradish mustard to

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

LANGO SANDWICH

whipped pimiento cheese. I went one morning and ordered a coffee and an everything pretzel with the jalapeño buttermilk cream cheese — a delightful alternative to a breakfast bagel. The stuffed pretzels are something else entirely. Think of a boat-shaped, pretzicular vessel that carries a rotating lineup of fillings like caramelized onions and Swiss cheese, pesto and provolone, and jalapeño and cheddar, among others.

The Wallaces have made it clear that they make a damn good pretzel, but they have plenty more to offer. You’ll see items like pretzel danishes and pretzel cookies, plus other daily specials. And then there’s the deli, which is no afterthought.

“When the deli part of the program was born, we thought, ‘If you’re gonna make a sandwich, you’re gonna need some bread, so let’s start there,’ ” says Wallace. “And so we committed to making sandwiches on freshbaked bread daily.”

The menu features staples like sandwiches, salads and sides, though the daily specials are worth indulging in. There’s FatBelly’s award-winning muffuletta and their breakfast sandwich, but I like to order the Lango — loaded with roast beef, Swiss and American cheeses, coleslaw, banana-pepper mayo and pickles, all loaded into a Dutch crunch bun. Like all of FatBelly’s sand-

wiches, it’s monstrous — I usually have to devise a game plan for how to tackle it. Bite off a corner and work my way inward? Dive head-first into the middle for what will surely be a messy albeit satisfying bite? I usually go for a sort of hybrid approach, taking the biggest bite I can from the side to ensure optimal flavor. I am successful, and I quickly find my groove, inhaling the rest. Despite the size of the sandwich, it’s lighter than I expected. The Dutch-crunch bread is a bit chewy, not too dense, and it’s crackly on top. The roast beef is perfectly cooked, and the flavors complement each other well.

There’s so much to love at FatBelly. What strikes me most is the creativity that goes into its every aspect — from the space itself to the sandwiches and pretzel-centric treats, to the takeaway meals that are ready to be reheated at home. Each offering is exciting and approachable.

“That connection is what drives us as chefs and owners,” says Wallace. “We find it really hard not to be inspired when someone lights up after you’ve handed them something we’ve poured our hearts into for the last two-plus years.”

So far, the Wallaces are successful in their mission to “spread love like mustard.”

EMAIL

ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

TENN — TOASTED BUCATINI

Housed in a downtown boutique hotel, TENN serves contemporary Southern fare

BY SARAH STEWART

Housed in the historic downtown Nashville building now home to boutique hotel Holston House is TENN, a restaurant serving chic, unique takes on Southern comfort food in an intimate setting. Vegan and vegetarian options are limited, but the few items that feature plant-based ingredients more than make up for the lack of variety.

On side A of TENN’s lunch and dinner menu is the Charred Heirloom Carrot Salad. Roasted carrots lie on ginger-whipped feta, which chef Shannon Williams graciously replaced with a dairy-free sauce, complementing the flavors of the dish perfectly. The striking tartness of the pickled cherries is followed by a slight sweetness that adds depth to this dish — it is as creative as it is unexpected.

Side B’s Toasted Bucatini is an entrée that allows vegetarians to enjoy a pasta dish that defies expectations. In the place of a hearty pomodoro or decadent alfredo, TENN’s bucatini features a local mushroom ragù, and the vegetables themselves take center stage in the flavor of the dish. The thicker bucatini pasta with the thin mushroom sauce makes for a dish of balanced, complementary flavors. Fried sweet potatoes add a delightful contrast of texture, but the leafy green topping makes it stand out.

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

JALAPEÑO AND CHEDDAR STUFFED PRETZEL

Featuring only the very best eateries, attractions and more. Wanna know who fries up the best hot chicken or which rooftop bar offers the prettiest views? It’s all inside, along with our favorite outdoor music venues, kid-friendly restaurants, museums and more!

A MAC GAYDEN MIXTAPE

Ahead of the Nashville legend’s gathering at 3rd and Lindsley, we consider a collection of essentials and hidden gems from his vast catalog

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

In September, Nashville-born music legend Mac Gayden played a concert bursting with guests. Called Friends Over, the gathering was a show of support and a tribute to a living legend, and it would have been a perfectly fitting way to bring his performing career to a close. At 81, the singer, songwriter and guitarist has participated in some of Music City’s most enduring sessions, written some of its most enduring songs and seen some of the local music community’s most radical changes. As Gayden pointed out when he spoke with the Scene in September, his Parkinson’s disease limits his ability to play, and eventually he will have to retire fully.

But Gayden’s not finished just yet. On Wednesday, Jan. 4, he’ll get the gang back together — including friends and collaborators like Buzz Cason, The Valentines and Dianne Davidson, family members like Mac Gayden Jr. and Oceana Gayden Sheehan, and more — at 3rd and Lindsley for Friends Over Part 2: The Good Medicine Show. Ahead of the gig, I took some time to ruminate on an essential batch of Mac tracks, and I reached out to the man himself for a list of songs he felt defined his career as an artist and who he is as a person. The last two entries on our list are bonus picks of my own, and I’ve included context and commentary with the whole bunch just to underscore how massive Gayden’s contributions are.

ROBERT KNIGHT, “EVERLASTING LOVE” (RISING SONS, 1967)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again until the sun burns out: “Everlasting Love” is a perfect song. A co-write with the legendary Buzz Cason, this R&B gem has inspired thousands of covers, kicked off thousands of first wedding dances and survived untold numbers of karaoke butcherings to become one of the cornerstones of American pop. The late, great Robert Knight had the first hit with it.

CLIFFORD CURRY, “SHE SHOT A HOLE IN MY SOUL” (ELF, 1967)

This Southern-as-all-get-out soulwrencher would not only inspire fellow Tennesseans and proto-punk forebears The Box Tops, but would cross the Atlantic and take on a life of its own. In the hands of American expat Geno Washington and his Ram Jam Band, the song became a mod classic and a Northern Soul staple

BOBBY BARE, “IT’S ALRIGHT” (RCA, 1965)

Recorded at the height of the master song-picker’s imperial phase, when Bare was an unstoppable hit machine but taking his interpretive powers to new heights, “It’s Alright” is a folky, melancholy charmer. It’s also Gayden’s first hit song. “It’s Alright” crams all of the craft and artistry that we expect from Nashville’s golden age into one little nugget of perfection.

JAMES & BOBBY PURIFY, “MORNING GLORY” (MERCURY, 1976)

A comeback for the “I’m Your Puppet” soul singers, “Morning Glory” is a groovy little waker-and-baker, a country soul shuffle that luxuriates in the big horns of the recording on the duo’s album Purify Bros. On the metaphorical flip side, you’ve got Gayden’s own version recorded with his band Skyboat. In that rendition, Gayden’s slide guitar stands in for the horns to create a sound as sublime as gravy on biscuits.

BAREFOOT JERRY, “THE MINSTREL IS FREE AT LAST” (CAPITOL, 1971)

Barefoot Jerry was essentially The Avengers of Nashville instrumentalists, an unstoppable supergroup of players at the height of their powers. “The Minstrel” sees Mac take lead vocals and songwriting duties, absolutely crushing a song that oozes

progressive musical ideas while keeping things taut and engaging. And that fade-out just screams, “We can jam this out for another 20 minutes,” an attitude I can get behind.

J.J. CALE, “CRAZY MAMA” (SHELTER, 1971)

If you want to talk about sounds that have been permanently etched into our brains, we need to talk about Gayden’s slide-wah guitar on Cale’s Naturally classic. The way Gayden slowly builds dynamics, swelling subtle vibrations and fluid fretwork to a crispy tube frizzle, the way the guitar slinks between Cale’s vocals and his strumming — it’s incredible, and one of those high-water marks for American music that Gayden always seems to find himself in.

MAC GAYDEN, “TENNESSEE” (EMI, 1973)

When you talk to Gayden it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that one of the highlights in a career full of them was cutting a record with legendary producer Bob Johnston. Recorded after the two had worked together on Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, the McGavock Gayden album is proto-Americana at its finest. If this record came out of Nashville next week we’d be hurling hosannas like there was no tomorrow. As it stands, McGavock Gayden is a crate classic begging for a full and proper reissue campaign.

SKYBOAT, “DIAMOND MANDALA” (ABC, 1976)

If modern Nashville is a place where

rock, soul, country, folk and psychedelia all live side by side in harmony, “Diamond Mandala” is a clear roadmap to that shared existence. Clocking in around 10 minutes, the closing track from Skyboat’s self-titled album is a swirling, flute-soaked flight through the mind that feels expansive, but masterfully balanced.

AREA CODE 615, “STONE FOX CHASE” (POLYDOR, 1970)

Area Code 615’s two LPs, Area Code 615 and Trip in the Country, are two of the grooviest records to ever come out of Music City. On this list, “Stone Fox Chase” stands in for the other 20 or so bangers in their discography. A master class in musicianship and service to the song, the Area Code 615 oeuvre shows Nashville culture at its zenith and may feature Gayden’s only credit on French horn.

THE FABULETTES, “SCREAMIN’ AND SHOUTIN’ ” (SOUND STAGE 7, 1966)

Ray Stevens behind the boards, Shelby Singleton signing the checks and Mac Gayden writing the songs is a formula for some fire, lemme tell you — and with Florida trio The Fabulettes in front of the mic, it’s a full-on conflagration. If you’re lucky, you can still find 45-rpm copies of this top-notch soul shouter hiding in dusty crates and yard sale stacks. It is well worth the hunt.

that helped form the foundation of modern British dance music.

PLAYING WEDNESDAY, JAN. 4, AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY

BIG FEELS

The Nashfeels party never stops

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

In 2021, Nashfeels came blasting out of the gate with an R&B dance party masterminded by two experts in the art of the throwdown: longtime local music scene booster, 2 L’s on a Cloud founder and sometime Scene contributor D’Llisha Davis and her creative partner Stephen Thomas. Together they’ve developed Nashfeels into a must-attend party, selling out bigger and bigger rooms. They started out in the 500-capacity Mercy Lounge and graduated to the 1,000-plus-capacity Cannery Ballroom. When the Mercy complex shuttered, they moved over to Brooklyn Bowl, and they’ve been selling out that 1,200-capacity room, too.

Each Nashfeels has a theme, and the upcoming party on Jan. 7 takes a slight left turn into old-school Southern hip-hop. Called The South Got Something to Say, the event will feature some DJ legends of the Dirty South on the decks, including Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul and UGK’s C-Wiz. The plan is to start with contemporary Southern rap anthems and work backward in time as the night goes on, celebrating all that artists from Memphis, Atlanta, various Texas locales and more spots across the South have brought to hip-hop throughout the genre’s rich five-decade history. Just before Christmas, we caught up with Davis and Thomas for a brief phone chat.

What made you decide that keeping things regional and local was the way to focus a party?

D’Llisha Davis: We are two products of Nashville who’ve recognized the [shortage] of safe spaces when it comes to just going out and having a high-quality night of fun that you don’t have to go straight to Broadway for. We come from the nostalgia era of Nashville: the Second Avenue club scene, the Mix Factory, Karma Lounge — all these spaces where it was a deeply rooted local club scene.

Stephen Thomas: That’s an idea we’ve been sitting on for a year or two, even before COVID. … We had this idea, and we just think now is the perfect time for us to venture off into hip-hop. Because we usually do R&B with our Nashville party, but we’re going to venture off into hip-hop and just basically let people know we’re not a brand that’s stuck on one genre.

What has been the most challenging part of promoting a club night in the post-quarantine era?

DD: The growing pains have just been having to shift with buildings getting torn down, management changing. We started at Mercy Lounge and they were sold, so we could only be there for so long. And we went from Mercy Lounge to the Cannery Ballroom, which was downstairs and allowed that 1,000 capacity. Once everything closed, and then [the entertainment scene] having to also recover from COVID — it was hard. It was very tough. You don’t have people who typically let you book local parties in big rooms, because they don’t trust it. They don’t trust

the sales, the bar revenue. And we actually connected with Brooklyn Bowl, and they just kind of gave us a chance.

ST: We’re in a sweet spot because people being cooped up in the house for two years [were] eager to get out and do something that’s safe and fun at the same time. We take pride in our events that there’s never incidents, to where people are getting rowdy or anything. So everybody’s coming out, having fun, being safe — that’s what we pride

ourselves in.

What do you think has been the most rewarding thing about getting this party going?

ST: Just the positive feedback everybody is giving us. And us selling out. We sold out every show we’ve done. And we continue to grow. … We have a pretty good situation going on, and we’re proud of that. And we care about our people and the music and the entertainment, and just us coming together

and having fun. Being safe.

DD: It’s beautiful to just have the support of the community. That’s always the hardest thing. Whether you’re an artist, a small business, you’ve got to have the support of your community. So to have these people trusting us every time we do it, and it sell out weeks in advance as if it was a big tour — that says a lot. … It’s just genuine fun that we are kind of pushing out to the city.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

SATURDAY, JAN. 7, AT BROOKLYN BOWL

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

D’LLISHA DAVIS AND STEPHEN THOMAS AT BROOKLYN BOWL

THE SIDE

PLAYER SIDEBAR SURVEY

Talking with superb instrumentalists Austin Willé, Megan Coleman, Larissa Maestro, Tripper Ryder and Robbie Crowell

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

The premise for this little chat — originally published online as an addendum to our Year in Music issue — is simple: Ask a bunch of instrumentalists what they are seeing from their spots on the side of the stage. Frontfolks get a lot of coverage in this town, and we thought it would be fun to catch up with some of the city’s finest to shout out their peers. The answers exhibit the sort of energy, excitement and love that makes this place special — even more so beyond the spotlight. Also, food! Mmm, food.

WHO HAVE YOU PLAYED ALONGSIDE THIS YEAR?

Megan Coleman: I have had the great privilege of playing with many brilliant artists and musicians (too many to name) and I am proud of all of it. Most of my road dates were spent playing with Jenny Lewis and the incredible women that also accompany her. I also did some playing with Allison Russell (many times featuring Brandi Carlile) and the wonderful collective of women that is [her band] The Rainbow Coalition of the Loving. Additionally, I started a band called Wiggle Room with my friends Rhees Williams and Andrew Dornoff. We only played one show before everyone’s schedules went bonkers, but hoping to do way more this next year.

Austin “AyyWillé” Willé: Brian Brown, Reaux Marquez, The BlackSon, Case Arnold, Ron Obasi, Adia Victoria, Ashley Emj.

Larissa Maestro: Allison Russell, Margo Price, Tyler Childers, Brandi Carlile, Kyshona.

Robbie Crowell: Midland, Lauren Morrow, Brian Wright, Shannon McNally, Ladycouch, etc.

Tripper Ryder: In a fun nightmare, it’d be like subbing for every set of one day of a weird music festival: Trace Adkins (the Monarch show), Chase Bryant, Tommy Howell, Kayley Green, Tera Lynne Fister, Katie Colosimo, The Dead Deads, Self, Soft Power FM, The Heartshakers, Scotty Mac Band, Nashville Cover Band, Tim Andrews Band, The Curves, Krystal Steel, Eva Jerde, Grace

Tyler, Natalie Murphy, Whiskey Cash Roses, Aly Cutter, The MIPs and more!

WHAT LOCAL RECORD HAS THE BEST SIDE 1, SONG 1?

AW: $avvy’s song “Call Me” off his album Poor.

LM: Nothing has been able to top Po nychase’s “Parade of Youth” (from 2014’s Parade of Youth) yet, except maybe Kysho na’s “Listen” (from Listen, 2020).

MC: The Shindellas, Hits That Stick Like Grits

RC: Justin Collins, “Asshole Eyes,” off his upcoming record Cool Dead

TR: It’s a tie between [Nashville Symphony music director Giancarlo] Guerrero conducting Harbison’s Requiem and Diarrhea Planet’s “Hard Style.”

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SIDE DISH IN NASHVILLE?

MC: Cornbread from Edley’s.

AW: Lobster bisque at Blue Crab Shack.

LM: The Grilled Cheeserie Old Fashioned Tomato Soup.

RC: The grilled meatball fresh rolls at VN Pho.

TR: Broccoli tahini salad at BE-Hive. Pairs perfectly with Delta-8ibles!

WHICH LOCAL SIDEPLAYER HAS HAD THE BEST YEAR?

MC: Larissa Maestro as well as SistaStrings — though I could easily name several more.

AW: It’s between honestly myself and guitarist/producer Tahina [Fiaferana].

LM: SistaStrings for sure!!!

RC: Jerry Pentecost, as he made the transition from sideman to band member and even occasional frontman. Jerry’s also the epitome of the consummate sideman, with more hustle than any other two people I know.

TR: Justin Butler. I hear he shaved 15 points off his handicap.

WHICH LOCAL INSTRUMENTALIST HAS THE COOLEST SIDE HUSTLE?

MC: Amanda Fields and Megan McCormick have a house painting business and I think that is pretty damn cool.

AW

: My homie Dylan who plays with Case Arnold has a legal mushroom business sell ing directly to restaurants — pretty dope.

LM: Ellen Angelico for her “Favorite Thing at Fanny’s of the Week.”

RC: James Haggerty, sourdough maker su preme!

TR: Also Justin Butler. He’s a true artisan with electronics and gear, and he’s making a lot of people sound better. Thanks for the rad board! Ascend the #tonethrone.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

FROM LEFT: MEGAN COLEMAN, AUSTIN “AYYWILLÉ” WILLÉ, LARISSA MAESTRO, ROBBIE CROWELL, TRIPPER RYDER

PRIMAL STREAM: BEST PHYSICAL MEDIA OF 2022

From ’70s sci-fi to trashy ’90s madness and beyond, here are some of the year’s best home-video offerings

BY JASON SHAWHAN

2022 has been a year of surprising home video releases. Even as the vast majority of films seem to be keyed into streaming exclusively (not to mention the truly ghoulish way that the HBO/Warner empire keeps disappearing completed works of art for tax purposes), there are some enterprising boutique labels (or bigger studios who understand the devotion with which the physical media market operates) who have been working overtime. So if you have someone in your life who gets overly annoyed by the way streaming seems to have steamrolled all other home video experiences, perhaps something in this assemblage might make for a good gift.

PLAYDURIZM (ARTSPLOITATION BLU-RAY)

This indie was on my Top 10 for 2021, and its Blu-ray debut is worth celebrating for anyone who digs innovative and forward-thinking queer science-fiction. Demir (director/star/co-writer Gem Deger) finds himself in a Day-Glo fantasy world of intrigue and violence, on the run from something he can’t completely remember, somehow rescued from the oncoming menace by Andrew (Austin Chunn, in one of 2021’s best performances) and his mysterious lady friend Drew (Issy Stewart). As things get weirder and reality starts to glitch, secrets are revealed, and allegiances are questioned like you wouldn’t believe. You can experience Playdurizm as a mystery

or an exorcism, or even a meditation on the positive side of fandom, and the many ways that we as viewers experience and care for works of art. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I’m glad that a work this distinctive, visionary and heartfelt doesn’t simply get shunted off to the streaming void. It starts like horny cotton candy, finishes like lysergic communion.

MEDUSA (MUSIC BOX BLU-RAY)

Medusa is a sleek and visceral indictment of Christian fascism, mean-girl mentalities and Bolsonaro-era Brazil that becomes a weird and elusive dive from viral (trending) bondage into viral (infectious) liberation. This looks like a collaboration between the cinematographers Romano Albani in the ’80s and Miami Vice-era Dion Beebe. This played Nashville for two days, and I was literally begging people to watch it. Now, in the comfort of your own home, you can experience it (and several interesting supplements, including some perceptive words from writer-director Anita Rocha da Silveira) and be deeply troubled. It actually pairs very well with Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider in depicting the damages of fundamentalism in unconventional ways.

EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (VESTRON/LIONSGATE BLU-RAY)

Occasionally streaming in a cropped aspect ratio, this candy-colored (with

Angelyne cameo) romantic sci-fi musical gives us the glory days of Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum, early turns

Trek film (fight me,

land

Fernando Valley and save a manicurist from what could be a loveless marriage, with songs by The B-52s, Depeche Mode and The Jesus And Mary Chain. This new, long-awaited Blu-ray features an essential commentary from co-star/cowriter Brown, and it is an essential listen for an enduring classic of 1980s musicals.

FREEWAY (VINEGAR SYNDROME 4K/BLU-RAY)

Previously available on a nonanamorphic DVD that lurked in Walmart $5 DVD bins like time-delayed grenades of gloriously trashy shock, this meth-y riff on Little Red Riding Hood is unquestionably Reese Witherspoon’s finest hour. As runaway teen Vanessa Lutz, she matches wits with serial killer Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland) in a genuinely transgressive film from writerdirector Matthew Bright. Now restored (including two minutes that had to be cut in 1995 to get an R rating) in 4K by the lovable freaks at Vinegar Syndrome, it’s ready to breathe new life and shock the hell out of people all over again.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURE (PARAMOUNT 4K) All three extant versions of the best Star

are gathered in new 4K restorations. This is a suitably lavish (lots of ephemera and extras, including reproductions of original Trek memorabilia) but questionably packaged (discs should not be tucked into pockets in a fold-out paperboard assemblage) box set. If you’ve been waiting for the best way to experience The Motion Picture — whether its Original 1979 Theatrical version, the 1983 Special Longer Version or the 1999 Director’s Edition — it’s not going to get better than this. This is 1970s sci-fi at its finest.

THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND (IMPRINT BLU-RAY)

Sam Peckinpah’s 1984 film maudit swan song of intrigue, espionage and cocaine has languished on home video, with a series of attempts at DVD and Blu-ray that did what they could with what they had. But Imprint Video in Australia has stepped things up across the board with a sumptuous regionfree box set with three HD transfers of the film: the original theatrical cut in a stellar restoration and also in a direct scan from a 35 mm print, and then Peckinpah’s rejected director’s cut directly scanned from his recently discovered personal print. If you love The Osterman Weekend, or just want to trip out on Bloody Sam getting crazy with a Robert Ludlum novel, this is your chance.

GHOSTWATCH (101 BLU-RAY)

Legendary and scandalous in equal measures, this 1992 BBC broadcast was an energetic and unconventional ghost story that was aired in a nonfiction context, traumatizing a not insignificant number of U.K. viewers who thought that what they were watching was actually happening. Never aired again in the U.K., and only surfacing on home video there a decade later, Ghostwatch is finally coming to American home video thanks to the new domestic arm of legendary British exploitation video distributor 101 Films. Maybe it feels weird to watch one of the great underground tapes of the ’90s in such a nicely upscaled package (with a feature-length doc about the film and its legacy included), but this is still scary, and it reigns among the best found footage entries ever made.

from Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey (before In Living Color), and maximum Julie Brown! Aliens

in the San

Wrath of Khan stans)

MEDUSA

nessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon SHARRE NICOLE FOUTH. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after JANUARY 12, 2023, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on February 13, 2023.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

ville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on JANUARY 30, 2023

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk

M De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: December 2 2022

Gary W. Temple Attorney for Plaintiff

NSC 12/ 8, 12/ 15, 12 22 12/ 29/22

process and acting as the point of escalation for managing reconciliations. Provide an industry leading level of client service to external clients and internal stakeholders, support stakeholders and develop valuable internal and external relationships with employees of varying seniority. Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 000388. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V.

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thirty (30) days after JANUARY 12, 2023, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on February 13, 2023.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Clerk Date: December 15, 2022

L. Chappell

NSC 12/ 22 12/ 2922, 1/5, 1/ 12/23

Non-Resident Notice

Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22D722

TERESA DIANE HENDERSON vs. SEAN LAMAR HENDERSON

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon SEAN LAMAR HENDERSON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after DECEMBER 29, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on JANUARY 30, 2023

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

2 2022

Computer/IT: Sensormatic Electronics, LLC seeks Senior UI Engineer in Nashville, Tennessee. 100% telecommuting. Work closely w/ sftwr dvlpmnt & testing teams to design, implmnt & optimize Open Blue Security web apps. REQS: Bach or frgn equiv in CompSci, Comp Engrg, Electronic Engrg, Info Tech, or rltd + 6yrs exp w/ sftwr engrg using the sftwr dvlpmnt life cycle (SDLC). In the alternative, will accept a Masters or frgn equiv in CompSci, Comp Engrg, Electronic Engrg, Info Tech, or rltd + 4yrs exp w/ sftwr engrg using the sftwr dvlpmnt life cycle (SDLC). Apply by mailing resume to Global Mobility/JCI, 5757 N Green Bay Ave, X34, Milwaukee, WI 53209. Must ref Senior UI Engineer / Ref # SUE-NAL.

UBS Business Solutions US LLC seeks Employee, Securities Specialist in Nashville, TN. Responsible for owning the day-to-day Federal Government Securities settlement process and acting as the point of escalation for managing reconciliations. Provide an industry leading level of client service to external clients and internal stakeholders, support stakeholders and develop valuable internal and external relationships with employees of varying seniority. Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 000388. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V.

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They do not remodel entire bathrooms but update bathtubs with new liners for safe bathing and showering. They specialize in grab bars, non-slip surfaces and shower seats. All updates are completed in one day. Call 866-531-2432 (AAN CAN)

DONATE YOUR VEHICLE to fund the SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILDREN.

FAST FREE PICKUP. 24 hour response. Running or not. Maximum Tax Deduction and No Emission Test Required! Call 24/7: 999-999-9999 Call 855-504-1540 (AAN CAN) Spectrum Internet as low as $29.99, call to see if you qualify for ACP and free internet. No Credit Check. Call Now! 833-955-0905 (AAN CAN)

BCI Walk In Tubs are now on SALE!

Be one of the first 50 callers and save $1,500!

CALL 844-514-0123 for a free in-home consultation. (AAN CAN)

NSC 12/ 8, 12/ 15, 12/ 22, 12/ 29/22

Joseph

2022

Roland T. Hairston, II Attorney for Plaintiff

NSC

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M De Jesus Deputy Clerk Date: December

Gary W. Temple Attorney for Plaintiff

Joseph P. Day, Clerk

Deputy

Roland T. Hairston, II Attorney for Plaintiff