Nashville Scene 2-13-20

february 13–19, 2020 I volume 39 I number 2 I Nashvillescene.com I free

City Limits: A new report says construction workers are frequently denied workers’ comp coverage Page 8

A

Culture: new program will honor the Nashville civil rights movement Page 38

No Ordinary

Love Seven stories of Nashvillians who found love in unique ways

cover_2-13-20.indd 1

Carly and Jackie Iacanos

2/10/20 6:17 PM

Tickets on sale Now! Presented by

chefs throw down! four Chefs. one Secret Ingredient

Chris De Jesus

Hrant Arakelian

Nina Singto

Praveen Pedankar

Chef de Cuisine M Street

Chef and Owner Lyra

Chef and Owner Thai Esane

Chef and Partner Chaatable

March 19, 2020 6 PM-9:30 PM / Musicians Hall of Fame Guests will enjoy sampling unlimited bites from local restaurants and sipping craft cocktails, beer and wine while watching the heated competition go down!

Sampling Restaurants:

Daddy's Dogs, Fable Lounge, Taco Mamacita, Makeready Libations & Liberation, Nomzilla, Bakery Lopez, Trattoria Il Mulino, Taj, Las Palmas, Zulema's Taqueria and MANY more to come!

Benefitting

Visit

Sponsored by

In Partnership With

www.IRONFORKNASHVILLE.COM #IronFork20

for tickets!

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

37

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

3

Temple Social Justice Team Presents Temple Social Justice Team Presents

Walk the the Talk Talk on on Gun Gun Violence: Violence: Walk

A Conversation Conversation About About Safety, Safety, Rights Rights & & Legislation Legislation A th Wednesday, February 19 th Wednesday, February 19 at The The Temple Temple ~ ~ 7:00 7:00 pm pm at

Moderated by: Blake Farmer Moderated by: Blake Farmer

Panel to to include: include: Panel

Dr. Jonathan Metzl Dr.Professor Jonathan Metzl & Author of Professor Author of Dying of &Whiteness Dying of Whiteness

Beth Joslin Roth Beth Joslin Roth Executive Director Executive Director Safe Tennessee Project Safe Tennessee Project

Kerry Roberts

Kerry Roberts Tennessee State Senator Tennessee State Senator

T T

Rasheedat Fetuga Rasheedat Founder / Fetuga CEO Founder CEO Gideon’s/Army Gideon’s Army

Brian Johnson Brian Johnson Deputy Chief of Police Deputy Chief of Police Metro-Nashville Metro-Nashville

T T

5015 Harding Pike ~ he emple ~ (615) 352-7620 5015 Harding Pike ~ of the he 352-7620 a congregation heart, aemple community~of(615) the spirit a congregation of the heart, a community of the spirit

S TA R T S F E B R UA RY 1 5 T H

spring sales event VISIT US TODAY AND FIND OUT ABOUT OUR BUILDER SPECIALS!

FEATURING HOMES BY

Celebration Homes • Crescent Homes David Weekley Homes • Drees Homes • Goodall Homes Grandview Custom Homes • Lennar HOMES FROM THE $200,000s TO OVER $500,000s

DURHAMFARMSLIVING.COM

EXPANSIVE CLUBHOUSE • RESORT-STYLE POOL • PARKS FITNESS STUDIO • COMMUNITY EVENTS • TOP PERFORMING SCHOOLS

Materials are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. All rights in these materials are reserved. All products and company names marked as trademarked (™) or registered (®) are trademarks of their respective holders. Copying, reproduction and distribution of materials without prior written consent of Freehold Communities is strictly prohibited. All information, plans, and pricing are subject to change without notice. This information does not represent a specific offer of sale or solicitation to purchase property within Durham Farms.

4

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Contents

feBruary 13, 2020

8

40

Construction Workers Frequently Denied Compensation Coverage, Report Says .....8

The Not-So-Open Road

City Limits

Books

Labor brokers are putting workers at risk to avoid paying insurance premiums

Candacy Taylor documents the revolutionary guide that helped black travelers navigate a segregated America

By AlejAndro rAmirez

By Kim Green And cHApter 16

Veteran Prison Official: Nick Sutton Is Not Dangerous ..................................................8 On Feb. 20, Sutton is set to be the first Tennessee prisoner executed this year

By Steven HAle

Pith in the Wind ...................................... 10 This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

41

musiC

The Wood Brothers have given themselves the freedom to break their ideas apart

13

No Ordinary Love

By Brittney mcKennA

Seven stories of Nashvillians who found love in unique ways

23

CritiCs’ piCks The Lumineers, Dale Ann Bradley Band, Mercy Bell, When We Were Kings, Anaconda Comedy Hour, Wendy Moten, Caleb Plant vs. Vincent Feigenbutz, Kamasi Washington and more

35

food and drink

The Art of Catering.................................. 35

Michael Kiwanuka’s successes helped grow his confidence

Noise and Girls in America..................... 42

on the Cover:

Carly (left) and Jackie Iacanos Photo by Daniel Meigs

The Spin ................................................... 43 The Scene’s live-review column checks out Spewfest V at The Cobra and The East Room

By KelSey BAyeler And cHArlie zAlliAn

44 fiLm

That’s Snow Biz, Baby ............................. 44 Despite some pretty great ingredients, Downhill feels wholly unnecessary

VHYes is a complex and delightful experience

Veg Out..................................................... 36

By jASon SHAwHAn

Some of the best things at this Bellevue barbecue joint have nothing to do with meat

47

Lift Every Voice

A Streetcar Named Desire Dazzles at Nashville Rep

By meGAn SelinG

By jennifer juStuS

CuLture

Iron Fork’s Four Fierce Chef Competitors Announced

Queens of Noise carry on a long tradition of women who rock

By nAtHAn SmitH

38

Appeals Court Throws Out Child-Rape Conviction, Citing Prosecutorial Misconduct

Into His Own ............................................ 41

A new crop of caterers carries on a Nashville tradition

By ASHley BrAntley

Janet Jackson Is Coming Back to Bridgestone

Piecing It Together .................................. 41

By Geoffrey HimeS

Cover story

this week on the web:

Please Rewind ........................................ 44

NEW YORK TIMES CrossWord

47

marketpLaCe

From the Back of the Bus will honor the Nashville Freedom Riders By ericA ciccArone

UPCOMING IN-STORE EVENTS AT GRIMEY'S!

BUY * SELL * TRADE

GRIMEYS.COM

King Krule 'Man Alive!' Listening Party - 2/17 at 6PM The Lone Bellow Live - Thurs 2/20 at 6PM Katie Pruitt Live - Sat 2/22 at 5PM The Wood Brothers Live - Mon 2/24 at 6PM The Secret Sisters Live - Fri 2/28 at 6PM see grimeys.com for details & follow @grimeys for the latest updates NEW THIS FRIDAY: Tame Impala, Nathaniel Rateliff, Beach Bunny, Tennis, Huey Lewis & The News + more!

GRIMEYS.COM

nashvillescene.com nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

contents_2-13-20.indd 5

5

2/10/20 6:29 PM

PET OF THE WEEK!

FROM BILL FREEMAN

Love a dog with an underbite? Well here I am! (as you can see my smile is EXTRA cute and welcoming because of that) I’m all smiles and tail wags and cuddles when you come my way! I will be your best couch potato friend you could possibly wish for!

Still thinking I could be a furrrever fit?

Come to NHA today and say hey – Within moments of meeting me you’ll know exactly why I’m a Staff & Volunteer favorite here at NHA. Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209

Adopt. Bark. Meow.

Microchip. Neuter. Spay.

Find out what’s going on

.com

6

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

HEY THERE, I’M BRENDA!

COOPERATION ISN’T A DIRTY WORD: NASHVILLE WINS WITH A PLAN TO ACCOMMODATE BOTH SOCCER AND RACING Again and again, Nashville has been promised by its mayors that they will make The Fairgrounds Nashville a successful place for all, including supporters of the historic racetrack. Despite the pats on the head that fairgrounds supporters have received from past mayors, no real progress has been made.

Until now.

It appears to me that Mayor John Cooper is focused on ensuring Nashville comes out the winner with an improved fairgrounds where fans can enjoy both racing and soccer.

I am glad to see that the groups involved are working toward the same goal.

Nashville elected Cooper to stabilize our finances and manage the massive debt we’ve accumulated ($4.55 billion in total outstanding general obligation debt). You can’t do that without looking closely at every major project.

I think we’re almost there with the Major League Soccer deal — kudos to the parties involved in what has been a difficult process. The Ingram and Turner families are honorable people. Nashville wouldn’t be the same without their support and contributions, and I know the city is grateful for their support through the generations.

Imagine Nashville without the Nashville Symphony or the Gulch — we simply wouldn’t be the same. And those are just two of myriad events and projects that the Ingrams and Turners have spearheaded for Nashville. At the end of the day, John Ingram simply wants a deal that yields the best for both the MLS franchise and for the city. I am sure Cooper wants the same.

The practical problems with the MLS stadium project are nothing new. The MLS plan was designed at a time when the Fairgrounds Speedway was, at best, an afterthought for most of Nashville.

It’s clear that the speedway wasn’t a primary consideration when the stadium’s renderings and maps put the structure a mere 20 feet from the main entrance to the speedway. That’s the length of a standard two-car garage! That’s not nearly enough room to get the crowds attending a soccer match or stock-car race through quickly and safely. Imagine trying to squeeze 30,000 people through an area that’s just wide enough for one car to park in lengthwise.

It’s impossible. If there were an emergency situation or a necessary evacuation, the public’s safety would be clearly in jeopardy.

I don’t even think city codes would allow

such a situation to occur.

We’ve read that Mayor Cooper is currently within his mayoral rights to delay construction of the stadium until these issues are addressed. He must also plan for the anticipated cost overruns and the necessary infrastructure improvements to the miles-long highways and interstate exchanges that will be funneling thousands of people to the fairgrounds. From what we all understand, the groups have agreed on the majority of the funds necessary to cover the likely cost overruns for the site itself.

But packing 30,000 people into that area will create a nightmare traffic situation. The I-65 Wedgewood exit wasn’t built to handle an influx of so many people, all arriving at the same event at the same time, whether it’s an MLS game or a NASCAR race. Mayor Cooper is right to be concerned about the infrastructure improvements necessary to handle such large crowds, no matter which road is used for the influx.

The Fairgrounds Speedway is the oldest short track still in operation in the entire country. Its role in developing the legendary drivers of NASCAR is undisputed. It deserves the chance to succeed that has been promised so many times. I’m glad to see that Speedway Motorsports shares the same opinion and is doing everything in its power to help it succeed. That group would be a fine partner for Metro in restoring the luster to the Fairgrounds Speedway.

There is enormous untapped potential with the speedway if NASCAR returns.

It should rival — if not exceed — the anticipated economic impact that MLS is projecting. Adding racing revenues, along with the money that will flow into Metro’s coffers from MLS, will mean nothing but good for Nashville. It will be good for each sport and their fans, but the biggest winner will be Nashville.

I am glad to see progress being made toward a plan that works for both sports.

It will be a challenge to ensure that two major professional sporting venues work cooperatively on such a relatively small footprint, but Cooper and the groups involved are working toward that very goal.

It is a challenge, but one that is certainly accomplishable. “Cooperation” isn’t a dirty word.

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editors Jack Silverman, Abby White Staff Writers Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Editorial Intern Bronte Lebo Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Christie Passarello Production Coordinator Matt Bach Circulation Manager Casey Sanders Events and Marketing Director Olivia Moye Events Managers Ali Foley, Caleb Spencer Publisher Mike Smith Advertising Director Daniel Williams Senior Account Executives Maggie Bond, Daniel Collins, Debbie Deboer, Robin Dillon, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Brandi Nash, Stevan Steinhart, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Account Managers Emma Benjamin, Gary Minnis Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Creative Director Heather Pierce IT Director John Schaeffer For advertising info please contact: Daniel Williams at 615-744-3397 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

Copyright©2020, Nashville Scene.

210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203.

Phone: 615-244-7989. Classified: 816-218-6732.

The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com.

Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $99 per year for 52 issues.

Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

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.

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

letter_2-13-20.indd 6

2/10/20 5:30 PM

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

7

Client: NASC Publication: NASHVILLE SCENE

AD: JH Job Number: NASC0075 Job Name: NASHVILLE SC 2020 CAMPAIGN PRINT Date Produced: 01/24/20 LIVE: 9.75” X 11.5” TRIM: 10.75” X 12.5” Bleed: 11” X 12.75” Color: 4C

city limits

ConstruCtion Workers Frequently DenieD CompensAtion CoverAge, report sAys A safe & fun place for people in recovery to live life to the fullest

FEBRUARY AT NRC All events are free & open to the public

FRIDAY FEB 7th at 7pm

Greg Hall “Probably the best guitar player in comedy or the best comedian in guitar-playing” - THE TENNESSEAN

Friday, Feb. 14 at 6:30pm

Valentine’s Date Night Come with a date or stag and play classic game shows with us!

INTRODUCING

The team at NRhythm at Henry House teaches clients life skills and spiritual practices through a healthy community and a clinical program that empowers our clients to reclaim their lives.

We offer eight beds for men in a structured, high-end environment that combines clinical work with practical application.

For more info: LIVINGNRHYTHM.COM/HENRY-HOUSE

8

Labor brokers are putting workers at risk to avoid paying insurance premiums

By AlejAndro rAmirez

A

new report from the Tennessee Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Compliance Program highlights how construction companies and subcontractors are misclassifying workers to avoid paying workers’ compensation. The report details several other practices rampant in the construction industry that deny protections to workers and give noncompliant businesses a financial edge when it comes to securing contracts.

These practices put workers at risk.

If workers are injured on the job, for instance, there’s a chance their employers won’t compensate them because they’re listed as independent contractors rather than as employees. Noncompliance also costs the state tax dollars, though the amount of dollars owed is difficult to pin down, especially when employers try to hide information from assessors.

“It’s sort of like an iceberg,” says Amanda Terry, the bureau’s director of compliance. “What we believe that we’re seeing is only 10 percent — the part that’s above the surface.”

The state collects 4.4 percent on workers’ compensation premiums, and the report says that in 2016, insurance carriers may have lost as much as $296 million.

The report says many employers also hire workers through subcontractors known as labor brokers, which frequently misclassify employees. Contractors hire these brokers, who in turn provide workers for a construction site. Many of these brokers have also been accused of wage theft and other compliance issues.

“We find that ... when an employer is doing the wrong thing with their workers’ comp, they’re generally doing the wrong thing across the board,” says Terry.

These practices give labor brokers an unfair advantage. Victor White, director at Mid-South Carpenters Regional Council, a union representing carpenters, tells the Scene that a law-abiding contractor “walks in the door at a 20 percent disadvantage” compared to noncompliant businesses when it comes to bidding on contracts.

The carpenters’ union has also been vocal about wage theft on construction sites, saying construction workers at the Margaritaville Hotel and Joseph Hotel were denied overtime pay by the subcontractors and brokers who hired them.

Ernesto Arias, a compliance officer with the union, says that since labor brokers still receive the funding to pay for workers’ overtime, they’ll pocket whatever

“We find that ... When an employer is doing the Wrong thing With their Workers’ comp, they’re generally doing the Wrong thing across the board.”

—amanda terry money they don’t give to their employees.

White and Arias add that undocumented immigrants are often the victims of wage theft in these cases.

But penalizing noncompliant businesses has proven difficult. According to the report, the compliance program assessed more than $4.5 million in penalties from 2018 to 2019, but collected only $1.8 million in assessments. Currently, the compliance program sends a bill to the employer and can work either with a collection agency on smaller penalties or the state attorney general’s office for larger amounts. Some collection methods, like liens against

veterAn prison oFFiCiAl: niCk sutton is not DAngerous On Feb. 20, Sutton is set to be the first Tennessee prisoner executed this year

By Steven HAle

O

ver the course of nearly half-a-century working in and around prisons, james Aiken became familiar with an old adage in the world of corrections. in his own words: “if you can’t say nothing bad about an

property, require obtaining a ruling from a civil court. However, the report says the compliance program is starting to work with the attorney general’s office to pursue criminal prosecutions against noncompliant employers.

The report also describes a “revolving door” of noncompliant businesses that leave the state or otherwise disappear, and then return to the state under a new name.

By reopening under a new name, they avoid paying penalties.

“They just thumb their nose at the state of Tennessee when it comes to abiding by the laws,” says White.

Terry says a so-called “successor in interest” law — that is, a policy that would determine whether the owner of a new business is accountable for any penalties assessed against their last venture — would hold business owners accountable for past noncompliance.

Additionally, contractors aren’t always held accountable for their subcontractor’s noncompliance. Terry says that while a contractor will pay for an injury claim if the subcontractor doesn’t, there is no similar “up the ladder” provision for penalties.

Other misconduct listed in the report includes employers signing up their workers for exemptions to workers’ compensation payments — a list meant exclusively for business owners. Out-of-state workers are also denied the proper coverage, according to the report.

Terry and White are calling for tougher laws and better collection tools to deal with noncompliant businesses, even if they reopen under new names.

A bill has been introduced in both chambers of the state legislature to amend the current law related to workers’ compensation. Filed in the state Senate by Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis) and in the House by Rep. Dwayne Thompson (D-Cordova), the bill would give the administrator of the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation expanded powers, including the ability to issue a stop-work order on noncompliant employers. Penalties and stop-work orders would also apply to successor businesses.

Email Editor@nashvillEscEnE.com

inmate, you don’t say nothing at all.” that’s why he was so struck by the case of nick Sutton.

Sutton is set to be executed on Feb. 20. Unless a court stays his execution or Gov. Bill lee grants him clemency, Sutton will be the first tennessee prisoner put to death this year, and the seventh to be executed since August 2018. Since lee took office in january 2019, three men have asked him for mercy before they were taken to the execution chamber. He has said no each time.

Sutton, who is 58, was sentenced to death in 1985 for stabbing another prisoner named Carl estep to death. Sutton was 23 at the time and had already been convicted of three murders. At the time he was serving a life sentence for killing his grandmother dorothy when he was 18 years old, and he’d also been convicted of murdering Charles Almon and john large in north Carolina. in a 29-page letter to the governor, Sutton’s clemency attorney — former federal judge Kevin Sharp — writes about Sutton’s remorse for the killings.

But he also emphasizes that Sutton “has gone from a

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

citylimits_2-20-20.indd 8

2/10/20 6:16 PM

It All Happens Here FEATURED EXHIBITION

LIVE MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

KINGS OF NEON

JIMMY CHURCH

The Story of Brooks & Dunn

Nashville R&B King

FEBRUARY 16 • 1:00 PM • FORD THEATER

The Museum tells the story of the best-selling country duo of all time, Country Music Hall of Fame members Brooks & Dunn, with the exhibition Brooks & Dunn: Kings of Neon. Its artifacts and storytelling encompass Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn’s early solo careers, the circumstances that united them as performers, their rapid rise to stardom (with hits including “Neon Moon,” “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” and “Hard Workin’ Man”), and their innovative approach to stage production and touring. Visit now through July 19, 2020.

Bandleader, bassist, and vocalist Jimmy Church has been a beloved performer and integral part of Nashville’s R&B community for sixty years. In the early 1960s he sang in nightclubs with the King Kasuals, a group founded by Jimi Hendrix and Billy Cox. He’s shared concert stages with Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, and other legends.

LIVE PERFORMANCE Streaming Live

KEANE

Cause and Effect Tour SATURDAY, MARCH 21 • CMA THEATER

Saturday, February 15

SOLD OUT

FAMILY ACTIVITY

Paint a ‘Stardust’ Valentine

10:30 AND 11:30 AM • TAYLOR SWIFT EDUCATION CENTER LIVE SONGWRITER SESSION*

Phil Barton and Jaron Boyer 11:30 AM • FORD THEATER

Reunited after a six-year break, British rock band Keane stops in Nashville on March 21 for a sold-out show at the CMA Theater, in support of their latest album, Cause and Effect.

Thursday, March 19

ROME

Sunday–Monday, February 16–17 CREATIVE ZONE

&

DUDDY

Friends & Family Acoustic Tour

Make an Outlaw Bandana 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM • TAYLOR SWIFT EDUCATION CENTER

with special guest Micah Brown and Stoney Banks

Sunday, February 16

Saturday, March 28

GRAHAM NASH

FILM SCREENING

‘The !!!! Beat’

with Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Jimmy Church, Bobby Hebb, and Freddie King (1966)

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

BOUDLEAUX & FELICE BRYANT

PRESENTED BY THE WILLARD & PAT WALKER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, INC.

11:00 AM • FORD THEATER

AMERICAN CURRENTS

Tuesday, February 18 VOLUNTEER INFORMATION SESSION

State of the Music

Ice Cream Social

KEITH WHITLEY

Get the Scoop on Volunteering 2:00 PM • RESERVATIONS REQUIRED Museum admission or Museum membership required for program admittance unless otherwise noted. Program passes required for select programs. See box office for details.

Tickets on Sale Now PRESENTED BY

Museum programs are funded in part by ACM Lifting Lives; Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission; Nashville Parent; and Tennessee Arts Commission.

Activities Daily

224 5th Ave. S. Nashville, TN | CMAtheater.com | @cmatheater The CMA Theater is another property of the Country Music Hall of Fame ® and Museum.

KACEY MUSGRAVES BROOKS

&

OUTLAWS

DUNN &

ARMADILLOS

Country’s Roaring ’70s

View the complete calendar at CountryMusicHallofFame.org nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene 9

CITY LIMITS

a livable planet

PARTNERSHIPS IN CREATION, WELLNESS, ECONOMY AND JUSTICE

life-taker to a life-saver.” The clemency request includes affidavits from three former prison staff members who praise Sutton’s character and detail incidents in which he saved their lives.

Aiken worked as a warden at multiple prisons and as a consultant to numerous corrections departments. He has also personally overseen the execution of two prisoners. As part of Sutton’s clemency effort, his attorneys asked Aiken to review Sutton’s incarceration history and write a report on his “potential for adjustment to a life-without-possibility-ofparole sentence in general population.” What

June 3-5, 2020 Nashville, Tennessee

NICK SUTTON

featuring keynote speakers

Katharine Hayhoe

Ibram X. Kendi

Internationally recognized atmospheric One of America’s foremost historians scientist, Christian and “Friend of the Planet” and leading antiracist voices

csc.lipscomb.edu 10CSC-20-001 NASHVILLE SCENEScene | FEBRUARY - Nashville Ad.indd 13 1 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

citylimits_2-20-20.indd 10

stood out to Aiken in reviewing Sutton’s history was not just his conduct as a prisoner — Sutton has not received a serious disciplinary action since 1990 — but also the fact that he had been so exemplary that correctional officers were willing to speak out on his behalf.

Speaking to the Scene about Sutton’s case, Aiken describes it as one that compelled him to write a report supporting clemency for Sutton.

“You look at all of these decades of not just compliant behavior, but one of stepping across the line and actually saving staff’s lives,” he says. “I’m not talking about saving them from injury, I’m talking about saving them from being killed.”

Aiken emphasizes that he has personally been in dangerous situations inside prisons where he had to authorize lethal force.

“I’m not talking about something in an academic journal,” he says. “I’m talking about real life here. And for an individual like Mr. Sutton to step forward when he did not know what the outcome would be — he did not do this in order to get me to write this type of report. He didn’t even get an extra fruit cup that evening.

There was no benefit for him.”

Drawing on his experience running prisons and his review of the records surrounding the prison murder that led to Sutton’s death sentence, Aiken says Sutton “was in a lifeand-death situation while in confinement in a facility that was, to say the least, dangerous and dysfunctional.”

Aiken’s report expresses confidence not just that Sutton should be safely moved off death row, but also that he would continue to contribute positively to life inside the prison as he reportedly has for years now.

Sutton has taken lives, and he has saved them. Now his life is in the governor’s hands.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THIS WEEK ON OUR POLITICS BLOG: After yet another instance of alleged impropriety by former Nashville prosecutors, Tennessee’s Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered a new trial for a Nashville man convicted in 2013 of raping a child. The court cited misconduct by prosecutors, one of whom is now a sitting judge. The case in question is that of William Arnold, a black man who is almost seven years into a 25year sentence for the rape of a 10-year-old boy he was mentoring through the Boys and Girls Club’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

Arnold has always maintained his innocence, insisting that he was mistaken for the true perpetrator, who shares his first name.

The only evidence against Arnold was the testimony of the young victim. The prosecutors in the case were Sharon Reddick, who left the DA’s office after Glenn Funk was elected in 2014, and Allegra Walker, who is now a General Sessions judge. In ordering a new trial for Arnold, the appeals court described statements made by prosecutors during closing arguments as “exceedingly improper.” Notably, one of the prosecutors sat in the witness chair and mocked Arnold during a lengthy diatribe the court described as “overwhelmingly inflammatory.” Reddick and Walker served under Funk’s predecessor, longtime Nashville DA Torry Johnson. Other former assistant district attorneys from Johnson’s office have been cited for prosecutorial misconduct as well. Among them is John Zimmermann. Last year, Funk asked a Nashville judge to vacate the death sentence of Nashville prisoner Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman citing prosecutorial misconduct, including racist discrimination in jury selection by Zimmermann. As recently as 2015, Zimmermann told young lawyers at a conference that they should use racial stereotypes in jury selection. Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins signed off on a deal resentencing Abdur’Rahman to life in prison.

Attorney General Herbert Slatery is appealing the decision, and the Tennessee Supreme Court has called off Abudr’Rahman’s April 16 execution. … Meanwhile at the state legislature, advocates for LGBT rights are praying that Tennessee lawmakers’ professed dedication to the state’s economic condition will convince them to steer clear of discriminatory legislation. But so far, it hasn’t made much of a dent. The Scene’s Stephen Elliott reports that the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce brought representatives from major businesses with local presences to the Capitol last week to talk about the economic impact of such legislation, speaking in the same room and about the same subject as they did one year ago. In the ensuing months, state lawmakers have continued to push controversial social legislation, while the companies ostensibly opposed to it have continued to move to Tennessee or expand their presence here.

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

2/5/20 12:25 PM

2/10/20 6:17 PM

2/13

AN EVENING WITH PHILLIP PHILLIPS

2/20

EMMALINE IN THE LOUNGE

2/20

RODRIGUEZ

AN EVENING WITH PHILLIP PHILLIPS

2/21

EMILY WOLFE WITH SPECIAL GUEST OJR IN THE LOUNGE

ADAM WEINER (OF LOW CUT CONNIE) WITH OPENER AB IN THE LOUNGE

2/21

SPRING WINEMAKER’S DINNER

2/14

INEBRIATED SHAKESPEARE PRESENTS: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IN THE LOUNGE

2/22

DEAF WINERY TOUR

2/22

CITY WINERY DRAG BRUNCH PRESENTED BY NASHVILLE PRIDE

2/14

VALENTINE’S DAY CHOCOLATE & WINE PAIRING

2/25

JOHN MCCAULEY WITH BECCA RICHARDSON

2/14

VALENTINE’S DAY CHOCOLATE & WINE PAIRING

2/25

BARTENDING 101: WHISKEY AND AGED SPIRITS

SECOND SEATING!

2/26

2/15

PHIL MADEIRA “OPEN HEART” ALBUM RELEASE PARTY WITH CINDY MORGAN & WILL KIMBROUGH IN THE LOUNGE

SCOUT COOKIES & WINE PAIRING PARTY

2/26

RIGHT NOW, I LOVE YOU FOREVER AN EVENING WITH ANDREA GIBSON

2/27

RAHEEM DEVAUGHN PRESENTED

BY LOVENOISE - EARLY SHOW

2/14 2/13

2/17

2/17

SECOND SHOW ADDED DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND! SOLD OUT - SIGN UP FOR THE WAIT LIST!

WMOT ROOTS RADIO WIRED IN SESSION FEATURING THE MASTERSONS, THE STEELDRIVERS, AND JESSE DAYTON BLUE WATER HIGHWAY IN THE LOUNGE

SOLD OUT - SIGN UP FOR THE WAIT LIST! 2/27

RAHEEM DEVAUGHN PRESENTED

BY LOVENOISE - LATE SHOW

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

11

WORLD PREMIERE

A rock star rebellion ballet

OTHER VOICES ADDITIONAL WORKS BY

PHOTO BY HUGO GLENDINNING

Christopher Wheeldon Paul Vasterling

Four of the world’s hottest choreographers collaborate with Nashville musicians to illuminate the experience of gender.

February 14–16 at TPAC

April 24–26, 2020

TPAC’S JACKSON HALL

Buy both to save—use code DANCE20 for 20% OFF! 615-782-4040 OR

Make An Appointment Call 615-469-1065

There’s Now a Pill That Prevents HIV

Sexually Active? Get on it.

No Lab Costs, or Co-Pays EVER

Whether You’re Insured or Not

MusicCityPrEP.org 12

NASHVILLE SCENE | FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

featuring Christopher Bruce’s Rooster set to the music of the Rolling Stones.

Convenient East Nashville Location

nashvilleballet.com

No Ordinary

Love For this year’s Love Issue, we at the Scene asked Nashvillians to tell us their own personal love stories — stories about how they met their partner, and what makes their tale special.

We received more than 200 submissions, and they did not disappoint. We narrowed down those submissions to seven

Seven stories of Nashvillians who found love in unique ways

beautiful and diverse couples, whom we’ve profiled below — from a story of remarkable patience to tales of romance in the food industry, on the dance floor and at the hockey rink.

Nashvillians have a knack for finding love in unique places.

Read on below.

Photos by Daniel Meigs

Love on For Jackiethe Diamond and Carly Iacano, a summer of kickball and romance blossomed into a life together

By Alejandro Ramirez

Photo: Daniel Meigs

J

carly (left), jameson and jackie Iacanos

ackie thought Carly was joking when she asked her how to run the bases.

But it was true — Carly didn’t really know what she was doing on the baseball diamond.

The Iacanos — Carly’s surname was Stewart at the time — met while playing adult kickball in the summer of 2015. It was less about the sport for Carly, who was looking for a community after moving back to Nashville from Atlanta. Jackie, on the other hand, was a baseball and softball vet and a confident athlete.

Carly says she didn’t really fit in on the field, but she was charmed by Jackie’s magnetic personality. Eventually, she asked Jackie out. They had the usual sorts of earlystage dates: sushi at a downtown spot, going out to concerts and clubs, and watching movies in Elmington Park, where they also shared their first kiss.

“The more and more I talked to her, the more and more I fell in love,” says Jackie.

“We just had fun and had a great summer.”

“She just felt like home,” says Carly.

“Jackie’s got a lot of strength, and she’s also kind, so it’s a good, good pairing.”

There were also the less traditional dates, like when they went rafting on the Ocoee River — something Carly, the non-athlete, wasn’t totally prepared for.

“I thought I was gonna die the whole time,” she says. “And then I fell out, and then I definitely thought I was going to die, but I wanted to impress her so badly that I went down that river.”

Carly says she’s since grown to enjoy rafting.

After eight months of dating, the pair married in 2016. Two years later, they had their son Jameson — Jackie provided the egg, and Carly carried him.

While their families are a bit different — Jackie’s is loud, Italian and Catholic, while Carly’s is reserved and WASP-y — both come from supportive homes, with parents who have been married for more than 40 years.

“We surround ourselves with amazing family and friends, and, you know, they’re always showing up for us,” says Jackie.

Though they admit that they’re opposites in many ways, the Iacanos say they agree on deeper values and morals. They both love the outdoors and spur-of-the-moment trips, and they’re already introducing Jameson, now 2 years old, to nature, bringing him on hikes to waterfalls and ski trips to Mount Hood. They even got a new family “adventure van” for their travels.

The two admit they’ve slowed down a bit — “We used to shut down the club, now we go to bed at 8 o’clock,” says Carly — but marriage and parenthood are new adventures for them, with new challenges and new ways to appreciate each other: “I fall in love with her every time that she even changes a diaper for Jameson, because I’m just, like, ‘This woman is incredible!’ ” says Jackie.

In the end, the couple believe the secret is choosing each other every day.

“We’re going to go through some things, but we’re going to go through it together,” says Jackie.

“That’s marriage: Every day you gotta make that choice.” ❤

nashvillescene.com | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 13

13

2/10/20 5:33 PM

Photos: Daniel Meigs. Flowers: Oshi Floral design

The Waiting Is After 47 years, the Hardest Part these high school sweethearts give love another shot

By Erica Ciccarone

I

n 1971, high school sweethearts Steve Searcy and Janet Demonbreun thought they would be together forever. “In our minds,” says Steve, “everything was done but saying ‘I do’ before the preacher and getting the paperwork to go with it.” In fact, Steve asked Janet to elope, but she told him she wanted to wait.

And she would wait. Ultimately they both would, for 47 years.

The two met in the summer of 1969, when 14-year-old Janet was a candy-striper at Midtown’s Baptist Hospital and Steve was admitted for a case of tularemia, often known as rabbit fever. “I saw a nice boy who was someone I felt I could trust and relate to,” says Janet. Steve, a “typical 16-year-old,” he says, was hoping for a sponge bath. But he settled for a kiss goodbye instead.

The teenagers lived an hour away from each other in small Middle Tennessee towns — she in Joelton, he in Portland — and their first few dates took place at Janet’s house, where they were closely supervised by her parents. But before long, they were heading

14

to Joelton High School football games in his ’65 Mustang.

Their relationship continued over the next two years, and Janet and Steve’s once-a-week dates were supplemented by letter writing.

One date stands out to Steve all these years later: “We were talking about future plans, like we did a lot,” says Steve. “She just out of the blue said: ‘I don’t know what may happen or what may come, but I can’t see us being old people and not being together. No matter where we go, we will wind up together.’ ” 1972 found Steve at MTSU in Murfreesboro and Janet at Lipscomb University in Nashville. Some parental interference had strained their relationship, but they remained committed. That is, until some gossip and a misunderstanding caused Steve to break off their relationship, telling Janet that he no longer loved her.

The breakup shattered them both. But like most young lovebirds after heartbreak, they recovered and went their separate ways.

Over the next 47 years, both Janet and Steve married, but not each other. They

had children — two boys each. Time went by. Steve’s wife died last year, and Janet’s marriage ended. She was cooking dinner one night when the phone rang.

“I told her it’s time for truth,” says Steve.

“The truth is that I loved you then, and I love you now, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna love you until the day I die.” After 47 years, they met at Steve’s mother’s house — his childhood home.

As they tell their story today, they can’t stop looking at each other — it’s like they’re worried that if one of them turns away, the other might disappear. “It was not like a reconnection,” says Janet. “It was like a continuation of our relationship.”

“There’s no effort,” says Steve. “It comes naturally. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell where I stop and she begins.”

Steve and Janet Searcy were married in Janet’s living room surrounded by their children and closest friends on Sept. 13, 2019 — Steve’s 67th birthday.

“We started our lives together,” Janet says. “We were first, and we’re the last.” ❤

Nashville Scene | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 14

2/10/20 5:34 PM

A TELEVISION AND POP-CULTURE COLUMN ABOUT WHAT TO WATCH, WHAT TO SKIP, AND WHAT’S WORTH THINKING MORE ABOUT.

BROADWAY QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT WITH DINNER AND FULL BAR

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Feb 6 – 29, 2020 NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Purchase your tickets through

www.chaffinsbarntheatre.com or call 615-646-9977 ext 2

Smooches, Pooches, & PAW-some savings 50% off your pets’ rst stay * Call or Text 615-771-7794 Pet Boarding Daycare Grooming Valid through 3/6/2020

*Restrictions may apply. Must mention Ad

Featuring CAM & Friends March 25 Ryman Auditorium TICKETS ON SALE NOW ticketmaster outlets ticketmaster.com ...more info at mhamidsouth.org | #b4stage4

Gold Sponsors

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

15

Photos: Daniel Meigs

Till Death Do Us Part Fabi and Josh Powell loved in sickness and in health, though they got too little of the latter

By Steven Hale

F

abi and Josh Powell were married for 31 days.

The promise in their vows that is supposed to come due in the far-off future — “till death do us part” — was realized less than 750 hours after they said the words to each other. But by then, they’d learned that every minute is a gift.

Their brief, tragic and beautiful story began on Lower Broadway in September 2014. Fabi, born and raised in Southern California, had come to Nashville with some girlfriends. On their last day in town, they decided to head downtown after attending a Titans game. There, on the top floor of Honky Tonk Central, Fabi noticed a handsome man walking in with a couple of buddies.

They caught each other’s eye. Soon she’d beckoned him over to her table, and they fell into easy conversation. His name was Josh; he’d grown up in a small town in Kentucky; he worked in “logistics,” he said, and he spoke French. He left out some details on that first day

16

— he was actually an Army Ranger who’d studied and played football at West Point. He learned French while studying abroad.

Soon the two were on the dance floor, where Fabi remembers Josh acting shy despite his obvious good looks and natural charm.

They finally parted ways around 2 a.m., accepting the possibility that this might end up a fun evening, a good story and nothing more. But once Fabi returned to California, it became clear this was something different.

The two spoke on FaceTime every day and texted almost constantly. They carried on like that for a month, in the thrill of a new and undefined relationship where two people have each other’s whole lives to catch up on.

On Nov. 8 of that year, Josh asked Fabi to be his girlfriend. Ten days later, as she was preparing for a trip to Nashville to meet his family, he was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma. It’s a rare and aggressive cancer with few great treatment options other than amputation, and that wasn’t possible in his case, given the location of the tumor. Josh immediately gave Fabi an out, telling her he’d never expect her to stay by his side through what was coming. But she didn’t take it.

“For me, it was a no-brainer,” she says. “My heart was already in it. And just because we aren’t guaranteed forever — none of us are.”

Fabi moved to Nashville in March 2015, and the two threw themselves into every day together. Both had grown up as baseball fans, so that year they started traveling to as many Major League ballparks as they could.

She would occasionally drive on road trips, as he slept in the passenger seat, exhausted from cancer treatment.

“We just lived such an extraordinary life together,” she says. “In between all the shitty stuff — chemo, radiation, surgeries, botched surgeries — in between all of that, we took every opportunity to live our lives to the fullest and appreciate our time together.”

In May 2016, Josh was in remission and had regained enough strength to get down on one knee. The answer, to Fabi, was obvious. A wedding was a way to celebrate and honor the relationship they already had, to put words to the vows they were already living.

They were married that November, after moving up the wedding date because doctors told them time was running short. Josh was released from the hospital to attend the wedding, which he did in a wheelchair. But even as he lay in the palliative care unit with his new wife, the couple scrambled to see if they could find a way to take him duck hunting.

“We never stopped living,” she says. “We never stopped making plans for the future.”

Josh died 31 days after he and Fabi were married.

Through a foundation Fabi started in Josh’s name, she tries to transfer that positive attitude to people diagnosed with synovial sarcoma. The Josh Powell Foundation raises money and offers resources to encourage, motivate and inspire people facing the disease.

Josh and Fabi Powell loved through sickness and health, though they never got their fair share of the latter. They loved, and they lived, for better or for worse. ❤

Nashville Scene | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 16

2/10/20 6:34 PM

A Division of The Heritage Foundation of Williamson County

(615) 538-2076 • WWW.FRANKLINTHEATRE.COM •419 MAIN STREET, FRANKLIN, TN 37064 THU 2.13  ROCK EUPORA, BLOOD ROOT & LACQUER

WED 2.19  GARZA GULION

MERCY LOUNGE

THE HIGH WATT

2.20  HARDY FRI 2.14  NOT YOUR NAILS: NIN TRIBUTE THU ASHLAND CRAFT THE EXOTIC ONES, WHOA DOUBT: NO DOUBT TRIBUTE

THE HIGH WATT

MIKE SUPER MAGIC & ILLUSION

LEAHY

Saturday, February 22

Saturday, February 29

BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY

Wednesday, March 4

T HU 2.20  HOUSEQUAKE FEB 2020 EDITION

F RI 2.14  HEARTBREAK EXPRESS

JET TROUBLE, JOHN TUCKER & MORE

DJ DISKO COWBOY, TEDDY & THE ROUGH RIDERS

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

SAT 2.15  SECONDHAND SOUND

FRI 2.21  MATTIEL SAM HOFFMAN

THE HIGH WATT

THE HIGH WATT

SAT 2.15  KANYE VS JAY-Z TRIBUTE

FRI 2.21  LAST IN LINE

LORD GOLDIE, CLASSIC WILLIAMS & MORE

MERCY LOUNGE · PRESENTED BY JOCO SHOWS M

FAREWELL ANGELINA

JOSEPH

Friday, March 13

Thursday, April 2

CHARLES ESTEN

Sat, Aprl 4 & Sun, Apr 5

A NIGHT OF SONGS & STORIES WITH SANDI PATTY (3/15) THE JAMES HUNTER SIX (4/8) RICKIE LEE JONES (4/15) JEFF ALLEN (4/18) LYNDA CARTER (5/2) THE WEIGHT BAND (5/16) BJ THOMAS (6/5)

SPTZ-245SN PresDay 4.792x7 2-13-20_SPTZ-245SN PresDay 4.792x7 2-13-20 2/7/20 12:49 PM Pag

CANNERY BALLROOM

CANNERY BALLROOM

SUN 2.16  LOWER DENS

FRI 2.21  NASHFEELS

AMI DANG

LOVERS & FRIENDS EDITION

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

MON 2.17  DEREK SANDERS

STAGES AND STEREOS (ACOUSTIC), MIKE JANSEN

THE HIGH WATT

SAT 2.22  THE THING WITH FEATHERS NEW PARLOR, BEAU TURRENTINE

THE HIGH WATT

TUE 2.18 2.  MIRROR MIND

S UN 2.23  EXIT THE WARRIOR:

LINDSEY ELAM, LAWNDRY

CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF NEIL PEART

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

WED 2.19  HAVE MERCY FAREWELL TOUR SUN 2.23  CHRIS LEE FREDO DISCO, SELFISH THINGS, YOUNG CULTURE

THE HIGH WATT

CAMM, LEAH SYKES

THE HIGH WATT

Extended hours this Sunday - 12pm to 6pm

SALE PRESIDENTS’ DAY

FRI. 2/14

Vinyl Ranch Presents Heartbreak Express

mercy lounge · w/ DJ Disko Cowboy, Teddy & The Rough Riders & more

SUN. 2/16

lower dens

w/ ami dang · the high watt

Ends 8pm Presidents’ Day!

MON. 2/17

SAT. 2/23 WED. 2/19

Derek Sanders

the high watt · w/ Stages & Stereos and Mike Jansen

kendrick vs drake Garza

presented by ft. joco Robshows Garza· ·mercy Mercylounge Lounge

FRI. 2/21

FRI. 2/21

Last In Line

Mattiel

Cannery Ballroom

the high watt · w/ Sam Hoffman

just announced 4.5  LUKR

5.5  RED WANTING BLUE

4.26  TC SUPERSTAR

6.22  TV GIRL

THE HIGH WATT

QUEEN BED: MSRP $2180, NOW $1139 KING BED: MSRP $2730, NOW $1429

MERCY LOUNGE

THE HIGH WATT

UP TO 50% OFF ALL FURNITURE* AND 6 YEARS NO INTEREST †

THE HIGH WATT

Coming Soon FRI 2.28  TRANSVIOLET

MON 2.24  JOY OLADOKUN

ARMORS

THE HIGH WATT

THE HIGH WATT

TUE 2.25  IYLA

YASI, DAISHA MCBRIDE

SAT 2.29  MICHIGAN RATTLERS

THE HIGH WATT

BRENT COWLES

THE HIGH WATT

TUE 2.25  COSMIC SHIFT AIRSHOW, SICARD HOLLOW

THOUSANDS OF ITEMS IN STOCK!

THE ULTIMATE '90S EXPERIENCE!

WED 2.26  CHELSEA LOVITT RELEASE SHOW J.D. WILKES, MATTHEW PAIGE & MORE

MERCY LOUNGE

HOURS: MON & FRI 10AM - 8PM

•

TUE, WED, THUR, SAT 10AM - 6PM

•

SUNDAY 1- 5PM

*DISCOUNTS BASED ON MSRP. NOT VALID ON PREVIOUS PURCHASES. †WITH APPROVED CREDIT. MINIMUM PURCHASE OF $2499. EXCLUDES STICKLEY WALNUT GROVE COLLECTION. MINIMUM DEPOSIT AND EQUAL MONTHLY PAYMENTS REQUIRED. FINANCING THROUGH T.D. FINANCING. SEE STORE FOR DETAILS.

SUN 3.1  NEW PARLOR THE HIGH WATT

THE HIGH WATT

sprintz.com

MERCY LOUNGE

LIFE IN A TREE, JUKE OF JUNE, OTHERTONES

WED 2.26  THAT 1 GUY

NASHVILLE & COOL SPRINGS

S AT 2.29  MY SO-CALLED BAND

MERCY LOUNGE

T HU 2.27  MOUNTAINS LIKE WAX MYFEVER, VANOSDALE

TUE 3.3  SLOAN

LIFE IN A TREE, JUKE OF JUNE, OTHERTONES

THE HIGH WATT

MERCY LOUNGE

ONE CANNERY ROW NASHVILLE, TN 37203 · 615-251-3020 BOOK YOUR EVENT OR PARTY AT ANY OF OUR VENUES EMAIL SPECIALEVENTS@MERCYLOUNGE.COM FOR DETAILS MERCYLOUNGE

@ MERCYLOUNGE

MERCYLOUNGE.COM

INFO@MERCYLOUNGE.COM

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

17

HE’S GONNA BUY ME A DIAMOND RING How one couple journeyed from a bowl of soup to running one of Nashville’s most acclaimed restaurants

BY NANCY FLOYD

F

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

BRIAN RIGGENBACH (LEFT) AND MIKEY CORONA

18

or restaurateurs, business partners and married couple Mikey Corona and Brian Riggenbach, it was love at first bite. The pair met in Chicago in 2004 and bonded quickly over the topics of Houston (where they moved from) and art school (their reason for moving).

But it wasn’t until Brian prepared a three-course dinner for Mikey in his “chicken-shit studio” apartment that sparks began to fly.

“I had never had anyone prepare a meal for me, let alone a multi-course meal,” Mikey says.

“I would say after that first sip of soup, I was like, ‘OK, it’s a done deal.’ ” The sip in question was of a carrot-star-anise soup, a recipe that Brian, now head chef at The Mockingbird, still makes from time to time. “When people say you can taste love in food or taste emotion in food, that is what I experienced,” Mikey says. “It was from that moment on that I was hooked for sure.”

Over the next five years, the couple continued to date, and as their love for one another grew, so did their love of food and hospitality.

“I wanted to showcase Brian’s food, so every Sunday we would have these dinner parties,” Mikey says. “It turned into friends of friends that would come to our dinner parties.

And then it turned into friends of friends of friends.”

The weekly dinner parties morphed into Yo Soy Underground Supper, a wildly successful supper club in Chicago serving themed multi-course meals in a communal setting.

And one item that kept popping up on menus? The carrotstar-anise soup.

“Every year, we would do the ‘best of,’ and that soup would always be on there,” Mikey says. “We would let our diners know that that’s where the soup was inspired [from] and that’s where our relationship was inspired from. And we thought it was a special moment to share it with them.”

Mikey and Brian continued to work in Chicago restaurants and operate Yo Soy on the side, and in 2015, they tied the knot.

With the rise of Yo Soy’s popularity, so grew a desire in Mikey and Brian to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant of their own. They worked tirelessly to secure investors, but it was a fortuitous meeting between Brian and beloved Nashville chef Maneet Chauhan that changed everything. Mikey filled out an application for Brian to compete on Food Network’s Chopped in 2016 — despite the fact that, according to Mikey, “Brian loathes stuff like that.” Brian was chosen for the competition, and Maneet was one of the judges. When Brian won and expressed his desire to someday open a restaurant of his own, Maneet wanted to invest.

After a whirlwind weekend during which the couple says they ate their way through Nashville, they relocated. In 2017, they opened The Mockingbird, a global diner in the Gulch. As executive chef, Brian helms the kitchen, and as the “front-of-house extraordinaire,” Mikey manages the restaurant. And while some couples might bristle at the thought of working side by side all day every day, Brian and Mikey love navigating the ups and downs of this adventure together. “You get to share all the good times together, all the accomplishments and the gratitude,” Brian says. “There is a lot that’s really rewarding about the restaurant industry.”

Fortunately for Nashville, the lovebirds have built a nest and are here to stay, sharing love with this community, one meal at a time. ❤

NASHVILLE SCENE | FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 18

2/10/20 5:34 PM

Photo: Daniel Meigs. Flowers: oshi Floral Design

Breakaway romance How the Voice of the Predators found his lifelong love

By J.R. Lind

D

oes Pete remember the score?

“Of course he remembers,” Claudia says.

“It was 3-2.”

Pete is right, which comes as no surprise to Nashville Predators fans who’ve grown up with his avuncular voice — he’s known for peppering his play-by-play with topical asides effortlessly pulled from the ether, like an expert pickpocket snatching a wallet from a man running to a train.

This is the story of how the voice of the Nashville Predators, Pete Weber, met his wife Claudia. It happened, of course, at a hockey game — the aforementioned 3-2 win by the Buffalo Sabres over the Quebec Nordiques.

It was January 1985 — a quick glance at Pro Hockey Reference verifies it was in fact Jan. 27.

At the time, Claudia was a single mom with a teenage son. A friend of hers had been urging her to go out, have some fun, have a night on the town. Come to a Sabres game.

“They were hockey people,” she says. “I knew about the Sabres, and my son was very familiar with them.”

Claudia kept resisting. She was focused on raising her son, on building a life for her and for him. But eventually she relented.

Walking the concourse between periods — Predators fans might recognize that Claudia still does this -— she saw a man in a bright-yellow polyester blazer with the Sabres logo.

“I thought he was an usher,” she says.

She’d caught Pete’s eye too, but he didn’t have time to act.

“This was right before I went on the air,” he says.

Her friends chided her. She didn’t know

Pete Weber? The beloved color commentator for the Sabres? Claudia shrugged. The friend who had begged her to come along to the game had a brother who knew all the press and media types around the team, and he invited the women out for drinks after the game. At the time, Claudia was a 9-to-5 type. Sportswriters and sportscasters are … not. What was at the time the rowdy boys’ club of an NHL press box started late and finished early. But Claudia went along and found herself drawn to Pete. By the end of the night, he’d asked for her phone number.

“In German,” Claudia adds.

“She was able to figure it out,” Pete points out. The German for “telephone number” is “Telefonnummer,” a close enough cognate for Claudia to suss his question.

And so it began. The couple married in 1989. Pete was the local host for four consecutive Buffalo Bills AFC champion teams (don’t ask what happened when they went to the Super Bowl). He became the Sabres play-by-play man in 1995, but in 1998, the family moved south and Weber became the Voice of the Predators.

Claudia points out that the Sabres and the Preds share a color scheme, and both teams have a sabre-tooth cat as a mascot. Pete points out that the season after they moved to town, the Tennessee Titans won the AFC title (but as with the Bills, don’t ask about the Super Bowl).

The jacket Pete was wearing? It hangs in a frame at Pete & Terry’s, the backdoor bar at Bridgestone Arena.

And the friend who begged Claudia to go to the game?

“Every time I talk to my friend Barb, I always thank her for taking me to a hockey game.” ❤

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 19

19

2/10/20 5:35 PM

LOVE ON THE DANCE FLOOR How two local rock ’n’ rollers found love in the middle of a dance-off

C

het Weise and Poni Silver weren’t strangers back in the fall of 2012.

Chet characterizes what they had as an “acquaintanceship,” the two of them occupying various roles in the rock ’n’ roll scene. He’s a guitarist and a writer; she’s a drummer and a fashion designer known for her long tenure with garage-rock outfit The Ettes and her clothing line Black

by Maria Silver.

But on a Saturday night about sevenand-a-half years back, the two found themselves on the same dance floor for the first time — in a dance contest in which one would end up a finalist, and the other would win the whole thing.

“That night was when it progressed from an acquaintanceship to a full-blown romance,” says Chet.

New York City DJ and producer Jonathan Toubin was in town, hosting one of his famed New York Night Train Soul Clap and Dance-Off parties at The Stone Fox. The Soul Clap parties were — and are — known as a raucous good time, with Toubin spinning soul and rock ’n’ roll records and hosting a venue-wide danceoff to cap off the evening. Though it’s since shuttered, The Stone Fox was brand-new at the time, an instantly beloved West Side hang with some of the best shows and events in town.

Neither of the two had planned on entering a dance contest that night. Poni had just come from a friend’s wedding, and Chet had attended a show featuring indie-rock giants The Shins and classic rock ’n’ rollers Low Cut Connie at Third Man Records. (Chet is now editor-in-chief of TMR’s publishing arm, Third Man Books.) Low Cut Connie wanted to go dancing after their show, so Chet obliged.

The Soul Clap party progresses in rounds, in which groups (picked based on the random numbers they’re assigned) compete against one another. At this point I should probably provide a disclosure: I, the Scene’s music editor at the time, was one of the local judges on the Soul Clap panel, along with drummer Brian Kotzur, Stone Fox co-owner Elise Tyler, record producer and engineer Jeremy Ferguson, and musician Jemina Pearl. It wasn’t a difficult decision, picking Chet and Poni as the finalists in their respective groups.

Poni’s a force of nature on the floor, graceful and smooth and glamorous.

Chet, on the other hand, takes a bruteforce approach.

“I was doing splits, and I was doing the

20

worm and spins and things like that,” he says. “I rose to the occasion. I was like, ‘I’ve gotta get to the finals, I’ve gotta get Poni to notice me.’ ” “I’ve seen you do splits and the worm in other situations!” says Poni.

“Not like 20 times,” Chet returns.

They both made it to the finals, though a near-altercation thanks to a misunderstanding at the bar prevented Chet from competing in the final round.

“As those things do, it never actually resulted in fisticuffs, but I missed my final round,” says Chet. “And to this day, I think of the scene in Rocky when they do their own personal fight. Ding ding! We’ve never actually done —” Poni interrupts here.

“So he says he thinks he would’ve won if he had actually competed against me,” she says, “but I don’t think so.”

All due respect to Chet, Poni is almost certainly correct. She ultimately fought it out on the floor against Low Cut Connie frontman Adam Weiner, like something out of Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? — both exhausted, trying simply to keep going. Poni ended up finishing in first place, but she brought home more than just the trophy.

“I think it was kind of like how they say peacocks show their plumage when they’re ready to mate,” says Chet. “I think I danced that night like I’ve never danced before or since.”

Chet’s efforts paid off. The two began seeing each other regularly not long after the Soul Clap Dance-Off, and seven years later — in September of last year — the pair wed in a ceremony in Grenada, Spain, on a cliff overlooking the 1,100-year-old Alhambra palace and fortress. Their wedding trip was full of flamenco dancing and poetry — they visited the home of Federico García Lorca, a favorite poet of the couple, on the morning of their ceremony.

Now Chet and Poni play together in high-octane rock trio Kings of the Fucking Sea along with bassist Sara Nelson. Just last weekend they recorded a live album at Soft Junk, and on Valentine’s Day they’ll open up for New Bomb Turks at Exit/In. “I think this is a story about The Stone Fox too,” says Chet. “I remember when that club first opened, I told them, ‘You know, this is going to be a place where people make friends and memories are made, and people fall in love.’ Did not realize I’d be talking about myself.” ❤

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

NASHVILLE SCENE | FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 20

2/10/20 6:34 PM

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

HOW SWEET IT IS Stephanie Pruitt and Al Gaines’ mutual appreciation of cookies led to something a lot bigger

BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

T

here’s a lot to love about Thin Mints, but Stephanie Pruitt and Al Gaines might appreciate them just a bit more than your average cookie fan.

In January 2008, the two knew each other casually from school functions. Stephanie’s daughter and Al’s godson were in the same first-grade class. When Girl Scout cookie season came around, Al placed an order with Stephanie’s daughter, Nia. Stephanie remembered some advice from her mother — “If you think he’s a really good one, you’d better get more than just your eye on him,” she recalls with a laugh — and took a peek at Al’s order form. With confirmation that he appreciated the finest treats the Girl Scouts had to offer, she called the number he’d put on his order, and the two found they had more in common than their taste in cookies.

Stephanie and Al both had grown comfortable being single, but they were also willing to see what it was like to establish a partnership. A long phone conversation led to a first date, followed that August by a marriage ceremony at Bicentennial Mall officiated by the famous civil rights leader, the Rev. James Lawson. Though the couple’s relationship — with each other and as a unit with Nia, who’s now a college student — progressed quickly, it was built on being intentional.

“We found that we could be super direct and blunt and honest with each other, and with Nia, and that that’s been huge,” Stephanie says. “Trying to code-switch in a relationship, and always having your magnifying glass, trying to figure puzzles out within your household and family — that is so much work, thinking, ‘What do they really want? What are they

actually thinking?’ There was none of that kind of posturing.”

That framework has helped the couple weather some intense storms.

Stephanie helped Al care for his mother, who lived in their home during the final stages of Alzheimer’s. Al helped Stephanie care for herself during a severe bout of depression. They liken their relationship to a bank in which you deposit joy, knowing that sometimes you’ll have to rely on what you’ve saved.

“The few big debits didn’t bankrupt us, but they also gave us something,” says Al. “When life events happen, you kind of find out who you are, individually and together. We found something on the other side of each of those that made us love each other more, because we realized, ‘OK, I know who this person is when I’m like X, or when I need X.’ … We can unequivocally say that we’ve shown up for each other.”

The care and consideration that Stephanie and Al show each other is something they’ve also been deliberate about sharing with others. They thoroughly enjoy entertaining — a party they used to host on a regular basis (and may revive soon) called Poets and Pancakes brought an allages crowd of nearly 100 people to their home to eat and hear a visiting poet read. The impact of that event and others on their guests over time has been something of a surprise.

“I didn’t expect for our marriage and us wanting to be social to mean so much to other people,” Al says. “We’ve made so many other friends through the parties or events that we’ve had at the house, and some folks have become best friends from us really just kind of living our own life and dragging some people along that want to be there.” ❤

nashvillescene.com | FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

coverstory_2-13-20.indd 21

21

2/10/20 5:35 PM

your Nashville Symphony

Live at the Schermerhorn

This weekend

just announced • on sale friday at 10 am

Y OLANDA A DAMS WITH THE NASHVILLE

SYMPHONY

BOUDLEAUX & FELICE BRYANT CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

A Gospel Mother's Day

February 13

MAY 10

Beethoven’s Birthday Bash

VALENTINE'S WITH PATTI LABELLE February 14

coming soon

Leonore Overture No. 3 | Piano Concerto No. 1 | Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”

CELEBRATE WITH FREE CAKE • FEBRUARY 20 TO 23

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER with BILL CHARLAP FEBRUARY 28

APPALACHIAN SPRING March 6 & 7

RUBEN STUDDARD SINGS LUTHER VANDROSS March 8*

CELTIC JOURNEY

St. Patrick’s Extravaganza March 12 to 14

THE GOLD RUSH: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL ADVENTURE March 14 at 11 am

* Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

22

615.687.6400 NashvilleSymphony.org

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

SERIES PARTNER

CONCERT PARTNER

WITH SUPPORT FROM

Critics’ Picks W e e k l y

r o u n d u p

o f

thi n g s

t o

d o

PAGE

24 she’s a rebel 6

Hosted by Ann Powers at The Basement East

PAGE

28 Premier Boxing Champions: Plant vs. Feigenbutz

“Sweet Hands” defends his title at Bridgestone

PAGE

D ALE ANN B RA D LEY B AN D

30

Friday, Feb. 14 The Station Inn

When We Were Kings

Leon Gast’s 1996 doc examines “The Rumble in the Jungle”

Shane Mauss

If you’ve been to one of Shane Mauss’ Stand Up Science shows before, you know he hits a very unique sweet

photo: Bruce Smith

FILM

JASON SHAWHAN

cruel world. Well, as great as that movie is, a film with the same formula came out a year earlier: Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or-winning dramedy Shoplifters. The film is about a makeshift clan of petty-thieving laborers who start to feel like a real fam after they take in an abused little girl (Miyu Sasaki, who will definitely have you in the palm of her hand with her performance). Shoplifters will certainly warm the cockles of your heart before it ultimately breaks it all to hell.

But if you prefer the more dark-natured Parasite, don’t worry — that will also screen at Vanderbilt’s free film series, International Lens, in April. Gerald Figal, professor of Asian studies and history at Vanderbilt University, will present Shoplifters. 7:30 p.m. at Sarratt Cinema, 2301 Vanderbilt Place CRAIG D. LINDSEY

FRI/2.14

[BEEN CAUGHT STEALING]

International Lens: Shoplifters

So you’ve seen Bong Joon-ho’s multipleOscar-winning Parasite and found yourself riveted by a family of lower-class schemers as they try to simultaneously survive and stay together in this cold,

[EVERY TIME]

Dale Ann Bradley Band

If beautiful, homey, classic ’grass vocals are your thing, Dale Ann Bradley should be on the top of your list this week. Bradley is a four-time International Bluegrass

Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year, and her voice is her claim to fame for good reason. She was raised in the coal fields of Appalachia, and stories of difficult times and overcoming obstacles are often front-and-center in her music. Her cover of Jim Croce’s “The Hard Way Every Time” from her 2019 album The Hard Way is no exception. The lyrics tell a story of learning and growth by hard-earned experience (the best of teachers), and her band features fantastic pickers who add licks and fills that stick in your head. 9 p.m. at the Station Inn, 402 12th Ave. S. ABBY LEE HOOD MUSIC

[MAS MAUSS]

spot in the contemporary comedy game, dipping deeply into scientific theory, the expansive nature of knowledge and the inherent absurdity of existence. On Friday, he’s bringing another installment of Stand Up Science to Third Coast Comedy, and it will be something special. But he’s also got something new the night before: On Thursday, Mauss will debut Head Talks, an event focusing specifically on psychedelics.

The show will feature Mauss’ own research and experiences, as well as an in-depth segment with anthropologist Sophia Rokhlin that explores her work on the spread of the South American psychedelic substance ayahuasca. It’s going to be a trippy, transcendent pair of evenings with one of comedy’s most distinctive voices, and you shouldn’t miss it. Head Talks 6:30 & 9:30 p.m.

Thursday; Stand Up Science 10 p.m. Friday at Third Coast Comedy Club, 1310 Clinton St.

MUSIC

COMEDY

THURS/2.13

[IT’S COMPLICATED]

Heartbreak Express Feat. Teddy and the Rough Riders, Country Westerns & DJ Disko Cowboy

Universal though it is, love can be extraordinarily complex — the surface rarely, if ever, tells the whole story.

Nashville cosmic-country quartet Teddy and the Rough Riders have several excellent songs about the complications of different kinds of relationships in their catalog, which expanded in the fall via the band’s debut album The Congress of Teddy and the Rough Riders. On the LP, the group tackles the way life on the road makes it tough to

nashvillescene.com | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 23

23

2/10/20 3:55 PM

critics’ picks

1/2 MILE OFF BROADWAY ON THE SOUTH SIDE

LUNCH FROM 11AM MON-FRI DINNER FROM 6PM EVERYDAY FREE PARKING • SMOKE FREE THU

2/13 FRI

2/14

SAT

2/15

HEAVYDRUNK

W/ RENEE ARMAND, ETTA BRITT, TABITHA FAIR WMOT FINALLY FRIDAY (FREE)

NORA JANE STRUTHERS, PHIL MADEIRA, KORBY LENKER & BAREFOOT MOVEMENT

THE RUBIKS GROOVE VALENTINE’S SHOW

BACKSTAGE NASHVILLE LIVE VIP HIT SONGWRITERS SHOW

THE LONG PLAYERS

7:30

12:00 8:00

12:30 8:00

PERFORM SONGS AND SOUNDS OF THE SEVENTIES

SUN

THEO KATZMAN W/ RETT MADISON SOLD OUT!

8:00

MON

BIG STAGE MONDAYS HIT SONGWRITERS SHOW

2:00

2/16 2/17 TUE

2/18 WED

2/19 THU

2/20 FRI

2/21

THE TIME JUMPERS WENDY MOTEN : I’VE GOT YOUR COVERED

8:00 7:30

ALBUM PREVIEW W/ HARPER O’NEILL

BACKSTAGE: LINES & RHYMES INTERACTIVE SONGWRITER SERIES

GANGSTAGRASS WITH ROANOKE JONELL MOSSER AND FRIENDS

1:00 8:00 8:00

FEAT. STUART DUNCAN, ANDREA ZONN AND TODD LOMBARDO

WMOT FINALLY FRIDAY (FREE)

12:00

JASON BOLAND & THE STRAGGLERS :

8:00

BACKSTAGE NASHVILLE LIVE VIP HIT SONGWRITERS SHOW

12:30

THE FARMER & ADELE, HEIDI NEWFIELD, LATRESA & THE SIGNAL AND JB STRAUSS

COMING SOON 2-25 Ross Mathews : Name Drop Tour 2-26 “A Night for Robby Turner” Feat. Chris Stapleton, Jamey Johnson, Mo Pitney, Jim “Moose” Brown & More (SOLD OUT) 2-27 Micky & the Motorcars 2-28 WMOT Finally Friday feat. Ron Pope, Amanda Broadway Band, EmiSunshine, Kerry Hart 2-28 The Daybreaks w/ Volunteer 2-29 Ward Davis w/ Josh Morningstar 3-1 Sierra Hull 3-2 The Time Jumpers 3-4 Keith Burns (of Trick Pony) w/ Presley & Taylor / Emily West and The Whiskey Wolves of The West 3-5 Big Shoes feat. Rick Huckaby, Mark T. Jordan, Will McFarlane, Kenne Cramer, Tom Szell and Bryan Brock 3-6 Bart Crow w/ Hardin Draw 3-7 Trigger Hippy w/ Nicole Boggs & the Reel 3-8 Kelsey Waldon 3-9 The Time Jumpers 3-10 NASH FM Rhythm & Boots : Secret Show!

3/11 Dave Barnes, Matt Wertz, Andrew Ripp & Steve Moakler 3/12 Layla Tucker 3-13 The Midnight Riders Allman Brothers Revue w/ Special Guest Jack Pearson 3-14 World Turning Fleetwood Mac Revue 3-15 Yonder Mountain String Band 3-16 The Time Jumpers 3-17 SIXWIRE and Friends 3-18 Nashville Blues & Roots Alliance Show 3-20 Vinyl Radio 3-21 Robben Ford 3-23 The Time Jumpers 3-24 - 3-28 TIN PAN SOUTH 3-29 Brandy Clark : Who You Thought I Was Tour 3-30 The Time Jumpers 4-2 Matthew Perryman Jones & Friends 4-3 The Eaglemaniacs : The Musi c Of Don Henley and The Eagles 4-4 Resurrection: Journey Tribute 4-6 The Time Jumpers 4-10 Pat McLaughlin Band 4-13 The Time Jumpers 4-14 Songs and Stories for St Jude 4-17 &18 Ray Wylie Hubbard 4-20 The Time Jumpers 5-2 Steve Moakler 5-6 Koch Marshall Trio feat. Greg Koch 5-10 Eric Hutchinson 5-17 Pokey LaFarge

PEARL SNAPS 20TH ANNIVERSARY WITH CALEB CAUDLE SAT

2/22 SUN

2/23 MON

2/24 24

TIM AKERS & THE SMOKING SECTION JUNIOR BROWN BIG STAGE MONDAYS HIT SONGWRITERS SHOW

THE TIME JUMPERS

Teddy and The Rough RideRs connect with others (“Vampire”), the sting of best-laid plans gone awry (“Bite Me”), the feeling of dislocation when things and places you love change (“Gone”) and more.

They’ll be joined at this Valentine’s Day gig

by Houston’s DJ Disko Cowboy as well as locals Country Westerns, the ever-evolving country-schooled indie-rock project of Joey Plunket and Brian Kotzur. 8 p.m. at Mercy Lounge, 1 Cannery Row STEPHEN TRAGESER MUSIC

818 3RD AVE S. DOWNTOWN • 259-9891

INFORMATION AND TICKETS 3RDANDLINDSLEY.COM 866-468-3401 • TICKETWEB.COM

8:00 8:00 2:00

PRIVATE EVENT INFO

8:00

FROM 30 TO 700 GUESTS EVENTSAT3RD@GMAIL.COM

[IT’S OUR PARTY]

She’S a Rebel 6: a GiRl GRoup TRibuTe Show

Amid the crossfire of singles’ and couples’ events, those of us who don’t care about Valentine’s Day can relish the fact that there’s a non-holiday-themed show of substance on Friday. This year’s She’s a Rebel showcase will be hosted by renowned music critic Ann Powers, and will feature bands playing songs by The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las and other girl groups that dominated the airwaves in and around the early ’60s. Characterized by multiracial solidarity and lyrics challenging domestic stereotypes, oppression and Jim Crow laws, many girl groups used music to come together and make their objections heard.

Friday’s show will honor those voices with a staggering number of women musicians, including a five-piece house band, a string quintet, a horn section, more than 20 guest vocalists and an entirely female video and sound production crew. Even so, people of any gender identity are welcome to enjoy the show. Just keep the words of Leslie Gore in mind: “Don’t tell me what to do / Don’t tell me what to say / And please, when I go out with you / Don’t put me on display.” 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. KELSEY BEYELER

COMEDY

3RDANDLINDSLEY.COM

[MY ANACONDA DON’T]

anaconda comedy houR

Oh, the mighty anaconda. It’s a stranglehappy Amazonian super-snake with minimal predators but plenty of appeal to irresponsible pet owners in Florida, a creature that created quite a headache for preservationists in the Everglades.

It’s also a creative — if rather egotistical — euphemism for the male member that was popularized by Sir Mix-a-Lot and later perfected by Nicki Minaj. And it’s also the namesake of Seth Pomeroy’s ongoing local comedy showcase — presently operating under the tongue-in-cheek tagline “If you can’t breathe, you can’t laugh” — in East Nashville’s Anaconda Vintage. This week, the monthly happening will feature Mo Vaughn (“Best place to get a lobotomy

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 24

2/10/20 3:56 PM

TO A HOMETOWN HERO WITH A WORLDWIDE HEART

THANK YOU, KEITH URBAN ALL FOR THE HALL

7

YEARS STRONG

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

25

pHOTO: RAINER zIEHM

critics’ picks

New BomB Turks

It’s hard to file New Bomb Turks into a specific category. They released a brilliant first LP on the heralded garagepunk label Crypt Records, found their way onto Epitaph’s omnipresent PunkO-Rama CD comps, and even covered a Roky Erickson song on a split 7-inch with death-metal masters Entombed. And that was just in their first decade. True to Ohio’s rich heritage of outsider punks like Devo, Rocket From the Tombs and The Pagans, New Bomb Turks have always been set on making the most outrageous rock ’n’ roll possible. Blazing a unique trail for themselves, the Turks were able to create a mammoth discography and solidify themselves as one of the most important punk acts of the past 30 years. Also slated for the night are Kentucky’s hillbilly-sleaze masters Nine Pound Hammer and locals Kings of the Fucking Sea. 8 p.m. at Exit/In, 2201 Ellison Place P.J. KINZER

paul cauthen

26

ATTiTude: Other VOices

sAt/2.15 [COCAINE COUNTRY]

PAul CAuTheN

Have no doubt: Paul Cauthen is a country singer. The “Cocaine Country Dancing” singer is an East Texan after all, and ... well, he sings a song called “Cocaine Country Dancing.” But that’s not to say he doesn’t use his unique voice to bend and blur the lines between country and other pHOTO: ANNA WEbbER

[JEERS OF A CLOWN]

[DON’T GIVE ME THAT]

Nashville Ballet’s Attitude series serves as a kind of dance laboratory, allowing choreographers to experiment with novel themes and new techniques. This year’s series, titled Other Voices, looks at gender in the 21st century from very different perspectives. Choreographer Jennifer Archibald, for instance, contemplates what it means to be a woman of color in America. Choreographer Erin Kouwe, meanwhile, surveys her own family’s history, considering the things women once couldn’t do. Nashville Ballet artistic director Paul Vasterling found inspiration for this year’s program after reading a 2017 issue of National Geographic devoted entirely to the topic of gender. Vasterling tapped a group of choreographers — Archibald, Kouwe, Carlos Pons Guerra and Matthew Neenan — and asked them to create works that examine our changing ideas about gender. Feb. 14-16 at TPAC’s Polk Theater, 505 Deaderick St. JOHN PITCHER

MUSIC

MUSIC

in Nashville?”), Zanies mainstay Patrick Devine, Chance Willie (“Is there anything more tragic than posting on Facebook?”), Josh Lewis (“Y’all ever bought weed off a guy that lives in a trailer?”), and Memphis’ Judaea Driscoll (“ ‘Kokomo’ reminds me of both sex and old people.”). Cover is a perfectly reasonable suggested $5 donation at the door — and hey, free drinks! That being said, we promise this roster is plenty funny sober, too. 7 p.m. at Anaconda Vintage, 1062 E. Trinity Lane ELLE CARROLL

DANCE

new bomb turks

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 26

2/10/20 4:10 PM

What’s next?

Tennessee Performing Arts Center

FEB 13

FEB 14

LIQUID STRANGER

MICHAEL KIWANUKA

FEB 15

FEB 19

W/ DIRT MONKEY, LUZCID, SULLY

W/ SAMMY BRUE

Who’s Bad: The Evolution of Pop

CHELSEA CUTLER

FEB 21

FEB 22

W/ ALEXANDER 23, X LOVERS

FEB 11-16 Now Playing YETI FILM TOUR

SPACE JESUS

W/ TSURUDA, TIEDYE KY, ONHELL

MARATHONMUSICWORKS.COM FEB 19

FEB 28-29

FEB 29

Diary of a

Wombat

1402 clinton st. nashville, tn | BOX OFFICE: FRIDAY 10AM - 4

The Art of International Whiskey MOLLY TUTTLE

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

CAM

GOOSE

THE MILK CARTON KIDS

WATKINS FAMILY HOUR

SAM LEWIS

YOLA

Made possible by

MAR 3-8

MAR 7

MAR 12

War Memorial Auditorium

TV TAPING

BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA

MAR 16

MAR 18

War Memorial Auditorium

MAR 24-25 BLACK PUMAS

MANDOLIN ORANGE

MARCH

TPAC.ORG 615-782-4040

Groups of 10 or more call 615-782-4060

27-29

TPAC.ORG is the official online source for buying tickets to TPAC events.

BLUEGRASS UNDERGROUND S E A S O N

X

ON SALE NOW! WWW.THECAVERNS.COM nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

27

Saturday February 15 on

Live Music All Day plazamariachi.com 3955 Nolensville Pike, Nashville, TN 37211

[THE COLD LUNCH BUNCH]

Cold lunCh Fourth AnniversAry PArty FeAt. Chrome Pony & more

“This whole ride started four years ago at The 5 Spot with a bunch of bands that don’t exist anymore,” write the folks behind Cold Lunch Recordings. “So in an effort to not let go of the past, we try to relive it every year.” Indeed, the local record label and show-booking venture has seen loads of excellent psych, punk and garage-rock outfits come and go over the past 1,400 days or so. But they’re still at it, and this weekend Cold Lunch will celebrate four years with a show headlined by longtime local rippers Chrome Pony, whose recent single “So Bad” dresses classic rock ’n’ roll song structure in a dreamy modern-punk approach (not unlike the best stuff by Shannon and the Clams). Also on the bill are Portland, Ore., garage punks The Shivas — who have more than a little bit of The Cramps mixed into their musical DNA — as well as local jangle-poppers Only and newcomers Dendrons. The Cold Lunchers continue to do good work, so come raise a glass to ’em. 9 p.m. at The 5 Spot, 1006 Forrest Ave.

SPORTS

D. PATRICK RODGERS [ASHLAND CITY LIMITS]

Premier Boxing ChAmPions: PlAnt vs. FeigenButz

Middle Tennessee isn’t exactly a hotbed of boxing culture, but the stars have lined up just right to give us one of the most exciting fight nights Nashville has ever seen.

Lower Broadway will host Ashland City native and current IBF Super Middleweight Champion Caleb “Sweet Hands’’ Plant as he defends his belt against Vincent “The KO King” Feigenbutz in a match brought to us via Premier Boxing Champions and Sweet Hands Promotions. As if the 168-pound division title wasn’t enough, the event will co-feature a 10-round melee between welterweight contenders Bryant “Goodfella” Perrella and Abel Ramos, as well as an undercard starting early in the afternoon.

This will be the first time Plant (aka “Sweet Hands”), who is currently 19-0 with 11 KOs, will compete in Nashville, just down the road from his hometown. The event will also be a prime-time broadcast on Fox. 3 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena. 501 Broadway P.J. KINZER

28

COMEDY

genres. His voice — which garnered him the nickname Big Velvet — may start in the beer halls of East Texas, but it wanders through the history of country music, and American music in general. There aren’t just hints but dollops of soul, funk, jazz, rock and even a little hip-hop syncopation.

Cauthen’s 2019 album Room 41 — named for the hotel room where he holed up to write the songs — covers as much American distance as his voice does, perfectly presaged by the opener “Everybody Walkin’ This Land” before diving into the tales of sharecroppers, those aforementioned cocaine country dancers and everybody in between. Cauthen openly wishes there were only two genres — good and bad. He’d firmly be in the first camp. Fellow country crooner The Kernal will open. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. J.R. LIND

[CHUCKIN’ YUKS]

PerFeCt timing: A live Comedy gAme show

Which is best: stand-up comedy, improv or sketch? Obviously, that’s in the eye of the beholder, but the next installment of a long-running monthly comedy game show seeks to answer that question — at least in the short term, on a local scale. Hosted by comedian, MTSU history instructor and The Road to Now podcast co-host Ben Sawyer, Perfect Timing: A Live Comedy Game Show pits three teams of two against each other every month at Third Coast Comedy Club.

With local funnyman Sean Parrott providing musical accompaniment, the teams engage in performances, roasts, quizzes and more.

This month, sketch performers Tanner Newcomb and Zac Townsend, who won the January installment of Perfect Timing, will return to defend their title against a team of stand-up comics and a team of improvisers.

What’s more, the audience gets to determine the winner, so get down there and see which of these yuksters has the goods. 9:30 p.m. at Third Coast Comedy Club, 1310 Clinton St. D. PATRICK RODGERS

sUN/2.16 MUSIC

Celebrating Black History Month

or w/casT i, r a b o c b Emosa ancE Es 13 TErr s, Eddy niz, KFlamEs b E F u h E T rain nEr & walT E ParTy TrE sTo y danc KyraT a d s ' E &s EnTin 14 Val . synThE, sagE Fri FEb T a E F TylEr & / John boy w l l a n Er 15 PEV chasE & dow dsomE saT FEb ThE hE han .T T a E F /mixEr Ting, winTEr , sTrangE mEE ETlighT 6 1 b E F E s sun lonEr ood row, sTr cabin color, , w d blacK , branTwoo a ForcEs curFEw rEams & Pand PPy El & ha P a TV sEx d h c / aTEVr w l PEr wh u s ai VEssE 7 in 1 s b / E F w n mo EyhEad ans 18 dais m Thu FEb & Early hu gamblE aTs w/ simmons K o n r iKE nFE 20 ThE i badours & m Thu FEb u o Tr

critics’ picks

MUSIC

SATURDAY!

2219 Elliston Place 321-4457

[NEW TAPESTRY]

merCy Bell vinyl releAse

Several smart critics have reviewed Nashville singer-songwriter Mercy Bell’s 2019 self-titled full-length as a modern country album, with Bell fulfilling a post-Linda Ronstadt role. I think Mercy Bell — which is one of the more significant pop releases of 2019 — bespeaks Nashville, where the confusion and disagreement over what constitutes country just plumb fascinates this old country boy. Sure, there’s a country-like narrative concision you can hear throughout Bell’s album.

But Mercy Bell documents the work of a canny songwriter who would have been at home turning out AM-friendly hits in New York’s famed Brill Building 60 years ago. Bell reminds me of Laura Nyro and Carole King far more than she does Ronstadt, even though Bell is a fine singer.

I file Mercy Bell on the shelf with fellow Nashvillian Nicole Atkins’ brilliant 2017 soul-pop album Goodnight Rhonda Lee. Opening at Bell’s vinyl-release show will be songwriter Jasmin Kaset, who’s also known as half of punk duo Birdcloud, along with alt-blues singer Gran Cavallo. 8 p.m. at The Basement, 1604 Eighth Ave. S. EDD HURT

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 28

2/10/20 4:10 PM

MUSIC

critics’ picks [MARCH ON, WASHINGTON]

Kamasi Washington

In 2015, after spending a decade contributing to recordings by a slew of iconic artists — including Lauryn Hill, Snoop Dogg and most notably Kendrick Lamar, with whom he recorded the revered To Pimp a Butterfly — saxophonist and composer Kamasi Washington stepped out in a big way with his solo debut The Epic.

The three-hour, six-sided beast of an album delivered on its title and then some. If The Epic served to announce Washington’s presence, its just-as-astral 2018 follow-up Heaven and Earth made clear that there’s a lot more where that came from. Love of the craft and a belief in music’s ability to move mountains figures into everything

THis Week’s LisTinGs Thursday, Feb. 13

aT 4:00 sToryTime with mary Cady aT 6:30 raChel GladsTone

The Weekend Wedding Assistant

saTurday, Feb. 15

aT 10:30 saTurday sToryTime with The sTory lady & The drummer

Washington does, and his omnivorous nature as a player and listener goes a long way to lower the barrier to the sometimes-daunting world of jazz, particularly for younger listeners. Jazz guitarist Slim Gambill will open. 7 p.m. at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St.

aT 2:00 J. ronald york

The One-Up Game

monday, Feb. 17

aT 6:30 CandaCy Taylor

Overground Railroad

poetry

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN [LOVE TO HEAR IT]

Love: an evening of spoKen Word

The 21c Museum Hotel downtown has made a name for itself in Nashville’s arts community by providing free 24-hour access to art for anyone who wants to visit. The hotel’s museum also hosts evenings of spoken-word poetry and music, and Sunday’s event is all about love. Attendees can enjoy live jazz music, wine and spoken-word poetry, all without spending a dime. Want to learn more about writing some poetry of your own? There’s time for that too, as the featured poets will offer free writing workshops immediately after the event. In a weekend packed with pricy, often-cheesy Valentine’s events, this poetry night could be a free alternative for couples and fed-up singles alike. 6-8 p.m. at 21c Museum Hotel, 221 Second Ave. N. BRONTE LEBO

sunday, Feb. 16

Tuesday, Feb. 18

aT 6:30 Parnassus book Club discussing The Age of Light

Wednesday, Feb. 19

aT 12:00 ambassador susan riCe

Tough Love

aT 6:30 Parnassus book Club discussing The Age of Light

Thursday, Feb. 20

aT 10:00 Parnassus book Club discussing The Age of Light aT 4:00 sToryTime with mary Cady

parnassusbooks.net 3900 Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills 615.953.2243 @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 29

29

2/10/20 4:11 PM

HAPPY hour music WE CARRY Cigarettes Tobacco Vape Products

Pipes Cigars Glass

WE NOW CARRY CBD Products & Hemp Flower Grown By Licensed Middle TN Hemp Farmers

WE ARE NASHVILLE’S ONLY ONE-STOP SMOKE SHOP 2204 Elliston Place Suite H, Nashville, TN 37203 615-457-3314

drink specials daily

critics’ picks

thu Karleen Watt and Friends 2/13 Mo Pitney FRI J Mark Bailey 2/14 Noah and Jesse Bebe Buckskin Timbo and The Studs sat Mallory Eagle 2/15 Timbo and The Studs Sun Luke Munday 2/16 Honky Tonk Mashup MON Hard Redemption 2/17 Music City’s Legends and Locals TUE Nashville’s Most Wanted 2/18 WED Robert Daniels 2/19 Music Row Freakshow THU Grindhouse 2/20

wendy moten

Music city Mondays: When We Were Kings

There are so many reasons to recommend Leon Gast’s 1996 documentary examining “The Rumble in the Jungle” — the 1974 heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, held in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). There’s insightful commentary from Spike Lee, Norman Mailer and George Plimpton; musical performances by James Brown, B.B. King and more; a terrifying look at the vicious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko; extensive footage of one of the most dramatic sporting events in history; and Gast’s superb direction, which captures the pandemonium surrounding the event, the burgeoning Black Power movement and the crackling energy of the early 1970s in an exceptionally visceral way. But what elevates this to one of the greatest documentaries of all time is the sheer jaw-dropping brilliance of Ali himself — as an athlete, a comedian, a selfpromoter, a political figure, a role model and perhaps the greatest trash-talker of all time. Ali is to sports what The Beatles are to popular music, in that he is so embedded into our culture that we take him for granted at times. But witnessing the way Ali in his prime could command a room, a camera and a boxing ring is nothing short of stunning — particularly as he was preparing to face Foreman, one of the strongest, most physically imposing boxers of all time, not to mention a 4-to-1 favorite to win the fight.

2:50 & 8 p.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. JACK SILVERMAN

30

MUSIC

[I’M GONNA DANCE]

TUES/2.18 [TIME JUMPER]

Wendy Moten

The Time Jumpers have long been one of Nashville’s most beloved musical institutions, so head out to 3rd and Lindsley on Tuesday to get to know one of the storied band’s newest members, Wendy Moten. An acclaimed vocalist and Memphis native, Moten has shared stages with artists like Faith Hill and David Foster, with recording credits alongside Michael McDonald, Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks and John Oates, among others. Moten will showcase songs from her new album I’ve Got You Covered, which includes her interpretations of tracks like Ernest Tubb’s “Driving Nails in My Coffin” and Linda Ronstadt’s “Faithless Love.” And no promises, but we wouldn’t be surprised if some other Time Jumpers made an appearance alongside Moten. 7:30 p.m. at 3rd and Lindsley, 818 Third Ave. S. BRITTNEY McKENNA

WED/2.19 MUSIC

FILM

MON/2.17

[SOUL MATES]

Grace Potter w/devon Gilfillian

Though united by swagger and soul, the two artists on Wednesday’s Ryman bill couldn’t be at more different places in their careers. Grace Potter’s critical and commercial success — first with her blues-rock band the Nocturnals, and more recently as a solo artist — spans nearly two decades. She’s also experienced enough to contemplate quitting music altogether, ultimately channeling that “crispiness” into her latest album, 2019’s Daylight.

Meanwhile, Nashville-based opener Devon

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 30

2/10/20 4:11 PM

thebasementeast basementeast thebasementeast

917 Woodland Street Nashville, TN 37206 thebasementnashville.com

THE 69 EYES // FEB 16

w/ Wednesday 13, Sumo Cyco, & The Crowned

IRATION // FEB 18

w/ Iya Terra, Ballyhoo! & The Ries Brothers

FEBRUARY 19

GRACE POTTER

with Devon Gilfillian

.

AMERICAN AUTHORS / MAGIC GIANT

CAM'RON // FEB 22

w/ Public// Feb 19

w/ Tim Gent & Petty

100.1 fm 10

MARCH 8

FISK JUBILEE SINGERS®

with special guest Ledisi

LOST DOG STREET BAND // FEB 23

YBN CORDAE // FEB 24

w/ Casper Allen

w/ 24KGoldn & LONR

Upcoming shows Feb 14

She’s A Rebel: A Girl Group Tribute Show

Feb 15 Feb 21 Feb 26 Feb 27 Feb 28 Feb 29 Mar 1 Mar 3 Mar 6 Mar 7 Mar 8

Paul Cauthen w/ The Kernal QDP Jordy Searcy Crobot w/ Aeges & Like Machines bbno$ w/ Lentra Illiterate Light w/ Shane T Dan Deacon w/ Ed Schrader's Music Beat ELOHIM w/ Bahari and Mehro Fruition w/ Katie Toupin Archers of Loaf w/ Peachy The Nashville Moth StorySLAM:

Mar 10 Mar 11 Mar 12 Mar 13 Mar 14 Mar 15

| 6th Annual!

Mar 16 Mar 17 Mar 19 Mar 20 Mar 22

Rare Hare 12: Well, they USED to be hits The Ataris w/ H.A.R.D. Tow'rs John Moreland w/ S.G. Goodman Life of Agony w/ Doyle, All Hail The Yeti

Mar 23 Mar 27 Mar 28 Mar 31 Apr 2

Best Coast w/ Mannequin Pussy The Brook and the Bluff TAUK w/ Three Star Revival The Birthday Massacre w/ Julien-K Stick Men featuring Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto,

MARCH 29

ALAN PARSONS LIVE PROJECT

& Denman

and Markus Reuter Meg Donnelly (2pm) Chris Renzema w/ Ry Cox Flora Cash w/ Beau Young Prince

Apr 4 Apr 5 Apr 7 Hailey Whitters Apr 8 Damon Johnson w/ The Ladies Of Black Lips w/ Poppy Jean Crawford & Butthole Apr 9 Apr 10 Rumours - A Fleetwood Mac Tribute Apr 11 Sarah Shook & the Disarmers w/ The Yawpers Apr 13 Southern Underground Pro Wrestling Apr 14 CHALLENGE

Chaz Cardigan Avi Kaplan w/ Paper Wings The Districts w/ Glove Jade Novah Torres Brent Faiyaz w/ GRIP

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

MAY 2

RIVAL SONS ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

JUNE 24 An Evening of Conversation with

JULIE ANDREWS

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

AUGUST 22

THE DECEMBERISTS

with special guest Fruit Bats

MERCY BELL // FEB 16

DEEP SEA DIVER // FEB 19

w/ Jasmin Kaset & Gran Cavallo Feb 13 Feb 14 Feb 15 Feb 17 Feb 18 Feb 18 Feb 20 Feb 20

w/ John McNally

UPCOMING SHOWS

Mel Bryant & The Mercy Makers

w/ Kelly Soule Eberle

ZakkaPalooza Presents: St. Music City

Massacre at The Basement!

Jesse Dayton w/ Jeremy Pinnell Buffalo Nichols w/ Cristina Vane Nickey James (7pm) New Faces Night ft., Robinson Treacher, The Brown Goose, Neutral Snap, Scott Hylbert, Peyton Gilliland, Acklen, JD Clayton Kim Richey w/ Mando Saenz (7pm) Miller and the Hunks w/ Digital Brains & City Silos

Feb 21 Feb 22

Katie Pruitt SOLD OUT! Tyler Lance Walker Gill w/ Boys Club

Feb 22 Feb 23

Motel Radio w/ Nightingail & Juno Dunes Smart Objects w/ Arts Fishing Club

Feb 24 Feb 24 Feb 25 Feb 28 Feb 28

for Girls

thebasementnash

JO KOY

& Kate Vogel

The Heavy Hours (7pm) Nicholas Jamerson & The Morning Jays w/ Brit Taylor (9pm)

Myron Elkins Craig Waters and the Flood w/ Lamont

Landers (7pm) The Ivins w/ HER, The Other LA & Jet Setting (9pm)

1604 8th Ave S Nashville, TN 37203 thebasementnash

SEPTEMBER 25

UPGRADE YOUR NIGHT WITH A RYMAN PREMIUM PASS FOR TICKET INFORMATION AND MORE, VISIT RYMAN.COM Historically Cool Since 1892

FOLLOW US @THERYMAN

116 Fifth Avenue North Nashville, TN 37219

thebasementnash nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

31

critics’ picks

pHOTO: MATT CANOSA

join the party

truckfighters

Celebrate Beethoven’s 250th Birthday with an ALL-BEETHOVEN extravaganza featuring his Piano Concerto No. 1 and “Eroica” Symphony No. 3 CONCERT PARTNER

MEDIA PARTNER

WITH SUPPORT FROM

Nashville Scene readers, use code FRIEND and save up to 20% on your tickets 615.687.6400 NashvilleSymphony.org 32

[BREWS FOR THE RED SUN]

TruckfighTers, Valley of The sun & howling gianT

Little Harpeth Brewing continues to bring great music to town as it hosts Swedish rockers Truckfighters. The band’s name might sound like a syndicated cartoon from the ’80s, but Truckfighters are actually one of Scandinavia’s hardest rocking groups. They emerged from their country in the heyday of Swedish death metal and garage punk, but the power trio shares a lot more sonically with fellow Swedes Dozer, or American stoner brethren like Kyuss and Nebula. The hard-rock convoy also features Cincinnati’s fuzzed-out dirge masters Valley of the Sun, whose music sounds like riffing on the heavier moments of Soundgarden.

First up is Howling Giant, a three-piece from Music City that has been making some of the heaviest sci-fi psychedelic rock in the galaxy. 8 p.m. at Little Harpeth Brewing Company, 30 Oldham St. P.J. KINZER

the tradition alive. You might ask: What tradition? Well, the long-running band’s 2019 full-length III sports thoughtful, socially conscious tunes like “Gloria,” which is about a woman succumbing to addiction. In fact, III reads as a song suite about addiction and the temptations of hyper-capitalism.

Whatever you think about the band’s rather attenuated and mannered vocals and moderately difficult guitar licks, these guys have their modestly luminous moments. I’d like to hear some sharp young folk-country singer tackle the III track “Left for Denver,” a pretty good song. As I learned in the ’60s, sometimes cover versions of “folk” tunes can point the way to new worlds.

Opening will be fellow indie-folk band Mt. Joy and Dylan-influenced folkie J.S. Ondara. 7 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway EDD HURT MUSIC

FEBRUARY 20 TO 23

MUSIC

with the NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

MUSIC

Beethoven’s Birthday Bash

Gilfillian is fresh off the Jan. 10 release of his trippy major label debut, Black Hole Rainbow, and he’s poised to explode into outer space with his gospel-infused spin on psychedelic soul. Together, Potter and Gilfillian make for an electric, energetic pairing that will likely lift every ass from this hallowed venue’s pews.7:30 p.m. at the Ryman, 116 Fifth Ave. North KATY LINDENMUTH

[GOTTA JET]

we were Promised JeTPacks

It’s been 11 years (though it feels like longer) since We Were Promised Jetpacks broke out with “Quiet Little Voices,” a triumphant piece of emotive guitar rock that wouldn’t have felt out of place on The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry. Even if

[WALK RIGHT IN]

The lumineers

I really love folk music, and this may be because I have serious doubts about the validity of the concept itself. Still, the first record I ever learned by heart was The Rooftop Singers’ 1962 cover version of Memphis jug-band giant Gus Cannon’s “Walk Right In.” A half-century after the ’60s folk revival was transformed by The Beatles, Dylan and The Byrds, the Americana group The Lumineers keep

we were promised jetpacks

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 32

2/10/20 4:11 PM

critics’ picks

[KEEP IT]

Staff PickS: The Keep

MUSIC

“Psychedelic” isn’t a word normally associated with Michael Mann, the crime filmmaker best known for his fastidiously realistic depictions of anguished men working in underground economies. But psychedelic is maybe the best word to describe The Keep, Mann’s fever dream of a World War II movie, adapted from the first novel in F. Paul Wilson’s Adversary Cycle (and tragically cut in half by Paramount from the original 210-minute run time).

Imagine that iconic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when cosmic, face-melting evil is unleashed, except it lasts for 96 minutes, it’s scored by Tangerine Dream, and it breaks your heart. Your mind won’t know what the hell is going on, but your eyes will never forget it. The film will show as part of the Belcourt’s ongoing Staff Picks series, and was selected by regular Scene contributor Jason Shawhan. 8 p.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. NATHAN SMITH [WHAT’S A BOY TO DO]

GanGStaGraSS

PHOTO: MELODIE YvONNE

Best known as the Emmy-nominated creators of “Long Hard Times to Come,” the theme song from the FX drama Justified, Gangstagrass couldn’t be more aptly named if they tried. The surprising combo of bluegrass instruments and hip-hop beats is the best argument for the marriage of the two genres. The band’s 2019 live album, Pocket Full of Fire: Gangstagrass, boasts feel-good tunes that fans of either genre will love, but that doesn’t mean it’s without nuance. While “Barnburning” is a

danceable mix of bass-y hoedown goodness, tracks like “Red River” and “You Can Never Go Home” tell stories of broken families and hard times. Those three tracks alone feature multiple vocalists and styles ranging from classic country sangin’ to blistering rhymes. Of the five band members, only the fiddler doesn’t take credit as a vocalist.

Gangstagrass, whose album spent 15 weeks on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart in 2019, offers a great opportunity for fans who primarily listen to one of the two genres to get outside their comfort zone and experience something special. Local roots outfit Roanoke will open. 8 p.m. at 3rd and Lindsley, 818 Third Ave. ABBY LEE HOOD LeCtUre

FILM

its influence plateaued there, the Glasgow foursome led by singer-guitarist Adam Thompson has settled into a comfortable groove of returning every couple years with a new collection of sturdily constructed altrock clarion calls delivered in Thompson’s unmistakable, melancholic Scottish accent.

On the band’s latest, 2018’s The More I Sleep the Less I Dream, Jetpacks sacrifice some of their usual Fender Strat-driven bluster for a more rhythm-focused, post-punkinflected style that suits them well. Also on the bill: Philly emo revivalists Slaughter Beach, Dog (which is one band, despite the comma). 9 p.m. at Exit/In, 2208 Elliston Place CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

[PUBLIC TESTIMONY]

Vanderbilt chancellor’S lecture SerieS: John bolton and SuSan rice

Come see and hear what Congress couldn’t: former national security adviser John Bolton, and his mustache, discussing his experience in Donald Trump’s White House. Bolton’s appearance, along with Susan Rice — who served as Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations — comes just before the release of Bolton’s White House memoir, The Room Where It Happened. That’s where he reportedly details interactions with the president, like when Trump told him to participate in the scheme to pressure Ukraine into stirring up dirt on Democratic rivals. The White House blocked Bolton from testifying in the House ahead of Trump’s impeachment, and Senate Republicans blocked him from being called to testify in the president’s trial. But Bolton is no hero. In addition to being a relentless warmonger generally, Bolton made the cynical decision to save his testimony for a cash-grab book rather than speak out against the corrupt president when it might have made a difference. The conversation with Bolton and Rice will be moderated

by Ingrid Wuerth, the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law and director of the Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program, and Hannah Martins Miller, a third-year law student and editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. The event is free, but tickets must be reserved.

7 p.m. at Vanderbilt’s Langford Auditorium, 2209 Garland Ave. STEVEN HALE

gangstagrass

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

criticspicks_2-13-20.indd 33

33

2/10/20 4:11 PM

BEST INDIAN FOOD

A plant-based bistro & bar Serving Brunch & Dinner

ORDER ONLINE AT TAJNASHVILLE.COM

GERMANTOWN’S FINEST KOREAN FOOD & SUSHI

750-3490 • 3943 Nolensville Pike

(Shopping Center next to Elysian Fields Rd.)

HAPPY HOUR TUES. THRU FRI. 4:30-6:30 GERMANTOWN DEPOT • NASHVILLE 1318 6TH AVE NORTH • 615-953-7222 OPEN LUNCH & DINNER • FREE PARKING

SURASAMURAI.COM

Tue - Fri: 4PM – 10:30PM | Sat & Sun: 9AM – 10:30PM Brunch: Sat & Sun 9AM - 2:30PM

615.686.1060 | 1888 Eastland Ave. | grazenashville.com

icy Ju & ! ity u r F

Authentic Mexican Cuisine & Bakery...Side by Side!

Good Stuff, $10 or less

Madison: 917 Gallatin Pike South

nashvillescene.com/cheap-eats/

615-669-8144 PanaderiayPasteleriaLopez

BIGGEST & TASTIEST SOUTH INDIAN BUFFET IN NASHVILLE (SERVED DAILY) www.amaravatitn.com

615-865-2646 TacosyMariscosLindoMexico

Happy Hour 3 to 5 PM

SPE LUNC CIA H LD AIL Y

$1 OFF Appetizers Drink Specials Menu Specials served til 5 PM

5012 Thoroughbred Lane, Brentwood (behind Walgreen’s off Old Hickory Blvd.)

615-840-8860

Ask about our

OPEN FOR LUNCH & DINNER DAILY • BUFFET @ LUNCH ONLY

BEER

Thai Cuisine

(formerly Thai Esane...

New name, same great flavor)

Call Ahead For FAST Take-Out!

907 12th Ave. South (5 minutes from The Gulch)

OPEN: Mon. thru Thurs., 11-9; Fri. & Sat. 11-10; closed Sun.

6159152827

KINGSIAM.NET

Fresh poke bowls, healthy smoothies and breakfast bowls, fresh baked goods, craft beers and more!

Stop in for a taste of Hawaii in Music City.

6688 Nolensville Rd. Brentwood, TN 37027 615-819-0721 Mon-Thurs 11 am to 9:30pm; closed Tuesday; Fri and Sat 11 am to 10 pm; Sun 11:00am to 9:00pm

34

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

901 Woodland St. #105 @kawaipokeco | www.kawaipoke.com

food and drink

The Art of Catering A new crop of caterers carries on a Nashville tradition

and her team molded butter — colored in a trippy kaleidoscope of green from spirulina and purple from red cabbage — into mini individual pyramids for fresh bread. Servers prowled the room pre-event like worker ants in a busy attempt to transform the room from a wide-open rock club to a moody, candlelit event space. Meanwhile, the chefs stayed quiet and calm in the back, tasting, salting and moving like water over rocks in a constant but steady steam. The team placed tiny tangerine leaves on top of jellied carrot puree with chile-lime salt. Frenchstyle macarons that looked like cookies in hues of pink had been colored by beets and filled with black sesame fluff. The musty storage room took on the aroma of fresh bread warming in the hotboxes, with bright herbs, olives, lemon and garlicky chile oil arrayed in the colors of a late-stage sunset.

Tucked in a different corner of the space, pastry chef Caitlyn Cox (who describes her style as “modern grandma”) piped neon pom-pom icing onto cakes and filled eggshells with neon key lime.

And though the night involved detail to the extreme, the evening prior Sullivan and team had catered a totally different event — a sweet-16th birthday at Belmont Mansion.

The following Wednesday they’d cook for 400 more at an event at OZ Arts Nashville.

So why do it?

“I’ve always done it — mostly to support myself in between jobs,” Sullivan says, recalling her days working in Manhattan before returning to her hometown of Nashville. She also kept getting catering requests

Juniper Green’s Gougères

Juniper Green’s Roasted beets

through the restaurant, but didn’t have the space to fulfill orders. (She has an 8-by-8foot walk-in fridge at the restaurant with fresh shellfish coming in six days a week.)

She now rents catering space in the kitchen at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which had been sitting empty.

“It seemed like enough demand to justify exploring it.”

Though she’s still scaling the company to afford essential expenses (like trucks and a regular dishwasher), Sullivan knows the potential. During research, she trailed a catering and events company in Houston that brings in $9 million a year.

But more than all that, catering offers chefs an opportunity to collaborate with vendors and clients to create customized experiences and truly make people’s big days even more special.

“It’s the last place people [will still] put away their phones and be together, making memories — bridal showers, funerals, new babies, milestones,” says Martin.

Martin says she once showed up to a 200-person wedding with food that should have already been cooked — instructions on two different jobs had been flipped by accident. She was at a remote location in Gallatin with no kitchen to finish the food. photos: Jessica Amerson

R

oadies, bartenders at Brown’s Diner and elderly relatives all have great stories. But have you ever talked to a caterer? They cook like they’re Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in the desert — but, you know, without the meth or the luxury of an RV. Caterers swoop into abandoned warehouses and empty fields with their knives and nerves — both made of steel — to MacGyver kitchens out of thin air. They deal with brides and moms on the brink of their biggest and most stressful moments.

And then they serve dinners for hundreds of people simultaneously under schedules monitored by the minute (like, first course out at 7:07 p.m.).

Authors Matt and Ted Lee wrote a recent book about the catering underworld. Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World’s Riskiest Business raises blood pressure by page 2 of Chapter 1.

“To be in catering, you have to be totally unflappable,” says Molly Martin of Juniper Green, a catering and events company that launched in fall 2017. “No matter how organized you are, shit goes wrong. It’s stressful as hell.”

Nashville has a strong history of catering. Longtime Nashvillians can cite their favorite caterers like they’re naming hairstylists or music venues. But just as the city’s restaurant scene has changed with new establishments and chefs, there’s a new school of caterers, too. And they’re not here to replace — just to add something fresh and help dispel stereotypes.

“Everybody’s had dry-ass chicken at a wedding,” says Martin. But times have changed. Martin, who worked many years as a chef in restaurants around town, offers food that’s seasonal, creative and surprising.

Chef Julia Sullivan of Germantown restaurant Henrietta Red also entered the catering game a few months ago with her company The Party Line. While her restaurant continues to buzz, she spent a recent Saturday setting up a makeshift kitchen in the back of Marathon Music Works in a room labeled “Storage.” Amid an old sofa, several ladders and outdoor heat lamps looming like off-duty security guards, she fashioned a U-shaped workspace of 8-foot tables for plating. She brought in hotboxes, speed racks, a handwashing station, hundreds of platters and clear Cambro containers holding a rainbow of ingredients, arranged by course in Tetris configurations.

“Every space is so different,” says Sullivan, cool and unfazed.

With seven back-of-house staff and 22 front-of-house, she sent out multiple plates — octopus salad, beef short rib with braised collards, schnitzel-style monkfish — to a glittery crowd at The Art Ball, a fundraiser with a planned attendance of 300 that grew unexpectedly to 350 two days before the event.

Details had been planned months in advance. To match the bright colors and mirrored pyramid decor of the event, Sullivan

food from The Party Line at The Art Ball

nashvillescene.com | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

food_2-13-20.indd 35

Photos: Eric England

By Jennifer Justus

35

2/10/20 5:30 PM

food and drink She rallied her team, and they networked it.

They borrowed strangers’ homes and space at a barbecue joint. Cocktail hour only had to be pushed 30 minutes, and by the end of the night, the mother of the bride had Martin in an emotional embrace.

The stories go on and on, including a classic from the late legendary chef Phila Hach, who catered a dinner at the East Tennessee home of famed Roots author Alex Haley. Chess and fudge pies had been specifically requested, but reaching Knoxville, she realized she didn’t have them

Lunch Buffet Daily: $10.95

SPECIAL COUPON OFFER:

$1 OFF LUNCH BUFFET ONE COUPON PER CUSTOMER

$5 OFF YOUR DINNER : Winners’ Reader poll

WITH $30 MINIMUM PURCHASE

VOTED BEST FOR 15 YEARS!

116 21st Ave. N. | 321-8889 | SitarNashville.com

We Deliver: Call @ 526-9100

FREE PARKING!

— hundreds of slices were missing, mistakenly loaded into the wrong vehicle.

Hach simply pulled over at a Kroger and announced she’d need to borrow their bakery for a minute. She banged out the pies and made it to the venue on time with desserts still warm, filling the venue with their rich perfumes. The organizers raved and called her a magician for keeping the pies hot while traveling across the state.

They never even knew the half of it.

Email arts@nashvillEscEnE.com

vegan & vegetarian with gluten-free options East Nashville

Closed on Tuesdays Open 11am-10pm all other days

Follow us on facebook or twitter to see daily specials!

Taste The Flavor of:

Authentic –

– Fast – Casual – Chinese

Local – Handmade –

Photo: Eric England

The BEST Dumplings in Nashville!

VEG OUT

d town Digging into vegetable dishes aroun

Honeyfire Barbeque Co. — Veggie Plate — $8.25

B

steamboys.com #eatsteamboys

36

eing a vegetarian in the South takes work. Nine times out of 10, a “veggie plate” is anything but vegetarian — your beans have been simmered in chicken broth, your potato salad is studded with bacon, and your greens were stewed with half a hog. We love that! Meat makes veggies taste great. But every once in a while it does a body — and the planet — good to go meatless, and that’s getting easier in surprising places.

One of my favorites is Bellevue’s Honeyfire Barbeque Co. For $8.25, you Honeyfire BarBeque co.

8127 Sawyer Brown road, can make a supremely filling vegetarian meal from three of Honeyfire’s seven Suite 304 sides. Start by choosing one of the following: fries, coleslaw, baked beans, Honeyfire.com corn pudding or baked apples. Finish with the nonnegotiables: Parmesan green beans and queso mac-and-cheese. The beans still have some texture, which is key because they’re served in a Parmesan cheese sauce that owner Shane Nasby created specifically to get his kids to eat their veggies. It works, hitting all the nostalgic notes of green bean casserole, but it’s better because: CHEESE. Speaking of which, your second side must be the white queso mac-and-cheese. It is exactly as decadent and delicious as it sounds — gooey, salty, savory and comforting. The fact that this snack idea never crossed my mind in college is my biggest culinary shame. Luckily, at $2.75 per side, I can afford to make up for lost time now. ASHLEY BRANTLEY

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

food_2-13-20.indd 36

2/10/20 5:30 PM

Tickets on sale Now! Presented by

chefs throw down! four Chefs. one Secret Ingredient

Chris De Jesus

Hrant Arakelian

Nina Singto

Praveen Pedankar

Chef de Cuisine M Street

Chef and Owner Lyra

Chef and Owner Thai Esane

Chef and Partner Chaatable

March 19, 2020 6 PM-9:30 PM / Musicians Hall of Fame Guests will enjoy sampling unlimited bites from local restaurants and sipping craft cocktails, beer and wine while watching the heated competition go down!

Sampling Restaurants:

Daddy's Dogs, Fable Lounge, Taco Mamacita, Makeready Libations & Liberation, Nomzilla, Bakery Lopez, Trattoria Il Mulino, Taj, Las Palmas, Zulema's Taqueria and MANY more to come!

Benefitting

Visit

Sponsored by

In Partnership With

www.IRONFORKNASHVILLE.COM #IronFork20

for tickets!

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

37

culture

Lift Every Voice

From the Back of the Bus will honor the Nashville Freedom Riders

38

posers. “The composers that are creating classical music are diverse, and black composers are a really central, important part of that narrative,” says Corcoran.

The ensemble will play music composed

by Florence Price, who in 1933 became the first black woman to have a piece of music performed by a major orchestra. Much of Price’s work was thought lost — until 2009, when a collection of manuscripts was discovered in her summer home. “It’s kind of an interesting thing right now to figure out,” says Corcoran. “What is going to be her legacy? How is her music going to live beyond her life?” Intersection will also perform songs from Nkeiru Okoye’s opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom. Corcoran hopes to acknowledge Tubman’s role in the early stages of the women’s suffrage movement.

In building the program, CampbelleHolman spent time with Patton to help translate the lessons of the movement to her young chorus. She says she hopes the program will plant a seed in the minds of young people that will somewhere down the road compel them to be active in their communities. More than anything, she believes in the power of song.

“When you’re singing,” says CampbelleHolman, “that sound and vibration starts inside yourself. When you’re sharing that with someone else within the choral, you’re actually sharing inner vibrations with others, and when they are in unison, you’ve made harmony. … If a child doesn’t know what harmony feels like or looks like or sounds like, how can they identify it when there’s confusion in the rest of their lives?”

The freedom songs sung by Patton and his peers were sometimes derived from gospel music, church hymns and Negro spirituals.

Other times, the songs were made up on the spot to accomodate a situation. In the summer of 1961 at the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, Patton and his fellow Freedom Riders — among them John Lewis, James Bevel, C.T. Vivian and James Lawson — sang constantly.

The prison guards threatened to take away the activists’ mattresses if they kept it up.

“And so they would open the doors, and we would throw the mattresses out in the hall,” says Patton. “We had a song for that.”

And then he sings: “Ain’t gonna let no mattress turn me ’round. Turn me ’round.

Turn me ’round. Ain’t gonna let no mattress turn me ’round. I’m going to keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’, marchin’ up to freedom land.”

Patton’s voice is low and clear. The simple song becomes, remarkably, both a hymn and an anthem. Listening to him sing, it’s easy to imagine him as a very young man, boarding a bus in Nashville, ready for whatever lay ahead.

From the Back of the Bus is rooted in Campbelle-Holman’s vision of building a bridge between the activism of the civil rights movement and activism today.

“There are two tenets I learned from Rip Patton,” says Campbelle-Holman. “[The

Rip Patton photo from the book Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders by Eric Etheridge Rip Patton’s 1961 mug shot

photo coutesy of the state of mississippi

“Y

ou’d be surprised at what music can do,” says Rip Patton. He would know. Patton was among the civil rights activists who Upon These desegregated NashShoulders: From the ville lunch counters Back of the Bus and movie theaters 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, at Fisk in the 1960s. He rode University Chapel across the South on buses as a Freedom Ride Along With the Rider, sitting beside Freedom Riders 6:30 p.m. Thursday, his white and black Feb. 13, at First Baptist peers while mobs Church, Capitol Hill of segregationists awaited their arrival at depots and terminals.

“There’s an old saying that music can soothe the savage beast,” Patton says. “One of the things about music is that we all can’t talk at the same time, but we can all sing at the same time. And so we used music to comfort us, to give us strength. To know that we were all under the same banner. That we were all together.”

Patton’s group of Freedom Riders left Nashville on May 19, 1961, just days after a bus filled with riders associated with the Congress of Racial Equality was bombed in Anniston, Ala., and another bus was met by a violent white mob in Birmingham, Ala. Many in the Nashville group wrote out their last will and testament before they boarded the bus.

Music was at the core of their mission.

This week, a confluence of Nashville artists will celebrate the vision and courage of seven local Freedom Riders — Patton, Allen Cason, Etta Rae Simpson, Frederick Leonard, Mary Jean Smith, Joy Leonard and Patricia Armstrong — with song.

The central theme of the program is “I wonder …” according to Margaret Campbelle-Holman, the founder and artistic director of local nonprofit Choral Arts Link.

“As a child … as events occured in the civil rights movement, I would watch the TV and wonder who those people were,” says Campbelle-Holman. “How did they get there, what did they do to be able to be there and deal with what they were dealing with?”

Choral Arts Link provides choral training and leadership opportunities for Nashville youth in grades 2 through 12. Holman has partnered with the contemporary music ensemble Intersection for the past four years in an annual program called Upon These Shoulders. This year’s concert — which will take place at Fisk University Chapel at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15 — is titled From the Back of the Bus. The MET Singers, the signature group of Choral Arts Link, will perform the Negro spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me,” as well as songs by Nashville poet Melissa Smith and Metro Nashville Public Schools veteran music teacher Nita Modley Smith.

Kelly Corcoran, the artistic director of Intersection, says her ensemble aims to disrupt the notion that the faces of classical music are all white male European com-

photo: Eric Etheridge

By Erica Ciccarone

movement] had to be intergenerational. It had to be interracial. We’re trying to create a discussion — intergenerational, interracial — specifically [between activists] then and activists of now.”

Along with project supervisor Teree Holman McCormick, theater director Jon Royal has created the connective tissue of the event, tying together the performances of Choral Arts Link and Intersection with a loose narrative about Price, Tubman and Nashville civil rights leader Diane Nash. Actor Alicia Haymer will perform all three parts in what should be a compelling presentation. “There’s lots of struggle and lots of symbolism, but lots of joy, too,” says McCormick.

Additionally, Royal and McCormick have created a community-engagement component that will lead up to From the Back

of the Bus. Funded by a Metro Arts Commission THRIVE award, the Ride Along With the Freedom Riders events are panel discussions featuring Freedom Riders and contemporary local activists. The second of these will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, at First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill — a site of the students’ nonviolence training. The discussions will be about what it took for the Freedom Riders to have the training, courage, faith and “sheer nerve” to accomplish what they did, McCormick says.

Campbelle-Holman says the performance’s title, From the Back of the Bus, refers to the places where injustice still occurs. “We can all play a part in making things better,” she says, “and that’s what the crux of this is about.”

Email arts@nashvillescene.com

Nashville Scene | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

culture_2-13-20.indd 38

2/10/20 5:31 PM

nashvillescene.com | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

39

SCALE MODEL GUITARS REPAIR, RESTORATION, & CUSTOM BUILDS scalemodelguitars.com 615-988-0411

nashvillescene.com American Legion Post 82 E S T . 1952

ALL WELCOME

M-F: 4:00 PM - 2:00 AM Weekends open at Noon 2/17 Open 2/18 Honky Tonk Tuesday 2/19 Bluegrass Wednesday 2/20 Monthly Membership Meeting 2/21 No Judgement Karaoke 2/22 Honky Tonk Saturday

(615) 255-2527 mortonplumbing.net Voted Best in Nashville 6x!

3204 Gallatin Pike Nashville, Tennessee (615) 228-3598

an unabashed, finger-on-the-pulse,

l i v e - l i K e - Yo u - c a n ’ t- g e t- e n o u g h

supporter of the arts

for 30 Years. nashvillescene.com 40

bookS

The NoT-So-opeN Road Candacy Taylor documents the revolutionary guide that helped black travelers navigate a segregated America

By Kim Green

I

n the introduction to Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, Candacy Taylor shares a story told to her by her stepfather, Ron Burford. Decades ago, a sheriff pulled over Burford’s father and was suddenly in the window asking frightening questions. As the little boy sat rigid with fear in the back seat, his dad pretended that the shiny 1953 Chevy belonged to his employer. He introduced his wife as the maid and Ron as her son. The detail that finally defused the officer was a chauffeur’s cap hanging in the back seat: “a ruse, a prop — a lifesaver.”

Burford had never noticed it before. But after that day, he started to see those black caps everywhere, “strategically placed, like unarmed weapons, in the back of nearly every black man’s car.”

It’s a powerful opening scene for Taylor’s cultural history of The Negro Motorist Green Book, an extraordinary guide published from 1936 to 1967 to help OvergrOund railrOad: The green BOOk and The rOOTs Of Black Travel in america

By CandaCy Taylor aBrams Press 360 Pages, $35.00 Taylor will disCuss OvergrOund railrOad 6:30 P.m. monday, FeB. 17, aT Parnassus Books black travelers find places to safely sleep, eat, shop and service their vehicles. Several such guides existed, but The Green Book, created by a postal worker from Harlem named Victor Hugo Green, had the longest run and the highest circulation.

In Overground Railroad’s first chapter, titled “Driving While Black,” Taylor makes it clear why such a guide was vital. As anyone sentient in America surely knows, black travelers in the Jim Crow era faced uncertainty and humiliation — and often far worse. But knowing isn’t really knowing for those of us who haven’t lived the experience, and that’s why Overground Railroad is more than a chronicle of The Green Book itself; it’s a blunt-force reality check to anyone who doesn’t grasp the fact that the freedom of the open road — and the American Dream itself — has not historically been open to all Americans.

Taylor underscores that fact with recollections like Burford’s and descriptions of the ugly realities black motorists faced.

Those included all-white “sundown towns” that barred them from the city limits after dark, the refusal of basic services at many white-owned businesses, and national parks with few (or no) facilities for black vacationers. Even Coca-Cola machines were labeled “whites only.”

Despite these obstacles, black Americans

took to the road, armed with strategies to stay safe: aliases and supporting props, bedding, ice chests full of food and drinks, portable privies, gas cans — and often The Green Book. “It represented the fundamental optimism of a race of people facing tyranny and terrorism,” writes Taylor. “When I first saw it, I was struck that something so simple, and so practical, could be so powerful. Not only did it show black travelers where they could go, but it was also a compelling marketing tool that supported black-owned businesses and celebrated black self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship.” The guide might not have been overtly political, but as a survival tool, it was quietly subversive.

With Overground Railroad, Taylor — an author, photographer and cultural documentarian — has created a compelling and informative history, as well as a beautiful volume filled with images from various editions of The Green Book, archival photos of the people and places she highlights, and photographs she took herself. Those stories and images will carry readers along on Taylor’s own journey, which is both spatial and philosophical: “With the Green Book in the rearview mirror,” she writes, “I saw America for what it is, not what it imagines itself or even aspires to be.”

Readers too will come to know this America, if they don’t already. Each chapter highlights a different era of the guide and touches on a related theme in U.S. history, such as the Great Migration and the civil rights era. The Route 66 chapter will likely complicate any retro-postcard nostalgia you may harbor about that storied road — with sections on Fantastic Caverns, a Klan-operated tourist site in Missouri where cross burnings were held, and on the massacre of black citizens in Tulsa, Okla.’s Greenwood District, once considered the “Black Wall Street.”

Taylor finishes on a note of melancholic loss, overlaid with resolute pragmatism. One unintended consequence of integration, she laments, was that many black-owned businesses listed in The Green Book struggled to survive. But some remain, and Taylor has assembled a marvelous state-by-state list of historic Green Book structures and even a few businesses still in operation. Patronize those and other minority businesses, she exhorts, in her “What We Can Do” section at the end of the book. Other constructive suggestions include mentoring a kid from a vulnerable community, pressuring local politicians to change policies that lead to mass incarceration, and reading Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow. In offering tangible actions readers can take, Taylor has created a valuable document that, like The Green Book itself, serves as a bittersweet handbook of resilience in the face of injustice.

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

Email arts@nashvillEscEnE.com

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

books_2-13-20.indd 40

2/10/20 5:32 PM

music

Piecing It Together

The Wood Brothers have given themselves the freedom to break their ideas apart

By Geoffrey Himes

photo: alysse Gafkjen

A

long a stretch of Charlotte Avenue still populated mostly by used-car lots and auto-parts stores, is a seemingly abandoned storefront. On the door, however, is a very small sign that seems to whisper the name “The Studio.”

Behind the door is a recording studio coowned by The Wood Brothers and their engineer Brook Sutton. Together in that space, they’ve created one of the most impressive releases of early 2020: The Wood Brothers’ Kingdom in My Mind.

The trio of Oliver Wood, Chris Wood and Jano Rix will play the album for their hometown crowd at the Playing Friday, Feb. 14, Ryman Auditorium at the Ryman on Valentine’s Day. With its timeless mix of blues and hillbilly music, its striking new songs of fable and aphorism, its three-part vocal harmonies, and its nonstop grooving, the album might remind you of The Band in the 1970s. (The Wood Brothers covered The Band’s “Ophelia” on their 2016 album Live at the Barn, recorded at Levon Helm Studios.)

During AmericanaFest in September, the trio held an open house at The Studio to preview the upcoming record. Behind its small, unwelcoming facade, the building is surprisingly large and comfortable.

The three musicians set up in the largest room, played two songs from Kingdom in My Mind and then demonstrated how they employed free improvisation to generate ideas for the record.

Arranged in a triangle on the concrete floor, the three players locked eyes as random scraps of music slowly but surely cohered into an actual melody and groove. That’s how all the songs on this new album started.

“We recorded our last album One Drop of Truth with Brook at a studio we really liked,” explains Oliver, the lead singer and guitarist. “At the same time that he lost his lease to that studio, we lost our rehearsal space. So we decided to join forces. Once we moved in, we tested out the studio by setting up in different spaces and just improvising. We weren’t thinking about songs; we were just reacting to each other. This time, because we were in a studio, we could record those jams and actually use them on the album.”

“When you start a project with a blank page,” adds Chris, the bassist, “you can be paralyzed. So you have to contaminate the page with something, and then you can react to that by adding, subtracting or changing things. What you end up with are little pieces of music like those magnets of different words that you can move around on your refrigerator to create poems. The jams created magnets that we never would have come up with in any other situation.”

“We had no preconceptions,” recalls Rix, the percussionist and keyboardist. “We

didn’t know if we were playing a chorus or a verse or a turnaround, and that freed us up to try new ideas. You start out doing something very fast in a jam, then the process slows down when you start to edit it.”

The first stop on The Wood Brothers’ 2020 tour was Baltimore’s Rams Head Live, where this writer was in the crowd. They began the show as they begin the new album, with “Alabaster,” a story about a woman who left her angry, cab-driving boyfriend in Alabaster, Ala., for a new life in Manhattan.

It began with the bass and drums deliberately lagging behind the vocal phrasing, creating a tension that gradually resolved by closing the gap. When all three players finally clicked together, the liberating sonic release echoed that of the emotional release of the woman in the song. “She’s her own master,” cried Oliver. Chris and Rix answered back, “She won’t be going back to Alabaster.”

On an older song, “Sky High,” Oliver, tall and lean with long, straight red hair, sang: “There’s something ’bout the bass below the melody / The lows tell the highs how to be.” Proving the point was his brother Chris, who drew on decades of playing in top jazz bands to give his upright bass strings a ringing, percussive snap that drove the trio. The younger brother by four years (and shorter by half a foot, with curly hair and a red-andgray beard), Chris added vocals, harmonica and electric bass throughout the show.

On the trio’s best known song, “Postcards From Hell,” Rix used his left hand to keep time with brushes on the snare drum, while his right hand was filling out the chords on an electric piano, which had been integrated into his drum kit. Oliver’s fingerpicking figure on his archtop guitar, set off by Chris’ bowed bass, proved so infectious that the band didn’t even have to ask the crowd to sing along on the chorus. “I’ve got a soul that I won’t sell,” the packed hall hollered, “and I

don’t need postcards from hell.”

Oliver and Chris Wood grew up in Boulder, Colo., and went their separate ways after high school. Oliver wound up in Atlanta as a guitarist for blues artist Tinsley Ellis.

When he joined the blues-rock band King Johnson, Oliver began to step out as a writer and singer. Meanwhile, Chris had gone to the New England Conservatory of Music and soon joined keyboardist John Medeski and drummer Billy Martin to form the powerhouse jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood.

“In 2004 at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem,” Oliver remembers, “our two bands played together, and I sat in with Medeski Martin & Wood. Having lived separately for so many years in totally different musical circles, we had drifted apart and hadn’t communicated that much. But when we did get back together, we had this psychological, genetic connection that was exciting.”

“Ninety percent of the influences for Medeski Martin & Wood and King Johnson were the same,” Chris says. “They just emerged in different environments. I’d always wondered, ‘What would happen if you brought Charles Mingus and Robert Johnson together in a band?’ That was The Wood Brothers. We felt a lot of affinity with the Tedeschi-Trucks Band. Derek was off in experimental music, and Susan was a bluesy singer-songwriter. We said, ‘Hey, that’s what we’re doing.’ ” The timing was propitious in two senses.

King Johnson had slowed down to just a handful of gigs a year, and so had Medeski Martin & Wood. The brothers suddenly had time on their hands to explore something new. Plus they were now in their 30s, mature enough to avoid the conflicts of 20-something brothers in the same band.

“A lot of brothers who start a band right out of high school have problems,” says Oliver, “because they’re still growing up. We were able to do our growing up away from

each other and had already acquired our own identities and self-confidence when we started this band.”

Not only are they able to record and tour together, but they are also able to write songs together, with help from Rix. All three of them are constantly generating bits of lyrics that might go with the music they’re improvising. Chris is the primary editor in assembling the pieces — like those weird magnets on the refrigerator — into a coherent song.

“You never know what you’re looking for,” Chris says, “but you know it when you see it. It’s the same process as when you’re playing — you know when something’s good, because it grabs your ear. You have to play the role of a listener and recognize what excites you. On ‘Alabaster’ there was a great keyboard moment that became the intro, a two-chord vamp with a bass line became the verse, but when the feel changed, it became the chorus. Oliver had some words, and I found a way to make them fit.

“You can generate lyrics so many ways,” Chris continues. “I wrote the lyrics for ‘Jitterbug Love’ over a John Prine song, then I got rid of the country music and set it to music from our jams. The words are just another magnet on the fridge.”

Email music@nashvillescene.com

Into His Own Michael Kiwanuka’s successes helped grow his confidence

By Brittney McKenna

F

ollowing up a successful project is often a fraught task. Expectations may have seemed extraordinarily high for soul- and psych-rock-schooled singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka in the wake of his second album, 2016’s Love & Hate.

The album received significant critical acclaim and sold well, topping the charts in his native U.K. What really catapulted Kiwanuka into the spotlight was the use of the album’s haunting, infectious song “Cold Little Heart” as the theme for the hit HBO series Big Little Lies, a ratings and critical juggernaut.

Fortunately, the London-based musician didn’t suffer post-breakout jitters when it came time to make his latest album, Kiwanuka, released in November.

Playing Friday, The album was Feb. 14, at Marathon produced by Danger Music Works Mouse and Inflo — both of whom also contributed to Love & Hate — and as its title suggests, it’s the 32-year-old’s most confident, true-to-self album yet. More seamlessly than ever, the record blends his impressionistic songwriting with his catholic musical palette. Kiwanuka’s tour brings him to Marathon Music Works on Friday.

Kiwanuka opens with “You Ain’t the Problem,” a dynamic, psychedelic tune of self-love in the face of hardship. The track starts with a simmering groove and gradually builds to an ecstatic crescendo, with Technicolor layers of keys, percussion, electric guitar and filtered vocals coalescing to create a vibe that is at once contemporary and classic. The entire

nashvillescene.com | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

music_2-13-20.indd 41

41

2/10/20 6:18 PM

music

Noise and Girls in America

Queens of Noise carry on a long tradition of women who rock

By Megan Seling

R

obin August’s world was rocked when she saw Joan Jett perform at Ascend Amphitheater in September 2016.

The then-12-year-old had been in a group homeschool program and felt Playing Friday, Feb. 14, sheltered. She’d perin Third Man Records’ formed in local theshop ater productions and even appeared on a few episodes of ABC’s Nashville, but she didn’t know how to play guitar and had never tried to write a song.

Still, Robin August was captivated by Jett’s presence and attitude.

“I went home that night and watched every single Runaways documentary, I watched the Runaways movie — I became obsessed,” she says, sitting on the floor of

They all burst into riotous laughter while explaining just how bad the song “2016” was.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” singer Zoe Dominguez cries out. “Our first song was so bad.”

Robin August looks down at the floor, feigning deep shame, before she admits, “We rapped.”

“The chorus was so bad,” she continues.

Then she belts out, “So freakin’ tired!” in a bratty, nasally tone, mocking her past work.

They all start laughing again.

But more and better originals followed, and Queens of Noise have since shared the stage with Tristen, Lola Montez and Butthole, among other topflight local bands.

Their live shows drip with all the confidence and swagger you’d expect from young women inspired by performers who don’t

her dad’s home recording studio in East Nashville. “I was listening to all their music, and I thought that I would want to be The Runaways for Halloween.”

Her mom had a better idea: Why not form a Runaways tribute band? Robin August reached out to a couple of friends she knew through homeschool programs, who then in turn reached out to a couple of their friends.

Soon, Queens of Noise was born: Zoe Dominguez on vocals, Robin August and Gwen Holley on guitars, Kyra Cannon on bass, and Lola Petillo on drums.

They covered songs by The Runaways, of course, but also Bikini Kill and Those Darlins, among others. Within a couple of months, they wrote their first original song as a way to channel the frustration and anger they felt the day after the 2016 presidential election.

give a damn ’bout their reputations. Dominguez falls to her knees and crawls across the stage like Iggy Pop, while Holley whips her head of massive curls around like Dave Mustaine.

But this isn’t a story about teen girls who are — gasp! — breaking rock’s masculine molds. The band collectively groans when I ask about how most of the press they’ve received so far is fixated on their youth, with onlookers seemingly trapped in some kind of “Who knew teen girls could rock?” trance.

Teen girls have been rocking for decades.

And Queens of Noise know they’re in very good company as we start listing all the young women who came before them. Joan Jett and Sandy West were 15 when they formed The Runaways. Stevie Nicks was a senior in high school when she first performed with Lindsay Buckingham’s band

Email music@nashvillescene.com

42

photo: Allison Gower & Courtney Cheek

photo: Olivia Rose

album, for that matter, is marked by that creative, ambitious sense of textural interplay, with Kiwanuka and his collaborators seeming to have a great deal of fun stretching the capabilities of their instruments (and the combinations of those instruments) in the recording studio.

Kiwanuka’s voice, which is one of the best and most compelling of his generation of artists, has never sounded better. Danger Mouse and Inflo seem to have a fantastic intuition for knowing when to blanket Kiwanuka’s voice with effects and when to let it shine on its own. His songwriting, too, has drawn inward in a way that reflects some of these layered arrangements, with themes that touch on queerness, selfacceptance, systemic inequality and exhausted resignation.

Early in the album, Kiwanuka slots a brilliantly sequenced triptych of intimate, spare songs that draw heavily on his less-discussed jazz influences. Much of the discourse around Kiwanuka points to his soul and indie roots, but dissonance and unexpected constructions that feel related to jazz are also at the heart of what makes Kiwanuka’s music so compelling. “Piano Joint (This Kind of Love) — Intro”; “Piano Joint (This Kind of Love)”; and “Another Human Being” are strung together by Kiwanuka’s emotive piano playing, and could easily stand on their own as a separate EP. Including them in the larger album, though, serves to underscore their power, grounding them in Kiwanuka’s broader sonic vision to startling effect.

You can hear echoes of “Cold Little Heart” — and of Love & Hate as a whole — across Kiwanuka, particularly in the attention paid to building and sustaining a cohesive atmosphere from the first notes to the closing track. But the album doesn’t attempt to replicate Kiwanuka’s past successes. The collection shows marked growth from a truly exciting and ambitious artist who is sure to be remembered, decades from now, for far more than having a song on that one HBO show that one time.

Fritz. Tina “The Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll” Turner was a teen when she started singing in St. Louis nightclubs. Need I remind you that 18-year-old Billie Eilish just swept the Grammys?

Still, America has a complicated, at times troubling fascination with teen girls doing ... well, almost anything. That isn’t lost on the band.

“A problem I have a lot with myself, and just in general, [is] I think, ‘How far would we have gotten if I didn’t act that way onstage?’ ” says Dominguez. “We did a show and somebody came up to my mom and they were talking about our performance and he was like, ‘They’re so good! They’re talented, they have that other thing.’ And my mom was like, ‘What’s the other thing, hmm?’ ” He didn’t clarify, though it’s hard to assume he was referring to anything other than what he interpreted as sex appeal.

Would he come to the same conclusion if it were young men of the same age wearing leather pants and rocking out? Probably not.

But he wasn’t wrong about the girls’ talent.

Even creeps are capable of recognizing good songwriting, sometimes.

“On My Own,” from Queens of Noise’s 2019 EP Loretta, is a soulful, soaring rock song with beefy bass and drums. It’s about Robin August’s journey out of homeschool, an environment she describes as “toxic,” into a more welcoming public school. One of the song’s cathartic highlights: All the girls cry out in unison, “Can’t you go fuck yourself instead?!” Opening track “Victimized” is a thrashing, pissedoff nod to the punk and riot-grrrl bands that have inspired the group. It’s a song about people who hide behind performative activism to avoid recognizing their own faults or privilege.

Their newest song “Up Against the Wall,” from the 7-inch set to be released on Valentine’s Day via Cass Records (an imprint operated by Third Man Records co-owner Ben Blackwell), boasts brighter harmonies than anything the band has done before, reminiscent of early Go-Gos. Even with a growing catalog of originals, Queens of Noise still make time to play their covers of the songs that started it all. It’s the group’s way of ensuring the next generation doesn’t forget all the women who’ve personally or musically inspired them.

“Covering ‘Ain’t Afraid’ has definitely brought a lot to me,” says Petillo. She was friends with the writer of that song, Those Darlins’ Jessi Zazu, who died of cervical cancer in 2017. “It’s a really powerful song.

It’s powerful for a lot of the young girls who are listening, and keeping that alive is an amazing thing that I’m so glad we can do.”

Email music@nashvillescene.com

Nashville Scene | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

music_2-13-20.indd 42

2/10/20 6:19 PM

music

The Spin

Listen Up, Ya Pukes

By Kelsey Beyeler and Charlie Zaillian

Photo: angelina castillo

W

Wailin’: Heinous Orca post-grunge pop. Singer-guitarist Deezy Violet continues to be one of the best in town at finding the fun and empowerment in the middle of a sea of abrasive angst. The harmonies she shared with drummer Alex Mojaverian demonstrated that their chemistry remains strong, and their set ended with a new song called “Holes” and the Sad Baxter classic “Baby.”

Up next at The East Room was Cincinnati trash-pop outfit Tweens. If “trash pop” means catchy, danceable hooks with gnarly, grinding vocals about stupid boys, then the group nailed it. Frontwoman Bridget Battle dominated with a voice that falls somewhere between The Runaways’ Cherie Currie and The B-52s’ Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson.

Most of the songs Tweens played came from the band’s self-titled 2014 debut, but newer singles make a follow-up seem promising.

One new tune, “The Worst,” featured a kind of spooky New Wave riff and and a highly danceable drum pattern. If only more people danced around here.

Meanwhile, East Nashville power-pop savant Brett Rosenberg and the latest incarnation of his long-running Quichenight project — with Sean Thompson and Sun Seeker’s Asher Horton on dual guitars, Heinous Orca’s Hoke on bass and Rosenberg singing from behind the kit, Romantics style — settled in on The Cobra’s main stage. They served up material from their hot-off-the-presses Burger Records cassette Dork in the Dark while keep-

ing it loose and brisk, trading off big, goofy smiles, wily guitar solos and unapologetic dad jokes. “Times like this when there’s so much discord — and that chord, and whatever chord,” said Rosenberg, “don’t you wish we could all just come together?” Cue the sad trombones.

Following Quichenight was Heaven Honey, the project of recent Indiana transplant Jordan Gomes-Kuehner. With a band including Volunteer Department’s Oliver Hopkins and Slush’s Max Bennett, Gomes-Kuehner has solidified the sound into a distinctive kind of synth-enhanced dream pop. It’s wistful and brooding, and proved a highly effective way to support her literate narratives about people having a hard time connecting with one another. It’s great to see that she’s making strong connections here, which have led to a forthcoming digital single, to be jointly released by Cold Lunch and To-Go Records.

For Nashville indie rockers Sun Seeker, 2019 was a year to forget. Not only did the Third Man Records-approved combo lose its keyboardist Rodrigo Avendano to the fast-rising Soccer Mommy, it lost the rights to its own finished second album following a series of music-biz misadventures. Opting to move forward as a three-piece, singerguitarist Alex Benick, bassist Asher Horton and drummer Ben Parks debuted new material to an attentive, adoring crowd at The Cobra’s main stage. The first thing to notice about this stripped-down Sun Seeker was

Blizzard of Oz: Kent Osborne

Photo: Anthony Merriweather

ith a different act going up on one of three stages at The Cobra and The East Room every 15 minutes over a 12-hour run, Spewfest can overwhelm. Cold Lunch Recordings’ recurring cross-genre buffet of upstart bands was in its fifth iteration on Saturday. The fest invites artists from Nashville and cities not far away to continue the traditions Cold Lunch has established — namely, serving as a stellar state-of-the-scene check-in, with a massive quantity of talent to take in. We couldn’t catch everyone, but everyone we did see seemed to bring their A game.

By 2 p.m., The Cobra’s main room was already filling up. Heinous Orca came roaring out of the gate with an energetic set of their distinctive, often-surprising garage rock, which you’ll be able to hear more of on a new record they have in the works. The group’s fast tempos gave off the energy of a punk band, with winding melodies by guitarist Austin Hoke nodding to surf as well. At one point The Styrofoam Winos’ Lauren “Lou” Turner hopped onstage to play flute; later, frontwoman Laura Solomon announced a new song dedicated to local house-show institution The Mouthhole.

On the small stage in The Cobra’s front room, Nosediver laid out a heavy, mesmerizing soundscape that featured elements of both psych and math rock. Guitarist and vocalist Cody Huffine’s droning monologues called to mind All Them Witches, while bassist Josh Whiteman and drummer Allen Hartley played with masterful precision.

The energy across the street at The East Room was a bit calmer, though the space was still packed. Sam Hoffman delivered his contemplative folk-pop songs with a casual air, but the music was resonant and dreamy. His band featured few of the players who appeared on his 2018 LP Fairweather, but they conveyed the spirit of the songs admirably.

Back in The Cobra’s front room, Slush held it down for the shoegazers with simple but formidable triple-guitar bliss-outs in the spirit of early Brian Jonestown Massacre, with some Lilys and Swervedriver vibes when they kicked up the tempo. Georgia group Arbor Labor Union, meanwhile, had sharpened its attack since its one-and-done Sub Pop LP I Hear You from 2016. Their Spewfest set functioned as an unofficial release show for the band’s follow-up New Petal Instants, which finally came out on Feb. 7 after a year of delays. The group’s simultaneously angular and folksy amalgam of self-taught speak-singing and Southernrock choogle was a joy to zone out to, with bright, searing guitar tones and a physical approach to the instrument that the late Andy Gill of Gang of Four (who died Feb. 1) would’ve been proud of.

Later, Sad Baxter took over at The East Room and cranked the energy up with a characteristic sweet-and-sour set of sludgy

the increased role of Horton’s fuzzed-out bass, sitting way up front and contrasting with the guitars, which have gotten murkier and headier. The second was how the journey can sometimes seem hazy in their songs, but the ecstatic highs of the destination are worth it. The way Benick’s justwoke-up delivery can segue on a dime into lush three-part harmonies was reminiscent of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, another band that constantly refines its pop side while maintaining an experimental flair. Now that they too have gone through the industry wringer and survived, maybe Sun Seeker is about to enter its Yankee Hotel Foxtrot phase.

At 2019’s Spewfest IV, sets from Atlanta post-punks Omni and Material Girls and Music City-bred stoner-psych luminaries All Them Witches dominated the lineup, packed as it was with interesting acts on the rise. It felt as though top-shelf rappers Tim Gent and Brian Brown were shoehorned in.

Noticeably, there was no established group on this year’s bill with the clout of an ATW. Instead, prime-time slots went to up-andcomers gaining notice locally — specifically a triad of rising Nashville hip-hop acts.

Leading that charge were Chuck Indigo and Daisha McBride, who made strong Spewfest debuts at The Cobra’s main room. Performing selections off his recent Indigo Café mixtape, East Side native Indigo served up an appealing mix of introspection and grit, his loquaciousness and high-pitched cadence calling to mind the early work of greats like Talib Kweli and Kendrick Lamar. “Pay Stubs,” about how you can’t eat social-media prestige, was a standout. So was McBride’s dexterous, ultra-melodic set closer “Ride Fr,” a track that had a contemplative air on the MTSU grad’s 2019 debut Wild that intensified tenfold live.

Kent Osborne, the 22-year-old phenom whose explosive sound occupies a mosh-inciting midpoint between hardcore punk, metal, trap and industrial music, took over around 10 p.m. Last year, The Cobra’s front room barely contained him, and ahead of his set Saturday in that venue’s main room, he pledged on social media to “go the hardest I possibly can at Spewfest.” Joined by his second-in-command MC Wicked Lemon, live drummer Jerry Bennett and DJ Jhenetics (who sat stoically behind a laptop, face obscured by a red ski mask), Osborne delivered on that promise.

His 35-minute set took no time to build, going straight for the jugular with “Gassed Up” — one of an album’s worth of tracks the singer-rapper parceled out as digital singles and EPs in 2019 — and concluding with his latest and best, “No Affiliation,” which features a call-and-response refrain (“No affiliation / With this fuckin’ nation”) that grows only more apt by the day. Turning existential dread and disenchantment outward with loudly shouted raps and death-metal growls, he throws so much into the performance physically that the draw toward the pit feels magnetic. “I was jumping so much that I peed my pants,” one showgoer was overheard saying, without a hint of embarrassment, as the gig let out.

Osborne’s uncompromising sets have been wowing audiences from the jump, but Saturday’s made it feel highly unlikely that he’ll be a strictly local name for much longer.

Email thespin@nashvillescene.com

nashvillescene.com | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | Nashville Scene

spin_2-13-20.indd 43

43

2/10/20 5:53 PM

film

That’s Snow Biz, Baby Despite some pretty great ingredients, Downhill feels wholly unnecessary

By Nathan Smith

A

few months back, when Bong Joonho’s Parasite was at the beginning of its unexpected run as a sleeper box-office hit and global pop-culture Downhill R, 85 minutes phenomenon, Opening wide Friday, I noticed Feb. 14 variations on a joke circulating online: “When are we going to get the American remake?” At this point, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that any film produced in another country that achieves a certain amount of success in the United States will inevitably be remade by our own carnivorous industry. Well, surprise, surprise — HBO recently announced an Englishlanguage Parasite miniseries executiveproduced by Adam McKay. Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure is more than five years old now, so it has largely faded from memory at this point. It’s fairly solid European import cinema — bracing in its depiction of uncomfortable adult relationships, with an absurdist sensibility that disarms its serious psychological interests — but not the kind of thing you’d put in your end-of-decade top 10.

It’s probably good that some time has passed between the original object and Downhill, the new straight-from-Sundance American dramedy “inspired” by Force Majeure — if the two had come out closer together, the remake might look even more unnecessary.

It’s not that Downhill is lacking in talent. In fact, it has more than enough to go around. This time, the husband and wife experiencing some intense marital distress while visiting a ski lodge in the Alps is played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, two of our most capable comic stars.

Miranda Otto and the ever-affable Zach Woods (of The Office and Silicon Valley) appear in supporting roles. Nat Faxon and Jim

Rash — who won an Oscar for co-writing the Alexander Payne-directed The Descendants — are behind the camera. Jesse Armstrong — one of contemporary television’s most acerbic scribes, the co-creator of Peep Show and Succession — co-wrote the screenplay with Rash and Faxon.

For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, nobody involved is delivering anywhere close to their best. It’s not unpleasant, but the trip is a fairly muted and forgettable experience. The conceit is as high-concept as independent movies get: After Pete (Ferrell) flees his family during an avalanche at a ski resort, Billie (Louis-Dreyfus) realizes she’s married to a coward and evaluates the state

Please Rewind

VHYes is a complex and delightful experience

By Jason Shawhan

D

irector Jack Henry Robbins’ VHYes is like Amazon Women on the Moon or The Kentucky Fried Movie or UHF in the way it uses every form of discourse it can to address the joy of cultural detritus. It draws from everything that society currently enjoys, turning it all into a pointillist collage that aims to entertain in every imaginable way all at once. It’s a noble, giant-sized goal, and this brisk little film achieves it in a way that leaves you, as a viewer, refreshed, energized and ready to do some creating of your own. Whether it’s the emotional freedom of hosting a live music show with your VHYes NR, 72 minutes parents, the horror of Showing Feb. 12-13 at awful people in all sorts the Belcourt of positions of power, the liberating strangeness of the human body, or the physical limit of corporeal control, there’s something in this film that’s going to stay with you.

What makes this lo-fi, heartfelt whatsit of a movie so endearing is its willingness to embrace the schizophrenic, protean polyculture of modern pleasure and

44

serve things up in a way that everyone — regardless of personal aesthetics, ideology or attention span — can identify with. VHYes is viral cinema both in its structure (countless differentiated shorts and segments that could be sliced out, decontextualized and offered for the delectation of the outside world) and in the way it sets up shop in the viewer’s subconscious and reproduces itself.

It’s Christmas 1987, and 12-year-old Ralph has just been given a VHS camcorder. (Reasonably) portable and not at that time linked to neck-and-shoul-

der strain and drama, this camera isn’t just a means to capture the minutiae of day-to-day suburban life.

It can record directly from the TV, so the mysterious netherworld of late-night programming, forbidden to kids with bedtimes, is now only the press of a button away. All that is required is a tape — and Ralph has found one, unlabeled, with its safety tab still in place. And though we discover that Ralph is recording over the video of his parents’ wedding, unmaking the record of this cosmic event heralding the beginning of his own existence, there are many other mysterious

of their stalled marriage. The avalanche occurs early in the movie, but Force Majeure plays it like a legitimate disaster movie, both in the horror of the actual snowstorm and the intensity of its emotional aftermath. In Downhill, everything feels so much smaller: the overall vision, the avalanche and the relationship crisis that comes in its wake. For a movie about a marriage mid-breakdown, it all feels very restrained.

It’s the kind of material that could be either serious and straight or outright farcical, but Downhill isn’t really either — it’s emotionally frank one moment, comically broad the next. It’s a combination of cast and crew that sings on paper, but I found myself wanting more of what each participant in this project does best: more of Will Ferrell’s grossout body-horror humor, more of the caustic edge Julia Louis-Dreyfus perfected on Seinfeld and Veep, more of the emotional specificity Faxon and Rash found in The Descendants, more of Armstrong’s ice-pick wit.

There’s a glistening hint of each of those, but the team fails to deliver, and the end result feels a little like being stuck on a ski lift as the sun begins to dip down.

People love to knock Adam Sandler’s movies for providing “paid vacations” for him and all his friends, but at least his production company Happy Madison makes halfway-memorable movies. Downhill mostly left me cold. Maybe you’ll feel warm thinking about how nice a time the families of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell must have had on the slopes while the actors were filming this movie.

Email arts@nashvillescene.com

forces afoot.

Robbins — who with his brother Miles (star of the sorely underseen Daniel Isn’t Real) is having a remarkably creative year — has a gift for texture and go-for-broke energy. Some of the segments of this film spring from shorts disseminated throughout the internet. The majority of them were developed and filmed as part of this project, but all of them seem genuine. These fragments work as delightful little snatches of thought and humor, but when taken as a whole, they feel like disparate elements that have actually begun to react to one another. It’s a strange mix of tones, and the fact that it works is a wonder — emotionally effective like some kind of miracle.

Part of that is the remarkable array of a cast that the filmmakers have assembled (personal faves include John Gemberling, Kerri Kenney and Mark Proksch), but there’s a pervasive “let’s put on a show” energy in everything present.

For anyone who grew up with these kinds of camcorders as the height of personal technology, this is going to get automatic nostalgia points. But this isn’t an empty gesture — it specifically pinpoints the place in time when awareness, capability and monoculture intersected to make innovative minds take their own leap forward, and all before the democratizing expanse of the internet. And VHYes, in its 72 minutes, is a complex and delightful experience that simultaneously serves as a comfortable glance in the rearview mirror and a look forward into an utterly terrifying future.

Email arts@nashvillescene.com

Nashville Scene | february 13 – february 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

film_2-13-20.indd 44

2/10/20 5:52 PM

Some 78 percent of film reviews in the years 2015-17 were written by men.

Let’s change that.

START THE NEW YEAR OFF WITH A BANG $25 OFF $100 OR MORE IN STORE AND ONLINE

615-810-9625 | MyPleasureStore.com *Offer Ends 2/11/2020. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Discount Code: BANGNS

PRB_NS_QuarterB_120219.indd 1

12/2/19 9:08 PM

ABS EXPERTS

$ 89 99

$ 59 99 02/29/20.

FREE 02/29/20.

$15

Writing About Film, For Women and Nonbinary Writers at The Porch Writers’ Collective Instructor: Erica Ciccarone | Culture editor, Nashville Scene 7-9 p.m. Thursdays, March 5 - April 23 02/29/20.

OFF $ 10 OFF 02/29/20.

02/29/20.

In partnership with The Porch, the Belcourt Theatre and the Nashville Scene Scholarships available

Learn more at porchtn.org/workshops

nashvillescene.com | FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

45

preseNted by

+ wilder

Nerve the female body iN womeN’s art february 6-20

701 taylor street

Nerve Nerve is is the the first first iNstallmeNt iNstallmeNt iN iN adult adult CoNtemporary, CoNtemporary, the the New New series series of of Nashville Nashville sCeNe sCeNe -spoNsored -spoNsored art art exhibitioNs exhibitioNs Curated Curated by by arts editor laura hutsoN huNter aNd iNteNded to examiNe provoCative themes. arts editor laura hutsoN huNter aNd iNteNded to examiNe provoCative themes. the the opeNiNg opeNiNg reCeptioN reCeptioN at at wilder wilder oN oN thursday, thursday, feb. feb. 66 (piCtured), (piCtured), was was atteNded atteNded by by several several of of the the exhibitiNg exhibitiNg artists, artists, iNCludiNg iNCludiNg shaNNoN Cartier luCy aNd KareN seapKer, aNd featured a musiCal performaNCe by Jaime wyatt. shaNNoN Cartier luCy aNd KareN seapKer, aNd featured a musiCal performaNCe by Jaime wyatt.

Nerve Nerve remaiNs remaiNs oN oN view view through through feb. feb. 20.

20.

46

Nashville Scene | February 13 – February 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Nerve_FullPage.indd 1 Nerve_FullPage.indd 1

2/10/20 12:46 PM 2/10/20 12:46 PM

crossword EditEd by Will Shortz Across 1

7

I.T. support desk service “Down goes Frazier!” caller

13

Heated house for chicks

14

Like Looney Tunes, theatrically

16

1

2

spicy

18

More than some

19

characteristic

21

cook and curry

22

spanish boy’s name related to the sixth month of the year

24

Baby in a rare birth

26

They leave in the spring

27

clarifying phrase

28

Harbor sight

29

Letter in the last third of the NATo alphabet

30

couches

32

capital of the U.s. for 54 days in 1784

4

18

19

22

23

27

11

12

910

20

Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 19D1627

21 25

26

FLOR SOLEDAD LOPEZ vs.

29

31

32

33

34 36

37

35

38

39

44

45

48

49

40

41

46 51

52

54

56

43

47

50

53

42

55

57

58

60

59

61 62

63 PUZZLE BY ALEx EATON-SALNERS

62

Friendless

63

Make like DoWN

1

2

When an opera’s musical themes may be established Bit of headwear that often has jewels

36

Not interpret correctly

4

Mince words?

40

Indonesian money

5

44

How tied N.F.L. games are resolved, for short

Annual winter/spring observance

6

sets up ahead of time, in jargon

45

common sport fish

7

47

Pants, slangily

What some say God is to them

48

Bit of foppish attire

8

“Leave this to me”

50

Drum kit, by another name

9

religious group

52

Not so brave and determined

53

Brave and determined

10

Part of the conjugation of the Latin “esse”

11

Permissive

12

captive’s plea

13

spicy Indian fritters

15

Textbook unit

20

P.D. alert

55

Lock

56

shakespeare contemporary

23

“For one thing …”

58

comedian Jimmy

24

“Indeed!,” colloquially

25

remove forcefully

26

Go from one place to another

31

Principle

33

Lure

oppressive atmosphere

43

Lathers up

46

Go (for)

37

Get with the program?

49

French port on the Mediterranean

38

Texas city on the Mexican border

50

Tool with a pointed blade

39

Window dressing

51

40

“Midnight’s children” novelist, 1981

Large beverage dispenser

52

capital of Albania

57

Drag

59

stepped

36

41

42

First country to establish christianity as its state religion

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon JUAN LOPEZ SEGURA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after February 13, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on March 16, 2020. 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.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk Deputy Clerk By: M.De Jesus Date: January 16, 2020 Matt Maniatis Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 1/23/2020, 2/6/2020 & 2/13/2020

For a small investment you can finally reach the right tenants.

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE S E A L P L I E A F R A S P W A I T O R N O M I A B E I N A C A S K A F T E T R A D N I T A C E P A N

S E I D C A U N A C T H V E Z R DARK E S T H R E O A

C O N E F F E C O F T H S T O T I L DARK I T E M M E U E DARK N S J A K I O N C H O C I N U E D A R S O R B T E R S

1/30/2020,

Rental Scene

sailor vis-à-vis a sail

S L T A E DARK M P G A H O R P R A R T O R E E A G O L A R A L K S I K N A G

E L A P S E

T E N S E S

M E A T

Y O R E

D E E W E E

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.

Call Steven today!

816.218.6732 Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 19D1784

2/6/2020,

EMPLOYMENT

Good Stuff, $10 or less

Architects, IT Solution. Drive cross domain technology plans to align with enterprise goals, business plans, and business processes for a major retailer. Employer: Tractor Supply Company. Location: Brentwood, TN. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume (no calls/emails) to P. Hatcher, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027 and reference job code 0136.

Senior Systems Analysts – IT Marketing. Perform CRM/Loyalty administration tasks and configuration changes according to defined technical specifications for a major retailer. Employer: Tractor Supply Company. Location: Brentwood, TN. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume (no calls/e-mails) to P. Hatcher, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027 and reference job code 0132.

Rocky McElhaney Law Firm InjuRy Auto ACCIdEnts WRongFul dEAth dAngERous And dEFECtIvE dRugs

Voted Best Attorney in Nashville Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation

www.rockylawfirm.com

SERVICES

vs.

SABA ABRAHA TEKLEBIRHAN In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon SABA ABRAHA TEKLEBIRHAN. It is ordered that said Defendant enter Her appearance herein with thirty (30) days after February 13, 2020 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 March 16, 2020. 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.

Matt Maniatis Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 1/30/2020, 2/13/2020 & 2/20/2020

Matt Maniatis Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 1/30/2020, 2/13/2020 & 2/20/2020

3000

DANIYOM TUMZGHI GHEBREHIWET

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk Deputy Clerk By: W. North Date: January 23, 2020 crossword_2-13-20.indd 47

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk Deputy Clerk By: W. North Date: January 23, 2020

2000

JUAN LOPEZ SEGURA

30

cry at night

Amusing incongruities

10

LEGALS

28

3

61

9

15

24

Meditation mantras

Longtime “Today” forecaster

8

17

35

60

7

16

Plus

“You’ll never beat my score!”

6

14

34

54

5

13

Jane Eyre or Wonder Woman

17

3

No. 0109

ordinary process of law cannot be served upon SABA ABRAHA TEKLEBIRHAN. It is ordered that said Defendant enter Her appearance herein with thirty (30) days after February 13, 2020 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 March 16, 2020. 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.

2/6/2020,

EARN YOUR HS DIPLOMA TODAY For more info call 1.800.470.4723 Or visit our website: www.diplomaathome.com

7000

MUSIC ROW Vocal coaching! Piano lessons!

One of the best in Town. (package deals for families available.) All ages-pro level coaching & all instruments. Call/text A&G Music:

CALL/TEXT 615 485-7755.

nashvillescene.com/cheap-eats/

nashvillescene.com | FEBRUARY 13 - FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

47

2/10/20 4:11 PM

Now Serving

monellstn.com

Featuring

SATURDAYS: Midnight to 3 A.M. BREAKFAST

Southern Country Breakfast 7 Days a Week!

THERE’S ONLY ONE

(Germantown Location Only)

MUSIC CITY

#1

“Undisputed home of Traditional Country Music!” ~JLJ robertswesternworld.com

PSYCHIC

COUPLES READING AVAILABLE 416B Broadway

tarot cards spiritual advice Natural Intuitive

Great Tasting Mexican Food East Nashville:

Happy Hour Daily

3-8P M-TH; 3-7P F/Sun.

(Five Points) 972 Main St. 615-434-6000

615-915-0515

5 Minutes From Downtown: 2330 8th Ave. S 615-988-0404

284 White Bridge Rd

cilantronashville.com OPEN DAILY FOR LUNCH AND DINNER

COM P L E T E AUTO R E PA IR 15 MILES = FREE TOWING WITH REPAIR

Is your Airbnb properly insured?

Fix your car without breaking the bank

Thetford Insurance Services, Inc.

615-297-2200

Mufflers starting at $89.99

615-678-8443

Thetford Insurance Services, Inc.

225 Brawner Ave · Madison, TN 37115

IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT A NASHVILLE PREDATORS PODCAST

A PODCAST FROM 48

NASHVILLE SCENE | FEBRUARY 13 - FEBRUARY 19, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

SUBSCRIBE ON NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PODCAST