Nashville Scene 5-12-22 by FW Publishing

MAY 12–18, 2022 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 15 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

CITY LIMITS: AFTER YEARS OF LEGISLATING AND LITIGATING, GOOGLE FIBER DIGS IN

MUSIC: SAYING GOODBYE TO THE MERCY LOUNGE COMPLEX PAGE 35

PAGE 7

WITH THE ELECTION 15 MONTHS AWAY, THE RACE TO LEAD NASHVILLE MAY BE MORE COMPETITIVE THAN IT’S EVER BEEN BY STEVE CAVENDISH, NASHVILLE BANNER

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MAY 12, 2022

Gigabit City .................................................7

The Chance to Do It Over

CITY LIMITS

BOOKS

After years of legislating and litigating, Google Fiber is digging in around the city

Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow takes its middle-aged heroine back to her teens

BY ELI MOTYCKA

BY SARAH NORRIS AND CHAPTER 16

Mitigating the Pain and Cost of IUDs .......8 As abortion restrictions threaten to tighten, long-term birth control gains even more significance BY HANNAH HERNER

Pith in the Wind .........................................8

VODKA YONIC

Not All New Nashvillians Are Your Enemy

LGBT Chamber CEO Joe Woolley Pushed Out Abortion Providers,Advocates Look to Pivot Post Roe v.Wade

An open letter to Old Nashville NIMBYs

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

BY MEGAN SELING

Cooper at a Crossroads

Tender Mercies ........................................ 35

COVER STORY

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

MUSIC

With the election 15 months away, the race to lead Nashville may be more competitive than it’s ever been

As the Mercy Lounge venue complex winds down its current iteration, a look at its legacy

BY STEVE CAVENDISH, NASHVILLE BANNER

Fringed Benefits ...................................... 37

Examining masked country ace Orville Peck’s evolving body of work

Colorscapes, Leon Bridges, box. and blood, Joy Oladokun, GENDERBEND: Poetry Into Film Collaborations, Douglas Sirk: Origins of a Vision, Makaya McCraven, ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, GZA, The Afghan Whigs and more

The Chefs serve up the rock — and the roll — on Sing for Your Supper

Jane’s Hideaway Is Moving to the East Side

ON THE COVER:

Mayor John Cooper Photo by Daniel Meigs

Filmmaker John Cherry Dies at 73

BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

CRITICS’ PICKS

Familiar Flavors....................................... 38

BY DARYL SANDERS

The Spin ................................................... 39 The Scene’s live-review column checks out Jawbreaker at Brooklyn Bowl BY MEGAN SELING

FOOD AND DRINK

Bottoms Up .............................................. 25 A look at several new(ish) Nashville bars for your drinking pleasure BY MARGARET LITTMAN

Cheap Eats .............................................. 28

40 FILM

On Pins and Needles Happening is a visceral addition to the growing canon of abortion-journey sagas

Plump pastries and house-roasted coffee at Murfreesboro Pike staple

BY ERICA CICCARONE

BY ALIJAH POINDEXTER

Hatching is a classic, gut-churning little dose of bird-based body horror

A Rare Bird BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

ART

Sketch Artists A guide through Drawers, the fourth installment of our Adult Contemporary exhibition series BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

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NASHVILLE’S REAL ESTATE SUCCESSES SHOW THAT NASHVILLE IS THRIVING Ever since we earned the distinction “It City” almost a decade ago, it seems Nashville has remained the darling of many ranking organizations. But the most recent is arguably even more impressive than the many we’ve earned in recent years. According to CrowdStreet — a leading real estate crowdfunding website — Nashville has recently been named one of the top cities in which to invest in our real estate industry. While the report itself is noteworthy to real estate organizations, Nashville’s inclusion shows that the industry’s successes are the result of our city’s overall economic health — and that’s good news. Nashville is one of the top cities in which CrowdStreet’s experts recommend investing in real estate. Using multiple industry factors, Nashville earned the third spot out of the 20 cities ranked in this year’s report — up from sixth place in CrowdStreet’s 2021 report. According to CrowdStreet: “Over the last decade, Nashville saw a population increase of 21% and is projected to expand by an additional 500,000 people between now and 2039. Recently named the top large U.S. metro for economic growth in 2021, relocation and expansions from companies like Oracle and Amazon are creating thousands of jobs in the area.” Diving deeper into this report, Nashville ranks highly in nearly every segment of the real estate industry, including the notable top spot we earned in the office space sector. Nashville is ranked first nationwide in office space — our occupancy rates, office space demand and job growth put us over the top in the desirability to invest. Similarly, Nashville also lands in the top 10 in CrowdStreet’s hospitality rankings. This city’s hospitality industry has always been strong, and has weathered the pandemic of the past two-plus years with determination. Our resilience has been noticed by CrowdStreet. “So far, the top performing markets across the U.S. have been concentrated in the south, with warmer, drive-to leisure destinations like Fort Lauderdale leading the way. For our 2022 list, we like many of the fastest recovering southern markets, including Nashville and Myrtle Beach.”

Nashville real estate’s retail sector is also thriving, ranking sixth nationwide on CrowdStreet’s 2022 report. But that’s not just due to visitors or corporate influence, but also everyday Nashvillians, without a doubt. “Half of the markets on our list are located in the Sunbelt region, an area that continues to benefit from in-migration, corporate relocation and job growth,” reads the report. “After all, retail is heavily dependent on a local population that is willing and able to spend their hard-earned money, versus saving for a rainy day.” Loosening up the pocketbook is a shot in the arm for local businesses, but it’s also an indicator of the economic health and well-being of a community. If enough people are comfortable spending money on goods and services after covering necessities, it’s an indication that the economy of the area is sound. Next is in the multifamily sector of the real estate industry. According to CrowdStreet, “Typically, wherever vacancies are low, unemployment is decreasing and wages are growing, there is an opportunity for multifamily investors.” Nashville ranks 11th out of 25 markets in our successful multifamily industry, and I’m proud of my company Freeman Webb’s commitment to remain a place for people in all walks of life to find homes and create a sense of community. While Nashville’s rankings in multiple segments of the real estate industry are impressive on their own, the fact that we are one of the top cities to invest in is even better news: Being considered a good investment is a strong indication that Nashville has weathered the economic storm that we’ve endured for the past two years. Our small businesses are growing, and our corporate partners are continuing to do their part in growing jobs and supporting our communities. Our economy is strong, and that’s good news for everyone.

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Managing Editor Alejandro Ramirez Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editor Jack Silverman Staff Writers Kelsey Beyeler, Stephen Elliott, Hannah Herner, J.R. Lind, Eli Motycka, William Williams, KateLynn White Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Steve Erickson, Nancy Floyd, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steven Hale, Steve Haruch, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Festival Director Olivia Britton Marketing and Promotions Manager Robin Fomusa Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Managers Richard Jacques, Deborah Laufer, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Jada Goggins, Audry Houle, Alissa Wetzel Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

©2022, Nashville Scene. 210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203. Phone: 615-244-7989. 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 $150 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 real estate and property management firm Freeman Webb Company, as well as FW Publishing — the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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CITY LIMITS

GIGABIT CITY

WEST LINDEN AVENUE

After years of legislating and litigating, Google Fiber is digging in around the city BY ELI MOTYCKA

PHOTOS: ELI MOTYCKA

fter seven years of fits and starts, Google Fiber has ramped up efforts to bring branded gigabits to Nashville. Banned from telephone poles, Google has moved to Plan B: microtrenching. The score-andcover method involves tearing seams in the edges of roads (and sometimes bike lanes or lawns) to thread orange tubes of internet underground. According to a Fiber spokesperson, Google has doubled its Nashville Fiber footprint in the past year and plans to add a comparable number of households this year. Nashville has heard plenty of giga-promises, followed by giga-delays. But an uptick in permit activity since January makes this one look for real. The city has issued more than 2,000 permits for Google work since 2020, including nearly 700 this year. Permitting is overseen by Nashville’s newly codified Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure. Contractors are currently ripping through East and West Nashville, making up for lost time. Google announced it would expand gigabit service to Nashville back in 2015, kicking off a yearslong process of legislating and litigating. Telecomm rival AT&T sued the city within 48 hours of Metro Council passing its much-debated “One Touch Make Ready” ordinance in 2016, an attempt to open up Nashville utility poles to Google. Comcast joined the suit, which went through federal court. The Nashville Electric Service sued the city too, caught between Metro’s order and existing telecommunications contracts. It was a predictable sequence of events that was playing out at the same time in Louisville, Ky. Judge Aleta Trauger ruled for the plaintiffs and kept Google off AT&T’s poles. With right-of-way permission from NDOT, Google cuts inches-wide microtrenches on the edges of roadways. Large orange spools of plastic tubing go down next, tucked under a river of fluid concrete called “flowable fill.” Along the way, Google adds waystations. Sometimes this means replacing sections of sidewalks — jackhammering concrete slabs, adding a fiber optic box, then repouring the concrete. In other places, this could mean digging into a yard or shoulder. A passerby can recognize a fiber work zone by the antenna-like orange plastic loops near sidewalks and streets. Google wired six streets in 2019, promising forthcoming service for residents in East Nashville, Sylvan Park and Edgehill. Google’s latest push began in Lockeland Springs and Edgefield in late February, according to maps and permit lists at NDOT. Since then, work in East Nashville has moved up toward Inglewood and over into Cleveland Park and McFerrin Park. Across town, Fiber is spreading through the trapezoid that runs from the Gulch to

I-440, bound on either side by West End and I-65. These neighborhoods — 12South, Belmont-Hillsboro, Vanderbilt, Edgehill — are a sweet spot of population density and wealth. There are also active fiber work zones in some Hermitage and North Nashville neighborhoods. Most of the work goes through Ervin Cable, a telecommunications construction company that’s overseeing subcontractors on Google’s active permits. Two dedicated NDOT inspectors keep tabs on Ervin’s dozen subcontractors. Rory Rowan, a former Public Works inspector currently managing NDOT permits, sends weekly map updates to Metro councilmembers about work in their districts. Google doesn’t share customer numbers, and service access is still spotty from street to street. Google left Kentucky in 2019 after microtrenching its way into a dysfunctional fiber network that, the company claimed, needed to be completely rebuilt. Over time, asphalt eroded and exposed trenches. Stringy rubber sealant and unreliable service became Fiber’s legacy in Kentucky. Louisville was an experiment, according to Google, the cost of innovation with valuable lessons learned. Both Nashville and Louisville are years behind Chattanooga, regarded by many as the city with the nation’s best internet. While we all wait for Google, Gig City has a publicly owned and operated fiber-optic network built a decade ago. The Electronic Power Board, Chattanooga’s NES equivalent, has been embarrassing the free market, beating Google and everyone else on speed and cost and earning the city national recognition. In 2015, Chattanooga started offering 10-gigabit internet, five times

the speed of Google’s top-end service and a thousand times faster than the national average. Southern Appalachia — where access to land, water and population centers overlap — is well suited for internet utilities and telecommunications. Google has just 13 American data centers, three within a few hours of Nashville, including one in Clarksville. Meta (at the time Facebook) announced a data center in Gallatin in 2020, one of 17 in the country and five in the Southeast. These server farms require few employees and industrial-level resources, often replacing factories that used to employ hundreds and support entire towns. Google’s only corporate presence in Nashville is a Fiber office in the Gulch. The local team has been stop-and-start, maneuvering between litigation, logistical setbacks and a name brand that comes with high expectations. Nashville got a rare shoutout on the Fiber blog in November when Google apologized for being MIA. Thin on coverage details, Google’s statement plugged several charitable efforts it had made around the city. Through local PR firm Finn Partners (formerly DVL Seigenthaler), a Fiber representative declined to share coverage maps, telling the Scene via email that the company is “working closely with Metro Nashville to allow us to achieve our goal of bringing world class internet to more people all across Nashville.” Fiber has been a controversial undertaking that has hemorrhaged money since its inception. It’s an ambitious entry into a highly regulated industry with a few very powerful players. Technically under Google’s umbrella company, Alphabet, Fiber operating losses could be as high as $1.1 billion. Exact numbers are hard to parse in

financial documentation, because Alphabet classifies Fiber in “Other Bets,” a miscellaneous category that includes projects like self-driving cars and different applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Internet service is part of a Google long game to vertically integrate users’ internet experience, from hardware like fiber cables to software like Chrome and Gmail. Nashville made sense in 2015 as an expansion city due to its size and growth, and continues to be a game board for the telecomm experiment. Progress is hard to measure from the ground. For clues, you can check active NDOT right-of-way permits online, email your councilmember, or walk outside and look for orange. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS

MITIGATING THE PAIN AND COST OF IUDS As abortion restrictions threaten to tighten, longterm birth control gains even more significance BY HANNAH HERNER

ith this month’s news via a leaked draft opinion that the Supreme Court intends to overrule Roe v. Wade, birth control is taking on even greater significance in the U.S. If and when the court rolls back abortion rights, Tennessee’s so-called trigger law would effectively outlaw the procedure altogether, likely forcing pregnant people to travel out of state to obtain an abortion. IUDs — an acronym for intrauterine device — are more than 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, and they last five to seven years. The CDC’s most recent National Survey of Family Growth shows that 14 percent of women ages 15 to 44 use an IUD as contraception, a number that has grown steadily from 1 percent in 1995. Even before the Supreme Court draft decision leaked, nurse practitioner Kara Tucker noticed an uptick in IUD placement in recent years at her place of work, Woods Gynecology in Belle Meade. “I do think IUDs in general are definitely having a comeback,” Tucker tells the Scene. “I think women talk to each other a lot. If somebody likes the IUD, then they’ll tell their friends about it.” IUDs are covered by TennCare. But without insurance or another assistance program, an IUD can cost $1,500. A Step Ahead Middle Tennessee is a nonprofit that covers the cost of long-acting birth control, which also includes Nexplanon, an arm implant. The group has paid for IUDs or

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: District Attorney-General Glenn Funk won the Democratic primary, virtually assuring he will remain as the county’s top prosecutor. He held off challenges from Sara Beth Myers and P. Danielle Nellis, both former assistant district attorneys. Funk will serve as the Davidson County DA until 2030. … Election Day also saw the debut of primaries for the newly officially partisan school board, and there were several judicial and clerk races on the ballot as well. Check out Pith online for the full results (including the return of former Mayor David Briley, who secured a spot on the bench). … The leak of a draft majority

birth control implants for 1,700 people in the Midstate since it was founded six years ago. According to A Step Ahead executive director Jenny Matthews, in the days following the Supreme Court decision leak, the organization has seen a slight uptick in calls and online inquiries for their services. She anticipates that over time, that number will grow. “I think that with what we’re doing, it’s such a high percentage of effectiveness that people will turn to this as a really great pregnancy prevention option, should they not have other options,” she says. A Step Ahead was hitting its stride in 2019, Matthews says. And now, as the pandemic has steadily slowed down, the nonprofit is serving a new clientele — those who left their job-provided insurance. “We are finally seeing an increase in our numbers to where we’re serving more clients than we ever have before,” Matthews says. “People are going back to providers for things that aren’t related to COVID, plus as the Great Resignation made more people self-employed or laid off, they might not have insurance that covers IUD insertion.” Tucker recommends IUDs because of their high rate of effectiveness, and says the hormonal IUD can make periods less severe or stop entirely. There’s also an option that doesn’t contain hormones. However, Tucker says, another barrier to getting an IUD placed is the discomfort of the process. It’s important to prepare

patients by telling them about the pain associated, she says, but her office goes another step by offering the anesthesia nitrous oxide for an additional fee. It relaxes the pelvic floor muscles and wears off quickly enough that the person can drive themselves home. “Obviously, a lot of people are really anxious about it,” Tucker says. “You talk to your friends, and you hear horror stories, and you can get really worked up. That plays in a lot with pain as well, and also with our ability to insert it.” In terms of discomfort associated with insertion, which varies from patient to patient, Tucker says she’s noticed no pattern when it comes to age of patients or whether they’ve given birth. Some offices will offer anxiety-relief prescriptions to help the patient relax as well, she says. “I definitely think it’s really important to give people a fair heads-up to what they’re about to have done,” she says. “I think that really helps with patient expectation, and it helps with the overall pain level. I don’t think I’ve ever been like, ‘It’s a

opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito in a United States Supreme Court case that would overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to legislate abortion dominated headlines nationally and locally. Tennessee is one of 13 states that have enacted a trigger law — abortion bans that go into effect immediately or soon after a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The state’s Human Life Protection Act, passed in 2019, would go into effect 30 days after a Roe reversal and allow abortion in just one circumstance: when it’s necessary to prevent “substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.” It would also make it felony for a doctor to perform an abortion, though pregnant people seeking abortions would be exempt from prosecution. … Several hundred abortion rights supporters gathered outside the newly opened Fred D. Thompson Federal Building and Courthouse. While mostly peaceful, the demonstration was the target of some heckling and harassment from passersby, including one man who yelled at the group before leaving and later returning to the courthouse grounds. That man, later identified

as 57-year-old Craig D. Cathcart, was arrested by Metro Nashville Police Department officers and charged with assault after he allegedly touched a woman’s breast while he was heckling a group of people, in an act of self-described “counter-protesting.” … Contributor Betsy Phillips on what’s happening: “If you look at everything under attack right now — gay rights, trans rights, reproductive rights, racial minorities’ rights, etc. — there’s a common theme running through all these movements: What would it look like for me to live happily? And the common response to all these movements has been to curtail people’s ability to live in ways that make them happy. Anyone who is out here finding ways to live happily outside of prescribed social constructs is threatening to the worldview a lot of white Americans have. They’ve been asked to defer their happiness or completely deny it with the promise that conforming now will bring greater joy later.” … New internal polling gives challenger Hal Cato a 10-point edge over John Cooper in the 2023 mayoral race. The poll, commissioned by Cato and conducted by D.C.-based firm Impact Research, puts Cato

KARA TUCKER

JENNY MATTHEWS

“WE ARE FINALLY SEEING AN INCREASE IN OUR NUMBERS TO WHERE WE’RE SERVING MORE CLIENTS THAN WE EVER HAVE BEFORE.” —A STEP AHEAD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JENNY MATTHEWS

breeze, just take ibuprofen, you’re gonna be good.’ It’s important to tell people that it’s uncomfortable. It’s not going to be something you want to come back and do every single day or even every year.” EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

at 38 percent, Cooper at 28 percent and Matt Wiltshire at 13 percent. More than a fifth of voters, according to the poll, are undecided. … In her latest Metro Council meeting recap, local government wonk @startleseasily reports on a deferred proposal to buy 88 Hermitage Ave., a state-owned property home to an old building that once housed the Tennessee School for the Blind. There was also a peculiar hot-mic scenario and more at the special Cinco de Mayo meeting, which was held two days late due to the May 3 election. ... Nashville LGBT Chamber CEO Joe Woolley was fired last week. “After many months of unresolved personal and professional conflict with the board, and especially the executive committee about the operation and direction of the organization, it has become clear that we are not aligned and the Board has voted to dismiss me,” Woolley writes in an email to chamber members.

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

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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5/9/22 5:02 PM

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

COOPER AT A CROSSROADS

MAYOR COOPER DELIVERS THE STATE OF METRO ADDRESS IN APRIL PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

WITH THE ELECTION 15 MONTHS AWAY, THE RACE TO LEAD NASHVILLE MAY BE MORE COMPETITIVE THAN IT’S EVER BEEN BY STEVE CAVENDISH, NASHVILLE BANNER This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news and will launch later this year. For more information, visit NashvilleBanner.com.

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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hether Mayor John Cooper runs for reelection on neighborhood issues or big projects, he has a potentially big problem: Nashvillians no longer feel like the city is on

the right track. And his political opponents have taken notice. As the mayor stepped to the podium to give his recent State of Metro speech, there was an obvious focus on 2023. This address is almost always held downtown, but the mayor and his staff chose to move the venue to Southeast Community Center for a variety of reasons. Not only is Antioch one of the fastest growing parts of the city, it’s rich with African American voters who Cooper will depend on in order to win another term. Cooper has done well with Black voters in two previous races — as has his brother, retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper. And there is no more energized electorate in the city. Cooper outlined a plan for the next year and, by extension, the issues he hopes to run on when he stands for reelection: affordable housing, homelessness, police and public safety, education and adding greenspace. The budget he proposed promises a little bit of everything, from more funding for first responders to increased pay for school staffs to added resources for picking up garbage. “Good schools, clean streets, safe neighborhoods, reliable city services and sound city finances, affordable housing, world-class parks … live-workplay communities to raise a family in,” Cooper said at the April address. “That is Nashville.” The meat-and-potatoes proposals represented a return to the types of issues Cooper wanted to govern on before his term was sideswiped by a tornado, a tax increase and a global pandemic. But the speech was notable almost as much for what was missing. There was no mention of the east bank of the Cumberland River, home to a future Oracle campus and a proposed new Titans stadium. There was no mention of the hundreds of millions that would have to be financed for a domed structure that could host not only NFL games, but concerts and high-profile events like the Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four. And there was zero reference to the newly minted deal to buy the former Hickory Hollow mall adjacent to the community center where he was speaking. The week before, Cooper had previewed his campaign themes for potential donors and included the east bank in his messaging. The infrastructure, according to one attendee, is a major piece of what Cooper considers to be his legacy: downtown connected to East Nashville and

a path to Murfreesboro Pike and the airport. If a dedicated transit line were layered on top, the path would represent a potentially transformative piece of traffic engineering. Instead, guided by an internal poll that showed the public lukewarm on a stadium deal, the mayor chose to emphasize building sidewalks, fixing potholes and touting more money for schools. “Fixing our finances made this investment possible,” Cooper said at State of Metro, attempting to blunt the political effects of a historic property tax increase enacted just two years ago. But for Cooper and the city, the political sands have shifted.

POLLS ARE AN IMPERFECT measure of public sentiment. The best polls reach a wide enough swath of the electorate to account for racial, economic and other factors. But as people have become untethered from landline telephones, polls have been increasingly erratic as a way to predict outcomes. But what polls can do, over time, is gauge trends. The Scene reviewed more than a dozen surveys, including nine from the past 18 months, from both public pollsters like Vanderbilt and private polls commissioned by candidates and interest groups. (Because some of the polls came from sources that were not authorized to release them, the Scene agreed to not name their origin.) We discarded any surveys that were not done by recognized pollsters, had methodologies that were suspect or had large margins of error. In general, an ever-increasing percentage of Nashvillians are unhappy with the direction of the city. In both the Vanderbilt Poll (53 percent) and a private poll conducted in April (54 percent), more than half of the city is pessimistic about the future. “It kind of taps both what people are thinking about the city, but then also, it’s infused with their own personal situation in some sense, right?” says Josh Clinton, a professor at Vanderbilt University and co-director of its poll. “It incorporates so many different aspects, so I think it’s a good sentiment, whether people are optimistic or pessimistic, but it’s a little harder to drill down and figure out exactly the sources of those [feelings], and kind of what might be causing the right track/wrong track responses.” Nashvillians have become more concerned about the cost of living, affordable housing and a perception of rising crime. Since 2015, according to the Vanderbilt Poll, wrong-track numbers have steadily increased from 22 percent to 53 percent. This mirrors the findings of one major set of polls the Scene examined — rising from 20 percent in 2015 to 55 percent

IN GENERAL, AN EVERINCREASING PERCENTAGE OF NASHVILLIANS ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE DIRECTION OF THE CITY. IN BOTH THE VANDERBILT POLL (53 PERCENT) AND A PRIVATE POLL CONDUCTED IN APRIL (54 PERCENT), MORE THAN HALF OF THE CITY IS PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE.

in 2020 — and from a series of private polls in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, each of which found wrong-track respondents outnumbering right-track ones. The problem for the mayor is that when voters’ moods shift to being negative, officeholders can become some of their first targets. “You don’t want an electorate that thinks that we’re on the wrong track,” Clinton says. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s game over for you. But all else equal, you don’t want things to be on the wrong path. That’s not great for an incumbent.” Just ask David Briley. In early 2019, a poll commissioned by Briley’s campaign for reelection found that none of his potential mayoral competitors, including then-Councilmember-at-Large John Cooper, had any amount of name recognition. And yet, an undercurrent in the poll numbers worried some around Briley that a well-funded candidate might be able to exploit the opening. When the city erupted over the removal of cherry trees by the NFL during the preparations for the NFL Draft, Cooper hopped into the race. He buried the underfunded Briley campaign with television ads beginning in June and a blizzard of direct mail and ads on social media. Also worrisome for Cooper are rising negative perceptions about him. A February poll found 36 percent of the electorate with a favorable impression of the mayor and 46

percent unfavorable. An April survey was similar, with 43 percent favorable and 48 percent unfavorable. A year earlier, in April 2020, those numbers were flipped, with 43 percent positive and 36 percent negative, according to a different poll. (The outlier in recent results, the Vanderbilt Poll has Cooper’s favorability at 56 percent; at the same point in 2019, Briley’s favorability was 66 percent.) It’s hard to pin a change in polling on a single event (though the city’s garbage problems did spike shortly before that period). In the same February poll, there was also a harsh split along partisan lines, with 59 percent of Democrats rating Cooper favorably versus 22 percent unfavorably. But among independents, the figures were reversed (20 percent favorable versus 55 percent unfavorable), while 80 percent of Republicans held a negative view. It was independents and conservatives who flocked to Cooper in the 2019 runoff and gave him an overwhelming win over Briley. Combine these numbers with lingering negativity in the city, and you begin to understand why so many candidates are contemplating a run.

NASHVILLE MAYORS almost always get a second chance. Beverly Briley, Richard Fulton, Phil Bredesen, Bill Purcell and Karl Dean all served multiple terms. The lone exception in that run, Bill Boner, chose not

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to run again. The mayor just has to avoid self-inflicted controversy. (Like maybe not appearing on a national talk show with a girlfriend — while still married to his third wife, as Boner did.) Nashville’s leaders in recent years have faced only token opposition. They’ve drawn a caliber of challenger like Marvin Barnes, who finished third to Dean in 2011 and told the Nashville Ledger during the race: “I’ve had several things that have bothered me for several years. I’m not going to go into detail.” That’s why the field currently kicking the tires on a run against Cooper is so notable. Several potential candidates are capable of self-funding, at least two members of the Metro Council are interested, and one Republican CEO has switched from a congressional race to this one. One of those councilmembers, Freddie O’Connell, already has begun raising money. The 19th District representative skipped the State of Metro address and instead began making phone calls to people letting them know he was running for mayor. Standing on the sidewalk at the Davidson County Election Commission after registering his treasurer, O’Connell derided the lack of transit focus for a city increasingly jammed with cars. “This is a mayor who seems to be resolutely not building a transit system for a city that is a top 25 American city,” O’Connell said. “I want to build a Nashville that works together again, right? I want people who feel so good about the sense of common purpose that we’re coming together to do amazing things in our schools, to build that transit system and have it be a community-based plan that serves people and literally drives down people’s cost of living.” According to O’Connell, Nashville has largely avoided a conversation about transit since voting down a light-rail referendum in May 2018. Cooper’s administration has reorganized transit under its own department, something O’Connell said is not enough. “We have used one-time federal money to make incremental improvements in transit,” he said. “The thing that is going to keep us from being as competitive as most other cities of our size is our lack of dedicated funding.” The reason O’Connell is the first candidate to file any paperwork is because he’s unable to stroke a seven-figure check to his campaign. One of John Cooper’s real advantages in 2019 was the ability to wait until the last minute to enter the race, shortening the election window and increasing the power of his monetary advantage over Briley. O’Connell needs to reach a lot of donors to make his candidacy viable, and that takes time. Others have the ability to wait.

“CHOOSE YOUR ELECTION CYCLE: THERE ARE MANY MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU AND I KNOW WHO ARE THINKING TO THEMSELVES, ‘I COULD AND SHOULD BE A GREAT MAYOR,’ BECAUSE THEY HEARD IT AT AN EARLY AGE.” —BILL PURCELL

•

Thistle Farms CEO Hal Cato has been exploring a run for six months and will make a decision when he leaves his current job this summer. He and his husband, Michael Burcham, could devote several million dollars to a race. Cato has run at least one poll and distributed parts of it to the media last week. • Former Alliance Bernstein COO Jim Gingrich, who ran a poll of his own recently, has been exploring a run as well. • Matt Wiltshire recently departed as the chief strategy officer for the Metropolitan Department and Housing Agency with the intention of running. A former investment banker and chief of the Department of Economic and Community Development for two mayors, Wiltshire and his wife, Western Express executive and co-owner Cristina Wieck, have the ability to at least partially fund a campaign. (Wieck is a member of the Nashville Banner’s advisory board. The board has no access to editorial content prior to publication.) • State Rep. Bob Freeman — son of Freeman Webb CEO Bill Freeman, who owns the Nashville Scene — would have access to his father’s formidable war chest. • Councilmember Sharon Hurt may lack the resources of some others, but as a Black candidate who already has won a countywide race, she would bring other strengths to the race if she ran. She will make a decision later this summer. • Covenant Pay CEO Quincy McKnight, a Republican, declared his intention to run in February. Any one of that group might make a tough opponent for Cooper and certainly represents an upgrade over the quality of candidates past mayors have faced. But Bill Purcell knows there always are people lurking in the tall grass. “First of all, it turns out that there are many more people than you would ever imagine,” the former state House majority leader and mayor says with a wry chuckle.

“Those mothers must have looked down in the cradle and whispered, ‘You would be a great mayor.’ And then a certain number of them think about it quite a lot. Choose your election cycle: There are many more people than you and I know who are thinking to themselves, ‘I could and should be a great mayor,’ because they heard it at an early age.” As a reporter pitches the idea that Cooper might face a field he and other mayors didn’t, Purcell demurs. The press is much more interested in this race right now than anyone in the city, he says. Despite so many major issues on the electorate’s mind — from COVID to the Ukraine to the possible repeal of Roe v. Wade — he says suggesting that Cooper is facing anything different than past mayors is a stretch. “You know, I mean, these are challenging and difficult times,” he says. “No question about it. But I don’t think other than that — which is a lot, I acknowledge — I think it doesn’t feel all that different. Honestly I think it’d be a mistake to suggest the terms of the political realities on the ground are that different right now.” Purcell, who was appointed to chair MDHA’s board of commissioners by Cooper, still sees the race as Cooper’s to lose. “The reality is that for the last two years, most mayors in America have found themselves constrained in ways that no modern mayor has faced,” he says. “I think that in terms of your basic question, the answer will come this year now that we are returning to normal. And I think the advantage that you have is that he has righted our financial situation, and the benefits of that will be especially apparent in the year ahead.”

COOPER WOUND DOWN his State of Metro address touting investments in the city. More cops. More sidewalks. Faster response to potholes. “This isn’t easy work, and there’s a lot to do,” he said. “But I know we’re up for the challenge. Now, let’s get to work.” If not exactly the St. Crispin’s Day speech, it was an accurate assessment of the coming year — he must put enough visible, tangible evidence of a city government at work to

earn a second term. Cooper will do it with a staff significantly different from the one he began with. Gone are chief of staff Bill Phillips and finance director Kevin Crumbo, who put together the nuts and bolts of Cooper’s financial plans, including the property tax increase. Robert Cooper, who directed the Department of Law and was responsible for several high-profile successes in court, returned to private practice last summer. Robert Fisher, considered a rising star as deputy chief of staff, left for a nonprofit. Katie Lentile, who developed Cooper’s message during the campaign and ran communications, left after little more than a year. Also departed are a policy director, one economic and community development chief and a deputy, a communications manager, one press secretary, a speechwriter, a transit chief, a senior adviser, a director of governmental relations and at least eight admins. This level of turnover is high even for political jobs, as previous mayoral administrations held onto core staff, sometimes for multiple terms. Those who have left describe Cooper as someone who was prone to micromanagement and sometimes anger. In the middle of the city’s COVID response, for example, Cooper once ripped apart a speech to the writer’s face. In their place, among many, have come some veterans — Wally Dietz to run Metro Legal and Tom Jurkovich as senior adviser for public affairs, for example — and a pair of younger staffers with campaign experience. There’s Sam Wilcox as deputy mayor and T.J. Ducklo as communications chief. Inside-baseball-like staff changes animate Metro insiders and political junkies (and journalists). But there’s little evidence it moves voters, a majority of whom now find the city on the wrong track. For Nashville voters, education, homelessness and affordable housing are top of mind. If the address was Cooper’s first step toward a reelection campaign, his next will come in June as he begins fundraising. The first question the mayor will have to answer from donors is how he plans to retire his existing $725,000 in campaign debt from 2019. Will donations made now go to the current campaign or the last one? The second question likely is how much of his own personal wealth Cooper will commit to the race. With several potential candidates able to spend heavily, he will not be able to lap the field with spending again. Then, depending on who else enters, Cooper will face something his Metro predecessors never had to: a yearlong race for reelection and an electorate that may be in the mood for change. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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Seeing art in wide-open spaces is one of the best parts of springtime. It’s the visual art version of Shakespeare in the Park — the outdoor context energizes and enlivens creative material. Chicago-based artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, who work collaboratively as Luftwerk, create site-specific works to “transform and sculpt spaces using light, color and texture,” and their latest creation is currently on view on Cheekwood’s magnificent grounds. Colorscapes begins at Cheekwood’s Bradford Robertson Color Garden and Arboretum Lawn with a series of vivid flags — think Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates fed through a Pantone color wheel — and extends into the Bracken Foundation Children’s Garden with interactive spinning wheels. Inside the Cheekwood mansion is an indoor installation by Luftwerk that will showcase the duo’s work with light. Through Sept. 4 at Cheekwood, 1200 Forrest Park Drive LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

[SAFARI, SO GOOD]

Ben Gibbard & Co.’s hit fifth album of that name. I’d wager Safari Room’s members are Coldplay fans as well. Expect the band, which recently went from a trio to a foursome with the addition of Oginalii’s Emma Lambiase on bass, to perform its sophomore LP Complex House Plants in full. The joint record release show also features Taylor Wafford — alias Blood Root — whose I’m Not Here to Start a Fire Anymore is a collection of sonically rich electric-folk torch songs that held their own on a recent tour with Cleveland punk phenoms Heart Attack Man. Should Julien Baker and her Boygenius cohorts ever consider taking on

a fourth member, Wafford would be a solid choice. 9:30 p.m. at The Basement, 1604 Eighth Ave. S. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

PHOTO: CAITLIN HARRIS

COLORSCAPES

[GROOVE IS IN THE HEART]

LEON BRIDGES

Leon Bridges has always been smooth. He entered the scene with an old-school swagger, bringing to mind such ’60s soul greats as Sam Cooke and Otis Redding when he dropped his debut album Coming Home in 2015. But his latest release, last year’s Gold-Diggers Sound, feels like it’s more suited for these times. Working with such contemporary artists as Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin and recent Grammy winner Jazmine Sullivan, Bridges made an album full of baby-makers and panty-droppers — prime playlist fodder for those who prefer Summer Walker over Junior Walker. But Bridges still continues to churn out throwback soul, as evidenced by the Texas Sun and Texas Moon EPs he’s recently released with instrumental psych-rock trio Khruangbin. On Friday, he plays with Montreal-based experimental soul band Chiiild. 7:30 p.m. at Ascend Amphitheater, 310 First Ave. S. CRAIG D. LINDSEY ART

Safari Room’s members hail from indie-rock meccas at opposite ends of the Midwest — Dayton, Ohio, and Omaha, Nebraska — but the band’s 2020 debut Look Me Up When You Get There isn’t big on Guided by Voices’ lo-fi heroics or Bright Eyes’ emo histrionics. What the Nashville-residing group’s crisp, considered pop sound reminds me of most is Pacific Northwesterners like Minus the Bear, Fleet Foxes and Death Cab for Cutie’s electronic-accented collisions of indie folk and pop rock — they’ve even got a tune called “Plans,” an homage, perhaps, to

[ROLLIN’ WITH THE HOMIES]

FLYING TOASTER VIDEO: AN ART EXHIBIT DEDICATED TO THE 1990S

Nostalgia is an increasingly powerful force in modern culture. Perhaps it’s because we yearn for a time before 24-hour news cycles, oversharing on social media and this endless, infernal pandemic. For millennials like myself, nostalgia means

the sound of dial-up modems and the feel of a VHS cassette in your hand. Beginning this week, local Micah Dean will lean into the nostalgia with Flying Toaster Video: An Art Exhibit Dedicated to the 1990s at Hail, Dark Aesthetics in East Nashville. Hail is a rad retail space you may have read about in these pages, full of taxidermy, vintage clothing, records and all sorts of whimsical collectibles, many of them macabre. But for Flying Toaster Video, Dean plans to transform the space into something a bit lighter — a ’90s video store full of 1990s-inspired work created by multiple artists. Visit for the opening reception Friday the 13th, or pop into the shop at any point over the next month to dig on the throwback vibes. 6-9 p.m. Friday; through June 13 at Hail, Dark Aesthetics, 2410 Gallatin Ave. D. PATRICK RODGERS FILM

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FRIDAY / 5.13

[CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER]

FRIDAY THE 13TH & FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING

This Friday the 13th, you have a choice. You can head over to the Belcourt and check out a midnight screening of Friday the 13th, the original 1980 slasher that introduced audiences to unstoppable killer Jason Voorhees and the reign of terror he would unleash on anyone foolish enough to visit Camp Crystal Lake. Or if that’s too late for you, you can go to Full Moon Cineplex earlier in the evening and watch the franchise’s fifth installment from 1985. Even though the fourth film was subtitled The Final Chapter, it was obvious that the suits at Paramount weren’t going to

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As much as I enjoy a big, splashy theater production, there’s something quite powerful about watching a single performer take the stage. And if you’re a fan of solo performances, you’ll want to be at The Barbershop Theater this weekend, as veteran actor, writer and educator Dennis Elkins presents box. and blood (pronounced “box period” and “bloodline”). Most recently seen in Nashville Rep’s terrific production of Mary Poppins, Elkins is currently serving as the interim executive director at Encore Theatrical Company in Morristown, Tenn. But Elkins has also developed a number of solo shows over the years, performing across the United States, as well as in the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. These two one-act plays are actually part of Elkins’ “N” Trilogy, which chronicles “the adventures of mr. dennis as he navigates middle age, roadmaps, and an over-abundance of martini glasses.” May 13-15 at The Barbershop Theater, 4003 Indiana Ave. AMY STUMPFL [GET RHYTHM]

D. STRIKER’S RR PARTY

Forever-aspiring country star D. Striker, who’s played a show to celebrate a new issue of his golden-hued, tongue-in-cheek fanzine RR each Friday the 13th since 1998, gets only one chance to shine in 2022. But Striker — whom you might know as the alter ego of music-biz pro Jeff Meltesen — isn’t gonna let it go to waste. He’s going big with not only a new RR but also his fourth studio album, which he describes as “the greatest hits” from the eight years since his previous release. Recorded by longtime co-conspirator Mason Vickery with a band of local ringers, Hullabaloo features 10 Striker originals, including “Pregnant, Like a Woman,” which muses on a neighbor’s too-candid observation about Meltesen’s physique, and “Washed Up, Never

GENDERBEND: POETRY INTO FILM COLLABORATIONS

Was,” which relates the saga of Striker’s illustrious career; also don’t miss “The Plan Be Damned,” a slow-burning reflection on gentrification. For Friday’s show, Meltesen says to expect the pregnant bodysuit from the “Pregnant, Like a Woman,” music video and a whole bunch of feathers from a recent photo shoot, as well as longtime associate Jason Crawford, who’ll open the show. 8 p.m. at Bobby’s Idle Hour, 9 Music Square S.

MUSIC

Alma Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful is a historically important and artistically relevant exhibition that is best experienced when you’re equipped with all its cultural context. There’s likely no one better to lead you through the show than the exhibition’s curator, Seth Feman, who also happens to be the Frist’s new executive director. Feman will be able to explain the art historical reasoning around his decision to pair Thomas’ works with paintings by other notable color-field artists as well as Thomas’ own students, or the inclusion of a bright-red chair just like the one that was in Thomas’ living room when she made some of her most famous works. Visit fristartmuseum.org for registration details. 3 p.m. at the Frist, 919 Broadway

[JOY, TO THE WORLD]

JOY OLADOKUN

The idea of “stoner music” has often been identified with reveling in excess of one kind or another, which can be great. Joy Oladokun, who described herself as a “sensitive stoner” in these very pages,

makes music that feels relaxed but focused, and she doesn’t shy away from urgent messages about fostering acceptance and resilience in times when both feel like they’re in short supply. There are a lot of places you can see Oladokun this year or might have seen her already — she’s been on

STEPHEN TRAGESER

SATURDAY / 5.14 FILM

ART

let their cash cow die. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning has more sex, more drugs and more gruesome ways for the man in the hockey mask to take out his unlucky victims. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning 7 p.m. at Full Moon Cineplex, 3455 Lebanon Pike; Friday the 13th midnight at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY

[GET BENT]

GENDERBEND: POETRY INTO FILM COLLABORATIONS

Last year, the indie screensmiths at Defy Film Festival joined forces with the radically weird Kindling Arts Festival to create films that pair local poets and filmmakers. Called Heroic Couplets, the online program was a brilliant answer to the restraints of lockdown. This year, they’re back with in-person screenings that you can see on the big screen at OZ Arts. GENDERBEND: Poetry Into Film Collaborations features a slate of 16 LGBTQ and/or female-identifying artists, including poets Simba Alik, Amie Whittemore and Scene contributor Kashif Andrew Graham, working with filmmakers such as Chalet Comellas-Baker, Tiffany Abreu and Jose Luis Benavides. As the Scene’s Joe Nolan noted last year, film scholar William Wees coined the term “poetry-film” in 1984, championing the idea that “when spoken-word or poetic text was married to cinematic sound and images, the resulting display was something greater than the sum of its parts.” The project is also a way to show how Nashville’s artists are as well, and it’s refreshing to see the genres move out of their lanes. 8 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday at OZ Arts, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle ERICA CICCARONE JOY OLADOKUN

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NASHVILLE IN HARMONY PRESENTS WHAT LOVE CAN DO

Pride Month may not officially kick off until June 1, but the time is always right to celebrate love. And you can kick things off in style this Saturday with Nashville in Harmony’s much-anticipated concert What Love Can Do. As Tennessee’s only musical arts organization created especially for people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions and their allies, this citywide chorus has been building community and creating social change through music for more than a decade. This marks the chorus’ first live concert since 2019, and according to artistic director Wesley King, this weekend’s program will feature a wide range of songs expressing the many ways that love manifests in our lives, including “What Love Can Do.” There also will be a performance from the Major Minors — the organization’s youth chorus for ages 12 to 18 — concluding with the NiH theme song, “Why We Sing.” 7:30 p.m. at Belmont’s McAfee Concert Hall, 2108 Belmont Blvd. AMY STUMPFL FILM

704 18th Ave S. Nashville, TN 37203

[LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE]

[SIRKERS]

DOUGLAS SIRK: ORIGINS OF A VISION Few filmmakers in the history of

Hollywood are as iconic and stylistically distinct as Douglas Sirk. His name brings to mind vivid colors, sumptuous cinematography and heart-wrenching emotions — there’s maybe no one more synonymous with melodrama than the director behind such stunning weepies as All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind. It’s not just tears and tender emotion the late Sirk did well, but societal analysis too, as his films dealt with both romance and complex interweaving issues like race, class and gender roles. While he may have found a successful home in Hollywood, Sirk was deeply shaped by his formative years in Germany, where he learned from the theories of Bertolt Brecht before fleeing the Nazi regime — the man born Detlef Sierck was not just an intellectual in his own right, but also someone with a distinct experience of oppression. The Belcourt’s monthlong spotlight on Sirk continues in May with 35 mm screenings of All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and Magnificent Obsession, in addition to this Saturday morning seminar from James McFarland, associate professor in the German and Cinema & Media Arts departments at Vanderbilt University, on Sirk’s origins and early career. 10 a.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. NADINE SMITH

SUNDAY / 5.15 MUSIC

GUITAR LESSONS

with former Musicians Institute and Austin Guitar School instructor

her first headlining tour of North America, in addition to appearing on Austin City Limits and several late-night TV shows, and she’ll play festivals like Bonnaroo and Newport Folk as well as opening some dates for country star (and sometime co-writer) Maren Morris. Saturday and Sunday, you have your chance to witness Oladokun’s full power in a club setting. Fellow Nashville songsmith Bre Kennedy, who recently released an EP of stripped-down acoustic versions of songs from her 2021 LP Note to Self, has been warming up crowds for Oladokun this spring, and she opens both shows this weekend. At press time, Saturday’s show was sold out, but tickets remained for Sunday. 9 p.m. Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. STEPHEN TRAGESER

[LIKE WHEN GALILEO DROPPED THE ORANGE]

MAKAYA McCRAVEN

Right now is a fantastic time to get turned onto contemporary jazz. Among the musicians who are simultaneously pushing at the boundaries of the genre’s traditions while building a strong foundation for its future is Paris-born and Chicago-residing multi-instrumentalist Makaya McCraven. The self-described “beat scientist” has a knack for melodies and tones that are deeply satisfying as they ride on organically groovy rhythms, while he plays with form in ways that sometimes suggest he’d be a great film editor. Conventional wisdom says that the

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MAKAYA McCRAVEN

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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CRITICS’ PICKS

MUSIC

MARGARET LITTMAN [OTHERWISE KNOWN AS]

ALIAS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

COMEDY

ALIAS Chamber Ensemble will close its 20th concert season on Sunday with a performance at Eastwood Christian Church. The program will showcase harpist Licia Jaskunas, together with Érik Gratton on flute and Anthony Parce on viola, for Claude Debussy’s dreamy Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp. Meanwhile, percussionist Alan Fey will be joined by Christopher Norton for the marimba duo Danza de los Saqsampillos by Gabriela Lena Frank — a piece that was included on ALIAS’ Grammy-nominated debut recording from 2011. And finally, violinist Louise Morrison will be joined by Sari Reist on cello and Megan Gale on piano for Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 — an early work from the German composer, who would go on to revise it some 35 years later. All proceeds will go to fund the ALIAS in the Community Educational program, which brings chamber music to local students and adults through a wide range of innovative programs and partnerships. 6 p.m. at Eastwood Christian Church, 1601 Eastland Ave. AMY STUMPFL [GAIL THE SNAIL]

MARY LYNN RAJSKUB

Mary Lynn Rajskub is on a stand-up tour ahead of the May 17 release of her book

MONDAY / 5.16 [SO CHEESY]

PIZZA AND A MOVIE: BELLY AT THE BELCOURT

A few years back, I wrote an online piece in which I said the 1998 hip-hop crime story Belly is like “a very colorful, sativa-enhanced dream some drug kingpin is having in his traphouse.” The one and, so far, only film from music video director Hype Williams is some visually alluring yet utterly baffling pulp. East Coast rap gods DMX (R.I.P.) and Nas make their big-screen debuts as criminal pals who start drifting apart when one of them wants to get out of the thug life. Even though the Swisscheese plot will most likely leave viewers wondering what the hell actually happened, the film has still gone on to become a hood classic. There are even those who say that this shallow yet stunning urban fantasia walked so that HBO’s hit teen drama Euphoria could run. See for yourself at this special Pizza and a Movie presentation (in freakin’ 35 mm!), co-hosted by Slim & Husky’s Pizza Beeria. 8 p.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY

projects, The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins — the latter a duo with kindred spirit Mark Lanegan from grunge greats Screaming Trees — before reconnecting with his Whigs bandmates and updating their noir-ish, soulful signature sound on 2013’s Do to the Beast and its 2017 follow-up In Spades. The latest installment in a comeback nobody saw coming — after the initial 2001 breakup, Dulli swore they’d never return — How Do You Burn?, due this fall, features cameos from the late Lanegan, who passed away in February, as well as Marcy Mays of fellow Buckeye Staters Scrawl, whom Whigs fans will remember for her goosebump-inducing vocal turn on Gentlemen’s epic “My Curse.” (The cover art is heavily filtered, but appears to be a shot of my beloved Dodger Stadium, which isn’t as random as its sounds — Dulli co-owns The Shortstop, a popular watering hole just outside the stadium gates.) Hear the new material live before it’s out, and also wish Dulli — a Taurus, known for boundless creative energy and an ornery disposition, which checks out — a happy birthday. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

WEDNESDAY / 5.18 MUSIC

Expect carbs of all kinds when you head to the Nashville Jewish Food Festival and Israel Celebration. This year the annual Nashville Jewish Food Festival is being held in collaboration with the Jewish Federation and Jewish Foundation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee Israel Celebration. That means more traditional Israeli and Jewish foods to sample. The afternoon will include an amateur babka bakeoff competition (a babkoff, if you will), and food from Butcher & Bee, chef Avi Shemtov, Jewish Cowboy, Upstate Pierogi Co., Crieve Hall Bagels, East Tasty, Sweets Melissa & Sons and others. As I said, a lot of carbs, from sweet to savory. Shemtov will be signing copies of his new cookbook Simcha, and conducting a cooking demo as part of the Nashville Jewish Book Series, which wraps up its 2021-22 year with this event. Shemtov is the founder of Boston’s Chubby Chickpea food truck. Local food photographer Phillip Fryman (aka The Southern Fatty) will also be in attendance. It’s free to attend — food tickets are available for purchase at the event. 1-4 p.m. at the Gordon Jewish Community Center, 801 Percy Warner Blvd.

FILM

NASHVILLE JEWISH FOOD FESTIVAL AND ISRAEL CELEBRATION

MUSIC

[HAVE A NOSH]

Fame-Ish: My Life at the Edge of Stardom, which recounts her years working as a comic and actor. While most folks are likely familiar with the longtime performer via her role as Chloe O’Brien in the long-running, Keifer Sutherland-starring network actiondrama 24, her regular appearances in classic comedy series like Mr. Show and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are examples of her ability to pull off much odder characters. She has a knack for stealing scenes with her bit roles — I’d watch every minute of a spinoff starring Gail the Snail from It’s Always Sunny. Come see her at Zanies, but leave your salt at home. 7 p.m. at Zanies, 2025 Eighth Ave. S. AMANDA HAGGARD

songwriter and singer Thomas Luminoso recasts the styles of Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers and Arthur Lee as modern rock. Palace Morning is an elusive record — you can hear traces of the kind of blues licks Barrett and Lee used in their ’70s work, but tunes like “I’m Just a Particle” and “Marc Greenway” remain somewhat opaque, which may mean Luminoso is more interested in writing creative pastiches than he is in composing songs for the ages. Also appearing is Make Yourself at Home, a band led by singer and songwriter Billy Campbell. The group’s selftitled 2021 album often sounds homemade, but something titled “FM/Drums” adds snatches of almost-folk guitar to a drone that gives way to what sounds like mutated drums. Make Yourself at Home manages to be both unpretentious and totally weird, and it peaks with “Far Away,” which gets close to what you might call rock ’n’ roll. Rounding out the bill is Thad Kopec, whose 2021 fulllength I Hold out My Hands is soft rock with literary ambitions. Kopec says he’s been influenced by the great fiction writer Jorge Luis Borges, and that’s the kind of thing we can always use more of in modern pop. 9 p.m. at The 5 Spot, 1006 Forrest Ave. EDD HURT

[POP LABYRINTHS]

THOMAS LUMINOSO, MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME & THAD KOPEC

The off-kilter quasi-pop of the 1970s serves as a point of departure for the three bands on Wednesday night’s bill at The 5 Spot. On his 2021 album Palace Morning, Nashville THOMAS LUMINOSO

[IRON MIC]

GZA

GZA isn’t necessarily the flashiest or most charismatic member of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan (GhostFace Killah and Method Man being particularly colorful characters). But no one, including the rest of his Staten Island crew, can deny that he raps at a top-tier level. There’s a reason he’s called The Genius and performed one of the two solo tracks on the group’s debut album. His 1995 album Liquid Swords carved out his place in hip-hop history, but the rest of his discography — including 2008’s Pro Tools, his last LP — is full of highlights as well. Still, count on Wu-Tang’s sharpest swordsman to bring the classics at this upcoming Nashville gig. 8 p.m. at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

TUESDAY / 5.17 MUSIC

FOOD & DRINK

best jazz is captured live and unadulterated, but his 2015 breakout album In the Moment — created by editing and remixing live improvisational recordings — is strong evidence that there’s plenty of room for innovation. His most recent projects are a rich new double LP Universal Beings and We’re New Here, a reimagining of Gil ScottHeron’s final LP I’m New Here. Hot on the heels of an appearance at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, McCraven makes his return to Music City on Sunday. Nashville R&B outfit Oracle Blue opens the show. 8 p.m. at Mercy Lounge, 1 Cannery Row STEPHEN TRAGESER

[DO TO THE EAST]

THE AFGHAN WHIGS

One of Sub Pop’s first non-Seattle signings, Ohio-rooted rock ’n’ roll ruffians The Afghan Whigs jumped to Elektra for a trilogy of highly regarded mid-’90s LPs: Gentlemen, my personal fave Black Love and 1965, chronologically. Outspoken frontman Greg Dulli then turned his attention to a pair of new

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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600 9th 9th Ave Ave SS #100, #100, Nashville, Nashville, TN TN 37203 37203 600

Fresh Ground. Hand Crafted. Locally Owned.

FRANKLIN

NASHVILLE

324 Main Street 615.472.8980

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Everclear + Fastball + The Nixons

TY PES

D E R *C

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

& O P

5055 Broadway Pl, Nashville, TN 37203 Q E /skydeckonbroadway

EVERY FRI - SUN @ 2PM

Learn More at SkydeckOnBroadway.com or Scan Here

MAY 29 Memorial Weekend Luau

LIVE MUSIC

JUL 6

AUG 28 Michael Franti & Spearhead

* LOCA ATE

Dave Fleppard

AKES *

Muscles & Mimosas Fitness Class

JUL 1

MAY 28 Flux Pavilion

JUN 18

MAY 27 Eagles Tribute: 7 Bridges

Nashville Yacht Club Band

MAY 25 Leonid & Friends

Molly Hatchet + True Villians

JUN 17

UPS * *C

MAY 21 8 Track Band + Fly 2K

Josh Turner

DE TO

All Girls Guns N' Roses Tribute

JUN 9 JUN 14

MAY 20 Paradise Kitty

Sawyer Brown

NES * S

MAY 14 Outlaw Apostles + Sara Spicer

Dee Jay Silver

MAY 13 Justin Furstenfeld of Blue October

JUN 3 JUN 8

STO M C

ES M

MAY 12 Boots Above Broadway Line Dancing With Donny Lee

JOSH TURNER

DEE JAY SILVER

June 9

E V ENT

June 3

LEONID & FRIENDS

CATE G AL

OF BLUE OCTOBER

+ GEORGIA THUNDERBOLTS

May 25

BLACK JUSTIN STONE CHERRY FURSTENFELD

NASHVILLE'S LARGEST ROOFTOP R

Apr May813

nashvillescene.com

AT ASSEMBLY FOOD HALL

L&L Market 3820 Charlotte Ave. 615.730.8798

416A 21st South 615.321.2478 www.BenJerry.com

Your Best Yoga

L&L Market |3820 Charlotte Ave. 615-750-5067 nashville.bendandzenhotyoga.com

PHOTOS:ERIC ENGLAND

FOOD AND DRINK

PLANE JANE

LE LOUP + JACQUELINE 1400 Adams St. Open Thursday-Saturday PLANE JANE

A look at several new(ish) Nashville bars for your drinking pleasure BY MARGARET LITTMAN

“W

e love going out, and Nashville has so many great places,” says Marcus Buggs. “We wanted to be part of that. Opening a bar has been in the plans from the jump.” When Buggs and his wife Jennifer opened Coneheads, the Dickerson Pike purveyor of fried chicken in a waffle cone, their bar wasn’t supposed to be far behind. The bar

LE LOUP

would be an extension of Plane and Simpl, their catering company that makes its own syrups and mixers. The tornado and then the pandemic delayed things, but in January 2022, the couple opened Plane Jane, a stylish lounge tucked under Coneheads. When you turn off of Dickerson on to Eastmoreland Street, you’ll probably think you missed it. There’s the black Coneheads building and a slope down to the back parking lot and an alley. Then, you turn into the lot, and it’s like a movie set — Plane Jane beckons, and she’s anything but plain. It’s a neon-and-velvet oasis with seating for 50, a smart cocktail menu, fun music, Banksystyle art and a small food menu. You’ll immediately feel lucky and smart for finding your way there. Plane Jane is just one of a few new Nashville watering holes that offer such insider-

y delight. If you’re looking for somewhere new to have a drink — beer, wine, spirits or mocktails — try one of these options to wet your whistle.

PLANE JANE 1315 Dickerson Pike Open Tuesday-Sunday; daily happy hour 5-7 p.m.; allnight happy hour Tuesdays Buggs reached out to Geist’s Freddy Schwenk to help develop Plane Jane’s cocktail menu, which includes several twists on classic drinks. The new food menu includes Coneheads’ fried cauliflower, tater tots and a new creation that may be the ultimate drunk food: a Nathan’s hot dog dipped in Coneheads’ waffle batter. (Heads-up: Plane Jane is cashless, so come card in hand.)

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

BOTTOMS UP

The idea of Le Loup is to offer beautifully crafted cocktails in an aesthetic powerhouse without it feeling like a speakeasy, according to beverage manager Kenneth Vanhooser. Mission accomplished at this bar, perched above The Optimist in Germantown. Being inside Le Loup feels like sipping a drink from inside a velvetand-marble hug: There’s some detail to look at in every corner. Fortunately, you have many options of what to drink while you take it all in. There are more than 50 cocktails on the menu, including forgotten classics, originals and a section of formative drinks with information about who first created them and where they were first served. Le Loup opened in January; its outdoor (and downstairs) sister, Jacqueline, opened this month with frozen drinks perfect for pairing with Nashville’s hot summers. Look for New Orleans-style snowballs and Japanese kakigōri.

LE LOUP

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PRESENTED BY

FRIDAY, MAY 20 S

SAMPLES FROM

SPONSORED BY

ONE WEEK AWAY!

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FOOD AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE FROM

PROCEEDS BENEFIT

GET TICKETS AT NASHVILLEMARGARITAFESTIVAL.COM

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

THE VIC

FAR BETTER SPIRITS

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

FOOD AND DRINK

BAR 6

FAR BETTER SPIRITS

THE VIC

330 Harrison St. Open Thursday-Monday; special events in the evening

2512 Gallatin Ave. Open daily; happy hour 4-7 p.m. Monday-Friday

TJ Fritz thinks he and his daughter may run the smallest distillery in the country, with less than 500 square feet. Named after a Teddy Roosevelt quote, Far Better Spirits is tucked into a tiny corner near the Sounds’ First Horizon Park. The tasting room opened in April and is bigger than the distillery space — 900 square feet. Come here during the day to sample the distillery’s section of spirits, mix your own custom spirit or have a crafted cocktail. Favorites include a small-batch Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey and Hand-Crafted Gin. The Fritz family (including TJ’s wife and another daughter) also leads food tours and hosts evening events for groups, including cooking and painting parties.

First things first: New signage, from both the back parking lot and from the Gallatin Avenue side, makes it easier to find the door to The Vic, the lower-level bar next to the Gallatin Hotel (under the Emerson Hall event space). The vibe is intentionally 1970s basement. It does have that look, but with more natural light and no musty smell. You’ll find a rotating selection of 12 local beers on tap, plus wines and cocktails — there are 40 bourbons and 40 tequilas on hand. A Jiffy Pop flight harkens to the 1970s too, with the added twist of hot-chicken seasoning. There’s a trivia night and plenty of TV screens for watching various games. The Vic hosts Formula 1 watch parties, so you know where to go if that’s your thing. While guests at the adjacent hotel get a free drink token in their room, The Vic has become a local hangout since opening in December. “We want to be your neighborhood bar, the kind of place where the bartenders know who you are,” says director of hospitality Joe Guerra.

BAR 6 1101 McKennie Ave. Open daily; daily happy hour 3-6 p.m.

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

This tiny cocktail bar is tucked into the sixth bay in The Wash, the new micro collection of food and drink businesses with a shared outdoor space in a converted car wash. Mixologist Beau Gaultier whips up cocktails — classic and custom — and serves craft beers and natural wines, plus spirit-free concoctions. House Thai orange creamsicle kombucha, anyone? You can sip your drink in the stylish micro bar space or take it outside to the communal Wash patio.

BAR 6

OVERLORD 2503 Gallatin Ave. Open daily; live music Wednesdays One of Melvil Arnt’s French outposts, Overlord is a 1940s-style European bar that pays homage to soldiers who fought in World War II. (The name comes from Operation Overlord, better known as the Battle of Normandy.) Drink a Thyme Gimlet or from a carefully selected wine list while admiring the craftsmanship of the space. Bring a picture of a friend or family member who served in WWII, and Arnt will hang it on the wall as a remembrance. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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5/9/22 6:50 PM

FOOD AND DRINK

Cocktails Small Bites Intimate Atmosphere 4210 Charlotte Ave. | 615-678-4086 ottosnashville.com

Nashville’s Family-Owned Boutique Music Shop

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

933B WOODLAND STREET · 629.256.6092 caldwellguitarsnashville.com

May in... Thursday 5/05

Friday 21 +

Erase; Rewind: Genre Hopping with DJ NOMI

5/12

comedy Night

TICKET

hosts BRAD SATIVA & COREY PERRY

5/19

21 +

dj night: French Connection

5/06

DJ MAMA SAID

Saturday 21 +

Music Trivia Night

hosted by BEN BLACKWELL

21 +

DJ Night: Indie Jamz

GIRL GROUPS, GARAGE JUKES, SYNTH LOOPS

with DOUBLE VISION

5/13

5/14

show

Crooked Rhythm Band No.1: Explorations in Groove 5/20

baby: an intimate r&b throwback party

TICKET

with DJs JOHN STAMPS & AFROSHEEN

5/26

5/07

5/27

jazz night

TICKET

with FATS KAPLIN GANG

closed to

21 +

Good stuff, $10 or less

the public

5/21

Lockeland Strings

show

featuring SPECIAL GUESTS

5/28

Daniel Romano

with CARSON MCHONE

show

ETHIO COFFEE HOUSE – CAPPUCCINO AND PASTRIES – $6 Plump pastries and house-roasted coffee at Murfreesboro Pike staple

hile South Nashville is a treasure trove of Ethiopian cuisine, no place does the basics better than Ethio Coffee House. Located just southeast of the airport, this low-key cafe dishes out house-roasted coffee, handheld snacks and warm smiles in Nashville’s busiest area code. Coffee is a huge deal in Ethiopia, and its immense cultural status shines through at Ethio. The cafe maintains a full-service suite of espresso and drip varieties, all stemming from artisan coffee beans that are fired in house from green to the familiar ETHIO COFFEE HOUSE roasty black. Every drink is great, but the cappuccino ($3.79) is nearly flawless, the 2131 MURFREESBORO PIKE ETHIOCOFFEEHOUSE.COM steamed milk highlighting notes of baker’s chocolate and port wine. If you go with a standard cup of coffee, keep in mind that Ethiopian tradition dictates a pinch of salt in the brew — but this hyper-authenticity is entirely optional, and Splenda is provided for those who need it. While the main attraction at Ethio is the coffee, you should definitely pay a visit to the display case at the register, which contains snacks as hot, greasy and satisfying as they look. A great starter is the sambusa ($2.29), filled with savory spice-flecked lentils and wrapped in a delicate fried shell. If your morning cravings gravitate toward churros and funnel cake, grab the bombolino ($1.89), a deep-fried doughnut with notes of vanilla, brewer’s yeast and fresh green herbs. If all else fails, follow the lead of the Old El Paso taco shell commercial and ask yourself an important question: “Why not both?” ALIJAH POINDEXTER

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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5/9/22 3:39 PM

BE BOLD. BE GOLD.

Wall of Gold Records THIRD FLOOR GALLERY COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

DOWNTOWN

Scene Full Page_PrintAd_05.12_22 QC .indd 1

VISIT TODAY

CountryMusicHallofFame.org

5/9/22 10:46 AM

“INTER-DIMENSIONAL FEMME/PHARMAKEIA/PANSIES/ANGELIC CONTORTION,” CALEB YONO

DRAWERS Provocative Drawings

Jeremy Biles Annie Brito Hodgin John Brooks Paul Collins Thornton Dial William Downs Fetish

Kevin Guthrie Brady Haston Clarity Haynes Brett Douglas Hunter Perrin R. Ireland Lee Isaacson Kimia Ferdowsi Kline

Julia Martin Rebecca Morgan Elisheba Israel Mrozik Ozu Ryan M. Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz Katarina Riesing

Lindsey Rome Sal Salandra Louis M. Schmidt Willie Stewart Betty Tompkins XPayne Caleb Yono

OPENING 6-8 P.M. THURSDAY, MAY 12 MAY 12-31 / OZ ARTS / 6172 COCKRILL BEND CIRCLE Curated by Laura Hutson Hunter Presented by the Nashville Scene in Partnership With OZ Arts

ART

SKETCH ARTISTS

A guide through Drawers, the fourth installment of our Adult Contemporary exhibition series BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

“I AM CURIOUS,” KEVIN GUTHRIE

The drawings are from her ongoing Fuck Grid series, and show the artist’s mastery over the photorealistic sex acts she’s been making since the late 1960s. Tompkins is best known for large-scale paintings based on sex and pornography, and although the drawings in Drawers are small by comparison at 17 by 14 inches, their hyper-specific zoomed-in portrayal of sexual penetration remains monumentally bold. Clarity Haynes is a New York-based artist whose crowning series features the same tightly cropped perspectives and photorealistic detail as Tompkins’ works, but Haynes’ vaginas are mid-birth instead of mid-coitus. The portrait-like studies are sweetly reverent — she treats her subjects with a softer, more romantic point of view than you might expect. Among the Drawers artists whose works involve primal and unexpected source material is Chicago-based duo Ryan M. Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz, whose collaborative practice incorporates elements of classical art and neolithic cave paintings, and New Yorkbased artist Perrin R. Ireland, whose scientifically researched renderings of animals include female bonobos having sex in a pond and male boto dolphins engaging in foreplay. Ozu, who uses a pseudonym, had their work confiscated by a post office in India. “Dream of an Ornithologist” was among the drawings that were en route to Nashville, but were returned to sender along with a note expressing shock over the content of the drawings. With the artist’s permission, a high-resolution copy of the drawing was printed in Nashville — its depiction of a nude woman being caressed by a swan with a human hand in place of its head is dreamy erotic fantasy at its finest. Nashville-based artist Paul Collins made several new drawings specifically for Drawers. The resulting ink-on-paper works show a raw, energized vision of sexuality — one work, called “Embrace,” shows a man masturbating, his penis multiplied into several versions of itself like the rhinoceros shaking its head in the caves at Chauvet. In “Shelter,” a woman’s pendulous breast acts like a support beam, buttressing her entire body above a small man who seems lost in shadow. Other Nashville-based artists who have made sex-forward work specifically for Drawers include XPayne, Julia Martin, Brett Douglas Hunter, Brady Haston and Kevin Guthrie, whose renderings of erotic film posters on the backs of cardboard beer boxes include the original Swedish release poster for Vilgot Sjöman’s 1967 classic I Am Curious (Yellow). The purpose of the Adult Contemporary exhibits is to normalize discussions around sex and sexuality through contemporary art, and the breadth of work in Drawers — both the quantity of artists involved and the diversity in their subjects — shows that these conversations are as valuable and relevant as ever. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

“SHELTER,” PAUL COLLINS

he initial idea for Drawers, the fourth installment of the Scene’s Adult Contemporary series of art exhibitions, wasn’t remarkably deep: a show of provocative art that is limited to DRAWERS: PROVOCATIVE drawings. But not DRAWINGS long after I began OPENING 6-8 P.M. formalizing more of THURSDAY, MAY 12, those ideas, I realAT OZ ARTS ized that drawing GALLERY HOURS 1-5 P.M. THURSDAY-SATURDAY, and intimacy are MAY 13-21 much more closely ADULTCONTEMPORARY associated than ART.COM I’d first thought. There’s a personal, secretive element to many of the drawings — several of the works come directly from artists’ sketchbooks, and others feel like they’re capturing a private idea. There’s also an immediacy to a drawing that can tap into something primal about art-making. A handful of the Drawers artists work with live models, and the tension between the artist and subject translates into the work they’ve created together. Finally, there’s an approachable, attainable quality to drawing — it’s practically the girl next door of artistic mediums. Even the most skillfully rendered work can seem within reach simply because you’ve likely held the same type of pen in your own hand, smudged the same line, or smelled the same pencil shavings. And in keeping with that line of thinking, maybe you’ve also had the same thoughts. Among the most diaristic works in Drawers is an actual diary. Nashville-based artist Sai Clayton kept a COVID journal in the first months of the pandemic, and it’s littered with sexual fantasies and a running list of COVID case counts — a combination that feels unique to that time, like toggling between CNN and PornHub. New York-based self-taught artist Sal Salandra — whose provocative thread works were a highlight of the Adult Contemporary show Shag in 2020 — has a pair of sketches that highlight his fanciful, imaginative, joyful views around sex. In “Angels Do It,” a crew of cherubs watch from atop clouds as one of their kind — an angel in Western wear with a halo floating above his cowboy hat — has sex with a mortal. Another self-taught outsider artist, Thornton Dial is well-known in Nashville, mainly for the Frist Art Museum’s 2012 Creation Story exhibit, which paired the Alabama-born artist’s Rauschenbergian assemblages with works by the quilters of Gee’s Bend. “Road to the Mountaintop,” a public sculpture by Dial, was commissioned by Metro Arts in 2013. Supporters who are less familiar with Dial’s erotic drawings may be surprised to see how freely the artist incorporates vulvae and rambunctious sexuality into his folk-art ouevre. In many ways, the anchor of Drawers is a trio of drawings by Betty Tompkins.

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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5/9/22 3:40 PM

TI M B E R HAWK HALL B uilt Fo r M u s ic.

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his Time Tomorrow, the new novel by Emma Straub, stands out as the only book of the year (so far) that’s both a surprising bildungsroman and excellent beach THIS TIME TOMORROW read. It fizzes like BY EMMA STRAUB pop and goes down RIVERHEAD BOOKS easily while offering 320 PAGES, $28 nutritional literSTRAUB WILL DISCUSS ary value. Each of HER NOVEL 6:30 P.M. Straub’s previous WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, AT PARNASSUS BOOKS four novels, along with her short-story collection, has been a bestseller; her fiction, without exception, is orchestrated by a steady hand with a light touch. In a classic bildungsroman, the protagonist faces loss as a child, embarks on an obstacle-filled journey and, ultimately, gains maturity. In This Time Tomorrow, protagonist Alice Stern is not a child but a geriatric millennial. Approaching 40, Alice is placidly skating along the periphery of an existential crisis when she happens upon a neat trick: the ability to travel backward in time to her 16th birthday. Sixteen, no doubt, falls beyond one’s earliest years, but it’s still an age of innocence for Alice, who even as a grownup has yet to arrive as the hero of her own life. This Time Tomorrow doesn’t partake of the usual clichés associated with midlife crises. Yes, divorce is involved, though it’s not Alice’s but her parents’, and it happened when she was 6. This left Alice to the full-time care of her father, Leonard, a very cool dad with a penchant for cigarettes. In the week leading up to Alice’s 40th birthday, Leonard lies in a New York City hospital bed, neither conscious nor responsive. Alice visits him dutifully. Her days — like her four decades on Earth — are dutiful and empty. Content in the literal sense of the word, Alice exists in a container. She works in the admissions office of the uptown prep school she attended. She’s had the same best friend, Sam, since they were high school students there. Alice has long since abandoned her scattershot dreams of being an artist. She is secure yet unafflicted by a stultifying prosperity. No one claims her as a dependent. She’s a smoker living in Brooklyn. She has a boyfriend, Matt, whose personality is as flat as his name. Alice’s position is precarious insofar as two matters are concerned: She really, really doesn’t want her father to die, and her life, in more ways than not, resembles that of a hamster who’s been running on the same wheel forever, purposely going nowhere. Leonard, it so happens, made his mark writing a science-fiction novel about time travel that portends Alice’s experiences.

In a stroke of luck, Alice falls asleep on the evening of her 40th birthday and wakes up on her 16th. Given the chance to do it over, she discovers that her choices on that one day in 1996 have the power to change her course forever. Knowing at 16 what she’s learned by 40, she holds her destiny in her hands. (This will appeal to every woman who’s asked herself, “What would have happened if I’d never broken up with my high school sweetheart?”) About her father’s fate, Alice is certain: “She wanted to save his life, simple as that.” While the adult Alice grapples with the impending loss of her dad, adolescent Alice tries to sidestep — or at least postpone — Leonard’s death by making sure he takes care of himself. “She felt like a walking needlepoint pillow — the way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. She wasn’t a teenage detective; she was a scientist.” Straub maintains a delicious sort of control, moving backward and forward in time, dancing through various futures for Alice. The result is a beguiling performance and one of the knockout reads of the summer. This Time Tomorrow is a touching and suspenseful novel, ripe with ideas, brilliantly plotted and generous with its dashes of humor. For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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5/9/22 3:35 PM

VODKA YONIC

NOT ALL NEW NASHVILLIANS ARE YOUR ENEMY

thebasementeast basementeast thebasementeast

917 Woodland Street Nashville, TN 37206 thebasementnashville.com

An open letter to Old Nashville NIMBYs BY MEGAN SELING Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

decade ago, I left my lifelong home in the Pacific Northwest and moved to Nashville. Almost a year after I arrived, I was hired by then-editor-inchief Jim Ridley as the new culture editor at the Scene. It was the first time I’d lived outside of Washington state. While many folks were welcoming, I lost track of the number of times my worth was questioned or my opinion dismissed because I wasn’t a Nashville native. I heard and saw the comments. “She’s an outsider.” “She doesn’t understand our city.” Or, my favorite, “Go back to Seattle.” So many Scene readers were pissed when I questioned why the Confederate flag and related merch was still for sale all over Lower Broadway. The post had dozens of angry comments. Most of them told me to go home. That sentiment continued for years. The battle between “old” and “new” Nashville has only gotten hotter and louder since. Every week, I see folks who grew up here write scathing posts on social media about how newcomers are ruining their city. Rarely does anyone specify beyond the word “new” or define how long it takes to be accepted by longtime residents. Anyone moving to Nashville, for any reason, it seems — from the greedy developers to the teachers to the refugees and immigrants — is lumped together into one giant, faceless monster that grows bigger by the day. But I’m not a piece of that monster. Most of us aren’t. Truthfully? I didn’t want to move to Nashville anymore than all those angry gatekeeping goobers wanted me to be here, but my husband, a Nashville native, uprooted his life in the Pacific Northwest to care for an ailing family member. A family member who, by the way, dedicated 50 years of his life to being a pediatric nephrologist and general practitioner in this city and bettering the lives of thousands of patients across multiple local hospitals. Still, I tried to make the best of my situation, and the best of the new city I called home. I have written hundreds of stories for the Nashville Scene, The East Nashvillian and other publications that shine a spotlight on some of the city’s most interesting musicians, chefs, artists, politicians, athletes and dogs. (I like dogs, OK?) I’ve hosted bake sales to raise money for local mental health services. I’ve collected thousands of dollars from friends across the country to stock the shelves at the Nashville

WHEN YOU ATTACK NEW NASHVILLE BY LUMPING EVERY NON-NATIVE TOGETHER INTO ONE FACELESS ENEMY, YOUR ENEMY, YOU ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO THE CITY YOU CLAIM TO LOVE. Free Store, a community-run effort to feed Nashvillians who can’t afford to eat. I’ve protested with so many of you. I’ve marched with so many of you. I’ve spent more money than I have to spend at local businesses. (And by “businesses,” I mean bakeries. This city’s dessert scene is phenomenal.) And I’m not special. I am not the exception. I know of dozens of people who have relocated to Music City for all kinds of reasons, and so many of them have all worked tirelessly to help this city thrive. Musician Mickey Guyton grew up in Texas, but she moved to Nashville in 2011, and has since called for change within the very white, very male-dominated country music industry. Celebrity chef Maneet Chauhan moved to Nashville and opened her first restaurant, Chauhan Ale and Masala House, in 2014, and has not only helped the city become the well-known food destination it is today, but she now owns four restaurants and employs hundreds of locals. When you attack New Nashville by lumping every non-native together into one faceless enemy, your enemy, you are doing a disservice to the city you claim to love. If you’re mad at housing prices and the cost of living, get mad at developers. Call them out by name. Attend Metro Council meetings and public zoning hearings and make yourself heard beyond social media. If you’re mad that there’s more traffic, bigger crowds and deeper potholes, don’t blame your neighbor who moved here six months ago. Get pissed at the politicians who’ve prioritized tourism over infrastructure — roads, sidewalks, transit and more — that would better benefit full-time residents. Vote! Run against them! Support the candidates who are working hard to ensure Nashville can be an affordable, diverse city for generations — even if those candidates, gasp, grew up somewhere else! Stop whining about how much you hate New Nashville. New Nashvillians are not the enemy. Real change could happen if you instead focused your energy on the powerful Nashvillians — the politicians and generationally wealthy — who got you into this unaffordable tall-and-skinny penis-whistle-adorned mess in the first place. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

WILLIAM CLARK GREEN // MAY 13

THE AFGHAN WHIGS // MAY 17

ALLISON RUSSELL // MAY 22

BROODS // MAY 24

W/ SHAKER HYMNS & GABLE BRADLEY

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COREY KENT // JUL 29

JOHN R. MILLER & VINCENT NEIL EMERSON // MAY 26

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may 14 may 15 May 16 may 17 may 19 may 20 may 21 may 22 may 23 may 24 may 26 may 28 may 30 jun 2 jun 4 jun 5 jun 6 jun 9 jun10

joy oladokun w/ bre kennedy sold out! joy oladokun w/ bre kennedy stryper w/ true villains the afghan whigs role model w/ the blssm sold out! qdp kikagaku moyo w/ hr lexy sold out! allison russell andy hull w/ creeks sold out! broods w/ ella vos john r. miller & vincent neil emerson jackyl w/ tuk smith and the restless hearts rare hare della mae TWRP w/ rich aucoin emmit fenn w/ ayokay shaman's harvest & crobot emo night tour the shadowboxers w/ shockley

& gable bradley

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GET HAPPIER FRIDAYS // MAY 13

them vibes & jive talk goth babe w/ miloe sold out! ann wilson of heart ann wilson of heart wet w/ hannah jadagu qdp southern underground pro wrestling mariah the scientist hinder w/ no resolve & abby k penelope scott w/ fanclubwallet & yot club erin rae w/ logan ledger & dj poboy ocean alley w/ le shiv emo band karaoke sara kays w/ hayd strand of oaks sam johnston w/ a. g. sully & arts fishing club foxing savannah conley w/ secondhand sound sundy best dry cleaning w/ weak signal the deslondes w/ banditos the wrecks w/ girlhouse & mothe

BASTARDANE // MAY 14

UPCOMING SHOWS may 12 may 12 may 13 may 13 may 14 may 14 may 15 may 16 may 17

laura nicholson w/misaarriaga&colinelmore(7pm) maura streppa w/ woods weston & faith alexa (9pm) get happier friday: beau burnette, jeverson, molly martin, & kirk fletcher (5pm) safari room w/ blood root (9:30pm) the onlies & allison de groot and tatiana hargreaves (7pm) bastardane (9pm) brandon ellis, rachel horter & kate cosentino sarah and the sundays w/ juniper hot milk sold out!

may 18 may 18 may 19 may 19 may 20 may 20 may 21 may 22 may 22 may 23

ariel posen (7pm) kiernan mcmullan w/ sean cunningham & the shady brothers (9pm)

joel guptill & jp burr (7pm) the dreaded laramie w/morbidorchid&bleary(9pm) get happier friday: banditos and more! annie dirusso w/carolineculver(9:30pm)sold out! high pulp w/ jared mattson kathleen edwards sold out! (6pm) timothy myles, ryan boey, & becca tremmel (7pm) adam wakefield, jack ruch, will loney, & greggory garner (7pm)

1604 8th Ave S Nashville, TN 37203 thebasementnash

thebasementnash

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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5/9/22 3:36 PM

MAY 19

GEORGE THOROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS JUNE 27

CELTIC THRONE ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM JULY 10

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HAPPY TOGETHER TOUR THE TURTLES, CHUCK NEGRON (FORMERLY OF THREE DOG NIGHT),

GARY PUCKETT & THE UNION GAP, THE ASSOCIATION, THE VOGUES AND THE COWSILLS SEPTEMBER 25

CAM

WITH AMYTHYST KIAH AND JILLIAN JACQUELINE

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM NOVEMBER 10

CHRIS RENZEMA ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM NOVEMBER 11

CRAIG MORGAN

WITH SPECIAL GUEST RAY FULCHER ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

TURBO FRUITS PLAY MERCY LOUNGE IN 2013

TENDER MERCIES

As the Mercy Lounge venue complex winds down its current iteration, a look at its legacy BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

ver the past two decades, Nashville’s independent club scene has nurtured an explosive variety of musicians, more than a few of whom have become renowned around SEE MERCYLOUNGE.COM/CALENDAR the region, across the FOR UPCOMING SHOWS country, and in some cases all over the world. One pillar of said scene is the venue complex off Eighth Avenue South at 1 Cannery Row, which in previous lives was a flour mill and a food cannery. In 2003, Chark Kinsolving and his then-partner Brent Woodard opened Mercy Lounge, a 500-capacity club on the second floor with a separate room for pool tables and a deck from which — before condos and luxury hotels began to sprout in the neighborhood, at least — you could watch the skyline twinkle between sets. In 2004, the team revamped a former soundstage and venue space on the ground floor as the 1,500-cap Cannery Ballroom. In 2012, a miniature version of Mercy called The High Watt opened up on the third floor, and not long after came a fourth-floor room called ONE, which has sometimes been open to the public but has mostly served as a private event space. More than a few Nashville musicians have played most or all of those rooms, repeatedly, among a kaleidoscopic array of touring acts. Bills have run the gamut from Charlie Louvin to Charli XCX, from Snoop Dogg to country singer Jonny Corndawg (aka Jonny Fritz), from The White Stripes to The Black Keys to Lizzo and beyond. The long-running 8 off 8th showcase series offered short sets with no cover on Monday nights, during which you might see anyone from rising rockers, rappers and popsters to a bunch of pals playing songs from the 1977 animated film of The Hobbit. Later on, Housequake booked five or more local and regional contemporary pop acts for each of its monthly shows. Scads of

PHOTO: BRANDON DE LA CRUZ

PHOTO: STEVE CROSS

MUSIC

CROWD AT THE CANNERY BALLROOM phenomenal artists have played benefit shows or community-building events, like the inaugural She’s a Rebel girl-group tribute in 2015. The Cannery clubs have felt like home for a broad spectrum of singers, players, fans and other folks in and around the music business for a generation. Todd Ohlhauser has been part of the story from the beginning. He started at Mercy Lounge as bookkeeper in 2003, and within six months was promoted to general manager. He became a partner in the business the following year, and club co-founder Kinsolving, who recently launched Eastside Bowl with Tommy Pierce and Family Wash founder Jamie Rubin, sold his ownership stake to Ohlhauser in 2013. Like they do in any city, where most small business owners lease rather than own their buildings, things got complicated when real estate values rose. In 2019, New York-based Thor Equities Group and Nashville firm DZL bought the property on which the Mercy venues and several other businesses reside for $32 million. DZL, which is headed by Zach Liff and which also owns nearby Cummins Station, bought out Thor’s stake in 2020 and is now sole owner of the site. When the Scene reaches Ohlhauser by phone on a recent afternoon, his summation of what happened when it came time to negotiate a lease is concise: “We just weren’t able to reach an agreement on a long-term extension.” Without a lease, the venues had to either close or move. In the early hours of Sept. 30, Ohlhauser & Co. made the announcement that the Mercy complex would close in May, with the intent of reopening elsewhere. The search for a suitable spot has been discouraging. “Nashville is, as you know, a lot more expensive than it used to be,” says Ohlhauser. “I don’t want to sink a bunch of money into renovating a space and then be back where I am right now. So really, I think I need to find a space to buy rather than lease, and that’s been difficult. I’m probably going to have to start looking further out from the downtown core or even perhaps another market. ... You keep reading about buildings being sold, and then six months later they’re sold again for twice as much. And it just gets to the point where you can’t make it work.” Shortly after news of the closure, Liff and DZL issued a release indicating their intent to reopen the spaces as music venues following Mercy’s departure. In April, another release noted that Brent Hyams, whose 17-year

tenure with TPAC included overseeing the refurbishment of War Memorial Auditorium, will be general manager of the venues. After a brief period of renovation, the new venues are expected to open on a date TBA this summer. Real estate pressures and potential competition from massive conglomerates like Live Nation were already concerns for Nashville’s club scene before the pandemic. Staying closed during lockdown, painfully slow distribution of federal financial aid and multiple COVID variants have all contributed to independent venues across the U.S. being in an even tighter spot. At present, historic club Exit/In isn’t booking shows after Thanksgiving, responding to uncertainty about its lease after the property was purchased by developer AJ Capital Partners in 2021. The venerable 3rd and Lindsley isn’t moving soon, but the property owner filed preliminary redevelopment plans, and business owner Ron Brice is looking for a new space. In April, the Metro Council passed two resolutions that aim to bring relief, but don’t have a definitive timeline. RS2022-1494 approves funding for a study proposed last year that will identify venues’ needs and ways that Metro can help, while RS2022-1497 attempts to revive the long-dormant Music City Music Council. In his State of Metro address, Mayor John Cooper also announced that his office would establish an Office of Music, Film and Entertainment to be headed by Councilmembers Jeff Syracuse and Joy Styles. Chris Cobb, longtime proprietor of Exit/In, is also president of the indie-venue trade group Music Venue Alliance Nashville, and he shared a statement responding to the Mercy closure. “The hostile corporate takeover of these independent venues is greed-driven predatory behavior, which weakens Nashville’s fragile creative working-class ecosystem, and should not be tolerated,” Cobb writes. “Music City’s ruling class must quickly learn to nurture those who create its culture and drive so much of its economy, and immediately stop driving them out, before it’s too late. “Mayor Cooper’s recent announcement of an office of Music, Film and Entertainment and Metro Council’s study to assist independent music venues (which passed unanimously) are two significant steps in the right direction, sending a strong message that local government and Nashville’s citizens are ready to protect our culturally significant spaces and the people who make them so. Music Venue Alliance Nashville will continue

to advocate for more action from our local officials and do everything in its power to support Nashville’s independent music venues and their ecosystem, and ask everyone who loves and supports live music to do the same. We must all use our voices, votes and pocketbooks to support Nashville’s rich musical culture, lest it become lost.” Throughout the spring, artists have been paying their respects to Mercy with farewell shows — world-traveling rockers Bully and superlative songsmith Tristen among them — and that continues through this weekend and into next. The Mercy crew is still promoting some shows later in the year; Sleigh Bells and Southern Culture on the Skids will perform at Exit/In. The last performer set to play the current iteration of Mercy is top-notch songwriter and rock bandleader Lilly Hiatt, who plays May 19. She can’t quite pinpoint her first time performing at the complex, but it was likely in 2007, when her first band Shake Go Home played an 8 off 8th. Like so many other Nashville musicians, she’s also played The High Watt and Cannery Ballroom, along with attending tons of shows as a fan. “I’ve spent so many nights at Mercy Lounge, from seeing The Black Keys to Those Darlins to Murs — and most of my friends,” Hiatt writes in an email. “A Nashville treasure that has given us so much. I am honored to play a show there with my band and my partner Coley, and will be stoked to rock out at a spot that means the world to us!” Meanwhile, Ohlhauser and his staff have carried on with the never-easy job of running their suite of venues. Once the businesses are closed and he’s able to get a little rest, he aims to continue the search for a new site. “In my dream world, I’d have Mercy Lounge and High Watt with a giant outdoor space,” he says. “That would be a special location, because you can’t do it too close to residential. I’ll know when I see it. [Laughs] I did go look at a space that was great, but it was surrounded by all these brand-new condos going up. And I don’t wanna be the guy that comes in, and it’s noisy, and all of a sudden the neighbors hate you. I never wanna be that guy. I don’t wanna be someone who makes people’s home life harder. So I had to pass on that. “If anyone out there reads this and has property that they wanna sell — that they think would be good for a music venue — hit me up.” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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5/9/22 6:21 PM

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JON WOLFE WITH JUSTIN ADAMS

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BACKSTAGE NASHVILLE FEAT.

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PAT MCLAUGHLIN, LESLIE SATCHER, RAY STEPHENSON WITH GLORIA ANDERSON & TYLER TISDALE

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THE TIME JUMPERS

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103.3 COUNTRY PRESENTS

RANDY HOUSER

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5/18

BENEFITS MUSICIANS ON CALL 6:30

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JONELL MOSSER & FRIENDS FEAT. TUES 5/17 JIMMY HALL, BEN DANAHER, SHEILA LAWRENCE, VICKIE CARRICO, ETTA BRITT & MORE...

8:00

MTSU RALPH MURPHY BENEFIT FEAT. THU CARLENE CARTER, PAT ALGER, 5/19 TONY ARATA, MARY GAUTHIER, ROGER COOK, JIM ‘MOOSE: BROWN, KATHY BAILEY & MICHAEL BONAGURA & MORE!

THE EAGLEMANIACS: THE MUSIC OF DON HENLEY & THE EAGLES

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5/20

FEATURED

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5/25 OLIVER WOOD

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MAGGIE BAUGH & FRIENDS

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MUSIC

FRINGED BENEFITS

Examining masked country ace Orville Peck’s evolving body of work BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

PHOTO: JULIA JOHNSON

rville Peck and his 2019 debut Pony made for one of that year’s most surprising success stories: a baritonevoiced Canadian crooner who shrouds his face behind a fringed leather mask, but who opens PLAYING FRIDAY, MAY 13, AT THE RYMAN his heart to his audiences with his songs. The Sub Pop-released sleeper hit of an album channeled the past 60 years’ worth of spare, melancholic music — from Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison to Joy Division, early R.E.M. and Chris Isaak — from the novel point of view of a queer man searching for his place in the world. The Zorro-like mask was quite the conversation piece, but in an era where fans practically demand the intimate details of the artists and musicians they follow, Peck pulled off a remarkable feat with Pony. His is a songbook and mythology so well-crafted that one quickly stopped caring about — or even desiring to uncover — what was fact and what was embellishment. When Peck takes the stage for his Ryman debut on Friday, he’ll be returning to Music City in the wake of his rain-soaked appearance at Nashville Pride in 2021, which was itself a follow-up to his star turn at Mercy Lounge on the final night of AmericanaFest in 2019. Drawing one of the most eclectic crowds at the six-day festival and conference, Peck’s epic performance highlighted his showmanship, range and already deep repertoire. He kept attendees talking long after he and his entourage left town. That room, that night, had the undeniable feeling of watching an artist in his final days as an underground concern. Sure enough, he announced his move from Sub Pop to SonyColumbia mere months later. Peck tided over listeners hungry for more with the 2020 EP Show Pony, a joint release by his old and new labels. The record opens with the brooding piano ballad “Summertime” — recorded at Sound Emporium Studios here in town, with local luminary Luke Schneider on pedal steel — and it closes with a cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Fancy.” The EP is fortified by new originals like “Drive Me, Crazy,” a love song to a long-distance trucker. The sixsong mini-album’s major coup was “Legends Never Die,” a duet with fellow Canuck and avowed Peck fan Shania Twain. Another admirer, Alicia Bognanno of Nashville’s own Bully, covered Pony highlight “Turn to Hate” on a 2020 release of her own. More recently, viewers might’ve noticed Peck songs soundtracking scenes in the fifth installment of the Scream series (Peck’s own version of “Turn to Hate” appeared there) and the Season 2 premiere of HBO’s transgressive teen drama Euphoria (“Dead of Night”). Although the album cycle for Pony wrapped by the time the pandemic came swooping down in 2020, artists on the verge like Peck stood to lose a lot of momentum

when the world stopped that March. But as evidenced by Bronco, Pony’s long-awaited full-length follow-up, he made the most of his time away from the stage. An exciting new chapter in the Orville Peck saga — with 15 songs clocking in at just under an hour, maybe even two new chapters — Bronco maintains the distinct mood and feel established on the debut while adding new wrinkles sonically and thematically. In several places, it nakedly nods to the past two

years’ forced hiatus: “I haven’t seen my band in a while,” Peck laments on Bronco’s sweeping opening salvo “Daytona Sand.” One song later, in “The Curse of the Blackened Eye,” he recalls how he “sat around last year, wishing so many times I could die.” However, the music on Bronco rarely wallows. Even the string-accented tearjerkers “Kalahari Down” and “Let Me Drown” positively soar. Discernibly more of a fullband effort than its predecessor, Bronco

has a celebratory nature that’s a welcome diversion from all that’s happened in the past two years. It’ll be exciting to see and hear how the masked musician’s stage show has evolved. Meanwhile, standouts like Bronco’s raucous title track, the evocative road-trip chronicle “Outta Time,” and the loquacious barroom shuffle “Any Turn” promise to shake the Mother Church’s foundation. EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MUSIC

FAMILIAR FLAVORS The Chefs serve up the rock — and the roll — on Sing for Your Supper BY DARYL SANDERS

don’t settle.’ ” Blanton, who has written and recorded with Baird for the past decade on various projects, including recordings by The Bluefields and Homemade Sin, is credited as a co-producer on Heated & Treated. He assisted both Baird and Lynch with the engineering of their parts and also mixed the record. But in the liner notes for the new album, he is pronounced “risen, baked and rested, and now a bona fide chef.” “Joe’s all over [the new record], he’s just quiet,” Lynch says. “That’s why he became the Secret Chef.” As with the band’s debut, most of the recording for the new album was done remotely, with Lynch working at his studio in Central Florida, and Baird and Blanton working at their studios in Nashville. Eight of the 12 songs are credited to the band. The others are songs Baird brought to the table already finished, three of which are cowrites with people outside the band. “My thing is to come up with a chord pattern that isn’t necessarily traditional and is interesting and still stays rock ’n’ roll,” Baird says, regarding The Chefs’ writing process. “Joe was huge on the lyric thing. And outside of physically playing, Stan’s great at arrangements, and on most of the tunes, he had an arrangement suggestion.” Baird handled the bulk of the guitar work on the album and all the bass parts, plus the lead vocals on all but one of the songs. Lynch contributed drums, percussion and keyboards, and Blanton added rhythm guitar and backing vocals. While Blanton did most of the heavy lifting on the lyrics, a few of the song ideas originated with Baird, such as “Bout as Famous,” which addresses the fickleness of fame — something all three Chefs have experienced to one degree or another. “ ‘Bout as Famous’ is something that I said in the back of a tour van,” Baird says. “I was trying to explain to Homemade Sin’s bass player that it’s not going to get much better than this — we’re about as famous as we’re going to get — and everybody started laughing. Warner [Hodges] repeated that to Joe, who didn’t just laugh, his eyes grew the size of saucers, and he went, ‘Damn, that is a song.’ ” “Dan is full of good sayings, and that’s one I hung onto,” Blanton says. After Baird saw the finished lyric, he told the others in a Zoom call, “Man, wouldn’t it be great to do the thing that The Band used to do — you know, swap places on who’s singing the lead? And everybody said, ‘Yeah.’ Stan went, ‘I want the third verse. That is me.’ And Joe said, ‘Well, I’ll start it off.’ I went, ‘Shit, middle verse is me.’ ” Baird and Blanton are already writing material for the group’s next album, and Lynch is ready to get to work. “I’m enjoying this,” he says. “This isn’t like a side hustle for me. This is a musical adventure.” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

GOLDEN CHEF: STAN LYNCH

MASTER CHEF: DAN BAIRD

SECRET CHEF: JOE BLANTON

PHOTOS: STAN LYNCH

n a sunny Friday morning in late April, The Chefs’ Dan Baird, aka Master Chef, is talking about the band’s new album Sing for Your Supper. “What we were going for is to make SING FOR YOUR SUPPER WILL BE SELF-RELEASED a record that is faFRIDAY, MAY 13 miliar,” says Baird. “The obvious places where some of these songs came from — those artists are no longer doing that thing anymore, and I miss hearing that music new. So what are you going to do? Go fucking make some.” So Baird and his Chefs bandmates — Golden Chef Stan Lynch and Secret Chef Joe Blanton — whipped up a dozen sides of “the rock and the roll,” as Baird puts it, seasoned with a dash of Faces, a sprinkle of Allmans and a pinch of Creedence. The result is a delicious record with musical flavors the frontman says “got abandoned for no good reason other than popular consumer stuff.” Set for release on Friday, Sing for Your Supper is the follow-up to the Chefs’ 2020 instrumental debut Heated & Treated, which is how Baird likes his pecan pie served at Waffle House. There’s singing on the new record, which is a good thing as far as Lynch is concerned. “Danny’s as identifiable a singer as anybody on the planet,” says Lynch, who was the longtime drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “He’s that good a frontman.” The Chefs came together at the beginning of the pandemic when Baird asked Lynch if he could “back some drums into” the instrumental tracks he had recorded. But the inspiration for the band’s name can be traced to late May 1987 and the crew meal that kicked off Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1987 Rock ’n’ Roll Caravan tour, which included Baird’s band, The Georgia Satellites. “I was sitting at a table with Stan and [Heartbreakers guitarist] Mike [Campbell], and I started talking about the original drummer for the Satellites, who had this weird little side lawn business,” Baird explains. “They put up some pictures of themselves as the chefs, wearing shorts and sneakers and a chef’s hat. Stan and Mike were howling.” Lynch remembers the moment clearly. “Dan said he had some buddies who had a lawn service, and they’re called ‘the lawn chefs,’ ” he recalls. “That made my head explode — the concept that a chef is like a Ph.D. It’s, like, the highest level of ordained. And so we got into this thing like, ‘Is the bass player any good?’ ‘Yeah, he’s a chef.’ ” Both Baird and Blanton give Lynch a lot of credit for the heights the band reached on Sing for Your Supper. “Stan was the guy that kept pushing and going, ‘This can be better,’ ” Baird says. Blanton echoes that: “Stan was the person with his hand on the lever saying, ‘Not yet —

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC

THE SPIN

BLAKE LIVELY: JAWBREAKER

PHOTO: H.N. JAMES

OUT WITH A BANG BY MEGAN SELING

idway through Jawbreaker’s set at Brooklyn Bowl Friday night — the band’s last stop on the 25th anniversary tour for their once-maligned and later renowned final album Dear You — singer Blake Schwarzenbach started to do my job for me. The band opened the show with fan favorite “Boxcar,” followed by Dear You standouts including “Save Your Generation,” “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both,” “Fireman,” “Basilica” and “Chemistry.” But during a brief tuning pause, Schwarzenbach leaned into the mic and summoned his best talking-head music-critic tone, saying: “The normally loquacious Schwarzenbach was surprisingly silent at the group’s final show. Sources close to the band can only speculate as to the reticent nature of the troubled American songwriter.” Anyone who’s ever seen Jawbreaker or Schwarzenbach’s other bands Jets to Brazil and forgetters perform live would know that that’s the Blake Schwarzenbach-iest thing that Blake Schwarzenbach has ever said. He can be a rambling weirdo between songs. Even when opining about not being a rambling weirdo. I love it. While it’s true Schwarzenbach was relatively quiet Friday night — and drummer Adam Pfahler and bassist Chris Bauermeister didn’t even have mics — he wasn’t silent when it mattered. He wasn’t silent when growling out the lyrics to “Parabola” from the band’s 1991 release Bivouac, or when he joined openers Lucero on their beloved cover of Jawbreaker’s “Kiss the Bottle.” And Schwarzenbach did have a self-deprecating jape or two, as we heard between “Million” and “Oyster.” “I’m not a good rhythm guitarist,” he said. “I could shred! Like, I would go to the crossroads and challenge Ralph Macchio, and I would fucking best him and drag him to hell with me. But if it was a rhythm gig? No. I never got the downstroke to make it. That’s why we never made it in mainstream punk. There’s no downstroke. And we weren’t willing to sit with a producer ... actually, we were. I did sit with a producer and have him make me make each downstroke perfect. The product was immaculate.” See? Rambling weirdo. Wonderful. As much as the show was very much about Jawbreaker, there was a lot more on offer. Yes, seeing the trio perform songs from Dear You, and singing (or screaming) the lyrics along with hundreds of others, was cathartic. Yes, to see the band celebrate and be celebrated for the phenomenal record that only earned respect years after they broke up was rewarding. But I also have so much appreciation and respect for the offstage moves the band has made throughout this highly anticipated tour. Jawbreaker was one of the most influential bands to come out of the Bay Area’s bountiful ’90s punk scene, and their following only grew bigger and more impassioned after their breakup in 1996. They could have their pick of bands to open their weeks of U.S. tour dates.

For most shows, they fueled the nostalgia train by inviting worthy ’90s comrades like Descendents, Jawbox, Dillinger Four, Smoking Popes, Face to Face, Built to Spill, Lemonheads (performing It’s a Shame About Ray), Samiam and Team Dresch to join the lineup. But for several of their sold-out nights, Jawbreaker also shared their spotlight with comedians (Kyle Kinane, Kaseem Bentley, Irene Tu and more) as well as some of punk’s best talent from younger generations, like The Linda Lindas, Worriers, Best Coast and Grumpster. All of these bands have been bringing muchneeded diversity to a genre that was, for too long, overwhelmingly cis, male and white. Here in Nashville, along with Lucero, we were blessed with two more openers. First was Shane Torres, a comedian who delivered a hilarious 15-minute stand-up set about using an entire hotel bed as a napkin for late-night snacking. Then came The Muslims, a queer Black and brown trio from Durham, N.C., who signed with Epitaph last year. They introduced themselves as a “pretty ridiculous problematic punk band” and then blasted into their first song, “Punch a Nazi,” singing, “Punch that Nazi in the face / Knock his teeth back in his brain / And if that inbred scum gets up / Kick that cracka in his gut!” It took a few more songs — “Fuck the Cistem,” “IDGAF” and “Ya Late” — for the crowd, made up mostly of folks old enough to be around for at least part of Jawbreaker’s original run, to warm up to The Muslims. But the band’s vocalist and guitarist QADR, bassist Abu Shea and drummer Ba7ba7 soon won everyone over with their blunt political commentary and witty sarcasm. By the time the band reached the end of their 30-minute set, closing with “John McCain’s Ghost Sneaks Into the White House and Tea Bags the President,” folks in the crowd responded to QADR’s request for dancing by whipping up the world’s most polite and enthusiastic circle pit. There, half a dozen newly converted Muslims fans skipped around in circles and gleefully shoved one another to lyrics about a dead McCain’s balls. It can’t be easy to open for a legendary act that people have been waiting literally decades to see, but The Muslims nailed it. When Lucero took the stage 20 minutes later — wisely playing their darker, more emotional material like “Texas & Tennessee,” “Slow Dancing” and the saddest sad-bastard song of all, “Nights Like These” — frontman Ben Nichols took a minute to throw some love to the openers and Jawbreaker’s much-appreciated efforts at inclusivity. “How about Shane Torres and The Muslims,” Nichols said. “Holy shit! I gotta give Jawbreaker props. Not only tonight … the whole tour, there were so many bands I wanted to see. So good on you, Jawbreaker, thanks for doing something really cool.” The reigning champs of punk passing the torch while running their own victory lap — you love to see it. EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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FILM

ON PINS AND NEEDLES Happening is a visceral addition to the growing canon of abortion-journey sagas BY ERICA CICCARONE

n 1963, 23-year-old Annie Ernaux became pregnant. It was 12 years before abortion was legalized in France and two decades after abortion was punishable by death under the Vichy regime. Her desperate attempts to abort nearly killed her. HAPPENING Forty years later, NR, 110 MINUTES; IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH she wrote down her SUBTITLES story in a memoir OPENING FRIDAY, MAY 13, called Happening. AT THE BELCOURT The new film by writer-director Audrey Diwan commits Ernaux’s story to screen. Anamaria Vartolomei — who was 21 years old during filming — turns in an intense, devastating performance as Anna, a highachieving university student who becomes pregnant after having sex for the first time. Anna speaks plainly to doctors, making her contempt for the law and their participation in it clear. Her determination is fierce, and she’s consumed by her mission. Her grades slip as she becomes more and more isolated in her quest. Vartolomei never wavers, firmly committing to the character’s drive, even as her world unravels. There is no internal conflict about whether or not she should abort the fetus. Keeping it would end her studies, bring shame on her family and confine her to a life in which she would likely hate her child. Giving birth is simply not an option. The abortion-journey saga has become a genre of its own, because people around the world still strain for bodily autonomy.

A RARE BIRD Hatching is a classic, gutchurning little dose of bird-based body horror BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

or many folks, even some genre fans, body horror is simply too prohibitively repulsive to enjoy. Even among an audience who can stomach them, films in this idiom have to thread a tricky needle. It’s all too easy for them HATCHING R, 86 MINUTES; IN to cross over into laughFINNISH WITH ENGLISH able terrain, whether due SUBTITLES to absurdity of premise or SHOWING MAY 18-22 AT goofball special effects. THE BELCOURT Thankfully, bird-based (yes, really) body-horror picture Hatching — the directorial debut from Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm — has a lot of opportunities to fail, but it never does. Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is an adolescent aspiring gymnast with an overbearing apparent Stepford Wife of a mother. Mom (Sophia Heikkilä) runs a carefully curated lifestyle blog called Lovely Everyday Life, despite the fact that she openly cuckolds her passive, khaki-wearing

In other dramas of this century, the morbid reality of the women and girls seeking abortion is cut with the comfort of sisterhood. Cristian Mungiu’s 2007 drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Eliza Hittman’s 2020 Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s 2021 Lingui, the Sacred Bonds all have this in common. The allied friends and families of those seeking abortions understand that the crisis is theirs, too. Men are at worst coercive or abusive, and at best clueless. But in Happening, there is no sisterhood. Men do not appear menacing. Anna is surrounded by women who are terrified of prison and/or indoctrinated into the state’s point of view. The women in Anna’s

dorm confront her and call her diseased, and her best friends abandon her. Meanwhile, everyone around her is horny as hell, their repression and fear barely stymieing their urges for sexual freedom. Yet she has nowhere to turn. The context of Happening is important. It might be tempting to say that this film is “more necessary now than ever” — a phrase often repeated by the American left when shit goes haywire in Washington. And with the recently leaked draft of SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion regarding the apparent forthcoming overruling of Roe v. Wade, it’s impossible not to apply our American context.

dork of a husband, holds Tinja to oppressive, unrealistic standards, and all but ignores her young son, who nobody seems to like. (To be fair, he does kind of suck.) After mercy-killing a wounded crow in the woods near her home, Tinja adopts the bird’s egg, tucking it away in her room and tending to it as it grows exponentially. Ultimately, the thing hatches, and it is by no means a standard-issue Scandinavian crow. I’ll do my best not to spoil the reveal of the creature that emerges, but suffice it to say this endeavor results in a classic, gut-churning little dose of body horror. The premise and to an extent the effects — mostly animatronic, a blessing — are extremely Cronenbergian. Some might detect a bit of Lynch’s Eraserhead in the mix as well. There’s some good creature design and a well-paced reveal, and as with any decent effort in this genre, the weird, gooey, fleshy thing itself is of course a metaphor. A metaphor for parental expectations, perhaps. Or puberty, or self-image. Or the expectations we create for ourselves and others vis-à-vis social media. It’s a prism through which you can project your own aesthetic and emotional issues. Or, alternately, you can see the weird, gooey, fleshy thing as just a weird, gooey, fleshy thing and nothing more. Though that might reveal a bit more about you than you realize. Hatching is an economical horror film, moving

along at a fast clip with an 86-minute runtime, just a few sets and a cast of a half-dozen or so. Indeed, the plot feels as though it could tip over into laughable territory at any moment, but thanks primarily to Solalinna — who turns in a performance that grows more complicated as the film progresses, elevating a

But this is a French film. Unlike in the U.S., France codified abortion by law — not by a court hearing decided by nine increasingly partisan judges. Also unlike in the U.S., abortion law in France has become more progressive over time. Anna’s reality is not the reality of pregnant French people today, and we can all celebrate that. It’s also not the reality here in the U.S., where a vast network of choice advocates and abortion providers has been preparing for this for decades, and self-managed abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol pills is extremely safe. (The pills are relatively easy to get. Legal skirmishes will obviously ensue, but experts say it will be difficult for states to block access completely.) Still, Happening deserves to be assessed on its own merits, rather than how it lands in proximity to U.S. politics. And its merits are many: Evgueni and Sacha Galperine’s score is moody and subtly suspenseful. DP Laurent Tangy’s tightly composed shots make Anna’s situation immediate and threatening. Actor Sandrine Bonnaire (from Vagabond, À Nos Amours and dozens of others) provides a master class in restraint as Anna’s mother Gabrielle. The script has shortcomings. Because the film is so interior to Anna, the writing is spare. Sometimes, this causes unnecessary vagueness or misunderstanding, like when Anna’s professor appears to be scolding her for plagiarism but is actually complimenting her work. The economical dialogue could be seen as a reflection of the silence Anna feels all around her regarding her pregnancy — but it can also be distracting. And a warning to the squeamish, Diwan goes there with the body horror of unsafe abortions, hiding nothing about the cruel fate of pregnant women of the pre-choice era — or of the current realities of those living in places where abortion is still illegal, contraception is unavailable and the ability to self-manage abortions safely is nonexistent. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

premise that could fall flat with a less talented young actor — it all works. Engaging and gross with steadily mounting stakes, Hatching doesn’t overstay its welcome, and sports not an ounce of fat worth trimming. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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$15 $ $$15 FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE $$15 $$$10 $10 $$10 15 15 OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF 10 10 OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF

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Columbia 1006 Carmack Blvd Columbia, TN 931-398-3350

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Marketplace

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 LEGAL Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 22D241

Rental Scene

RITU AGRAWAL vs. RAKESH MENON In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon RAKESH MENON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 26, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 27, 2022. 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.

the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon RAKESH MENON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 26, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 27, 2022. 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 L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 28, 2022 Robert Todd Jackson Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 5/5, 5/12, 5/19, 5/26//22

Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 13, 2022. 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 M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 14, 2022 Joseph Zanger Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/21, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12/22 Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 21A10 MARY LISA HARPER, et al. vs. ANGELA LEE HARPER, et al. 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 UNKNOWN FATHER. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 12, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 13, 2022. 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 M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 14, 2022 Joseph Zanger Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/21, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12/22

Welcome to Colony House Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 14, 2022 Joseph Zanger Attorneys for Plaintiff

NSC 4/21, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12/22

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 28, 2022 Robert Todd Jackson Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 5/5, 5/12, 5/19, 5/26//22

Your Neighborhood

BRANDI LA'SHERRELLE HAWKINS vs. DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR

Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 21A10 MARY LISA HARPER, et al. vs. ANGELA LEE HARPER, et al. 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 ANGELA LEE HARPER. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 12, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 13, 2022. 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 M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 14, 2022 Joseph Zanger Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/21, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12/22 Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 20D1454 BRANDI LA'SHERRELLE HAWKINS vs. DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022. 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.

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022. 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 M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 22, 2022 David Kozlowski Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D1153 CAROLYN BAKER JONES FULSON vs. ARTHUR FULSON, III In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon ARTHUR FULSON, III. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022. 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 L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 21, 2022 Sheryl Guinn Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

Advertise on the Backpage! It’s like little billboards right in front of you! Contact: classifieds@ fwpublishing.com

EMPLOYMENT

Director, Delivery Services. Guide IT teams in designing and implementing customer applications to meet business requirements for a software development services provider. Employer: Kanini Software Solutions, Inc. Location: Nashville, TN. Send resumé (no calls/emails) to B. Krishna, 25 Century Blvd., Suite 602, Nashville, TN 37214.

Sheryl Guinn Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 22, 2022 David Kozlowski

Attorneys Plaintiff Best place near byforto see a show: · Center For The Arts NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

Top 3 bars and restaurants near by: · Demos Restaurant · The Alley on Main · Toot’s Restaurant

Best local family outing: · Sky Zone Trampoline Park

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 12 - MAY 18, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

Implementation Analyst IIWMS (Multiple Positions, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bachelor’s (US/foreign equiv) in IT, Supply Chain Mgmt, or rel; 3 yrs exp using any WMS; exp using SQL to perform data analysis &/or research; exp working in IT performing app analysis, design, dev, testing, & implementation; exp supporting tech solutions for end users; excellent analytical & problem-solving skills; proficient using Visio. Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref #: IMPLE025545

Bidding Opportunity! Archer Western is seeking subcontractors and suppliers, including Metro SERVICES M/WBE and SBE/SDV certified subcontractors, for the CMAR for Process EARN YOUR HS DIPLOMA Advancements at TODAY Omohundro and KR For more info call Harrington Water Treatment 1.800.470.4723 Or visit our Project. Bid Documents are website: available online via SmartBid www.diplomaathome.com at: https://securecc.smartinsight .co/#/PublicBidProject/64426 8. Please submit quotes to SEWater@walshgroup.com by 05.16.2022 (date is FEATURED APARTMENT LIVING subject to change) Archer Western is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran

Favorite local neighborhood bar: · Whiskey Dix

List of amenities from your community: · Saltwater Pool · Dog Park, · Community Garden, · 24/7 Fitness Center, · Outdoor Kitchen w/ Grills, · Volleyball Court, · Multi-Sport Court, · Playground

Call the Rental Scene property you’re interested in and mention this ad to find out about a special promotion for Scene Readers

1510 Huntington Drive Nashville TN 37130 | liveatcolonyhouse.com | 615.488.4720 42

M/WBE and SBE/SDV certified subcontractors, for the CMAR for Process Advancements at Omohundro and KR Harrington Water Treatment Project. Bid Documents are available online via SmartBid at: https://securecc.smartinsight .co/#/PublicBidProject/64426 8. Please submit quotes to SEWater@walshgroup.com by 05.16.2022 (date is subject to change) Archer Western is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 21, 2022

Local attractions near by: · AMC Theaters · Murfreesboro Square · The Avenue

3 near by places you can enjoy the outdoors: (list 3) · The Greenway · Stones River Battlefield · The Fountains at Gateway

nary process of law cannot be served upon ARTHUR FULSON, III. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022. 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.

Southaven at Commonwealth 100 John Green Place, Spring Hill, TN 37174

The Harper 2 Beds / 2 bath 1265 sq ft from $1700

The Hudson 3 Bed / 2 bath 1429 sq ft from $1950

3 floor plans southavenatcommonwealth.com | 629.777.8333 Colony House 1510 Huntington Drive Nashville, TN 37130 The James

The Washington

The Franklin

The Lincoln

1 bed / 1 bath

2 bed / 1.5 bath

2 bed / 2 bath

3 bed / 2.5 bath

708 sq. ft

1029 sq. ft.

908-1019 sq. ft.

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from $1360-2026

from $1500-2202

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Rental Scene

The Jackson 1 Bed / 1 bath 958 sq ft from $1400

4 floor plans

liveatcolonyhouse.com | 615.488.4720

Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft from $1,119 +

2 Bed / 1.5 Bath - 2 Bath 1,047 – 1,098 sq ft from $1,299 +

3 Bed / 2 Bath 1201 sq ft from $1,399 +

5 floor plans

gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 Sunrise Apartments 189 Wallace Rd Nashville, TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 bath 600 sq feet from $950 - $1150

1 Bed / 1 bath 630 sq feet from $999 - $1200

3 floor plans

sunrisenashville.com | 615.333.7733 River West 411 Annex Ave Nashville, TN 37209 1 Bed / 1 Bath

2 Bed /1 Bath

675 sq ft

1008 sq ft

from $1359

from $1499 2 floor plans

riverwestnashville.com | 615.356.0257 Brighton Valley 500 BrooksBoro Terrace, Nashville, TN 37217 1 Bedroom/1 bath 800 sq feet from $1360

2 Bedrooms/ 2 baths 1100 sq feet from $1490

3 Bedrooms/ 2 baths 1350 sq feet from $1900

To advertise your property available for lease, contact Keith Wright at 615-557-4788 or kwright@fwpublishing.com

Studio 330 sq feet from $900 - $1000

3 floor plans

brightonvalley.net | 615.366.5552 nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

S U H P I TC

Nashville is a diverse city, and we want a pool of freelance contributors who reflect that diversity. We’re looking for new freelancers, and we particularly want to encourage writers of color & LGBTQ writers to pitch us.

Read more at our new pitch guide: nashvillescene.com/pitchguide

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Whatever you call it, find yours in the Rental Scene. Nashville Scene’s Marketplace on pages 42 - 43.

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