Construction debris makes its way into backyards across northwest Davidson County BY ELI MOTYCKA
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This fiddle of unknown make belonged to Roy Acuff, the King of Country Music. Acuff was so synonymous with American culture in the early ’40s that enemy soldiers were said to use the battle cry “To hell with Roy Acuff!” as they charged U.S. troops in World War II.
From the exhibit Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present
artifact photo: Bob Delevante
REACH Program Eyes Expansion
Teams of paramedic and mental health professionals responded to 618 calls during pilot phase BY
HANNAH HERNERPith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
Republicans Praise Session’s Slate of Criminal Justice Legislation
The legislature threw bipartisan support behind some bills affecting courts and crime — with opposition from Democrats on others BY
NICOLLE S. PRAINOCicada Season Is Upon Us
Austin Peay State University’s Don Sudbrink shares some insight on these loud little insects BY KELSEY BEYELER
COVER STORY
Rubble Trouble
Construction debris makes its way into backyards across northwest Davidson County BY ELI MOTYCKA
CRITICS’ PICKS
André 3000, Musicians Corner, Stone Deep, Katie Pruitt, Annie Williams and more
A Moral Revolution
Our Kindred Creatures surveys the origins of the anti-cruelty movement BY WHITNEY BRYANT; CHAPTER16.ORG
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Labor Days
Babes is the buddy-baby comedy we need and deserve BY SADAF AHSAN
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
MARKETPLACE
Going Home
Being Present
Minimalist expression metes out maximal experience at Present Tense BY KAY WEST
In the Club: Nashville in Harmony
The chorus of LGBTQ community members and allies celebrates 20 years BY COLE VILLENA
Papa Turney’s and Carol Ann’s make space in Nashville for old-school blues, R&B and soul BY RON WYNN
Playing Well With Others
Kim Richey takes a tour through her life story on Every New Beginning BY RACHEL CHOLST
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out R.A.P. Ferreira at Drkmttr BY JAYME FOLTZ
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Teams of paramedic and mental health professionals responded to 618 calls during pilot phase
BY HANNAH HERNERNASHVILLE’S NEWEST 911 option, Responders Engaged and Committed to Helping (REACH), is set to finish its pilot phase at the end of June after hitting the streets for the first time in February 2023. The co-response program, which pairs paramedics from the Nashville Fire Department and clinicians from Mental Health Coop, was tasked with responding to nonviolent mental health crises and, in turn, freeing up some ambulances and emergency room space.
Leaders of the program Brooke Haas, commander of EMS operations at the Nashville Fire Department, and Michael Randoph, director of co-response, are eyeing an expansion. The REACH program currently staffs two clinicians and two paramedics Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. At a May 7 Public Health and Safety Committee meeting, Haas said the department would like to double the number of staff for the program to increase coverage, as well as add a manager. The fire department is requesting $750,000 to complete the task, part of the department’s budget that is awaiting approval by the Metro Council.
From Feb. 13, 2023, to Feb. 29, 2024, REACH responded to 618 calls and 530 unique patients (48 interacted with the program more than once) — a rough average of three calls per day. Of those calls, 38 percent were still transported to an emergency department, while 22 percent went to Mental Health Coop’s Crisis Treatment Center, 11 percent were transported to inpatient care, and 18 percent stayed at the site but were given resources and referrals. In REACH’s purview, the responses were concentrated in the downtown core, with activity in the southeastern and northeastern parts of Davidson County.
Most of the people REACH responded to were suicidal — 69 percent. Around a third were unhoused or staying at a shelter (31 percent), and 18 percent stayed in group or transitional housing, while 48 percent owned or rented. In addition, 57 percent were insured by TennCare or Medicare, 12 percent had private insurance, 2 percent were uninsured, and 30 percent unreported.
The Department of Emergency Communications was fairly effective in its assessment of when to dispatch REACH: Twelve percent of calls ultimately required police presence, and just two cases resulted in arrests.
While the city’s police co-response program, Partners in Care, releases data snapshots to the city’s website, Joseph Pleasant, spokesperson for the Nashville Fire Department, tells the Scene the REACH data will not be shared online. (Those who keep an eye on public meetings, however, will catch updates in the Behavioral Health and Wellness Advisory Council meetings.)
Randolph says there wasn’t a specific percentage goal for emergency room diversions going in, but anticipates the 38 percent number
will improve. Some calls had medical needs on top of their psychiatric crisis, so a trip to the emergency room was unavoidable, he explains.
He says he is especially proud of the statistic of 22 percent going directly to the Mental Health Coop Crisis Treatment Center.
“I think it is an incredible statistic, because these are people who would have called an ambulance, got an ambulance bill, gone to the emergency room, would have to tell their story over and over again,” Randolph says. “They’d be charged for the ER visit. Not only does it save money for the health care system, but it also helps that person get help faster and get the correct help. ... And hopefully get them out of a state of crisis and back into their normal lives as fast as possible.”
Stephen Martini, director of the Department of Emergency Communications, says the nearly 40 percent of emergency room runs among REACH calls is an improvement over what would have been 100 percent ambulance re-
Key initiatives at Metro Nashville Public Schools enabled by COVID-19 relief funding face a “fiscal cliff” as the city works out its new budget. Director of Schools Adrienne Battle noted during a recent budget hearing that at least $66 million would be required to cover programs and salaries expanded via COVID-19 dollars, while budget requests include an additional $11 million. Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s proposed budget for next year incorporates step salary increases and a 3.5 percent cost-of-living bump, bringing the total MNPS operating budget near $1.2 billion. Education funding from the state, which uses its own budget formula, will become more clear in June.
Metro Human Resources affirmed employees’ allegations that Councilmember Joy Styles and Metro Human Relations Commission director Davie Tucker intimidated Metro Arts staffers, according to a recent internal report. Styles spoke with, and physically touched, employees after a contentious Feb. 26 Metro Council committee meeting, while Tucker publicly disparaged staffers who spoke out against embattled Metro Arts director Daniel Singh who was placed on administrative leave in late April. Reporters Connor Daryani and Stephen Elliott of the Nashville Banner have the details.
sponses before the program started.
“If you get in the ambulance, you’re going to the hospital,” Martini says. “We’re already light-years better than we were, even a year in, because we’re connecting people who are experiencing nonviolent psychological incidents with care on a variety of levels — whether that’s a return to home, return to a group home or connected to another solution.”
As the program looks to expand, Randolph anticipates he will not have a problem finding clinicians interested in this new and burgeoning field of co-response.
“I think people are really interested, and we haven’t had any problems filling the positions,” he says. “But it’s really kind of niche work, and we want to train people really well, because the quality of services delivered is always something to be mindful of, and we want to make sure that we only train the best counselors and we train them really well to help the people in Nashville.”
Lipstick Lounge owners Christa Suppan and Jonda Valentine broke ground on a new sports bar, Chapstick, that will adjoin their iconic East Nashville hangout, which celebrates 22 years in 2024. The future bar’s televisions will show a “mix of all sports just like the [mix of people] we have as patrons.” Located near the border of Lockeland Springs and East End, The Lipstick Lounge is one of only 32 open and operating lesbian bars in the United States registered with the Lesbian Bar Project, and the only lesbian-owned and -operated bar in Tennessee, according to a press release.
The legislature threw bipartisan support behind some bills affecting courts and crime — with opposition from Democrats on others
BY NICOLLE S. PRAINOWHILE THE 113TH Tennessee General Assembly debated how to alter the state’s franchise tax and whether there would be a universal school voucher plan, dozens of bills passed centering on crime and courts — a slate of legislation Republicans now tout as one of their greatest accomplishments of the session.
“I think when you look back at this session, one of the things it will be defined by will be the different types of criminal justice reforms that we have done,” said House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) during a press conference at the end of session. “There’s a lot of things that we did this year to protect our communities, protect our streets and protect our citizens.”
Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) countered, pointing to the passing of a bill that would allow local school boards and law enforcement to decide whether teachers can carry guns in schools.
“A year after the Covenant School [shooting], this General Assembly has done nothing to make people safer and has instead thumbed their noses at public safety by putting more guns into teachers’ hands in public schools,” Yarbro said.
Even so, Democrats got behind several pieces of criminal justice legislation. Passed unanimously in the House and Senate, SB2507 was signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on May 1. It requires children admitted to juvenile detention to be allowed within 24 hours to have at least one phone call and a 30-minute in-person visit with their parent or guardian. The companion House bill was co-sponsored by Rep. William Slater (R-Gallatin) and Rep. G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis). Hardaway, a member of the House Criminal Justice Committee, was also a co-sponsor for HB0701, which also passed unanimously in both chambers. The law adds continuous sexual abuse of a child to the list of criminal misconduct receiving sentences of community supervision for life in addition to other imposed punishment.
it will immediately be challenged, and we’ll have to go back to the U.S. Supreme Court to see whether or not they are willing to overturn the precedent of citing, as they did years ago, that the death penalty is unconstitutional for anything other than capital murder,” Lamberth says. “We’re going to have to fight that fight out all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it’s one I think is worth fighting.”
These bills are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to criminal justice legislation that passed this session. Visit nashvillescene.com for a list of related bills.
Lawmakers who spoke against the bill said it was not because offenders shouldn’t be prevented from harming anyone again. Rather, many voted against the bill because victims’ advocacy groups have stated that children could be deterred from coming forward if they knew their abuser could face death. Lamberth countered by reading statements from victims who said they believed it would not deter reporting.
Another of Lamberth’s bills, HB1641, creates a misdemeanor offense for violating a condition of release on bail and authorizes law enforcement to arrest an offender without a warrant. Lamberth tells the Scene he worked with Nashville judges to create the bill and adds that the city has “a really good bond supervision program.” In early committee meetings, Hardaway indicated he would support the bill.
commit serious crimes could face five years of probation or incarceration in an adult facility after their juvenile sentence ends.
“I not only strongly supported the original version, I really was going to sign on as a cosponsor,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) during discussion of the bill. “I hate that we are in this posture where the first version of blended sentencing in the state that will pass is one that is not actually going to help juveniles, as the concept is intended.”
Austin Peay State University’s Don Sudbrink shares some insight on these loud little insects BY KELSEY
BEYELERPERIODICAL CICADAS ARE pretty metal. Not to be confused with the annual “dog day” cicadas that pop up in late summer, periodical cicadas live underground for 13 to 17 years. They feed on tree sap before emerging from the soil, shedding their crunchy nymph carcasses all over, screeching to attract mates, and then dying before their offspring do it all over again. Like most metal-heads, they can be intimidating to some, but are pretty much harmless — and very loud.
To find out more about Brood XIX — the cicadas Nashvillians are currently being plagued by — we reached out to Don Sudbrink, chair of the agriculture department at Clarksville’s Austin Peay State University, who has three entomology degrees including a Ph.D. from Auburn University.
“I’ve said for years that public safety is not a partisan issue,” says House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland). “Republicans or Democrats alike, or anyone in between, should be able to come together — and we do come together in the legislature — to pass bills that improve public safety.”
But Republicans and Democrats did disagree over Lamberth’s own HB1663, which the state could eventually have to fight for in the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill allows consideration of the death penalty as punishment for the rape of a child.
“When a jury hands that punishment down,
But by the time the bill made it to the House floor and was conformed to match the Senate version, Hardaway joined other Democrats in voting against the legislation — which still passed 75-17. There was no debate on the floor of the House, but Senate Democrats were vocal about their opposition. It passed in the upper chamber with a 27-4 vote.
“This will unquestionably clog up the local court system,” said Yarbro in April. “It will unquestionably lead to increased local incarceration.”
Similarly, Democrats were set to support SB0624, a bill on blended sentencing that passed the Senate last year. But during this year’s session, the House took up the Senate bill and passed it with their own amendments — championed by Speaker Sexton. The House amendments changed the bill so that teens who
The House passed its amendments and adopted the legislation in a 79-15-1 vote. The Senate bill originally passed in 2023’s initial vote with 31-0-1, but Senate Democrats later opposed the House’s amendments to the legislation — with Sen. Ed Jackson (R-Jackson) joining Senate Democratic Caucus Chair London Lamar (D-Memphis) as present but not voting for both amendments. For the amendment that substantially changed the bill, Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) was present but not voting, and Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) voted no. Lawmakers crossed party lines on other criminal-justice-related votes as well. HB2323 increases the penalty for a third or subsequent domestic assault conviction from a misdemeanor to a felony. The House voted 89-7-1 in favor of the bill, with several Democrats — including House Minority Leader Karen Camper and House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons — voting in favor. The Senate voted 27-3-1, with Yarbro as the only Democrat voting in favor. Another bill requires a judge to give first consideration to community safety when deciding the conditions of bond for a criminal defendant; it passed unanimously in the Senate, but House Democrats spoke about concerns for individuals’ constitutional rights and voted against the bill. It passed 80-13-3, was signed by the governor and goes into effect July 1.
A second bill dealing with bail passed along party lines 74-20-2 in the House and 27-4 in the Senate. It prohibits a judge from considering a defendant’s ability to pay when determining the amount of bail necessary to assure the defendant’s appearance in court. It was signed by the governor on May 1 and became effective immediately. ▼
Which brood are we seeing now? This brood here in the Tennessee region and up into about middle Illinois, all through the South, is called Brood XIX, and it is a 13-year cicada brood. So they come out every 13 years and mate and reproduce. And then once they produce their offspring, the nymphs go underground and feed on tree roots for 13 years and then do it again. There is another brood that’s up in northern Illinois, Chicagoland area, that is called Brood XIII, but it’s a 17-year cicada. And so up north [it] takes more time for them to develop.
When they’re underground, are they growing that whole time? Mhmm. Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly growing. So basically they start out and they’re little teeny tiny nymphs. Right now the females are laying their eggs up in the tree branches, and they’re gonna develop for several weeks, and then sometime in July, they’ll drop off, burrow into the ground, dig into these tree roots and just start feeding on them for 13 years. Just kind of drinking out the xylem sap. … And so when they do that, they drink and then they poop, and so they provide organic matter. They’re pulling some juice out of the tree, but mostly it’s not something that really drains the batteries of the tree.
Can they breathe when they’re underground? Yeah. One of the things is they dig underground and they make burrows and holes to have air pockets and breathing. Unless it’s completely soaked, then they have to kind of move up closer to the ground. … People ask, “What’s their purpose?” Well, they provide aeration for the soil because those little claws help them plow through the soil as they’re moving up and down the root structure of the tree.
Can they harm people in any way? Usually not. Unless, say, you’re riding a motorcycle without any facial protection, you may get hurt that way, if you’re going really fast. … They don’t bite. They have a strawtube mouth that drinks plant juice. They don’t want to
mess with us, they can’t sting us or bite us. Can people eat them? If anybody has a shellfish allergy — shrimp or crabs, crayfish, whatever — there’s a pretty strong likelihood that they would have some kind of allergy to insects because they have the same types of proteins in their exoskeletons. So people can really get sick, anaphylaxis and other things like that, so it’s not recommended for people who have any shellfish allergy to eat cicadas. That being said, people eat them all the time, usually they cook them. I have cooked them and eaten them myself, and I’m alive and well. … Cooking them is the key. You can boil them, you can sauté them. We made them into a jambalaya once — it was good. … When you use the ones that are out, that are fully dark with the red eyes, they have a crunchy, chewy exoskeleton. You want to get the ones that first emerge from their shells. When that’s the case, they’re much more delectable and softer-bodied, like soft-shell crabs. … If there’s a white fungus on the bottom, that’s not a good one to eat, that’s one to discard. … Make sure that they are well-cooked just like most foods that you get in the wilds.
[Editor’s note: If you’re interested in eating nice crunchy cicadas, do additional research to learn how to spot fungus, consider the presence of pesticides and find cooking methods.]
Does construction and development affect cicadas? Certainly. With the massive development that’s gone on since the last cicada emergence in 2011, Metro Davidson area certainly has changed where certain cicadas come up. When you take down all the trees and pave it over, or just take down the trees, you remove the source of food for them, and those will die in that section. … Lots and lots of development, fewer cicadas is usually what that means, especially if you pave the road. … They’re also done if the tree dies because that’s the thing that’s been feeding it. So once they take those trees out, that’s it.
Why are they so loud? These are insects that have evolved to have almost 100-decibel signatures. … If you’re going to be around them for long periods of time, and right in the midst of them, they recommend ear protection. … It’s like you’re operating a leaf blower or a lawn mower, chainsaw, something along those lines. So ear protection if you’re in that environment for long periods of time. But males are trying to attract females. That’s what they’ve been doing for millions of years. And that is the successful call, at least for that particular female species. And so these tymbals — these vibrating membranes — it’s one of the loudest of the insect species, and the longest-lived too. ▼
Construction debris makes its way into backyards across northwest Davidson County
BY ELI MOTYCKA PHOTO: ERIC ENGLANDPASSING HORSE PENS and front-yard goats on a winding country lane can make a city driver forget about Nashville. Lush green hills rise up from all directions as the Bordeaux suburbs slowly turn into back roads running alongside babbling creeks. At least three community clubs, the kind where neighbors meet for Fourth of July barbecues, are still active around here at Whites Creek, Little Creek and Scottsboro. The cicada chorus is loud. For decades, Nashvillians fed up with the urban hustle and bustle have moved over the river for something close to Briley Parkway but closer to nature.
The small-town energy also means neighbors talk. About 20,000 people live in the northwest quadrant of Davidson County from the Cumberland River to I-24 West, give or take a few square miles. The entire area is a single Metro Council district — District 1, by far the largest by area and home to much of the county’s undeveloped land. Recently they’ve been talking at local meetings and in Facebook groups about the sudden influx of red dirt, rubble and rock that’s collecting in piles, disappearing in backyards or tumbling down ravines across the district’s tightly knit neighborhoods. A few residents have even started counting the dump trucks that have become frequent travelers on the district’s quiet back roads. One resident once followed a truck into town to Ewing Drive, where a half-finished construction site prepped for 18 townhomes recently hit the market.
These rolling patches of hillside can look very different depending on the vantage point. Some see pristine country wilderness smartly converted into public land at Bells Bend and Beaman Park, occasionally spoiled by single-family homes, which get more sparse toward the county line. Parcels here sell at a relatively low price per acre, offering others the chance to bring in bulldozers and backhoes to build a modern estate.
Anne Bohnett, a YouTuber whose Anne of All Trades account brings her family’s homesteading journey to 393,000 subscribers, set up her family’s property on a quiet hillside off Ashland City Highway a few years ago. Robert James Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock, built up his compound over the past 20 years, complete with a replica White House overlooking Knight Drive. He follows Barbara Mandrell, the legendary country singer who developed the neighboring Fontanel Mansion in 1988.
Tucked in the corner of District 1, one massive dump — the Southern Services Landfill, run by Waste Management — towers over Briley Parkway between the Ashland City exit and the Cumberland River. It’s a beast at 183 acres, a combination construction-and-demolition (C&D) material and recycling operation well-versed in working with state and local regulators. Beyond Southern Services, there are large regulated landfills in Clarksville and Murfreesboro.
In 2022, Nashville’s Solid Waste Region Board denied Waste Management’s request to expand Southern Services. Waste Management subsequently decided to close the landfill to outside contractors, sued the board, lost, and lost again on appeal in August 2023. Nashville’s 494-page solid waste plan briefly addresses C&D waste if
only to say: We are producing a lot of this, we lack good options for disposal, and we are failing to recycle it.
Construction-and-demo fill has flowed from Nashville’s construction boom by the thousands of tons. When preparing a site for townhomes or apartments, contractors have to dig up earth, move it around and level it out in a process known as grading. They often hire other contractors to make the leftover truckloads of dirt and rubble disappear. Finding the cheapest and easiest way to get rid of debris has become an industry in itself.
“You call them, they bring you a dumpster, you have 30 days to fill it up, then they come and haul it off,” says a Nashville home builder who requests anonymity, citing professional concerns. “We know what we can and can’t put in dumpsters — things like paint or stains or anything flammable — and, to be a commercial dumper, you have to sign an agreement and understand your rights and regulations.” His company contracts a waste management service for 30 dumpsters across all its job sites. The service charges $600 per dumpster, including dropoff and pickup.
Two large properties between Scottsboro and Whites Creek are claiming protections as grading and construction sites while they take on loads of fill to spread across 30 or more acres. Several more appear to be following suit. Still others are eyed suspiciously by neighbors (and passionately discussed on Facebook) for existing in a seemingly perpetual state of construction.
“A lot of times they get these grading permits just as a guise to dump,” says Metro Councilmember Joy Kimbrough, who has represented District 1 since 2023. “If you go in some places in Joelton or Scottsboro, there are signs that say: ‘Dump here.’ Ever since I took office it’s been a major complaint from residents.”
Kimbrough has been drafting legislation that could allow closer government oversight on a property if there’s suspicion that it’s out of compliance with existing regulations.
“They’re wild in Ashland City when it comes to dumping,” Kimbrough says. “If they have a grading permit and I — or any councilmember — see something else is going on, this allows us to initiate a closer investigation. It’s more than what we have now, and it’s a little bit of accountability.”
MOUNDS OF CONSTRUCTION debris pockmark District 1. Residents identify the same two perpetrators as the most blatant examples of at-home dumping: a looming mass at 5250 Ashland City Highway and a steep roadside ravine at 5795 Old Hickory Blvd.
Thousands of cars pass Dirt Mountain every day. It sticks out among the modest 2- and 3-acre residential properties on Ashland City Highway. Barry Sulkin knows many of these neighbors and enjoys free passage in their driveways, where he frequently takes visitors on a “dump tour” of greater Scottsboro.
“We want them to stop dumping — that’s number one,” Sulkin says. “Number two, control the mud. Number three, remove all the illegally placed waste. Restore the land. Pay a penalty for
violating federal laws and reimburse us for our legal fees.”
A retired environmental scientist with the state who specialized in water regulation, Sulkin has lived in a secluded property deep in the Scottsboro woods since 1978. He helped kill the 840 North expansion in the 1990s and the Maytown development proposal aimed at Bells Bend in the 2000s. Sulkin is obsessive, effective and respected by the Scottsboro community.
Unfortunately for C&D debris, fill dumping near Sulkin’s home has intersected with water regulation — his area of expertise — thus becoming his latest fixation.
Property owner Ricky Ray bought the Dirt Mountain site for $220,000 in July 2019 and turned it into a construction zone six months later. Permitting history shows that work on a tall cell tower — the property’s only visible structure — began in 2020. Ray secured a grading permit that May. Overhead satellite footage shows the site’s transformation from a wooded hillside into a bald dirt patch over the next two years. Ray maintains that the mountains of fill dirt and rubble are related to a cell tower access road that is still under construction. His grading permit covers the site through September 2026.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Ray tells the Scene. “It’s in litigation right now, so I can’t say much more than that.”
Neighbors teamed up with Tennessee Riverkeeper, a regional environmental group, to sue Ray last summer. When it rains, they say, water spreads Ray’s construction debris across nearby yards. Streams carry the dirt into Sulphur Creek, which runs muddy and drains into the Cumberland River less than a mile away. They accuse Ray of violating both the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by operating an open dump that generates illegal discharge. The Tennessean covered the suit in October. Since then, Tennessee Riverkeeper attorney Mike Martin has been fighting Ray for discovery, hoping to peel back the private dumping industry they expect is operating on Ray’s property.
“We want to know where it’s coming from,” Martin tells the Scene on a sunny Tuesday, Dirt Mountain looming in the background. He’s
tight-lipped like his opponent. “I want to be careful about my words — we’re trying to win this lawsuit.”
The right people can dump a C&D truckload here for $50 or $75, one local contractor tells me. Working with Waste Management a few miles down the road at the official Southern Services Landfill could cost five times that. Ray’s email, splashed all over permit documents, identifies him as an employee of Summit Constructors, a company specializing in grading and site prep bought last year by Jones Bros construction in Mt. Juliet. An in-house fill connection on Ashland City Highway can make work cheaper and faster than frequent trips across the county, especially for the extensive residential construction on and near Briley Parkway, Whites Creek, Clarksville Pike, Ewing Drive and King’s Lane. Shorter drives also mean less fuel and a better bottom line.
Plaintiffs must nail Ray down inside a regulatory jungle. Wiggle room between the local and state regulations that govern solid waste, landfills, debris disposal and grading have allowed Ray and other property owners to navigate bright lines that could cost them their permits. Inert materials, for example, are allowed under grading permits. Metro looks favorably on temporary disposal sites where fill can be dropped off or picked up between projects. Permanent C&D disposal can qualify a property as a landfill under federal law, requiring a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit and a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, both of which Ray has on file. Just because they exist doesn’t mean they’re sufficient or being followed, plaintiffs argue. Sediment continues to flow downhill. Their big complaint is that Ray has not done the required site assessments to evaluate Erosion Prevention and Sediment Control, a step required for properties draining more than 10 acres.
At times, state inspectors have agreed with the complaints, citing Ray over the past year for lacking proper documentation (including a site assessment) and insufficient sediment control. Bill Murph of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation also flagged procedural errors in required twice-weekly
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inspections carried out by Andy Travis Miles, a certified EPSC inspector.
Down the road, Sulkin recalls the various phases of the Barnes site, a 34-acre bowl where construction debris disappears down a cliff between Old Hickory Boulevard and Blue Berry Hill Road. The two roads form the lip of a steep ravine that drains like a sink into a few small waterways and eventually into the same Sulphur Creek that runs down to Dirt Mountain. The border of Beaman Park, a 1,678-acre natural area under Metro Parks, comes within a few hundred yards of the parcel known either as the Barnes Dump or the Barnes Fill Site, depending on whom you ask.
Asphalt and broken concrete mark small parking areas by the road. Robert Barnes purchased the property in 2019 for $22,500. Another name, Adam Barnes, and a phone number are handwritten on a folder in the weatherproof permit box. It’s full of reports by the same inspector who signed off on Dirt Mountain, Travis Miles, most recently dated May 16. Other than a missing Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, Miles finds no problems with the site.
“No comment,” Barnes tells the Scene Miles could not be reached via contact information on a business card left with the reports, which identifies him as an employee of stormwater compliance company Greenrise Technologies.
Tennessee Riverkeeper’s lawsuit against Barnes is like déjà vu: violations of the CWA and RCRA, dirty stormwater runoff, insufficient mitigation measures.
It includes a statement from neighbor (and Tennessee Riverkeeper member) Joe Ingle, who says runoff endangers his land and livestock. Ingle, a well-known prison reform advocate in Nashville, says he has seen debris including “rocks, metal, dirt, asphalt, mattresses and other trash” disappear into the property. Photos at the Barnes site reviewed by the Scene show piles of rock that include metal rebar — a big no-no classified as a contaminant in C&D fill.
Starting in December 2020, Barnes operated the site under a general construction permit. Trouble came two years later after a neighborhood complaint brought a young TDEC environmental official named Laurel Jobe to the site. Her report, complete with photos, starts a long paper trail documenting issues with runoff and debris at the site. In December 2023, state regulators, notified of an impending lawsuit from environmentalists, sent Barnes a letter outlining three violations: no stormwater plan available, unpermitted material (wire, metal and a wrecked car) in the fill, and a lack of stream protections. The Riverkeeper lawsuit came Feb. 1.
way. A short hike up to Stone’s property line offers a clear view into his neighbors’ backyard, which looks like an active construction site. The owner, David Hargrove, told Stone he was just widening the driveway. Steady dump truck traffic has outlived the project.
“He’s just taking waste from whoever, we don’t know who yet,” Sulkin tells the Scene between dump sites. Sulkin is convinced that a silver pickup truck, possibly Hargrove’s, is tailing him, and we pull into a church parking lot to let it pass. “We haven’t sued him. We can’t keep suing everybody. We’re going to let the first two percolate a little bit more.”
THE EXACT LINES between landfill and open dump, grading and disposal, permanent deposits and temporary fill will likely be tested in court. Legal accountability for environmental violations is a luxury rarely available unless there’s someone resourced or dedicated enough to sue and someone knowledgeable and organized enough to bring together the right people.
“I could tell you seven places where this is happening — the problem with what they’re doing is that it’s legal,” says Nick Leonardo about C&D debris in the district. He represented District 1 on the Metro Council before Kimbrough. “Nobody else in Nashville has this problem; the city always looks to District 1 to absorb its growing pains. We have the most beautiful place in the world in Whites Creek and Bells Bend. This is what this country looked like 300 years ago. We’ve got bald eagles, we’ve got all kinds of wildlife, we’ve got insects and things that you don’t have anywhere else in this county. And the pressure is coming quick.”
Northwest Davidson County — specifically Scottsboro and Bells Bend — has long fought attempts to transform the green countryside for profit. Leonardo puts the fill problem into a much larger context driving industrialization out of Nashville’s core. Leonardo mentions Roy T. Goodwin and Smyrna Ready Mix, the large-materials company sitting on property by the Jefferson Street Bridge. As a councilmember, Leonardo helped pass legislation requiring local approval before expanding a landfill.
The city has mostly stayed out of District 1’s dumping issue. Residents have harried public officials, including Mayor Freddie O’Connell, in community meetings, and successfully gotten a few Metro officials out to see the properties earlier this year.
WHILE THESE TWO suits proceed in federal court, locals point out other sites around the area engaged in seemingly open-ended construction. Many see trucks turning down residential roads with full loads, then see them returning empty. They hear rumors and peek into neighbors’ yards. Farther down Sulphur Creek, Nathan Stone lets Sulkin park in his drive-
Apparently a few loads of old Titans gameday grass found its way from Nissan Stadium into another massive fill operation near Whites Creek. John Donelson IV — nine generations removed from the frontiersman who helped found Fort Nashborough in 1780 — bought the site seven years ago under an LLC. Two years later, he rezoned it from residential to agricultural, significantly expanding its legal uses. Donelson does not charge per truckload; contractors he knows come and dump here for free, Donelson tells the Scene. They’re helping shore up his hillside so he can build on top.
Unlike Dirt Mountain, the fill appears to be genuinely graded — consciously shaped and
flattened with heavy construction machinery and connected to a dirt path winding uphill big enough for a vehicle. He has a silt fence for runoff. Donelson is planning a field and a barn that blend into the hollow, but the full timeline is fuzzy. The next step is a clay layer and 6 to 8 inches of topsoil. It’ll be built when it’s done, he says.
“I don’t have to have a permit because I’m zoned agriculture,” Donelson tells the Scene “Drive by and look at it. It’s better than it was.”
Meanwhile, pissed-off locals (Donelson lists their names) complain about the property on Facebook. Electrician Dave Harder, Donelson’s direct neighbor, has struggled to maintain niceties after living next to Donelson’s large construction site. He says the runoff affects downhill neighbors, while the noise, deforestation and heavy equipment near his property line have dramatically affected his quality of life. The two have recently gotten back on speaking terms — as engineers and surveyors probe their shared property line.
“I’m talking to him again, but not often,” Harder, who bought his property in 2006, tells the Scene in his backyard. “I said to myself, ‘How can this problem get better without us talking?’ I’ve been revolving my whole life around when they work and when they don’t. I’m just hoping time heals all this.”
“The owners are allowed to do what they are doing under a mass grading permit issued by Metro Stormwater,” explained Councilmember At-Large Burkley Allen in a May 12 email to Ingle and Sulkin. “It may take a change to Stormwater policy and getting something into the Code to provide the teeth needed to protect neighboring properties better.”
The other end of Nashville’s construction boom is truckloads of hard earth from whole neighborhoods ending and beginning again. A private LLC named Scottsboro Farms registered to site-prep company Demo Plus bought nearly 250 undeveloped acres in Scottsboro in early April, a sign that the private C&D disposal industry is growing rather than shrinking. The solid waste board’s decision to stop Waste Management’s landfill expansion protected an area already suffering environmental racism and degradation. It didn’t make less construction or demolition. In fact, real estate development has continued humming, especially around North Nashville and Bordeaux.
Contractors, hired to make debris disappear by the truckload, often take the cheapest and easiest ways out, sometimes involving unsavory solutions. While sites like the Barnes ravine or Donelson’s level dirt field differ in size and scope, neighbors see them as part of the same construction scourge disturbing the backwoods peace. And the silt always flows downhill. ▼
Nashville Symphony & Chorus
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor
Tucker Biddlecombe, chorus director
Meechot Marrero, soprano
Randall Scotting, countertenor
Sidney Outlaw, baritone Vanderbilt Youth Choirs
Mary Biddlecombe, Vanderbilt youth choirs director
SupportedbytheMaryC.RaglandFoundation
Nashville Symphony | Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor
JUN 20 & 21 | 7:30 PM
Special Event
SMOKEY ROBINSON with the Nashville Symphony
JUN 27 | 7:30 PM
Fundraising Event
SPIRITS OF SUMMER
“Symphonic Nights”
Live Orchestra + Craft Cocktail Competition
JUN 22 | 8 PM
Ascend Amphitheater cypress hill performs "black sunday" with the Nashville Symphony
JUN 28 | 8 PM
Ascend Amphitheater THE MUSIC OF JOHN WILLIAMS with the Nashville Symphony
JUN 23 | 7:30 PM
JUN 13 TO 15 | 7:30 PM
FIRSTBANK POPS SERIES
Nashville Symphony | Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor
Presentation THE FAB FOUR: THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE
PresentedwithouttheNashvilleSymphony.
JUN 30 | 7:30 PM
Presentation
LITTLE RIVER BAND
PresentedwithouttheNashvilleSymphony.
JUN 25 & 26 | 7:30 PM
Special Event BEN RECTOR & CODY FRY Live with the Nashville Symphony
JUL 2 | 7:30 PM
Special Event
NATALIE MERCHANT: KEEP YOUR COURAGE TOUR with the Nashville Symphony
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
THURSDAY, MAY 23
MUSIC
[CELEBRATING KUNG FU GRIP] STONE DEEP
When rap-rock pioneers Stone Deep got back together in 2022 after a 23-year hiatus, they began reissuing remastered editions of their releases from the ’90s, when they were pushing the boundaries of popular music with their intoxicating mix of rap, hard rock and funk. They recently dropped the latest in that series of reissues, their 1995 album Kung Fu Grip, which upon its initial release won a Nashville Music Award the following year in the Independent Recording category. Thursday night at Eastside Bowl, the band — vocalist Ronzo “The Beast” Cartwright, guitarist Glen Cummings, bassist Big Tim Brooks, drummer David Howard and vocalist/turntablist Terry “DJ KUTT” Hayes — will make their first appearance in Nashville since the new reissue dropped in February. “We have 38 new songs,” Cummings says. “And so far we have small demos for like 22 of them.” While the focus Thursday will be on celebrating the material from Kung Fu Grip, the guitarist says they might “put one of the new ones in.” Stone Deep is headlining a bill that includes Stoney T, Catchfire and Dear Dario. In a nod to their older fans who might not be able to make it to a late-night weeknight show, they will take the stage second, at 8:50 p.m. DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508 GALLATIN PIKE S.
MUSIC
[COUNTRY FEEDBACK] REAL ESTATE
Jangle pop evolved from its origins in the 1960s music of Jackie DeShannon and The Byrds through a revisionist phase in the ’80s that found bands like Let’s Active and R.E.M. grafting post-punk angst onto the guitar riffs invented in the ’70s by the likes of Dwight Twilley and Alex Chilton. The long-running New York pop band Real Estate staked its claim to representing the post-jangle world on their 2014 album Atlas, on which singer and songwriter Martin Courtney sounded like an amalgam of Luna’s Dean Wareham and Fountains of Wayne singer Chris Collingwood. Like a lot of jangle pop, Atlas skirted the boundaries of power pop without fully embracing the genre’s conventions — the band sounded more like Gin Blossoms than they did, say, The dB’s. Real Estate traveled to Nashville to cut their new full-length Daniel, and producer Daniel Tashian — a pop master who has worked on records by Kacey Musgraves and The Secret Sisters — streamlines and deepens their sound. Tashian gives Daniel an appealing sheen without swamping it in what you might call the country feedback that can overwhelm
pop bands that record in Nashville. Although I hear anxiety in the lyrics Courtney came up with for Daniel, I like how deftly the band handles the vocabulary of jangle pop. Daniel is rich with slick chord changes and songwriting savvy — the melancholia of something titled “Market Street” puts me in mind of one of my favorite jangle-pop bands, The Chills. File Daniel on the shelf with The Chills’ Submarine Bells, Fountains of Wayne’s Traffic and Weather and your favorite R.E.M. record of the ’90s. Opening will be postpunk duo Water From Your Eyes, whose latest album is 2023’s Everyone’s Crushed EDD HURT 8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
[PARENTING BEYOND THE BINARY]
As of May 10, the ACLU is tracking more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills across the country, with Tennessee taking a shameful lead in the wave of legislation. During the most recent legislative session, state lawmakers enacted more than twice as many anti-LGBTQ laws as any other state, according to the Human Rights Campaign. But even amid all this unnecessary vitriol, there are people doing the work to keep trans children safe and parents informed. Ben
V. Greene is one of those people. Greene is a trans man, a fierce advocate for transgender youth, an educator and a full-time public speaker. He believes in educating from a place of compassion, no matter where people are starting from, and lives by the catchphrase, “The only question I won’t answer is the question you don’t ask.” Greene’s new book, My Child Is Trans, Now What?, is a judgment-free guide to people across generations, in which Greene answers complicated questions with upbeat empathy, making it possible for parents and caregivers to give their kid the joyful, affirming childhood they deserve. Greene will be speaking at queerowned Novelette on Thursday. Tickets are free, but spots are limited. RYNE WALKER
7 P.M. AT NOVELETTE BOOKSELLERS
1101 CHAPEL AVE.
Katie Pruitt’s debut album came out on the cusp of a global pandemic that shut down the music industry as we knew it, but that didn’t stop their career from taking off. 2020’s Expectations was a fresh take on Americana, showcasing Pruitt’s show-stopping vocal prowess. The recently released follow-up, Mantras, maintains their signature earnest songwriting while expanding into a broader palette of sounds. Tracks like “All My Friends” and “Worst Case Scenario” are tailor-made for indie-rock radio, and if “White Lies, White Jesus, and You” doesn’t get nominated for a Grammy, I may pull an Elton John and threaten to hit someone! I left Katie’s set at Pilgrimage Festival in 2021 an instant fan, and you’ll have a chance to do the same when their headlining tour comes to Brooklyn Bowl. Canadian folk singer Jack Van Cleaf is set to open what’s sure to be an unforgettable night. Someday, you’ll be able to tell your grandkids you were a fan before Pruitt was selling out arenas and headlining festivals. Get your tickets now — future bragging rights included with admission. HANNAH CRON
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL
925 THIRD AVE. N.
FILM [SCHOOLYARD BRAWL]
After an economic recession, a totalitarian Japanese government creates the Battle Royale program where students from a randomly selected junior high school class are sent to an abandoned island equipped with an exploding collar, some survival gear and a random weapon. The stakes are simple: The last student left alive is the only one allowed to leave the island. The 42 students embark on a three-day challenge of survival and killing. This Japanese genre film has had a lasting impact on pop culture as a thematic predecessor of The Hunger Games series and an inspiration for the battle royale video game genre made famous by titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone. It also brought controversy, as it was banned in the U.S.
for 10 years after its Japanese release in 2000 (by the publishers Toei themselves). Now the film is screening as part of the Belcourt’s Midnight Movies series, giving you a chance to see the cult classic on the silver screen, as it was meant to be seen. KEN ARNOLD
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC [PUT (YOUR) BABY IN THIS CORNER]
Amid its 15th annual spring season in Centennial Park, much-loved family-friendly free concert series Musicians Corner spreads out yet another jam-packed lineup over three days on Memorial Day weekend. R&B-schooled singer-songwriter-producer Jarren Blair kicks off the festivities Friday evening, followed by a no-skips lineup including pop maestros Morgxn and corook. Saturday afternoon, the acousticfocused second stage opens up, with highlights including Rashad tha Poet and S-Wrap bringing their long-running spoken-word collaboration out of the studio and into the world. Meanwhile, top-notch singer-songwriter Rayland Baxter and nimble rockers Chrome Pony are among the folks you don’t want to miss Saturday on the main stage. Sunday, the run comes to a close with a one-two punch of superb songsmiths who both released excellent albums near the end of 2022. By name, that’s the phenomenal Caitlin Rose, who’s still riding high in the wake of Cazimi, and Courtney Marie Andrews — with whom Rose co-wrote the Cazimi standout “Getting It Right” — whose Loose Future is likewise a catalog highlight. STEPHEN TRAGESER
MAY 24-26 AT CENTENNIAL PARK
2500 WEST END AVE
FILM
[SEEING IS BELIEVING] SIGHT
Starting this weekend, Nashvillians who’ve been treated by groundbreaking laser eye surgeon/philanthropist/Dolly Parton collaborator Dr. Ming Wang can head to their nearest multiplex and see his life story told on the big screen. (Don’t expect to see any Nashville landmarks; this was filmed in Vancouver three
years ago.) Sight takes us back to when the doctor (played here by Canadian actor Terry Chen) went on a mission to repair the sight of an optically scarred 6-year-old Indian girl. (Co-star Greg Kinnear gets his supportive white ally on as Ming’s partner-in-medical-science.)
The movie also flashes back to his younger years growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, searching for a way to get himself, his family and a young girl he’s sweet on out of the cruel, oppressive nightmare. Distributed by Christian-based entertainment company Angel Studios, Sight is uplifting, inoffensive and — for those who aren’t into indie flicks sprinkled with God talk — agonizingly mid. However, if you forgot to take your mama to brunch on Mother’s Day weekend and you want to make it up to her, an afternoon matinee of this wouldn’t hurt.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
OPENS MAY 24 AT AMC AND REGAL CINEMAS
[COLD COMFORT]
MUSIC
SAM EVIAN
Simply put, Plunge — the fourth studio album from psych and power-pop artist Sam Evian — is one of 2024’s best rock records so far. Recorded with a cast of collaborators at Evian’s Flying Cloud Studio in the Catskills of upstate New York and named for the songwriter’s penchant for taking cold plunges in a nearby creek, Plunge is rich with the influence of 1960s and ’70s powerpop icons. Album opener “Wild Days” and the upbeat “Why Does It Take So Long” feature shades of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles work, while the meditative “Rollin’ In” puts me in mind of baroque-pop king Emitt Rhodes. There’s even
a bit of Randy Newman influence on tracks like “Runaway.” Altogether, though, it’s a lush and singular record with a whole lot of staying power and hooks crammed into its nine tracks and 33 minutes. This weekend, Evian will bring his tour in support of Plunge to The Blue Room — one of Nashville’s best-sounding venues. Don’t miss it.
D. PATRICK RODGERS
8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
[PHONE HOME]
MUSIC
FILM &
E.T.: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL FEAT. LIVE ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE
When I was fortunate enough to revisit E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial at Opry Mills in the fall of 2022, I went in expecting to be just as blown away as I had before by the iconic story of a lost alien trying to find his way home with the help of a lonely young boy and with a glowing finger added to the mix. Why not? It’s heartwarming! What I wasn’t expecting, and what has stuck with me the most since attending that screening, was just how unbelievably amazing the film’s score is. Seeing the film in a theater allowed me to marvel at the visuals and also find myself completely swept away by every note of John Williams’ Oscar-winning soundtrack. The score accentuates and elevates every scene it accompanies, and it’s hard to argue that this isn’t one of the greatest scores ever composed. Williams’ composition during the film’s climactic bicycle chase continues to be one of my favorite music cues ever to be used in a film. The chance to get to hear the score performed live with as accomplished an orchestra as the Nashville Symphony is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Knowing how immersive and transportive it sounded on a regular theater sound system, it’s hard to imagine just how incredible the music of the film will sound when performed at the Schermerhorn this Saturday and Sunday. ROB HINKAL
MAY 25-26 AT THE SCHERMERHORN ONE SYMPHONY PLACE
SUNDAY
MUSIC [MAKING A LEGACY] KYSHONA W/RISSI PALMER
To celebrate the release of her new
album Legacy, Kyshona will set up shop at 3rd & Lindsley this Sunday for Lightning 100’s Nashville Sunday Night. That new record is noteworthy not just for how great the music is (and it certainly is fantastic) but also for its backstory: The songs are inspired by Kyshona’s own family lineage, which she uncovered with the help of a genealogist. The resulting songs are raw and emotional, as Kyshona wrestles with a lineage that includes enslaved ancestors. Kyshona recorded Legacy in Memphis alongside a string of local ringers, many of whom will join her on stage at Sunday night’s show. And as Kyshona pointed out in her recent conversation with the Scene, she doesn’t perform locally very often, so don’t miss this chance to catch a truly special artist. Be sure to get there on time because country singer-songwriter Rissi Palmer kicks off the evening — she’s not to be missed, either. BRITTNEY MCKENNA
7 P.M. AT 3RD & LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S.
[BRIDGING GRAND DIVISIONS]
MUSIC
The Nashville-Memphis music relationship is a complicated one, to say the least. It would take someone with a much deeper, academiclevel knowledge of local music history to break down all the aspects of that splintered partnership. But the drive down I-40 has led to a couple of key moments in the timeline of Volunteer State rap over the decades, including Don Trip and Starlito’s trio of Step Brothers mixtapes and the combination of Three 6 Mafia, Young Buck, and 8Ball & MJG on the Tennessee anthem “Stay Fly.” Later this month, Project Pat, Juicy J’s older brother and a key collaborator with Three 6 Mafia, is set to continue that Nashville-Memphis hip-hop crossover tradition by inviting Gee Slab, one of the top MCs in the Music City scene, to open for him at his performance at The Basement East. LOGAN BUTTS
rounds out the bone-crushing bill. JASON VERSTEGEN
7 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL 1508 GALLATIN PIKE
MUSIC [RETURN OF THE MACC] FOR THE DAWGS BENEFIT SHOW FOR METRO ANIMAL CARE AND CONTROL
9 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
[DEATH BY METAL]
MUSIC
FETUS W/200 STAB WOUNDS
There are few bands that evoke such offensive imagery as grindcore veterans Dying Fetus. The Marylanders have relished their role as death metal provocateurs since the group’s conception in the early ’90s. As the last remaining original member, vocalist and guitarist John Gallagher continues to captain DF with unbridled ferocity. His signature guttural delivery is once again front and center on the band’s ninth studio album Make Them Beg for Death, released by indie-metal label Relapse Records in September “Disgust in others you feel / Your skin slowly we peel / Your loathing is at an end / Tormented soul will descend,” screams Gallagher over brutal blast beats on the album’s opening track “Enlighten Through Agony.” Cleveland, Ohio’s 200 Stab Wounds joins the mayhem fresh off the April release of their psychedelic-doomcore single “Hands of Eternity.” Kruelty — on tour from Tokyo —
Returning for a second year, the For the Dawgs benefit show at Drkmttr will bring together a group of acts to raise cash for Metro Animal Care and Control, our county’s nearly continuously full animal shelter. The eight-band lineup begins at 5 p.m. and is a solid matchup of local and near-local metal or metal-tangential acts. In the mix is Knoxville’s Cold Hard Steel and Nashville acts Shogun, Switchblade, Lethal Method, Still Here, Gouged Out and Article V. And then there’s Cookeville’s Dan Spencer. Whether you desire to help pets in need or not (rethink your life if you went with not), Spencer alone is enough to rip $12 from your dusty pockets. Spencer’s “Beat Your Ass to Death” from 2022’s Bursting With Fresh Country Flavor is the stuff of sing-along dreams: The song is good fun, but it’s also country storytelling at its finest, pulling you through the various repercussions of said beating. The first couple of tracks released from Return to Your Dark Master, due out May 31, have been phenomenal: “Fat Vampire” opens with a blast beat, for Christ’s sake. The fusion of metal and country is not mere shtick, though. Spencer is a helluva player with the rare gift of vulnerability that you’ll want to see in person. Come for the puppy and kitty pals, stay for the tunes.
5 P.M. AT DRKMTTR
AMANDA HAGGARD
1111 DICKERSON PIKE
[LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW] FEID
Medellín, Colombia, has been a musical powerhouse for the past few years, with a number of top reggaeton, Latin trap and música urbana artists emerging from the city. Feid spent a decade songwriting for many of those new Colombian stars, including J Balvin and Reykon. But the man also known as alter ego El Ferxxo (pronounced “ fercho”) kept working on his own music, steadily building a fan base
and even touring with reggaeton and Latin trap queen Karol G (whom he’s now dating, per the celebrity tabloids). However, his career skyrocketed thanks to a quick response to a leaked 2022 album, Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo: Te Pirateamos el Álbum (or Happy Birthday Ferxxo: We Leaked Your Album). He’s now touring behind his latest release, Ferxxocalipsis, and set to hit Bridgestone Arena on Monday, just a few weeks after collaborator Bad Bunny rocked the venue. Fans can look forward Ferxxocalipsis standouts like the ATL Jacob collab “Luna” and “Classy 101,” featuring rising star Young Miko, alongside Feid’s deep discography. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
8 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA
501 BROADWAY
[I WANNA GET BETTER]
A little over a decade ago, it seemed impossible that any one member of indierock outfit fun. could outshine the glow of trendsetting album Some Nights and its slew of inescapable radio hits. (“We Are Young” was a time, y’all.) But, as the adage goes, hindsight vision is 20/20. Fun. member Jack Antonoff emerged from the ashes of the band’s shortlived heavyweight success to become one of the most sought-after producers in music, making albums with Lorde, Lana Del Rey, St. Vincent and, of course, Taylor Swift. Onstage, he adopted big-riff rock music as frontman of Bleachers, a New Jersey outfit inspired by Bruce Springsteen and songs that feel all the feelings. Since debuting in 2014 with tracks like “Rollercoaster” and the infectiously anthemic “I Wanna Get Better,” Bleachers has carved a place in the modern rock pantheon with fiery live shows and a throwback rock sound cut straight from a 1980s tape deck. Antonoff brings the band to Nashville for two nights at the Ryman in support of Bleachers, a 14-song album released earlier this year. Get a taste of the new tunes by spinning “Modern Girls,” a time-traveling romp perfect for a summertime playlist. Samia opens both nights. MATTHEW
AND BUBBLES FEATURING BRIT STOKES
6.2 GOLDPINE WITH SAMMI ACCOLA
6.5 WHINE DOWN WITH JANA KRAMER AND FRIENDS - THE NEXT CHAPTER TOUR
6.6 AN EVENING WITH THE LUBBEN
Friday, May 24
saturday, May 25
Sunday, may 26
When he’s not complementing Adrianne Lenker in indie supergroup Big Thief, Buck Meek ups the tempo a little bit. In recent singles “Cuero Dudes” and “Beauty Opens Doors,” Meek combines lilting rhythm with the narrative songwriting that’s defined his band and a whole genre of poetic rock raised on Bob Dylan, John Prine and Neil Young. Both songs are instant adds for any playlist that isn’t afraid of a little melancholy sometimes. Meek shares the bill with opener and fellow Texan Jolie Holland. This almost guarantees that the concert will feature “Highway 72,” Meek’s haunting feature on Holland’s 2023 record Haunted Mountain, not to be confused with Meek’s own 2023 record also named Haunted Mountain. Be prepared to possibly cry in front of strangers, or next to them, because you can get lost listening to Meek, and there aren’t many places to hide in The Blue Room. ELI MOTYCKA
8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS
623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
MUSIC
[PASSING THROUGH] ANNIE WILLIAMS ALBUM RELEASE
Visitor, out May 29 via YK Records, is singersongwriter Annie Williams’ debut album, filled with rich harmonies and a dance between electronic and acoustic elements. It doesn’t feel like a first record, though. Whether the songs are new or Williams has been working on them a long time, whether they’re about things that happened to her or not — obviously not in the case of “Louise,” sung from the perspective of Thelma in Thelma and Louise — they feel like she’s lived them. “Midnight,” a song about a child, a pet and a parent, is my favorite; it’s fascinating how Williams subtly draws you into the perspective of the character telling the story, which could be a chapter in a novel but instead is a song. It’s something to celebrate, and she’ll
do it in style on release day at Soft Junk. Backing Williams will be a five-voice choir and a band of true ringers featuring standout songsmith Jo Schornikow on keys, Alec O’Connell on bass and Ben Parks on drums. The two supporting acts are a nesting doll of champions, each made up of singer-songwriters and players who have their own great bodies of work — namely Styrofoam Winos (Lou Turner, Trevor Nikrant and Joe Kenkel) and Shrunken Elvis (Rich Ruth, Sean Thompson and Spencer Cullum).
STEPHEN TRAGESER
8 P.M. AT SOFT JUNK
919 GALLATIN AVE.
[WHERE THE WIND BLOWS]
Now that the shock of the flute album announcement has died down, we can finally just appreciate it, right? New Blue Sun could have been a vanity project, or — worse — could have tried to shoehorn obligatory aspects of André 3000’s rap persona into songs where it didn’t fit. And sure, if you really look close enough, you see elements of Three Stacks the rapper in there — the way he holds certain notes, or some shared sensibilities between this album and the production of The Love Below (André’s half of Outkast’s 2003 double album, alongside Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx). But what’s at play here is André Benjamin as a devoted student of the flute, jazz, ambient and New Age music, and who’s trusting his veteran collaborators (led by Carlos Niño). The album shines with personality, mixing playfulness and reflection, finding joy and adventure in aging. It helps that the track names are top tier (“That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control ... Sh¥t Was Wild”). Perhaps what’s coolest about this Nashville appearance is that André 3000 is making up for a postponed concert in March with four shows — a pleasant surprise, much like New Blue Sun ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
6 AND 9 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM (ALSO 6 AND 9 P.M. MAY 30) 623 SEVENTH AVE S
KODY WEST with JASON SCOTT & THE
Finally Friday featuring STEVE FOX, ROBBY HECHT & KYSHONA
the closson brothers w/ under high street (7pm)
soren hansen & jacob kulick (9pm)
grlwood w/ hussy fit (7pm)
cliffs w/ zachary scott kline & caleb edens (9pm)
paige rose & brockwell nason (7pm)
more weight w/ shuteye & strawberryberry (9pm)
cannon rogers: a tribute to the grateful dead (7pm)
lauran hibberd (9pm)
nathan wilson (7pm)
mike scott and the honey pots & sarah jones (9pm)
joshua quimby w/ chloe kimes, liam st. john, dylan smucker & angela autumn (7pm)
Stepanie Chapman Album Release Show + Bob Dylan Birthday Bash featuring Special guests Martina McBride, Charles Kelley, Emily West, Wendy Moten, Maia Sharp, Harper O’Neill, Pat McLaughlin & more!
BARNHILL & RANDALL FOWLER
CORDOVAS with SPECIAL GUESTS
Academy of Country Music ONRAMP–For Future Leaders in the Music Hosted by WENDY MOTEN performing Live: CARMEN DIANNE, DAISHA MCBRIDE, JASMINE BAVARO, LARYSA JAYE, NICK TABRON, QUALLS, ROZ MALONE, TAE LEWIS, THE KENTUCKY GENTLEMEN & TYLAR BRYANT
rose hotel w/ heaven hotel & zilched (9pm)
matt woods & tyler walker gill (7pm)
leon majcen w/ thomas rowland & presley drake (9pm)
rachel horter & jonathan soul (7pm)
matthew logan vasquez w/ justin and the comics (9pm) symbasyd (7pm)
jace
WHEN VISITING A newish (1-year-old) restaurant for the first time, it’s encouraging to see one of Nashville’s most Culinarily Critical Couples walk in the door shortly after you’ve taken your seat. Even more so when that CCC tells you Present Tense is one of their regular spots, a favorite in Nashville’s explosive — and in their estimation, often disappointing — dining scene. When one-half of that discerning CCC is of Asian descent, and you know the chef mines influence, techniques, flavors and products from East and Southeast Asia … well, I had high hopes.
Present Tense, owned by GM Rick Margaritov and chef Ryan Costanza, describes itself as a modern izakaya-style dining experience. Izakaya is defined as a casual Japanese pub or restaurant specializing in snacks, shared plates and beverages, particularly sake. The one-page menu is divided into five sections minus headings — though the desserts are easily identified as such. Core vegetables, seafood and proteins stood out among unfamiliar ingredients and terms that had us madly Googling.
Our server Elizabeth Kneidinger was so
knowledgeable we could have just kept our phones in our purses and let her explain. We kind of felt we had worn her out with questions about the wine list — which by design includes more unknowns than knowns — and extensive menu of sakes, for which Present Tense is known. Patience was another virtue she displayed, advising and pouring tastes until the imbibers met their match. (Due to a sudden and as yet incurable intolerance of fermentation, I was happy to see Untitled Art’s NA Italian Style Pils among the high-octane beers. Yay hospitality for all!) She was also attentive to our pesky dietary restrictions, which in addition to fermentation, included another’s shellfish allergy. With that taken care of, we were ready to dive into Costanza’s food.
Bread and butter is always a good start, and intriguing when the bread is grilled seaweed sourdough and the butter is mixed with kombu (kelp). At first bite, I recognized Sam Tucker, the bread genius behind Village Bakery + Provisions. I don’t drive from my current home in Asheville, N.C., to Nashville just for a loaf of his rustic sour-
dough and another of spent grain, but I don’t leave Nashville without them.
Costanza, fastidious about sourcing, authenticity and attention to every detail, recognized a kindred spirit in Tucker; multiple test batches later, they found the consistency, texture and taste they were after.
In breaking news, Costanza revealed that after a lengthy R&D process, a house-made bread is nearly ready for the table. A cross between Japanese milk bread and brioche, it will be baked as a four-part, pull-apart bun, with the kombu butter and perhaps a chicken liver parfait.
Tucker’s seaweed sourdough remains as the foundation for the indisputable diva of the menu — tuna toast. If you, like me, see anything “toast” and your reaction is, “Can we stop with the toast already?” let that go and reach for the toast.
It’s an iteration of a dish Costanza came up with at Abernethy’s in Los Angeles, where he was awarded a prestigious four-month residency voted upon by a panel of Michelin chefs. While conceptualizing his menu there,
he focused on his Sicilian and Sardinian heritage, merging it with his extensive experience cooking in Asia. The tuna toast — luscious, fresh raw seafood intensely flavored yet restrained in presentation — was born. He builds up from a thick slice of grilled bread smeared with wagyu aioli, then piles high glistening, rosy cubes of tuna. Depending on availability, the tuna will be bigeye or blue fin. It was the latter the night we dined.
The menu changes frequently — driven in large part by availability of product — but in addition to the tuna toast, diners who form an attachment to the karaage chicken need not fret. Admitting that he didn’t set out to do “tons of fried chicken,” Costanza acknowledges it is a top seller, and points out that it’s not just any
chicken, but Jidori chicken — recognized as the Kobe of fowl. Indeed, the boneless pieces of thigh meat — brined, marinated and dusted with three specific flours before a quick deepfry in a light oil — are moist, tender and perfectly salted. They don’t necessarily need more than a spritz of the lime wedge on the tray, but the ramekin of sauce — a mix of tarragon, chervil, yuzu and creme fraiche — should not be ignored.
I discovered Japanese sweet potatoes at a tailgate market in Asheville, and when I cut into the one I baked, I was surprised to discover that inside the deep-purple skin was white flesh with a nutty flavor. Costanza’s far more complex approach resulted in one of our favorite dishes, and he says it’s one of his too. The whole potato is wrapped in kelp and, thanks to that, simultaneously roasts and steams until the flesh turns creamy. The potato is sliced in half, brushed with miso butter and placed on the grill over binchōtan (the clean, nearly smokeless woodbased charcoal that is gold standard for grilling in Japan) until the skin chars black, sprinkled with sea salt and bonito flakes and plated with creme fraiche whipped with fresh yuzu and a drizzle of lovage oil.
Several other dishes benefited from time on the binchōtan — two lamb chops coated in a mix of thyme, garlic, anchovies and Szechuan peppercorns that turns to a crispy, Mediterranean-evocative crust encasing the pink meat. Peruvian cuisine makes a cameo appearance in medallions of octopus, skewered and grilled, then laid atop a shallow pool of golden aji amarillo sauce, topped with a scatter of crunchy cancha (dried toasted maize kernels).
Maybe your mother forbade dessert until you finished dinner. Polishing off your plates will not be an issue at Present Tense, but the good news is you can just have dessert. Who among us can resist soft-serve ice cream? Miso white sesame is always available, along with a second flavor of the night, but don’t torture yourself with such a dreadful decision. Get them both, after dinner or maybe as a nightcap at the bar, with a carafe of sake or flute of sparkling wine.
Speaking of nightcaps, we reserved an ear-
ly-bird table and were glad we did, finding an oasis of quiet and calm next to the open floorto-ceiling glass doors, beside a plant-filled patio as dusk descended in Wedgewood-Houston.
Before dedicating himself to culinary, Costanza was studying interior architecture, attracted to clean lines, simplicity and minimalism, and Present Tense’s aesthetic reflects that. When the sun sets, the music goes up, and the bar and dining room become louder and livelier. Pick your vibe and plan accordingly.
In Present Tense’s inaugural year, the team introduced a six-seat omakase counter for guests to enjoy a 12-course tasting menu, with the option of wine and sake pairings by Margaritov. The two seatings on Friday and Saturday nights have proven so popular they have expanded to Thursday nights. Also newly available is an eight-course omakase menu nightly for the table.
Omakase is a Japanese dining experience that leaves the choosing to the chef (a dining style my kids endured every night under my roof). In our self-curated experience, there were no wrong choices and no disappointments. My high hopes were not only met, but decidedly, delightfully, deliciously exceeded. ▼
In the Club is a recurring series in which the Scene explores Nashville’s social club offerings.
AT EVERY YEAR-END concert, my high school chorus sang the same simple refrain: “There is no such beauty as where you belong.” The line made us cry every time because the chorus room was where we belonged — it was a place where we could talk about our emotions, fears and triumphs with people who were really listening, and it was a place where we could channel those feelings into meaningful art.
There’s a place just like that here in Nashville. Nashville in Harmony, a community chorus of singers from the LGBTQ community and its
allies, has performed around the city for the past 20 years, building community among both its members and its audiences.
The ensemble has around 100 members, and auditions new members about twice a year. They rehearse three hours per week during concert seasons — a big commitment, but the results speak for themselves. I observed a rehearsal leading up to the group’s May concerts with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra, and heard gorgeous music from a group that seemed totally locked into performance mode.
“It’s a little more than a hobby,” says director Wesley King. “It’s a commitment to the organization, to your fellow singers. It’s a commitment
For founding member Rodger Murray, just being able to sing in an openly queer group is a big step in a state like Tennessee. He was part of the Nashville Men’s Chorus, a precursor to Nashville in Harmony that never quite found its footing. At one of their concerts, they planned to sing “Someone to Watch Over Me,” a song in which Ella Fitzgerald famously longs to be with her ideal man.
“Some of the guys said, ‘Well, I can’t get up in public and say I want to add my initial to his monogram,’” Murray says. “And so that kind of broke us up.”
These days, Nashville in Harmony is a proudly queer organization — with a lot to be proud of. They’ve performed concerts across the state, helped kick off a Nashville mayor’s inauguration, and this year sent a group to perform at Carnegie Hall. Murray is proud of the ensemble’s evolution and how they spent months perfecting a complex Beethoven piece for their May concerts.
“We feel like that’s just the work that we have to put into it, but we enjoy doing it,” Murray says.
Brandi Emrys, an alto, joined the group in January. Her story will seem familiar to former band and chorus kids: She performed classical music at a high level throughout college, but she put down her instrument to focus on building her career after graduating. Nashville in Harmony, she says, isn’t just a way for her to perform with others again.
“I also wanted to be a part of something where I felt like I could create a family,” she says. “In my past jobs, it’s been really hard being a part of the LGBT community and having to hide a part of myself. I wanted to start building a community with people who are like me and who have had experiences like I’ve had.” That community isn’t a monolith. Members come from all different careers and interests, and I was particularly struck by the wide range of ages I saw in the ensemble. Some members work in the arts professionally, and some learn the pieces by rote since they can’t read music. There are also non-queer allies in the group, something Emrys finds particularly inspiring.
to the mission.”
That mission includes using music to spark social change and reflection. At their May concerts, Nashville in Harmony performed “The Tennessee Waltz,” in which a singer laments their love being stolen away. It’s usually taken to be about a man and a woman, but King says members have found an alternative meaning.
“There’s a lot of people who are talking about the fact that, with ‘Tennessee Waltz’ at least, they think about it in the context of extremists trying to take away the South from them,” King says. “They grew up here, they were born here, they have Southern values, and somehow these extremists are like, ‘No, you don’t belong here.’”
“It helps remind me that there are people out there who love us for who we are, no matter what, and who are fighting for us and will continue to fight for us,” she says.
When I ask Emrys what the chorus means to her, I’m not surprised at all to hear her say it’s her place to belong, too.
“It’s a place where you can find peace,” Emrys says. “It allows me to take all the things that I’ve experienced in the week, all the things that have gone wrong, all the things that I’m really frustrated and mad about — especially with our government and politics — and it gives me three hours of respite. I feel like I can breathe for that little bit of time.”- ▼
Our Kindred Creatures surveys the origins of the anti-cruelty movement
BY WHITNEY BRYANT
BILL WASIK AND MONICA MURPHY’S Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals is a provocative, sometimes disturbing examination of Americans’ evolving attitudes toward animals from 1866 to 1896. It is also a study in empathy.
The book is divided into sections titled “Beachheads” and “Standoffs.” “Beachheads” covers the first 10 years of the period, tracing the birth of the animal rights movement and its early success in lobbying for anti-cruelty laws and creating systems of enforcement. “Standoffs” describes the movement’s shift in focus from prosecution to the engagement of the public’s compassion. These two approaches are embodied in the book’s central figures: Henry Bergh, a fire-breathing scion of a wealthy shipbuilding family who enlisted the clout of New York’s elite to found the ASPCA, and George Angell, a minister’s son whose goal was “nothing less than a moral revolution in America, one carried along by human emotion in rebellion against suffering of all forms.”
As the section titles suggest, Our Kindred Creatures frames the animal rights movement’s history as a series of battles. Its victories were often intertwined with the rapid social transformations of the time. George Angell built on abolitionists’ success as he advanced his belief “that resistance to war, racism, plutocracy, and animal cruelty were duties that walked hand in hand.”
Many founders of local ASPCA chapters were women, who recognized and strengthened the movement’s moral connection to causes such as suffrage and temperance. And thanks to the growth of public education, the reformers were able to widely distribute anti-cruelty literature to children.
But the economic and social conditions of the Gilded Age also created the movement’s fiercest enemy: unchecked capitalism. Global trade networks funneled millions of dead exotic birds to milliners in major cities. The expansion of railroads and development of new technology such as refrigeration and the automated slaughtering machine enabled the meatpacking industry “to concentrate both wealth and suffering at an astonishing, unaccountable scale.”
The paradoxical effects of the Gilded Age on the animal rights movement are reiterated on smaller scales throughout Our Kindred Creatures Extinction researchers bemoan the disappearance of a species while killing individuals of that species to study them. Henry Bergh rages against the number of dogs killed during Louis Pasteur’s development of a rabies vaccine, but he supports the killing of dogs by a scientist attempting to disprove the existence of rabies. At times, it seems that animal rights advocates were battling their own cognitive dissonance as much as they were fighting systemic greed.
Many reformers drew strength from the belief that “moral truths can be perceived intuitively by the human mind,” that they needed only to educate the public about animal cruelty to engage the “gut-level revulsion to suffering, instilled by God.” Wasik and Murphy also center empathy (minus the tinge of religiosity) in the structure of Our Kindred Creatures. Most chapters begin with an anecdote about a single species or individual — passenger pigeons, the urban horse, beluga whales, Jumbo the elephant — to evoke the reader’s compassion. Conversely, the authors cite a failure of imagination, empathy’s close cousin, as the reason the reformers “could not confront the slaughterhouses,” where tourists willingly came to witness the bloody spectacle of modern meat processing: “The reality
Name: BEATRICE
Age: 4 years
Weight: 56 lbs
Introducing Beatrice!
of them simply could not be reconciled within their worldview.”
The reader might expect sections called “Beachheads” and “Standoffs” to lead to a third called “Victory” or “Defeat.” However, the authors cite the ongoing industrial-scale cruelty and suffering inflicted in slaughterhouses and on factory farms to argue that the fight for animal rights must continue today. Implicit and explicit parallels between the Gilded Age and the early 21st century abound in the book: the wealth gap, fears about immigration, controversy over the ever-shifting line between the government’s role and individual rights.
Wasik and Murphy point out that despite such divisive conditions, the 19th-century reformers succeeded in expanding Americans’ circle of care. They exhort their readers to make a similar “collective leap of imagination” to end the invisible suffering of our meat animals. Through both its structure and content, Our Kindred Creatures follows the blueprint of the early reformers in order to engage readers’ empathy and challenge them to “reckon with the moral obligations we have to all the creatures around us.”
For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.▼
Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals
By Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy Knopf 464 pages, $35
Wasik and Murphy will discuss their book at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at The Bookshop
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Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.
EVENTS
PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENT FOR TICKETS & UPDATES
THURSDAY, MAY 23 6:30PM RUTH WARE at NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY One Perfect Couple
SATURDAY, MAY 23 10:30AM
SATURDAY STORYTIME with BREE SUNSHINE SMITH at PARNASSUS Wally Takes a Weather Walk
SATURDAY, JUNE 1 10:30AM
SATURDAY STORYTIME with MAGGIE & ROSALIND BUNN at PARNASSUS All Aboard, Tennessee
SATURDAY, JUNE 8 4:30PM
NASHVILLE SOUNDS PRIDE NIGHT BOOK FAIR at FIRST HORIZON PARK 6:30AM LISA WINGATE at PARNASSUS Shelterwood
TUESDAY, JUNE 11 6:30PM MELISSA COLLINGS with LAUREN
Papa Turney’s and Carol Ann’s make space in Nashville for old-school
THERE REMAIN SUBSTANTIAL audiences for the blues, traditional R&B and soul music, and these artists have an enormous influence on new music, even though they no longer have songs in the Top 40 and seldom get airplay on contemporary corporate radio. Increasingly, the best places to hear them are the sites that have always been a welcome haven: family-owned venues that double as bars and restaurants. Nashville has two such places where shows and jam sessions are regularly held: Papa Turney’s BBQ and Miss Zeke’s Juke Joint, and Carol Ann’s Home Cooking Café. Each offers its own cuisine that’s near and dear to many blues, R&B and soul fans — Papa Turney’s specializes in barbecue, while Carol Ann’s spotlights soul food on a menu that rotates daily. Both emphasize the comfortable, down-home feeling that’s a bedrock element of lyrics and performances in these musical traditions. The jam sessions and concerts held at both locations attract many of the city’s best in the idioms of blues, R&B and soul, and there are ample opportunities to see regional acts and, periodically,
national ones as well.
Papa Turney’s and Miss Zeke’s was cofounded by married couple Mike and Gwatholyn Turney (aka Miss Zeke), whose operation began as a food truck. Their spot by the lake hosts blues jams on Wednesday and Saturday nights, and they have live music every day they’re open, Wednesday through Saturday.
“We started having blues shows 10 years ago,” says “Papa” Mike Turney. “We wanted a place where everyone from the novice to the seasoned professional could share their music, have a full backline, and not have to bring anything.”
Turney cites Chris Canas, Benny Latimore and Grammy-winning legend Bobby Rush among the memorable visits from nationally known performers who’ve graced their stage. Local favorites appear during the jams, including Terry “Goose” Downing, “Crooked Eye” Tommy Marsh and Lou Rodriguez. Saaneah, who appears on the compilation of Alice Randall’s songs My Black Country singing “Get the Hell Out of Dodge,” has the next night of her Soul Sundays residency on the books for May 26, while Jhett
Black kicks off a summer concert series on May 31. A date hasn’t been announced, but Turney is looking forward to hosting 17-year-old blues prodigy Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport as well.
Carol Ann Criswell Jenkins, who sadly passed away in 2016, and her daughter Farrah Bradley-Young launched Carol Ann’s Home Cooking Café in 2005. Ever since, their stage has seen a prodigious honor roll of performers, including the aforementioned Bobby Rush and the late Johnny Jones and Denise LaSalle among many more. The second Tuesday of each month is the regular date for their jam session, called Grown Folks Night, which was started in 2010 by Jimmy Church, a longtime Nashville star of R&B and soul. While Carol Ann’s features plenty of more modern styles of music including hiphop shows and neo-soul DJ nights, Grown Folks Night is all about looking to the roots — and that’s not genre-specific.
“Any music that is old-school is acceptable,” says Church. “It can even be rock ’n’ roll or whatever. The key is old-school music. … The performers have even come from other countries
to perform. Everyone is welcome, and there is no limit. The biggest thing I get from it is seeing the faces of different colors coming together in sharing their joy.”
Papa Turney agrees that the sense of a shared experience is what makes the shows — jam sessions and ticketed concerts alike — at both venues so special.
“This place reaches past racial, spiritual and — on some days — emotional boundaries to accept the human family for what they are,” Turney says. “This jam will continue. It’s also attracting younger people who are into the oldschool music.” ▼
KIM RICHEY HAS a storied list of accomplishments in Nashville. She has written No.1 hits: “Nobody Wins” for Radney Foster, as well as “Believe Me Baby (I Lied)” for Trisha Yearwood, which earned Richey a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song. She’s also penned or co-written cuts by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Loveless and Brooks & Dunn, among many more. With the release of Every New Beginning on Friday, Richey demonstrates how artistic success and longevity come from picking the right collaborators and staying true to herself. Despite her consistently impressive songwriting, it might be surprising to hear that Richey does not have a particular writing practice.
“I’m terrible — I’m so lazy,” she says with a laugh. Richey finds that the co-writing process energizes her. “I love collaborating with other people. I’ve met some of my best friends through sitting down and writing songs. I can’t think of a better way to spend a day: with somebody whose company you really enjoy and
doing something creative.”
Richey, who grew up in Ohio, arrived in Nashville via Kentucky and Colorado. In the late 1980s, she worked at The Bluebird Cafe and played with the aforementioned Foster, Nashville rock ’n’ roll songsmith Bill Lloyd and sometimes with the pair’s eponymous country duo Foster & Lloyd. Later, Richey spent a five-year stint in London, but Nashville ultimately called her back.
“There’s no place like it,” says Richey. “As much as the city has changed, the music there is fantastic. There’s so much collaboration, so many world-class musicians there. Nashville has always seemed a bit more down-home and more community-minded.”
During COVID lockdown, Richey spent a lot of time reminiscing about her life, an experience she later found she shared with many others. As a result, the songs she selected for New Beginnings — some from her archives and some brand-new, like the irresistible bop “Joy Rider”
that she wrote with Aaron Lee Tasjan — focus on the past and the lessons we can learn from it.
The tour through Richey’s life begins with the bittersweet “Chapel Avenue.” She wrote the warm folk-rock tune with Don Henry, and it looks back at childhood with love and some regret. Richey played the song for her mother in the hospital shortly before she died. Though it’s a slower, gentler, more melancholy song than you might expect someone to pick to start a record, Richey wanted to feature it front and center because of how much it means to her, as she sings, “All the gold of yesterday / Is a debt I can’t repay.”
Ever one to give credit where it’s due, Richey extended our conversation to highlight the team that helped her bring the album to life. Producer and guitarist Doug Lancio “worked so hard on the tracking and guitars.” Richey was also excited to work with bassist Lex Price, of whom she’d been a longtime fan; you’ve heard Price with k.d. lang, among others. Richey met
Every New Beginning out Friday, May 24, via Yep Roc Playing June 11
multi-instrumentalist Dan Mitchell for the first time while working on her 2010 album Wreck Your Wheels, and “I don’t think now I would make a record without him,” she says. “He’s a beautiful singer.” Neilson Hubbard taught himself to play drums while on tour with Richey, and he adds his distinctive approach to New Beginnings. Savannah Buist and Katie Larson of The Accidentals added lovely flourishes as well, on violin and cello, respectively.
For Richey, collaboration is important because it’s about bringing out the best in everyone in the room. It’s less about picking your battles than pushing yourself and those you’re working with to find something that thrills all of you.
“The philosophy for me is to not settle, not just have something that’s good enough,” Richey says. “I don’t think collaborating means rolling over and you don’t have a sense of yourself. If you’re confident in yourself, then it’s easier to collaborate. I do like collaborating with other people, but I don’t settle.” ▼
“THE PRESS IS telling us lies. We will not tolerate fear. We will not tolerate you.”
Speaking over the backdrop of his beats during his set Saturday at Drkmttr, Nashville hiphop champion R.A.P. Ferreira’s voice was almost too soft for the weight of his statement.
his undeniable presence. The enigmatic MC’s rap style was as lively as his fashion sense, and he effortlessly pulled the crowd toward him. On “Heavy Crown” and “Inna Di Dance,” two songs from his 2015 LP Lemonade, Cav’s rapid-fire flow reminded me of Daveed Diggs’ star turn as the Marquis de Lafayette in Hamilton “I rap about this because it’s sustainable,” Cavalier said, rolling through the repetition-heavy single “Pears” to finish his set. “These raps are my past but this right here is my future.”
Thursday, May 23
EXHIBIT OPENING RECEPTION
Lori Field
Saints, Tigers, Warriors, Lovers, Flowers
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm · HALEY GALLERY
Saturday, May 25
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Saturday, May 25
SONGWRITER ROUND Songs of Eric Church
Luke Dick, Jeff Hyde, and Driver Williams
NOON · FORD THEATER
LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Saturday, May 25
CONVERSATION AND PERFORMANCE
Meet the Eric Church Band
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Friday, May 31 BOOK TALK
Broadcasting the Ozarks
with authors Kitty Ledbetter and Scott Foster Siman 11:00 am
TAYLOR SWIFT EDUCATION CENTER
Saturday, June 1
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Saturday, June 1
SONGWRITER SESSION
Leslie Satcher
NOON · FORD THEATER
The widely traveled MC, producer, co-founder of rap collective and indie label Ruby Yacht and owner of Soulfolks Records and Tapes put down roots in Music City a few years back, and he was wrapping up a run of dates with New Orleans-by-way-of-Brooklyn rapper Cavalier. The pair teamed up on the Dignity & Pride Tour to put a spotlight on the importance of their work as poets in an increasingly foreboding world brimming with misinformation and disinformation, in which it’s harder for artists to make a living. The message echoes the themes of Ferreira’s latest album: The First Fist to Make Contact When We Dap, a collaboration with Japanese producer Fumitake Tamura, defiantly challenges monolithic concepts of identity amid reflections on Nashville and Tamura’s home country.
Saturday wasn’t Ferreira’s first visit to the venue, an all-ages spot that has been a boon to Nashville’s underground music scenes with a wide range of shows and community events since it opened its doors at its original location in 2015. The Drkmttr crew recently began the process to become a federally recognized nonprofit and launched a successful fundraiser to help them keep going while the approval process plays out. The independent venue has an intimate atmosphere, with elements like binder-clipped curtains and its signature moon backdrop that convey a DIY spirit; like Ferreira himself, Drkmttr resonates with artists and its diverse, all-ages audience.
Throughout his catalog, including his most recent LP Different Type Time, his rhymes are a bridge between meditative hip-hop, NOLA jazz and deep Southern blues, with every bass line, saxophone melody and keyboard phrase emphasizing the MC’s emotional intent.
Ferriera casually took the stage and switched up the vibe entirely. What had been a modest crowd seemed to grow to a throng instantaneously, as if his never-cluttered beats and poignant bars — part of the sonic signature he has
crafted from elements of jazz and spoken-word poetry, which ranges widely but he always makes his own — had conjured the audience out of thin air. The lo-fi-inspired “Begonias” and darkly funky “Bending Corners,” two First Fist songs, segued together as the MC held the crowd spellbound, despite occasional tussles with “his nemesis” (as he described technical difficulties with his mic).
Opening the evening was Tulsa, Okla., singer and rapper Johnny Polygon. He’s a good man with some bad habits — or that’s the theme of his discography, anyway. His introspective music, which approaches a fascinating intersection of darkwave and R&B, leans into his journey to sobriety (he recently celebrated one year of being sober) with sweeping falsettos and deeply honest rhymes you can’t help but sway to. The whimsical melody of “Whoa Is Me” seamlessly segued into the narrative introduction of “Bad Habits,” at which point Polygon halted the beat. Only after someone shouted, “Run it back!” did he resume his set with a collected, commanding energy akin to James Blake.
During the intermission, a remix of Fergie’s “Glamorous” filled the air. A few minutes later, sporting a gold grill and ruby-hued cowboy boots, Cavalier drew all eyes to the stage with
“Diogenes on an Auction Block” commented on racism in America and the South while calling out the effect of commercialism in music on the ability of art to do its job in demanding change, as he rapped passionately: “Very difficult not reacting to things / Especially the ones that aren’t happening / If it all becomes description, why does the problem persist? / Political spectrum be ‘Sprite or Sierra Mist,’ it’s disgusting.” He closed the show with “47 Rockets Taped to My Chair,” a First Fist standout dedicated to Palestinian professor and activist Refaat Alareer. Earlier, “East Nashville” — which includes the unstoppable chant “R.A.P. Ferreira / And I will rap forever” — opened a window into the whirlwind that life can be for an MC who spends so much time on the road. (After a few days off, he’ll be in Canada before heading to the U.K.) But it seems like he’s feeling at home in Nashville, making our network of hip-hop scenes even more vibrant while he enriches independent music all over. ▼
Babes is the buddy-baby comedy we need and deserveBY SADAF AHSAN
IF THE OPENING of Babes — co-written by Ilana Glazer (Broad City) and Josh Rabinowitz and directed by Pamela Adlon (Better Things) in her feature directorial debut — doesn’t have you in a fit of laughter, it may not be for you. It is, essentially, a 10-minute childbirth scene. Bear with me.
Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau, Survival of the Thickest) kick it off on the morning of Thanksgiving, at the movies, which has been their annual tradition for 27 years. Longtime best friends, they share everything. As the movie begins, Dawn notices her seat is wet. So is the next one she jumps to, and the next one. As her doctor informs her over the phone, she is in labor.
Still, the two head to a restaurant and order everything, because — fun fact — hospitals don’t always allow food inside. Dawn continues to drip all along the restaurant floor, while Eden periodically checks Dawn’s dilation levels under her skirt. Finally, the besties hightail it in an Uber to the hospital, where Dawn crawls in pain across the floor. With her husband Marty (Hasan Minhaj) by her side, she screams her way through birth. It’s a hilarious sequence loaded with one-liners, slapstick and crackling chemistry between Glazer and Buteau, who have a natural, charming dynamic.
It also excellently sets up the rest of the film, which easily maintains that tempo and offers up a consistent supply of bodily fluids — including poop, period blood, (squirting) breast milk and “random vagina waters,” which is “not piss, it’s not sweat, it’s just like a proper mix, like salad dressing,” in the words of Dawn.
All that, by the way, is to the film’s favor. As Babes follows the friendship between Dawn, who now has a second baby, and Eden, who
soon finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a one-night stand, it never once veers from the gnarlier parts of making and having a baby — whether that’s the physiology of it all, or the messy feelings one experiences as a new mom trying to maintain all the relationships in her life as she builds a new one with her baby. It’s a miraculous marriage of Glazer’s (and former co-star/co-creator Abbi Jacobson’s) electric bestfriend sitcom Broad City and Adlon’s phenomenal and underrated mother-daughters sitcom Better Things. It blends the hijinks of the former show with a healthy dose of Adlon’s deadpan realism.
What the pair manages to deliver is not just endless belly laughs, but a cold awakening — one that a lot of young women seem to be experiencing in the real world at the moment. Unlike wistful comedies of yore, it’s more realistic in its depiction of how much more work falls on the mother than the father, and how difficult it can be moving forward in life as a single person among coupled-up friends who’ve escaped to the suburbs. The period blood and random vagina waters makes this all easier to digest, oddly enough. As a nice side dish, Babes also gives us the handsome love interests we deserve: the enraptured Minhaj and a swoon-worthy Stephan James as Eden’s one-nighter. (Glen Powell who?) There are some delightful ensemble players here, too — particularly John Carroll Lynch as Eden’s doctor with a perpetually unfortunate comb-over, and Oliver Platt as her germaphobe father.
Now, you could argue that a comedy about the repercussions of becoming accidentally pregnant is poorly timed, what with the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and the reignited war over women’s rights. But as a sweet little
look into how new motherhood intersects with adult friendship, it feels like the kind of thing the child-bearing community might need, enjoy and find validation in right now.
After all, friendship is what makes all of these realities easier to process, as corny as it might seem. To help Eden through her decision to keep her child, Dawn holds a pregnancy photo shoot, wrapping her bestie in a mosquito net and asking her to serve “shy whore” for the camera. (Effective!) Meanwhile, Eden helps Dawn get out her aggression with having too much to juggle by breaking stuff and setting a fire, as one does. As the duo’s baby journeys only get tougher, their friendship is tested — but like a good romcom, there’s no doubt they’ll find their way back to each other. As Eden says, “We are family, sisters, spouses, parents to each other at times!”
In fact, while Hollywood has struggled remarkably to revive the devastatingly dead romcom charm of the ’80s and ’90s, it has managed to inject that electricity into many a buddy comedy since — from Booksmart, Girls Trip and Bridesmaids, all the way to The Nice Guys and The Hangover. It kinda makes sense: You can find romance in your friendships too, as Babes reminds us again and again, whether that looks like grand gestures, light flirtation or raising a kid together as a modern family. ▼
Babes R, 109 minutes
Opening Thursday, May 23, at the Belcourt and AMC Thoroughbred 20
Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...
30
33
43
51 Director Johnson
53 *Ovid of Greek mythology
58 Verizon sale of 2021
59 Greet the day
60 Roundup sounds
62 You might need a lift to do this
63 Thrice-remade movie … or, when parsed as six words, a hint to the theme clues in this puzzle
67 First name in objectivism
68 Horace’s “Ars ___”
69 Hosp. scan
70 Faddish 1990s disk
71 Like some coding loops and measuring cups
1 Does like
72 Not wavering DOWN
2 It follows the Hijri calendar
3 Saber-toothed tiger in the “Ice Age” movies
4 Summer setting in S.F.
5 Bloomers worn around one’s head?
6 Visitor from a faraway place
7 Alice with a Nobel Prize in Literature
8 Words before time or story
9 Roguish sorts
10 *Assist in a foursome
11 One way to run
12 Anna May ___, Hollywood’s first Chinese American film celebrity
15 Naturally competitive
18 Musical with Rum Tum Tugger and Mungojerrie
24 Winter frost
25 For grades K-12
26 Superman portrayer
27 Athlete with the only vertically mounted marker on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so his holy name is not walked upon
30 “Don’t ___”
31 Half of dodici
32 *Ascent stage for a bird
34 Sightsee?
35 Name that’s an anagram of BREAD
37 Be beholden to
38 Clear
41 Attachment to a bit
42 Graceful horse
45 Seek retribution, in a way
49 Small brawl
50 Joint, so to speak
52 Deadened
53 2020 Olympics site
54 Perfume name with an accent
55 Milk sources
56 Devices with shuttles
57 Peter of 1934’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much”
58 “Yesterday!”
61 Cross fit?
64 Gradually slower, in music: Abbr.
65 Suffix with coward
66 Heavy-hearted
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