Nashville Scene 6-25-20

CITY LIMITS: COVID-19 IS HITTING HISPANIC NASHVILLIANS HARD

JUNE 25–JULY 1, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 21 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

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MUSIC: BLUEGRASS PRIDE’S INCLUSIVE PROGRAMMING LANDS ON THE WEB PAGE 22

INSIDE: An excerpt from The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging

CAFÉ RAKKA OWNER RIYAD ALKASEM (LEFT) WITH AUTHOR JORDAN RITTER CONN

HOME, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT THE FORTHCOMING BOOK THE ROAD FROM RAQQA TELLS A LOCAL IMMIGRANT’S STORY OF BROTHERHOOD AND BELONGING BY ERICA CICCARONE cover_6-25-20.indd 1

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

JUNE 25, 2020

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21

Fresh Off Defeat, Budget Coalition Looks to Next Year ................................................7

Western Medicine ................................... 21

CITY LIMITS

Advocates for reallocating Metro police funds don’t plan to give up on their efforts

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

COVID-19 Is Hitting Hispanic Nashvillians Hard, but the Reopening Isn’t Slowing Down ...........................................................7

MUSIC

Nashville power trio Country Westerns’ selftitled first LP is worth the wait

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

Being the Vessel ...................................... 22 Becca Mancari carries a heavy weight gracefully on The Greatest Part

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

Around 30 percent of Nashvillians who have tested positive for COVID-19 have been Hispanic

The ’Grass Grows .................................... 22

BY STEVEN HALE

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

Nashville Byline: The Scorcher Turned Farmer ........................................................8

The Spin ................................................... 23

Porch Pride brings Bluegrass Pride’s inclusive programming to the web

Nashville rockabilly legend Jason Ringenberg and his evolution to Farmer Jason

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Far Out Fest and the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival

BY RADLEY BALKO

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN AND RON WYNN

Pith in the Wind .........................................9 This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

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THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: Americana Music Association Announces Thriving Roots Virtual Conference Tennessean Apologizes for ‘Indefensible’Ad Featuring Islamophobic ‘Prophecy’ Stadium-Adjacent Restaurant Third and Home Opens This Week in Germantown Shop Hop: Six LGBTQsupporting retailers, artists and organizations to support

ON THE COVER:

Café Rakka owner Riyad Alkasem (left) with author Jordan Ritter Conn Photo by Eric England

FILM

Primal Stream XIV .................................. 24

COVER STORY

The latest from Spike Lee and lots of queer cinema, now available to stream

The forthcoming book The Road From Raqqa tells a local immigrant’s story of brotherhood and belonging

BY JASON SHAWHAN

Home, or Something Like It

BY ERICA CICCARONE

Too Marvelous for Words ........................ 25 Leslie Woodhead’s new documentary offers a powerful portrait of Ella Fitzgerald

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BY RON WYNN

Celebrate Anthony Bourdain’s birthday, stream performances from London’s Globe Theatre, embrace the cringe that is 90 Day Fiancé, send someone Cupcake Collection cupcakes, watch some radical Black films on YouTube and Vimeo, and more

BY CORY WOODROOF

Swing Vote ............................................... 25 Irresistible cuts deep into problematic election culture

CRITICS’ PICKS

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27

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

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MARKETPLACE

FOOD AND DRINK

Sugar Shock: How Sweet It Is HiFi Cookies will finally celebrate the grand opening of its East Nashville retail space

BY MEGAN SELING

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BOOKS

A Sexy, Impressionistic Feast Leesa Cross-Smith’s story collection makes a joyful statement

BY SUSANNAH FELTS AND CHAPTER 16

Walk a

With feet on the street, we discover Nashville’s own unique beat – one mile at a time

Mile

with J.R. Lind

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FROM BILL FREEMAN NASHVILLE FAIRGROUNDS SPEEDWAY’S RACE THIS SATURDAY, AND ITS RICH HISTORY I was delighted to hear the recent news that racing is returning to the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Saturday!

The last race, the All American 400, was held all the way back in November. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, races — like so many other fun activities — have been repeatedly postponed. But Metro officials have given the green flag for a race this weekend.

The Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is the second-oldest racetrack in operation today in the United States, and it has played host to many famous races and drivers. Established in 1904 as a dirt track, it hosted harness horse races, motorcycle races and “horseless carriage” races.

The track was paved in 1958 and began to host NASCAR races, which continued through 1984. Later in the ’80s, late-model stock cars came along, bringing celebrity drivers like Bobby Allison, Jeff Green, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt to our track. The Speedway has hosted the ARCA racing series, the Craftsman Truck Series, the Busch Series and others — it is also one of the rare half-mile tracks left in the world of stock-car racing. Little wonder it’s been reported that the track is one of five in the nation that race fans want NASCAR to bring back.

Many of us still have fond memories of attending the races at the Speedway with our families. In my case, you might even say it was a Freeman family tradition.

The night air, the carnival-style food and the finely tuned engines enthralled us and made us fans.

The early 2000s brought more change to the Speedway, with many of the bigger races moving to the Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon. A shifting race schedule left fans seeking their race entertainment elsewhere. The political fights over who would control the racetrack started to drive off the largername races, NASCAR included.

In 2017, Major League Soccer began looking for a home in Nashville for an expansion team — and they were looking to The Fairgrounds Nashville. At the same time that MLS was looking to improve the fairgrounds and proposing the added soccer stadium, there were still many decisions that needed to be made pertaining to the Speedway. Should it remain? Historic or not, how could it remain if there were no races large enough to draw in spectators?

Thankfully, we’ve had some very avid racing fans and advocates working with the city to try to preserve the Speedway.

One of those advocates was former track promoter Tony Formosa, who in recent years met with Nashville city officials and NASCAR officials, even partnering with Speedway Motorsports with the common goal of bringing NASCAR-sanctioned events back to the track.

Though Formosa is no longer at The Fairgrounds Nashville, his dream for the Speedway to come back to life may soon come true. Bob Sargent of Track Enterprises, who previously promoted ARCA races at the Nashville track, has been awarded a one-year contract

to promote races at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway — and thus this weekend’s race kicking things off.

Sargent is also quite interested in improving the Speedway and seeing NASCAR return. He says he’s just waiting to see what will happen, as last spring Speedway Motorsports Inc. sent the mayor a $60 million proposal to renovate the Speedway, double the Speedway’s capacity to 30,000 and provide other upgrades.

Nashville Soccer Club also presented plans for a 30,000-seat soccer stadium and development of the fairgrounds.

Mayor Cooper wanted the two projects to work in parallel. To that end, Nashville SC developed plans to accommodate the soccer stadium while still allowing room for the Speedway proposal/plans to be successful. The Tennessean recorded Mayor Cooper saying he was “super interested” in getting NASCAR events back once again, and now that MLS has the ball rolling, the Speedway could soon be getting its due.

Mayor Cooper has patiently waited for the right parties to come to the table, and for the right situation. He can obviously see the economic driver — pun intended — that racing will be for Nashville, especially if NASCAR does indeed return.

To me, the June 27 race is a sign of good things to come. Though the environment may be slightly different this time as the new promoters work to implement the best health practices, they’ve also added a few upgrades — like new paint, a new sound system, lights, handrails and more — to ensure everyone has an enjoyable experience. Just seeing the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway recapturing a little of its former glory and holding these races, and knowing NASCAR still has an interest in Nashville, I can’t help but feel excited. I’m going to call my boys to see if they’re ready to go!

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

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

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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

6/22/20 6:53 PM

MUSIC IS RESILIENCE

Watch & Listen This week on our Watch & Listen page, we’re focused on the ways music can lift us back up, again and again, when we’re met with setbacks and struggles.

Visit our website to explore videos that hinge on and recount resilience, including an interview with longstanding country quartet Little Big Town.

above:

Little Big Town

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS

FRESH OFF DEFEAT, BUDGET COALITION LOOKS TO NEXT YEAR

Advocates for reallocating Metro police funds don’t plan to give up on their efforts

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

F

or those newly engaged in local politics after a month of high-energy protests and organized actions, last week’s Metro Council budget debate was likely a disappointment.

A group calling itself the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition, made up of several long-standing community organizations, marshaled that new energy to the Metro Council: phone calls, emails, public testimony and rallies outside the Metro Courthouse, all asking the body to spend drastically less on policing. Their most optimistic proposal, carried by Councilmember Ginny Welsch of District 16, would have redirected more than $100 million from policing to social services and other priorities, but it failed to gain traction.

Smaller bites at the apple, including one from Councilmember Sean Parker, failed as well.

The coalition and other like-minded people were left hoping for the next best option: Budget Committee chair Bob Mendes’ alternative to Mayor John Cooper’s budget.

Mendes imagined keeping spending on Metro Police flat from the current year: no increase, but no reduction.

COVID-19 IS HITTING HISPANIC NASHVILLIANS HARD, BUT THE REOPENING ISN’T SLOWING DOWN Around 30 percent of Nashvillians who have tested positive for COVID-19 have been Hispanic

BY STEVEN HALE

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n June 16, the mayor’s office released a COVID-19 heatmap of active cases in Davidson County. It showed a collection of red hotspots in southeast Nashville — the heart of the city’s immigrant community. It was stark, but not new.

A separate heatmap — which included all active cases as well as those of people who have recovered or died — featured the same red mass identifying southeast Nashville as the local epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of

But the mayor and police representatives warned that eliminating the $2.6 million increase for police would result in the loss of an incoming class of 48 recruits. Their warnings were enough to convince a majority of councilmembers to support an amendment restoring the added police funds, leaving the People’s Budget Coalition with little to show for their advocacy efforts.

That doesn’t mean they’re demoralized, though: They started the conversation, and they have a group of councilmembers on their side.

“Although they didn’t listen to us this time, it’s changed the political weather,” says Dawn Harrington of Free Hearts, one of the coalition organizations. “It’s changed what is politically viable.”

She’s right: Increases to police funding in the past have been routine, and now a growing number of councilmembers agree, at least conceptually, that less could be spent on policing. Some of the councilmembers who back the coalition’s principles don’t think it’s feasible until there’s an infrastructure in place that can take on some current police responsibilities, like mental health emergencies and other calls that don’t necessitate weapons or force.

at least 87 people in Nashville. Metro’s figures, as of June 22, show that around 30 percent of Nashvillians who have tested positive for COVID-19 have been Hispanic. According to the latest census data, Hispanic people make up just more than 10 percent of the city’s population.

“I think we’re all worried,” Metro Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda, who represents the southeast’s District 30, tells the Scene. “We’re all a bit frustrated.

We have not seen the numbers in southeast get any better, and that means that what we have been doing hasn’t been working. Hopefully, we take this moment as a wake-up call and figure out other tangible solutions and work with community leaders and councilmembers from southeast to try to find those solutions.”

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition released a letter last week signed by 18 Latino-serving organizations. The letter called on state and local leaders to address the disproportionate impact on the communities they serve.

“Latino families are deeply rooted in the fabric of Tennessee communities and are doing essential work on the frontlines of this crisis,” reads the letter, “but deep structural and racial inequities in our health and economic systems are causing people of color to be infected with COVID-19 and die at higher rates.”

The coalition urged leaders to take several steps, including investing in “Spanish-speaking community health workers and case management programs” and strengthening and publicizing “policies to reassure immigrants that accessing care and services won’t result in immigration consequences.”

Councilmembers in the area have been urgently

“For me, it simply means limiting the scope of what an armed police officer will do and what handles which type of calls,” says District 29 Councilmember Delishia Porterfield. “If you relieve them of some of those duties that are not associated with their job, that frees them so you don’t have such a long wait when you do need an actual police officer to respond.”

District 2 Councilmember Kyontzè Toombs, vice chair of the Budget Committee, says it is important to engage with the mayor’s office earlier, because the mayor has more time with the budget than the council does due to the process set forth by the Metro Charter.

“That’s something you start working on now,” she says. “You can’t wait until after the mayor has proposed his budget. That’s something you start working on today and keep working on so when it’s budget season, there’s a plan in place.”

But the mayor’s actions during this budget process — using his primary negotiating effort to advocate for added police spending — left some advocates and councilmembers skeptical of his willingness to engage in

the conversation. Harrington said she was “shocked and energized” by the move, and that new participants in the process who felt betrayed were also energized, not demoralized, by the move.

“I don’t know what his intentions were, but for me specifically it felt like a slap in the face against the thousands of people that said they wanted to see their taxpayer dollars going into things like education and city services and social services,” says Councilmember Porterfield. “I understand why people are frustrated and why people feel as though we didn’t listen.”

The newly formed coalition is planning ongoing events and calls to action in the coming months in an effort to keep people engaged in the budget process and Metro government more generally. One benefit of the effort the past few weeks, says Cecilia Prado of Workers’ Dignity, is a growing unity among the people represented by the coalition organizations: immigrant rights activists, Black Lives Matter and more.

“We have the people on our side, and the people have spoken,” says Prado.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

“ALTHOUGH THEY DIDN’T LISTEN TO US THIS TIME, IT’S CHANGED THE POLITICAL WEATHER. IT’S CHANGED WHAT IS POLITICALLY VIABLE.”

— DAWN HARRINGTON, THE NASHVILLE PEOPLE’S BUDGET COALITION

seeking more data on how and where the virus is being transmitted, along with aiding the response in their own communities.

“I heard from a community member the other day asking if we had more face masks because there was an outbreak in an apartment complex,” Sepulveda says.

“I asked what apartment complex, and it turned out to be one in my district. I had no idea that was going on. So then I had to scramble to find more face masks.”

Earlier this week, Mayor John Cooper and his COVID-19 task force decided to move into phase three of the city’s reopening plan, despite this and other alarming trends. Two of the six key metrics highlighted by the task force remain yellow, or less than satisfactory — transmission rate and the 14-day new case trend. Earlier this month, the Metro Public Health Department issued citations to 14 local businesses — including Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse — for failure to comply with public health emergency orders designed to slow the spread of the virus.

Phase three — which Cooper said will remain in effect for four weeks — allows restaurants to open to 75 percent capacity and bars to open at 50 percent of capacity with six feet between customers. Small venues can also open for live music, with capacity capped at 250 people.

Sepulveda says her constituents continue to report low face mask usage at grocery stores, and that she’s heard increasing reports of construction workers getting sick. She is one of a number of councilmembers who question the decision to move into phase three.

“I feel like it is too soon,” she says. “It honestly

feels like it’s too soon. I know many of the southeast councilmembers, we were hoping to get our numbers under control quite a bit before we moved into another phase. We don’t want to feel ignored, and we shouldn’t feel rushed to do this.”

At a briefing on June 22 marking the beginning of phase three — and including an announcement of 139 new cases in 24 hours — Cooper said the task force’s work so far leads it to believe increased activity can be safe if done with caution.

“After over 7,000 contact-tracing investigations,” said Cooper, “we’ve learned that the disease is not necessarily spreading because of Nashvillians shopping or going to church or to grocery stores or to local retail establishments, outdoor activities, hair salons or to other businesses that are taking safe precautions. Limiting the spread of the disease is about maintaining a safe social distance from others and wearing a mask.”

Dr. Alex Jahangir, who chairs the task force, encouraged Nashvillians to withhold their business from restaurants and stores where employees aren’t wearing masks or practicing social distancing. He told reporters there was no disagreement on the task force about moving forward with phase three.

But there continues to be disagreement from other city leaders. Responding on Twitter to the mayor’s comment that while the 14-day new case average was trending upward, hospital capacity was still in “good shape,” Fairgrounds Nashvillearea Councilmember Colby Sledge wrote: “Your government doesn’t want you to be well. They just want you to know a bed is waiting when you get sick.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS NASHVILLE BYLINE

THE SCORCHER TURNED FARMER Nashville rockabilly legend Jason Ringenberg and his evolution to Farmer Jason

BY RADLEY BALKO Radley Balko is a journalist who covers criminal justice and more for The Washington Post. He is author of the books The Rise of the Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist. With his ongoing series Nashville Byline, he’ll profile fascinating characters, businesses and other parts of Nashville.

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

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t’s hard to imagine what must have gone through a 1980s audience’s collective mind upon seeing Jason and the Scorchers for the first time.

There are video recordings of some of those shows. Guitarist Warner Hodges was typically dressed as if he were filling in for Black Sabbath. Bassist Jeff Johnson looked decked out for a gig with The Buggles. Drummer Perry Baggs looked as if he’d just subbed in for a Sex Pistols show.

And then there was frontman Jason Ringenberg. Clean-cut and skinny with trimmed sideburns, he was charming, with a farm-boy handsomeness, and would take the stage in a cowboy hat, bolo tie and a shiny shirt or jacket bedecked with Western flair.

In a video of a 1985 show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J., the band begins with a kinetic blast of sound as Baggs and Johnson lay down a driving, Ramones-like rhythm. Hodges, dressed all in black, spins, kicks and and spits out meaty riffs from his guitar, all with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Ringenberg squawks, preens and flops around the stage, filling the mic with a tinny but charismatic voice that lands somewhere between Mick Jagger, Joe Strummer and Brian Setzer.

Just a few bars in, you can almost hear those in the crowd turn to one another. Are they playing … Hank Williams?!

People who saw the Scorchers play at places like Cantrell’s or Exit/In in those days will still insist they’re Nashville’s best band who never made it big. Those frenetic ’80s shows built the band a loyal following, and their early albums won raves from far-fromNashville publications including The Village Voice. But the band never had a breakout hit.

“We actually make more money from reunion shows than we ever made back then,” says Ringenberg. He’s speaking via phone from his farm west of Nashville in the unincorporated town of Bon Aqua. “I don’t think we ever made more than a hundred dollars a week.”

If you’re into city folklore, you’ll know the reason they never made it — the “Nashville Curse.” Ringenberg’s outfit was originally

called Jason and the Nashville Scorchers.

Upon the band’s first big record deal with EMI, the label’s marketing team persuaded the band to drop the “Nashville” so they wouldn’t be pigeonholed as a country act.

Not only did the Scorchers never make it big, no rock band from Nashville would have a platinum album for more than two decades.

Ringenberg says he does regret the name change. “You know, that was something we regretted all the way through,” he says.

“Looking back, you’re changing your name because the record companies suggested it.

I mean, that’s ridiculous. I wish we hadn’t done it.”

But he offers a more practical reason why the band never broke through. “At the time, we thought we were going to be the next

Rolling Stones. It just wasn’t the right time for us. The Georgia Satellites had ‘Keep Your Hands to Yourself’ a couple years after us, and then the rockabilly thing took off. So I sometimes think we just missed our window. But looking back, I also think we were just too odd and strange and different for that particular time and place.”

Ringenberg grew up on a farm in Illinois. He enrolled at Southern Illinois University to study history, but dropped out in 1981 to pursue his music career. After considering moves to London, New York and Los Angeles, he ultimately chose to relocate to Nashville.

“I was into Dylan at the time, who had recorded here,” he says. “And guys like Bobby Bare, Roy Orbison, John Prine. Nashville just seemed like the right fit.”

Despite the city’s pop-culture moment in the late 1960s and early 1970s — Dylan recording Blonde on Blonde (1966) and Nashville Skyline (1969) in town, the nationally broadcast Johnny Cash Show, the 1975 Robert Altman movie — Ringenberg found the city a little sleepy.

“The ’70s was a really exciting time here,” Ringenberg says. “But by the early ’80s it was dead, man. It was really dead. There were some sort of holdovers from the outlawcountry people, but there was almost no original rock ’n’ roll happening. It was so dead in that field. And that’s what I stepped into.”

Ringenberg formed the band a few months later. They quickly made a name for themselves in town by belting out fast-paced punk covers of popular country songs. “I was also really into first-wave punk back

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

CITY LIMITS

then,” he says. “And we were having some success with that.” The band put out its first EP in 1982, Reckless Country Soul, which earned them more acclaim as well as shows opening for R.E.M. It also got them the contract with EMI. The band’s first big label release, an EP called Fervor, received critical acclaim.

That was due in large part to their frenzied cover of Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” Ringenberg says he had to trick his band into playing it. “I was the only one in the band who really liked Dylan,” he says.

“Warner didn’t like him at all. The other guys hadn’t really listened to him. I knew Warner’s guitar and Perry’s drums would be perfect for that melody. But I also knew they’d never play it if I told them it was a Dylan song. So I told them I wrote it. And it was instant. They just kicked right into it, and it blew up. I don’t even know when they figured out it wasn’t an original song.”

Ringenberg and Hodges were the band’s primary creative forces, each of them pushing the Scorchers in opposing directions.

Hodges was an AC/DC fan, and moved the band toward an ’80s metal sound. Ringenberg nudged them toward cow punk and rockabilly. At their best — their covers of “Sweet Marie” and “19th Nervous Breakdown” and originals like “White Lies,” “Broken Whiskey Glass,” “Blanket of Sorrow” and “Hot Nights in Georgia” — the two brought out the best in each other, and created something

truly unique for its time. They made punk with twang — and a touch of literacy. (A UPI article from 1985 notes that Hodges and Ringenberg were both news junkies, and often watched The MacNeil/Lehrer Report together while on the road.)

“There was an interesting competitive edge between me and Warner, you know, whose vision was going to be predominant,” Ringenberg says. “And it wasn’t a negative thing. It was just kind of who we were. We both had strong creative visions. And it worked well for us.”

The New York Times wrote in 1984 that Ringenberg’s lyrics offered “intelligent new twists on time-honored country subjects,” and found the live set the band played at Irving Plaza “gleefully, explosively danceable.”

But Jason and the Scorchers’ continued critical success was never matched with commercial success. After a few more albums, the Scorchers disbanded in 1990 when Baggs was diagnosed with diabetes and could no longer tour. They toured again with him in the mid-’90s when his health improved, and then a couple more times without him as his health declined again.

Baggs died in 2012 due to complications from the disease. “So much of the focus was on me and Warner, but without Jeff and Perry, there would have never been a Jason and the Scorchers,” Ringenberg says.

“Perry was possibly the most broadly tal-

ented musician in the band. He was a great singer. A great songwriter who could play guitar better than me. He had great arrangement ideas. He had this great spark and sparkle to whatever he played and whatever he did. We played with some really talented drummers since he got sick. But you can’t replace Perry Baggs.”

In 1997, Ringenberg married his second wife Suzie, at the time a manager at rock club 12th & Porter. The two eventually bought the farm in Bon Aqua where they live now. Five years later, Ringenberg created Farmer Jason — his second act.

“We had two young kids at the time, and they would listen to the same songs over and over again, all day,” Ringenberg says. “It was just fascinating to me, you know? How a 3-year-old can hear the same song all day.

And I thought, ‘I’d like to do this! I’d like to have kids listen to me all day.’ ” Ringenberg created the persona Farmer Jason and began writing songs for kids about animals, farming and nature. The act blew up. Within a few years, Ringenberg was playing 300 shows per year and producing an Emmy-winning children’s show on PBS. “I was around 40 or so when Farmer Jason started. It was so cool to be that age, with my experience, doing a brand-new character. It wasn’t like doing a solo record or a new band. This was a brand-new thing.

It was so fascinating to learn how to do that.”

Soon, the founder of the most underrated rock band ever to hail from Nashville was selling out theaters, including one on Broadway, singing about a moose on the run, a punk rock skunk, and a tractor that goes “chug, chug, chug.”

“Every single show I did for the first seven or eight years as Farmer Jason, I learned something,” Ringenberg says. “It was always such a cool experience to figure out how to entertain children. At a rock ’n’ roll show, you can take a minute to tune your guitar or check your set list. When you’re playing for kids, I go back to the little harmonica table and get a drink of water or tune my guitar, they’re just going to walk away! They’ll immediately forget why they’re there and just quit. So I learned that you have to be on every single second when you’re in front of kids. Every second!”

Ringenberg does fewer shows as Farmer Jason these days. He had drifted from music altogether until, out of the blue, he was offered an artist-in-residence position with the Sequoia National Forest just a few years ago. Ringenberg stayed in a cabin with no electricity or running water, hiked and produced Standing Tall, his most recent album.

Today the Nashville Curse is long gone.

Franklin natives Paramore went platinum more than a decade ago, and artists including Jack White, Jason Isbell, Kings of Leon and The Black Keys set up shop here many years ago. Rockabilly, cow punk and altcountry are far from fringe, and many of the artists dominant in those genres claim the Scorchers as an influence. In 2001, the band was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2008, they were presented with a Lifetime Achievement in Performance Award by the Americana Music Association.

Not quite The Rolling Stones — but not a bad legacy for a farm kid from Illinois.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: After weeks of mounting pressure and a call from numerous Metro councilmembers for his resignation, Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson announced he will indeed end his tenure as Nashville’s top cop and retire after 45 years. Anderson has resisted changes to the department’s policing strategies in recent years, rejecting the conclusions of the 2017 Gideon’s Army “Driving While Black” report, opposing the creation of the Community Oversight Board and, according to the COB, failing to fully cooperate with it. Mayor John Cooper said there will be a “national search” for Anderson’s successor. …

The Tennessee House and Senate struck a deal in the wee hours of June 19 to pass a revised state budget. The $39.43 billion budget plan cuts hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget passed in March, itself a major reduction from the budget originally proposed by Gov. Bill Lee before the coronavirus reached Tennessee.

Though Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and other Senate leaders vowed the upper chamber would not consider any legislation unrelated to the budget or the pandemic, under the deal struck with the House, the Senate did pass the controversial and litigation-inviting “heartbeat abortion bill” as well as a proposal from House Speaker Cameron Sexton that makes unauthorized camping on state property a felony punishable by 30 days in jail. The latter bill — a response to the ongoing so-called “autonomous zone” on Legislative Plaza organized by camped-out protesters — also applies to the homeless, Sexton conceded. … The Metro Council passed a budget of its own, built around the substitute spending plan proposed by Councilmember Bob Mendes. Under the plan, the property tax rate will increase by $1.066. Mendes’ proposal also tweaks some spending in the budget laid out by Cooper. Some proposed and ultimately defeated amendments would have adopted some of the proposals of the People’s Budget Coalition. Councilmember Ginny Welsch, for example, proposed a $110 million combined reduction in spending on the Metro Nashville Police Department and Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, with those funds allocated instead to affordable housing, transit, homelessness services and other priorities. … The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against an effort by the Trump administration to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Local DACA recipients were universally elated and relieved. “I don’t even know what to do, how to express my happiness,” one told Pith’s Alejandro Ramirez. … State House Republicans refused to pass a resolution in memory of Ashanti Harris, a high school athlete shot and killed April 9. House Majority Leader William Lamberth blocked the legislation based on an unfounded allegation that Harris possessed a small amount of marijuana at the time of her death. … A full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of The Tennessean relayed a “prophecy” from early Seventh-Day Adventist Ellen White that Nashville would be attacked July 18. According to the ad-buyers, it will come via nuclear weapon delivered “by Islam.” Tennessean brass repudiated the ad, launched an “investigation” and announced Monday that an ad manager was fired, the money refunded and a donation made to a Muslim advocacy group.

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

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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THE FORTHCOMING BOOK THE ROAD FROM RAQQA TELLS A LOCAL IMMIGRANT’S STORY OF BROTHERHOOD AND BELONGING

BY ERICA CICCARONE

CAFE RAKKA OWNER RIYAD ALKASEM (LEFT) WITH AUTHOR JORDAN RITTER CONN

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

HOW DID YOU MEET RIYAD AND FIND THIS STORY?

be able to help me. … I went up there and met with Riyad, and he helped me translate those interviews. And then we ended up just talking for hours and kept in touch for a while after that. I ended up writing about his experience of the 2016 election for The Ringer. … The more he told me about his family and about Bashar, the more I felt like there was really a book here.

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO WRITE? WAS RIYAD ENCOURAGING? I remember very early on, his wife Linda off-handedly, almost jokingly, made a comment about me writing a book about Riyad. And honestly, at that point, it had already been in my mind … for most of 2015, but I did not talk to him about it until after I wrote about him for The Ringer. I think after I wrote that story, he was able to see what it would be like to have some intimate pieces of his life portrayed in this way. And after that, I mentioned to him this idea of doing a book, and he was on board and excited right away.

I LOVE HOW THE PROLOGUE TELLS THE STORY OF THE FOUNDING OF RAQQA, LAYING OUT THE BROTHERS’ ANCESTRY AND THEIR DEEP-ROOTED CONNECTION TO THE CITY AND THE LAND. WHY DID YOU BEGIN THE BOOK WITH THIS?

Certainly as a storyteller, I also felt like it was really a valuable tool, but talking to him, his sense was always that any story about Raqqa needs to include this story of its founding, the story that he and his siblings heard growing up. And that any story of Raqqa is incomplete without that history. …

The fact that they come from the founders of the city, it just felt that in telling their story, I needed to tell that history as well, because it was so critical to the way in which they told the story of the family themselves.

“I just hope that other people connect to the power of their story, connect to the resilience in them, both to the bonds that they have with one another and to the bond that they have with Raqqa.”

—JORDAN RITTER CONN JORDAN RITTER CONN

AS THE BOOK PROGRESSES, WE LEARN ABOUT RIYAD’S OWN STRUGGLES, WHICH ARE COMMON TO MANY IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA — TO ASSIMILATE AND THEN ALSO TO HOLD ONTO ONE’S CULTURE AND ROOTS. CAN YOU SPEAK TO THAT?

I used to work for the site Grantland.

It was part of ESPN. And in the very last months before that site was shut down, I’d I think immigrants come to this country begun reporting in Southern Turkey along for so many different reasons, but Riyad’s the border with Syria, on a story about a reasons had to do with being in a classroom group of soccer players who were basically at the University of Aleppo and learning trying to form an anti-Assad national about our system of government, learning team … to kind of represent the Syrian specifically about our system of checks revolution. It was my first time reporting on and balances. He had this deep belief that Syria in any capacity. this must be what makes America I was beginning that story in what it is, this system, and that late 2015, and then Grantland he desperately wanted to The Road From was shut down. I got kicked experience it himself, to learn over to ESPN The Magazine, about it. Potentially, his real Raqqa: A Story of and they wanted me to keep dream was to eventually Brotherhood, Borders, reporting and to go back [to move back to Syria and try and Belonging Syria]. In between those two to reform the government

BY JORDAN RITTER CONN trips, I needed to do some in a way that made it feel BALLANTINE BOOKS phone interviews. … I was a closer to the system that we 272 PAGES, $45.99 little bit at a loss, because the have here. … He held onto people I’d been interviewing and has continued to hold onto mostly didn’t speak English. … My this deep kind of faith in a lot of our hope was to find someone local who would institutions. call with me to some of these sources and He quickly realized that a lot of basically translate some interviews for me. aspects of our culture can be corrosive My wife teaches religion at Belmont, and hostile toward a lot of people, but and she’s become good friends with Rashed toward immigrants specifically, and Fakhruddin from the Islamic Center of specifically toward Muslim immigrants Nashville. … He recommended that I go to and Arab immigrants. He encountered Café Rakka, and he said that Riyad would that through slurs both before and after

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

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t Café Rakka in Hendersonville — a small restaurant just a short drive north of Nashville — Riyad Alkasem serves up bottles of homemade tea, hummus and muhammara in colorful bowls, lamb yakhni and shawarma on the sajj. It was here in January 2016 that journalist Jordan Ritter Conn met Alkasem for the first time.

Over the next few years, Alkasem would tell Conn the remarkable story of his life, beginning in Raqqa, the Syrian city founded by his ancestors. As a journalist, Conn has spent his career finding stories in which sports are intertwined with international affairs. He’s reported from the Ivory Coast in the aftermath of that country’s civil war, and from South Sudan just before it declared independence.

In The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging — available from Random House imprint Ballantine Books on July 21 — Conn tells the story of Riyad and his brother Bashar, and the story of Raqqa, which became the so-called capital of the Islamic State group from 2014 to 2017. The brothers were children during the devastating Hama massacre of 1982, when the Assad regime killed thousands of civilians less than 300 kilometers from their home. They took two different paths as the civil war continued.

Riyad, with an idealistic spirit, opted to travel to America and “become an expert on its constitution, and then he would bring that knowledge back home.” Bashar, a pragmatist, stayed in Syria and pursued law, confident that he could “navigate his country’s corruption” to serve the common good. Both reckon with their choices throughout their lives as they seek to establish a sense of home.

The Scene spoke with Conn about The Road From Raqqa. Find our conversation below, followed by a brief excerpt from the first chapter of the book.

9/11. He encountered it when Bashar actually spent some time living with him in Southern California. And in the wake of 9/11 during the special registration program, Bashar was detained for several days and eventually marked for deportation. [Riyad has] encountered it in California and again in Tennessee, with starting his restaurant in Hendersonville and dealing with a lot of welcome at first, but also some hostility and some suspicion. I think over time, his views of this country have been complicated quite a bit by his own experience.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE THAT READERS WILL TAKE AWAY FROM THIS BOOK? I wrote this story because it was a story that’s grabbed me. It felt very powerful when it was told to me both the first time

I sat down with Riyad and heard it in its very broadest outlines … again and again over the years that I spent sitting with him, sitting with others who know and love his family, and going to Germany and spending the week with Bashar, [his wife] Aisha and their children. … I wrote this book only because the story grabbed me and moved me as they were telling it to me.

I just hope that other people connect to the power of their story, connect to the resilience in them, both to the bonds that they have with one another and to the bond that they have with Raqqa, and to the ways in which they have worked to make other places — in Riyad’s case by choice and Bashar’s because he was forced to do so — to make other places feel like their home.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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What follows is an excerpt from the book The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging

by Jordan Ritter Conn, set for release July 21. Copyright © 2020 by Jordan Ritter Conn. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

T

he war zone spread out beneath him, a sheet of darkness pocked with light.

Riyad Alkasem was tired.

His black hair was matted, the curls greasy and flat.

He’d been in transit for nearly twenty-four hours, unable to sleep for several days. Now he stared out the window, feeling the plane make its final descent, and he took comfort from the fact that up here all appeared calm.

Just below the plane lay Gaziantep, Turkey, a city once known for its baklava, now known as the final stop on the way into Syria’s civil war. It was March 2013. Just south of Gaziantep there stretched a border, about five hundred miles long, running from the Mediterranean Sea and snaking across the Tigris and the Euphrates, following stretches of the Baghdad Railway and the Orontes River. On one side, Turkey. On the other, Syria. And somewhere south of that border, where the war had now been raging for two years, was Riyad’s destination.

Raqqa. Home, or something like it.

He didn’t know why he was going, not really. Sure, he had an answer when people asked. His family was in danger. They needed his help. It sounded simple when phrased in those terms, as if the pull across continents were no more than obligation, a dutiful son and brother looking out for his own. There was something else, though, some tug he’d felt ever since the war began. Sometimes he would lie awake in his quiet home in his quiet Tennessee town, next to his southernbelle wife and just rooms away from his two American sons, and he would wonder if it had been worth it to remain here, if America’s promise had delivered all he had hoped that it would. He couldn’t imagine life without his wife or his boys, but sometimes he imagined them all living out a different story, back in the city he still called “my soul.”

For nearly a month, he’d heard that rebels were closing in on Raqqa. He called his brother Bashar multiple times each week.

Every day at the restaurant Riyad owned in Tennessee, he took breaks from running the kitchen to scroll through Facebook, reading news from friends and family and from anonymous pages run by citizen-journalists.

For Bashar and the rest of the Alkasems, the war lived at their doorstep. It lived in their streets and in their schools, in their children’s voices and their own bodies. Yet Riyad’s war raged in his mind and in his pocket, haunting him but eluding his grasp.

It was a fight he experienced, mostly, by staring at his phone.

But not anymore. Because eventually Bashar quit answering. And eventually the Facebook updates stopped. And one day Riyad found a video online from the main square in the center of the city, just footsteps from his family home. On his screen, he saw the familiar palm trees, the same vast sky, the drab government

RIYAD ALKASEM

He thought only of his family, of the order that had now been lost and the violence that would surely grow. Raqqa was free, yes, but now it was more dangerous than ever. buildings that had been the backdrop to so much of his childhood. And there in the middle, he saw the same statue that he’d walked by so many times in his life, the one of former president Hafez alAssad, wearing a suit and a flat smile. As a teenager, Riyad had hated that statue, hated that man. Now he hated the former president’s son and successor, Bashar alAssad, the architect of Syria’s war. So he held a mix of awe and terror as he stared at the video on his phone and watched thousands of revolutionaries filling the square, arms aloft and screaming. A few took axes to the statue’s foundation. They wore blue jeans and windbreakers, hair gel and gaping smiles. Some carried machine guns. All watched as Assad’s stone body came unmoored, as he toppled, dumbly, straight forward to the ground. They shouted Allahu Akbar (“God is great”) and Suriyah! Hurriye! (“Syria! Free!”). Some removed their shoes and used them to

slap Assad’s body. Others swung axes and chipped away at his head. A few celebrated by firing bullets into the sky.

This was historic. For the first time since the Assad regime took power in 1971, it no longer ruled Raqqa. Rebels had taken the city. Riyad’s home had wrested free of the dictatorship he’d so long despised.

But as he watched, sitting awake one night six thousand miles away, he found himself unable to revel in the regime’s failures, incapable of connecting to the tears of ecstasy he saw from men on the screen who looked like younger versions of himself.

He thought only of his family, of the order that had now been lost and the violence that would surely grow. Raqqa was free, yes, but now it was more dangerous than ever.

Riyad called. Still no answer. He checked Facebook. Still no updates. His portals into the life of his city had been closed. With the government ousted, Raqqa had gone dark.

His wife, Linda, watched him plodding through the rhythms of daily life. At home and at the restaurant, he seemed vacant, a husk. Gone was the energy of the man who’d

built a life from nothing here in America.

His eyes had gone red, his face pale. Often in conversation, his gaze drifted away. This was still the man she’d married, yes, but right now, she knew he belonged somewhere else.

“Go,” she said.

Three days later, Riyad boarded a plane.

THE FLIGHT FROM ISTANBUL carried diplomats and journalists, politicians and spies. Even here, ten thousand feet in the sky, the air crackled with a strange and hypnotic energy. Every passenger seemed stitched together by shared purpose. Some would stop in Gaziantep, while others would cross the border and head for their homes, and still others would make their way to the battlefield. Each had a destination with its own proximity to the awaiting violence.

But for now, they traveled as one, all headed toward the fight.

Riyad didn’t know what he’d find when he arrived. His family didn’t know he was coming. His phone calls had never gone through, and he hadn’t been able to find a way to deliver a message, so now he was on

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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his way to his childhood home, completely unannounced. He carried some sense that he could help, but the particulars remained unclear. Maybe he’d pay to smuggle his family out of Raqqa. Maybe he’d tend to any of them who had been wounded or, God forbid, make funeral arrangements if someone was killed. Or maybe, if they were in danger, he would fight. He was a Syrian, after all. In military camps as a kid, he’d learned his way around weapons.

The plane approached the runway.

Sometime before it touched down, Riyad wondered if he should buy himself a gun.

LATER THAT NIGHT, he settled into a motel room in the town of Karkamış, yards away from the border, surrounded by police and their dogs. Karkamış was a nothing town, a barely there place, home to three thousand residents and a refugee tent camp, little more than a way station on the path to the war. On a hard mattress under a thick blanket, he slept.

The flags stood high the next morning, flapping at each other across an imaginary line. Just above Riyad, there was Turkey’s white star and crescent, bathed in red. Yards away, on the Syrian side, he saw the green and black flag of Syria’s rebels. Elsewhere he knew he’d find the flags of Kurdish nationalists and of hard-line Islamist brigades, along with the one he’d grown up under, that of the Assad regime. All these flags marked their own swaths of land, all across his country. Syria was a puzzle, its pieces melting into one another all the time.

The sky was clear, the air cool. The land around Riyad was bathed in morning sunlight, giving the brown dirt a reddish tint. He walked toward the border, passed

by Peugeots spewing exhaust and carrying foodstuffs. Near the gate, he saw a group of children, mostly boys. They were aged twelve or maybe fourteen, and they huddled together smoking cigarettes and laughing, teasing one another in Arabic. Syrians, he realized. Refugees. Riyad approached. He said hello, and the boys said nothing. He asked how they were, and they said nothing still. They wore T-shirts and jeans, flip-flops and vacant stares. They carried homemade shanks crafted from toothbrushes and blades and twine.

He asked about their lives in the camp, and they shrugged. He asked if they went to school, and they laughed. One boy mentioned that sometimes a teacher came to give them lessons, but they usually chose not to attend. “We’re going to be men soon,” he said. “We don’t need school.”

The boys felt familiar and foreign all at once. Their accents sounded much like his own. They were just a few years younger than his own sons, Kasem and Sammy, both in school back home in Tennessee. Kasem was eighteen, about to head off to college at East Tennessee State. Sammy was sixteen, a sophomore at the local Catholic school, already learning to work in the kitchen like his dad. They carried Syrian blood but lived American lives. They looked to Riyad so much like the boys who stood before him right now.

But these boys held a detached anger that felt foreign to Riyad. When he first moved to America, during his years living in Los Angeles, he’d grown accustomed to the rage of the young and dispossessed, the stares from kids that made him lock

his windows and clutch his wallet or scan his surroundings for a way out. He’d never felt that in Syria, though. As a kid he’d seen violence, but it was always tribal, ordered. These boys carried the promise of something different, a rage that held no place in Riyad’s version of his country. Any one of them, he thought, looked like they would kill him for a dollar.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he told the oldest boy, and the boy laughed.

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

THE LINE AT THE CROSSING was short.

Riyad had both his American passport and his Syrian state ID in his bag, each to be used at its appropriate time. On this side of the border, it felt expedient to identify as American. The Turkish were tiring of the endless flood of refugees into their country. By showing himself as a citizen of the United States, Riyad proved he was different from most Syrians these guards encountered every day.

The guard took Riyad’s passport and flipped through its pages, looking up here and there to inspect Riyad’s face. Seconds passed in silence. Finally, he placed it on the table before him, peered upward, and asked Riyad, “Where are you going?”

“Raqqa.”

“What is your business in Raqqa?”

“I’m going to see my mother.”

The guard exhaled and shook his head.

He paused for a moment, not yet willing to stamp Riyad’s passport. “People are fleeing your country every day,” he said. “You know that?” His eyes narrowed. “They are leaving because if they don’t leave, they will die.”

Riyad nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know.

That is why I have to go see my mother.”

“Don’t you think your mother wants you to be safe?”

Riyad said nothing, and now the guard’s voice went soft. “Tell me the truth. Is someone pressuring you to go there? Are you in danger?”

Riyad smiled and shook his head. In truth, Riyad was the only person on earth who believed this journey was a good idea. The guard stamped his passport, but then left his booth to follow Riyad all the way to the gate.

He pointed southeast, through the craggy and flat desert, toward the place where the Euphrates grew fat and poured its way deeper into the Syrian plains.

“There is a road,” the guard explained, “that runs along the river to the tomb of Suleyman Shah.” Shah was the grandfather of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, and though he was buried in Syria, his tomb remained Turkish property. The guard told Riyad that as long as he stayed on that road between the border and the tomb, Turkish police had authority to enter Syria on his behalf. The moment he went beyond the tomb, though, Riyad was on his own. The guard gave him a phone number to call if he needed help.

“Why are you doing this for me?” Riyad asked.

“Because,” the guard said, “you’re an American.”

Riyad crossed the border. He reached into his bag for his Syrian government-issued ID and placed it in his wallet. Then he took his American passport and tucked it in a pouch that he hung around his neck, buried underneath his clothing, against his skin. On this side of the border, it could only bring him danger.

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nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CRITICS’ PICKS D I S T A N C I N G

E D I T I O N

THEATER

the Romans do it. Bourdain always went for proletarian eats over nouvelle cuisine, so alternatively you could order in from any of the local institutions highlighted in his 2016 Parts Unknown Nashville episode: Bolton’s, Dino’s and Duke’s. While we’ll likely never fully understand why Bourdain left us, we’re better for what he left us with. So cheers, Tony. You are missed. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

[UTAH, GET ME TWO!]

BUILD YOUR OWN STREAMING KATHRYN BIGELOW FILM FEST

Even with Regal Cinemas’ recent announcement that the cineplex giant plans to reopen all of its theaters with partial capacity by July 10, we’re going to keep chugging along with our build-your-ownstreaming-film-fest picks. So for this, our 15th installment, let’s dive into the work of the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow. Start out with Bigelow’s lesser-known debut — 1981’s Willem Dafoe-starring biker flick The Loveless, which is available for free via Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, 1987’s vampire romp Near Dark isn’t available to stream, so jump ahead to 1990’s Jamie Lee Curtis cop thriller Blue Steel, which is available for free via YouTube, Vudu or Tubi.

If you just can’t wait, jump to 1991’s iconic Point Break, the Swayze-and-Reeves surfingand-crime epic that some might call the, ahem, high-water mark of Bigelow’s career — it’s available for $4 on Amazon Prime.

The next decade’s worth of Bigelow efforts was somewhat hit-and-miss, from Strange Days (her 1995 collaboration with exhusband James Cameron) to 2002’s Harrison Ford-starring submarine picture K-19. So let’s just fast-forward to 2008’s Hurt Locker, the tense and thrilling war drama that earned Bigelow that aforementioned little gold man (it won five other Oscars as well, including for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay). That one’s available for $4 via Amazon Prime, YouTube and iTunes, and it shows just how compelling Jeremy Renner can be when he’s put in the right role. If you’re game for another bracing thriller, you have two more options to end on: 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty (free on Tubi dubbed in Spanish, or $3 via Prime), or 2017’s Detroit ($4 on YouTube and Prime). Both films are relatively well-received works based on true stories but conceived using quite a bit of poetic license, and both show what Bigelow is best at: building tension, and inspiring very solid performances from her actors. Even so, you really can’t top Point Break. D. PATRICK RODGERS

FOOD & DRINK

FILM

ZERO DARK THIRTY [PARTIES UNKNOWN]

CELEBRATE ANTHONY BOURDAIN’S BIRTHDAY

When asked which five people, living or dead, you’d invite to a dinner party, it’s advisable that you always save a seat for the late Anthony Bourdain.

Revisiting the globetrotting food-andculture connoisseur’s groundbreaking No Reservations and Parts Unknown shows is bittersweet — we can’t know when international travel will again be safe and advisable, which only compounds the sadness of Bourdain’s 2018 suicide. But instead of dwelling on that, let’s pay tribute to the man on what would have been his 64th birthday (June 25) with some of his favorite food, drinks and tunes. Jam some Ramones, Television or Voidoids, knock back some bourbon or cheap beers, and cook a signature dish from one of his 13 books, like cacio e pepe pasta — mac-and-cheese as

[BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE]

STREAM PERFORMANCES FROM LONDON’S GLOBE THEATRE

including some interesting short films and behind-the-scenes conversations. And you also can catch some filmed productions for free via the Globe’s YouTube channel. Visit shakespearesglobe.com to learn more, and discover how you can support this important arts organization. AMY STUMPFL TV

S O C I A L

[GONE, GIRL]

WATCH I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK PREMIERE ON HBO

Writer Michelle McNamara was a truecrime blogger long before true crime was the trendy cash cow it is today. Of all the For many theater lovers, summer crimes she wrote about, she was especially just isn’t the same without a bit of fixated on the Golden State Killer, whose Shakespeare in the Park. But even as case the rest of the world had all but COVID-19 continues to sideline live forgotten. McNamara spent years performances and in some cases poring over police reports, entire seasons — our own physically retracing the Nashville Shakespeare years-long crime spree and Festival just announced EDITOR’S NOTE: even interviewing victims that it won’t return until AS A RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING — she didn’t want to just summer 2021 — London’s COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED write about this evasive, iconic Globe Theatre THE FOCUS OF THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN violent criminal, she has stepped up to share PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT HOME wanted to find justice for past performances, PRACTICING SOCIAL DISTANCE. his victims. McNamara plus a lot more, through was two-thirds of the way a streaming service. I done with a book about these recommend starting with crimes when she unexpectedly the wonderful 2012 production died in 2016. After McNamara’s of Twelfth Night, starring Mark death, her husband Patton Oswalt, crime Rylance and Stephen Fry. Or perhaps Jamie writer Paul Haynes and journalist Billy Parker’s excellent performance in Henry Jensen used McNamara’s copious research V. And be sure to check out the Globe to to finish her work. The result is I’ll Be Gone Globe Festival — a fascinating collection in the Dark, one of the best true-crime of foreign-language performances books published in recent years. It’s a that celebrates the universal heart of gripping obsession with a violent killer, but Shakespeare’s stories. Most performances also an examination of life in suburbia in are available for rent or purchase through the ’70s, as well as our society’s troubling the theater’s streaming service, Globe misunderstanding of sexual assault. Just Player. But there is some free content,

I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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TV

A women’s column featuring a rotating cast of contributors

Vodka Yonic nashvillescene.com

[90 DAZE]

EMBRACE THE CRINGE THAT IS 90 DAY FIANCÉ

On TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé, lonely Americans take the plunge with non-Americans they met and romanced either online or while traveling, acquiring the K-1 marriage visa — which, for the uninitiated, grants them 90 days to tie the knot. If it doesn’t work out, the fiancé goes home — but even when it does work out, the journey is fraught. As cameras roll, the couples navigate a minefield of skeptical friends and relatives, cultural and language barriers, financial and housing hardships, and conflicting viewpoints on intimacy, religion and lifestyle choices. This basic premise has proven to be reality-TV gold.

Since its debut in 2014, 90 Day’s viewership has grown exponentially, spawning endless offshoots and an obsessive, rapid-memegenerating online following. At this point, the spin-offs literally make themselves, like the recent Self-Quarantined — no crew needed, just cast members filming their lives under lockdown at home. At once brutally awkward and brutally hilarious, this is trash television of the highest order.

Whatever your situation is personally, watching some 90 Day should make you feel better about it. Currently airing is The Other Way, which inverts the original concept and shadows Americans following their hearts to Colombia, Ethiopia, South

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR Korea and other locales, with predictably messy results. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN [PIECE OF CAKE]

SEND SOMEONE CUPCAKE COLLECTION CUPCAKES

There is a lot cycling through our brains right now, so you may have missed the good news: Nashville’s best cupcake shop, The Cupcake Collection, has started offering nationwide shipping. The Cupcake Collection has won Best Cupcakes in the Scene’s annual Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll for the past three years, due in part to their unmatchable homemade style and taste, which so many of the larger bakeries sacrifice as they increase production. People are graduating, getting married, celebrating birthdays and having babies in the midst of the pandemic — and

hell, a lot of folks are just having really, really bad days — so ship your favorite far-away person a box of cupcakes that are as good as if you were there to bake them yourself, while supporting a vital local business to boot. The strawberry-lemonade and sweet potato flavors are my personal favorites, though the Blackout (filled with chocolate mousse!) is a close runner-up.

Visit cupcakecollection.com to place your order — and if your favorite person just happens to be here in Nashville, The Cupcake Collection is also offering curbside pickup and local delivery. MEGAN SELING FILM

So Refreshing!

Refreshing!

two months after the book’s 2018 release, authorities made an arrest in the Golden State Killer case. Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo has been charged with 13 counts of murder, and weeks ago he reportedly agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, thus avoiding the death penalty. HBO’s six-part series based on McNamara’s book premieres on HBO June 28. MEGAN SELING

FOOD & DRINK

mmm...

CRITICS’ PICKS

[TALKIN’ ’BOUT A REVOLUTION]

WATCH SOME RADICAL BLACK FILMS ON YOUTUBE AND VIMEO

If you’ve found it a struggle to watch anything at home during the past few weeks

THE CUPCAKE COLLECTION

16

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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CRITICS’ PICKS

PODCAST

of uprisings and political actions, you’re not alone — it’s hard not to feel like anything on a screen is a waste of time right now.

But if you do have moments of downtime, maybe try reorienting your viewing to reflect the social changes going on in our country, and construct your own political film festival from the many radical Black films available via YouTube and Vimeo.

Some of my recommendations: Ivan Dixon’s The Spook Who Sat by the Door, a gripping thriller about the first Black CIA agent, who uses his government training to sow the seeds of revolution; The Murder of Fred Hampton, about the life and assassination of the prodigious Black Panther leader; John Akomfrah’s experimental Handsworth Songs, about uprisings in the U.K. against police violence; and finally Cinda Firestone’s Attica, a crucial documentary about the state violence inflicted upon the prisoners who dared to take a stand at the Attica prison in 1971. These films are as insightful, inspiring and energizing as any radical text or revolutionary tract. NATHAN SMITH [DISROBE]

LISTEN TO THE NEW SEASON OF SLOW BURN

The fourth and latest season of Slate’s podcast Slow Burn just kicked off, and it examines the political career of David Duke, the notorious white supremacist, Nazi sympathizer and Klansman. In the second episode of the season, host Josh Levin labels Duke succinctly: He’s a professional racist.

Listening to the first season of Slow Burn, which tracked the downfall of President

music in a kaleidoscopic array, curated by volunteers who care deeply about it and about sharing it with you. The pandemic has forced some changes in the way they do things — some shows are pre-recorded, DJs wear masks in the studio, it’s not safe to interview guests in person — but they’re still able to offer more than 90 unique shows each week. You’ll find long-running classics like Pete Wilson’s pre-rock R&B block Nashville Jumps (8-10 a.m. Fridays) and Laura Powers’ punk-and-powerpop program Needles + Pins (7-9 a.m.

Wednesdays), alongside newer additions like DJ Star’s Reggae University (9-11 p.m.

Wednesdays) and DJ LT’s musical and literary The Crack in Everything (1-2 p.m.

Sundays). You get a close look at hip-hop and the sounds that gave birth to it via DJ Blackcircle’s The Root (noon-1 p.m.

Mondays), a wide range of soul, jazz, R&B and rap via DJ Erica’s Soul of the City (4-6 p.m. Thursdays). That’s only the tip of the iceberg — from cool jazz to Filipino disco to deep psychedelia, from industrial dance music to fiddle tunes to contemporary art music, you can likely find it here. You can listen anytime on the web at wxnafm.org and pick the station up at 101.5 on your FM dial when you hop in the car. If you miss the show you want to hear, most broadcasts dating back to June 2017 (including episodes of shows no longer on the air) are available to stream from the station’s archive. Pro tip for a treasure hunt: Prior to the pandemic (and hopefully again soon), former Scene staffer Jonathan Marx, aka DJ J-Mar, frequently had conversations with artists and community leaders on his show Transmission (8-10 p.m. Mondays).

Among many more, check out Marx’s talks with Jamaal Sheets and Katie Delmez about multimedia artist Terry Adkins, and D’Lisha Davis of 2 Ls on a Cloud about local rap and R&B. And if you missed the station’s spring pledge drive, you can make a donation via the website any time. STEPHEN TRAGESER [FORTUNE FAVORS]

ART

CHECK OUT THE NEW FÉLIX GONZÁLEZ-TORRES FOUNDATION WEBSITE

Richard Nixon, was unexpectedly soothing during the early days of Trump’s presidency — it felt like a balm to remember stories about corruption being exposed and bad guys getting dethroned. This season arrives just in time for the national reckoning around racial inequity, and it follows Duke’s election to the Louisiana state legislature, and later his campaigns for the U.S. Senate and the governorship. It’s a chilling examination of American history, and it’s never been more relevant. Listen online or wherever you get your podcasts.

MUSIC

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER [DIAL IT IN]

LISTEN TO AND SUPPORT COMMUNITY RADIO ON WXNA-LPFM

On June 4, 2016, a citywide community radio juggernaut was launched when WXNA, a nonprofit project five years in the works, went on the air. In the four years since, it’s been a constant wellspring of

No other artist mixes the ordinary with the profound like Félix González-Torres.

An installation of a piece by the late artist is currently being re-created across the globe, and images of it are available on the website of his foundation. The work, similar to the famous “Untitled (Portrait of Ross)” collection of hard candies, is formed from a pile of fortune cookies, which are free to take and will be replenished when they’re gone. “Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner)” is a simple meditation about the sweetness of life and the inevitably of loss, and it’s being exhibited at just the right time. Visit the Félix González-Torres Foundation website, which just got an overhaul and details the locations of the exhibit, which is on view through July 5. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

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Wondering Wondering where where to to find find the the Nashville Nashville Scene Scene while while sta staying ying safe? safe?

Visit our website for an updated list of outdoor pickup locations.

Other locations are shown on our pickup map, but check with businesses first to make sure they’re open.

You can also have the Scene delivered to your house!

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FOOD AND DRINK

HOW SWEET IT IS

HiFi Cookies will finally celebrate the grand opening of its East Nashville retail space

BY MEGAN SELING

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

SUGAR SHOCK

HIFI COOKIES, OPENING SATURDAY, JUNE 27 733 PORTER ROAD HIFICOOKIES.COM

F

or Sean Newsome, owner and head baker of HiFi Cookies, it’s always been the cookie.

“Baking and cooking have just been something I’ve always done,” Newsome says.

“My grandmother, Ida Green, was a huge baker — she baked the best red-velvet cake I ever had in my life. And my mom baked this incredible almond cake. But I was always obsessed with cookies,” he explains.

“I was the kind of kid that would take my Chips Ahoy! and put them in the microwave and heat them up,” he adds with a laugh.

Sean and his wife Kristin are sitting at a small table inside HiFi Cookies, their new cookie shop nestled in the Shops at Porter East complex in East Nashville. Old cassette boomboxes hang on the wall above their heads. Across the way their slogan “Baked with sugar and soul” is painted in fat and

18

KRISTIN AND SEAN NEWSOME curvy orange-pink-and-blue lettering that recalls The Beatles’ Rubber Soul logo.

Behind one door is a bathroom with fun, cartoonish drips of hot-pink frosting painted on the ceiling. Another door hides Sean’s ingredient closet, a small room stacked floor to ceiling with well-organized plastic containers of colorful cookie toppings and mixins like rose meringue, Cap’n Crunch peanut brittle, salted chocolate crumbs and corn crunch. In the back corner, under the words “What Would Dolly Do?” sits the shop’s most prized-possession: the 30-quart floor mixer Sean has lovingly dubbed “Doughlene.”

For a shop that’s just 10 days out from its grand opening, the space is surprisingly pulled together — the dust has been swept up, and the paint fumes have aired out. The only thing left to do is hang a few speakers.

That’s because, Sean says, HiFi was actually supposed to open months ago.

“The original plan was April 4th,” he says through a cloth face mask. “We were about two weeks out from that, and I had a couple of inspections I had to do, and then the pandemic hit. The inspectors canceled because they didn’t know what was going on. And even prior to the pandemic we had another time in mind to open, but then a tornado hit. Because there was so much damage [throughout the neighborhood], the fire inspector had to cancel, which caused us to push back even further.”

But now it’s finally happening. The HiFi Cookies shop is set to officially open — with curbside pickup and social distancing measures in place — on Saturday, June 27. And surprisingly, Sean and Kristin are able to see this period of waiting (and waiting, and waiting) as something of a blessing.

“I was actually thinking about this today,” says Kristin. “I’m not super involved in HiFi Cookies — I’m a full-time hairstylist, but I help when I can. And during this I was able to get in here and be a part. I still don’t bake or make dough, but I don’t think I would’ve been able to get my hands into this place as much as I did while [the salon was closed].

I got to know this [business] a little better, I think. You’ve got to find the little wins in all of this.”

Sean’s been selling HiFi Cookies whole-

sale around town for years, at locations including Duke’s, Barista Parlor, Mitchell Deli, Nicoletto’s Pasta Co. and more. But if you’ve never had one, you need to know they are especially good. They’re as big as

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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Save the dishwashing for later. the palm of a grown man’s hand, and they’re loaded with unexpected flavor combinations and ingredients. Sean, a self-taught baker, says he’s inspired by some of the more innovative pastry chefs from his hometown, New York City — Christina Tosi, Wylie Dufresne, Dominique Ansel and Stella Parks.

“Stella Parks is a genius,” he says. “She’ll have a four-to-five-page article about how baking soda interacts with citric acid in something, and it’s just really brainy and nerdy. I think she’s like the Alton Brown of baking.

“The science is when you do fun stuff,” he continues. “Once you start learning the science you can play around with flavor profiles and all kinds of crazy stuff.”

Music is the other half of what makes HiFi’s creations so fun. Every treat is linked to one of Sean and Kristin’s favorite artists, from Etta James and Aretha Franklin to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Sean has his mom and grandma to thank for that.

“I grew up with my grandmother playing B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, lots of gospel music,” Sean says. “My mom was [into] ’80s and late-’70s disco and soul. She was a huge Luther Vandross fan. She loved Patti LaBelle, Whitney Houston.

“I love Marvin Gaye — like love Marvin Gaye,” he adds. “So the first cookie we came up with was the Marvin — pretzel, potato chips, butterscotch chips, toffee and milkchocolate chips. I just think he’s such a wellrounded, smooth, beautiful human being and artist, so I felt like our cornerstone cookie should be my hero.”

The Dolly was HiFi’s second cookie creation, and it’s as sweet and colorful as the Smoky Mountain Songbird herself.

“Dolly being Dolly, it’s like, let’s make something loud, boisterous, over-the-top,” says Sean. “And that was the red-velvet with marshmallow frosting and Fruity Pebbles.”

The Debbie (Harry, not Gibson) is a pretty pale-pink lemon cookie laced with rosewater meringue and white-chocolate chips; the Bonita Applebum, named after the A Tribe Called Quest song, is a chai-spiced cookie topped with apple buttercream and pie crumbs. There’s a Bowie, an Etta, a Patsy and Aretha, as well as a Wu-Tang-inspired Cookies & C.R.E.A.M. (get the money) and Velvet Rope, to honor Janet Jackson.

Sean says his edible discography features upward of 60 cookies — some vegan, some gluten-free and some stuffed with an extra dose of dessert like raspberry cheesecake (in the Prince-inspired Raspberry Beret) or chocolate-peanut-butter ganache (found in the Honky Tonk Queen). And now that Sean has unlimited access to his own professional kitchen, the menu is only going to grow.

“We’re gonna do ice cream sandwiches on the weekends,” he says. “The thing with that, that I think will be a lot of fun, is to make them change every weekend. We’ll have a set of flavors that never change, but some of them will rotate. For the month of July the theme will be ’90s R&B.” Think treats inspired by songs like 112’s “Peaches and Cream.”

There will also be brownies, blondies, cupcakes — maybe even cookie-based layer cakes … Sean gets almost giddy as he starts to rattle off all the ideas in his head.

“We’re gonna probably start playing around with some cheesecake ideas that I have,” he says. “The goal for the specials is to give us the room to play around with desserts that aren’t cookie-based. I may roll out with cinnamon rolls one day. I’ve been really wanting to do this funfetti coffee cake —” “Ever since he’s been in this space he’s been really able to let loose,” adds Kristin.

Marvin Gaye said it best. Let’s get it on.

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BOOKS

A SEXY, IMPRESSIONISTIC FEAST Leesa Cross-Smith’s story collection makes a joyful statement

BY SUSANNAH FELTS

L

Our Current Store Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm 2501 WEST END AVENUE (Across from Centennial Park)

20

eesa Cross-Smith’s new book of short fiction, So We Can Glow, feels like a radical act of joy. On the whole, the collection is a sexy, impressionistic feast of feminine energy and agency.

SO WE CAN GLOW The women and

BY LEESA CROSS-SMITH girls in these stories GRAND CENTRAL relish their sexual PUBLISHING feelings. They are 256 PAGES, $27 either aware of their power or are as yet unaware of the patriarchy’s fierce determination to turn that power against them. Consequences are a minimal part of the picture; at least, they are not given the space often seen in narratives that depict the desires of girls and women.

When young female desire is addressed in literature, it often comes with a sheen of warning — a nod, direct or subtle, to the likelihood of negative consequences. The received message is one of “yes, but” — the notion that when girls feel desire, and act on that desire, there is danger around every corner. Desire must be managed, watched closely.

Contained. Suppressed.

Take Susan Minot’s classic short story “Lust,” in which sex leads to numbness and a dislocated sense of self. More recently, Lisa Taddeo’s bestseller Three Women gives readers three examples in which the consummation of sexual desire is, ultimately, not empowering or satisfying; rather, it leads to brokenness, conflict, isolation and shame.

In contrast, CrossSmith’s characters take unabashed delight in the male objects of their desire. In “Fast as You,” the narrator, a nanny for a country music star named Tucker, muses, “Tucker was one of those guys who smoked even though he worked out every day too and kept an eye on what he was eating.” She dresses up for him and flirts. “I thought about him thinking about me, thinking about me differently than just Emmylou’s nanny. Thinking about my body and my legs and what was under my little skirt. And I was thinking about his arms in his shirt, how I cut off the sleeves for him those nights he was on stage sweating and singing. His perfect, cute-fat ass.”

In another piece, the narrator quiets her husband “by writing surreptitious, canary, chamomile in his mouth with my tongue. He pushed me back and I spread across the bed slowly. Like a flag unfurling on the Fourth of July. Like every damned army in the world was watching, standing to salute.” And in “Chateau Marmont, Champagne, Chanel,” a

woman appraises her lover; she is, happily, both the hungry observer and the observed: “Now he is in his white undershirt and underwear and I am still in my white dress, boldly brave enough to eat and drink everything without fear of ruining it because I know he loves that about me. My defiance — heady and arousing. To me. To him.”

Many of these stories are brief as a summer fling, evoking a heated moment or a few pulsing frames of sensory delight.

The book is steeped in feminine imagery: fruit-flavored lip gloss and perfume, Herbal Essences shampoo and “flowery deodorant,” champagne and glitter. Sometimes the trappings are the sparkly essence of a story.

One flash piece, “Girlheart Cake With Glitter Frosting,” is a sprawling, heady four-page list of “possible ingredients,” including songs like “Thirteen” by Big Star, gemstones, popculture icons and “looping cursive, folded paper.” To read it is to conjure any number of visions of girlhood.

In another story, “Pink Bubblegum and Flowers,” the first line goes like this: “Sweetsticky pink bubblegum in my mouth, blowing bubbles. Bored, peeking on the guys Dad paid to come over to rebuild the deck.”

But the young narrator’s curiosities leave her probing deeper. Later on, she reflects on a moment of intimacy with her lover.

“I felt dirty for … using some tragic thing that was hurting him in an attempt to get to know him better, but he trusted me enough to tell me, to come over, to tell me everything.” The story then dips into the sensual again: “The Tom Petty, the hammering, the heaven-smelling bathroom and the intimacy of Rafa sharing his secrets with me — all of that sounded and smelled and felt like something important enough to let in. To remember. To file away for later, when I needed it.”

Even when danger is lurking, we find a celebration of sensuality. In another deeply atmospheric piece, “Re: Little Doves,” pleasure reaches a fever pitch for a group of girls in thrall to an apparent cult leader.

“We smoke hand-rolled cigarettes in a circle of succulents and rub sticky sagebrush and apricot mallow under our arms.”

So We Can Glow does not feel like a book that attempts to prosecute an idea or an agenda; it is having far too much fun for that.

But with its many variations on sensory-rich reveling and sensual pursuit, it nevertheless makes a powerful statement.

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

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: TIM SONG

MUSIC

WESTERN MEDICINE Nashville power trio Country Westerns’ selftitled first LP is worth the wait

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

“O

ur goal is to play Louisville on a Wednesday night and get, like, 50 people out,” Joey Plunket, singer-guitarist COUNTRY WESTERNS OUT for Country JUNE 26 VIA FAT POSSUM Westerns, tells the Scene. Right now, in an alternate universe where the COVID-19 pandemic never happened, you’d find Plunket, bassist Sabrina Rush and drummer Brian Kotzur in that happy place. The trio’s Fat Possum-issued, Matt Sweeney-produced self-titled debut was set to come out May 15, with a summer of divebar gigs to follow.

The tour’s on hold, but Country Westerns hits stores at last on Friday, and fans of gutsy, heartfelt rock ’n’ roll ought to take notice. Though the band is likely new to most, the members of the three-piece are not newcomers. Rush worked at influential Chicago label Drag City and played violin in Louisville combo State Champion; Kotzur drummed on records by Bobby Bare and William Tyler, as well as the final two Silver Jews LPs that the late David Berman made while calling Nashville home. Plunket, an Atlanta native, has been in bands all his adult life (The Weight, Gentleman Jesse and His Men, JP5), but about five years ago he took a break from

playing to focus on Duke’s, the Five Points bar he and his partner Sara Nelson co-own.

Duke’s opened in the spring of 2015 and established itself almost overnight as an essential stop on any East Nashville bar crawl and a go-to post-show spot for nerding out with friends over late-night shots, beers and sandwiches. It was during one such nightcap in 2016 when Plunket and Kotzur, both free agents at the time, decided it was time to get back in the game.

Going in with no plans beyond “making a bunch of noise for drink tickets,” the duo quickly jammed a set list’s worth of songs into existence in Kotzur’s garage. Finding a steady lineup proved harder. Before bringing Rush into the fold in 2019, Country Westerns operated as a three-piece with former Bully member Reece Lazarus on bass, which swelled to a foursome when Richie Kirkpatrick (of Ghostfinger and Richie, also formerly of Kesha’s backing band) joined for a spell and bumped Lazarus to his other instrument, saxophone.

According to Plunket, the LazarusKirkpatrick-era shows “sounded like pure chaos onstage.” However, a pair of short-run 7-inch singles — issued in 2018 by the label arm of East Side scenester Nic Schurman’s eclectic gallery and show space Soft Junk — gave evidence that the songs offer plenty to latch onto. Another person who heard the craftsmanship through the din was Berman, who would regularly crash the band’s

rehearsals at Kotzur’s house and shows at the Springwater.

“He was always hanging around, giving us advice, teasing us,” Plunket remembers.

“He was really funny. … And not ever shy about giving feedback. Sometimes it was welcomed, thoughtful. Other times we’d be like. ‘Leave me alone, man, this is just what we do for fun — drink beer, play guitar.’

But he was a real champion of the band. He pushed us, influenced us, kept us going.”

The 52-year-old songsmith’s suicide in August rocked Nashville and the entire music world, and happened only 10 days before Country Westerns were supposed to open for his acclaimed new project Purple Mountains at Mercy Lounge. But in connecting them with Sweeney, Berman left Plunket & Co. a parting gift perhaps more impactful than a single show. Not only did the Chavez main man, Bonnie “Prince” Billy collaborator and former Zwan member end up producing Country Westerns — Plunket also credits Sweeney with getting the band on Fat Possum’s radar.

Owing equally to classic rock and college rock, Country Westerns crackles with a conviction and maturity that can’t be faked. The jangly rave-up “It’s Not Easy” and soaring, raucous “I’m Not Ready” hearken back three decades to when The Replacements, R.E.M. and Uncle Tupelo ruled with grit, smarts and chiming guitars. Plunket’s tone is dense yet bright. His electric 12-string adds color, and his raspy vocals evoke Tom Waits covering Tom Petty on ragged-but-resilient numbers like “Gentle Soul” and “Slow Nights.” The rhythm section maintains an energetic foundation while serving the songs craftily, like Rush’s funky walking bass on the soulful “Guest Checks” and the

Owing equally to classic rock and college rock, Country Westerns crackles with a conviction and maturity that can’t be faked. tempestuous drum fills Kotzur fires off on “TV Lights.”

The taut, 11-song, 33-minute LP is the unmistakable sound of seasoned punks for whom the fire still burns. It leaves the listener with just one question: When you’ve essentially made the perfect bar band, but you’re not playing in bars, what do you do?

“We’re slowly getting back into having band meetings, playing acoustic outside and whatever feels responsible and normal,” Plunket says. “A rock record made by three middle-aged white people is not necessarily what the world needs now.

But I’m glad it exists, grateful I can hold it, and hope people find some connection to it.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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THE ’GRASS GROWS

Porch Pride brings Bluegrass Pride’s inclusive programming to the web

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

BEING THE VESSEL Becca Mancari carries a heavy weight gracefully on The Greatest Part

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

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rtists often dream of a project that just pours out of them, as though they were mere conduits for a fully formed work. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it feels like a gift from some higher artistic THE GREATEST PART OUT power. For Becca JUNE 26 VIA CAPTURED Mancari, writing the TRACKS songs for her new album The Greatest Part was one of those rare experiences.

“It was so weird,” she tells the Scene, calling from her home in Nashville. “I couldn’t stop them from coming out. It was like they were being given to me. I would hear things in my sleep and have these melodies in my mind. I feel like this whole record was just given to me.”

The Greatest Part follows Mancari’s acclaimed 2017 solo debut Good Woman, which announced the longtime local singersongwriter as an exciting new voice in roots and Americana music. Recorded with producer and musician Zac Farro (HalfNoise, Paramore), The Greatest Part deviates sonically from its predecessor but retains and even deepens the vulnerable songwriting that marked so much of Good Woman.

Mancari began writing The Greatest Part at the end of 2018, following two years of nearly nonstop touring in support of both

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Good Woman and the first singles from Bermuda Triangle, a trio consisting of Mancari, Jesse Lafser and Brittany Howard. Once Mancari settled back into home life, burnt out and exhausted, she felt past traumas — particularly her experience coming out as queer — begin to resurface.

“A lot of times, queer folk almost have to put the pain on the back burner to just survive, and just try to live,” she says. “So I think when I got home from that tour, I was so emotionally and physically at rock bottom that all of what I had tried to suppress just came to the surface. … It was very hard at times.”

Mancari took early incarnations of her songs to Farro, whom she counts as a longtime close friend and trusted collaborator. The pair began to write together, and it quickly became clear to Mancari that Farro would be a great partner in completing the album.

“It just so happened that Zac was also in this very powerful, energetic movement in his own life and his own music,” she explains. “And I felt that.”

Where Good Woman was earthy and understated, The Greatest Part is open and expansive, with a spacious production that allows breathing room for Mancari’s complex, often difficult stories to unfold at their own pace. “First Time” has a peppy arrangement that belies its difficult subject matter.

Mancari wrote the song about coming out to her family, and it opens with the gutwrenching lyric, “I remember the first time my dad didn’t hug me back.” By the time the line repeats at the end of the track, it takes on a quality of hard-earned empowerment.

“That was probably the hardest day for me,” Mancari says of writing “First Time,” one of the first singles to be released from the album. “I tried to take that line out. But it was only going to open the door for me to be free. So I felt like it needed to happen so

that other people could be free as well. So I didn’t want to sugarcoat it. That was my experience. I’ll never forget that moment. I remember when my parents left that night. … This is heavy, but I don’t think it’s unfamiliar to my community. I thought I was going to kill myself that night. I didn’t know how to survive without my family.”

Mancari and her family are in a better place now, and she says she still feels protective of them — so much so that she found herself resisting writing about the bad times. While touring Good Woman, though, she met many queer fans who shared their own stories, and she felt compelled to write more vulnerably for them.

“I felt like it was important for people who I know have similar experiences,” she says.

“And even for parents to listen to these songs — ‘First Time’ in particular — and to think, ‘I have the choice to hug my child back.’ ” Like many artists, Mancari’s livelihood took a tough hit when COVID-19 began forcing the closures of live music venues and mass cancellation of tours. She and her band were 11 hours into driving to join Howard for a run of shows when they got the call that the dates had been postponed.

While she misses life on the road, Mancari has still found a number of reasons to be grateful for having extra time at home. For one, she’s been able to do things that remind her of why she wants to make music. She also feels fortunate to have more time to dedicate to activism, and has channeled her energy into helping anti-racist causes in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to be home and to be active towards this moment.

A lot of my friends right now are out of jobs, in a sense, so I think and I feel like we’re the prime candidates to be activists. So I’m thankful for that time.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

RACHEL BAIMAN

PHOTO: GINA BINKLEY

PHOTO: ZAC FARRO

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he nonprofit Bluegrass Pride is relatively new — both as a part of the traditionfocused genre and as part of LGBTQ culture. The organization was founded as an offshoot of the WATCH PERFORMANCES California Bluegrass JUNE 27-28 VIA Association in 2017, BLUEGRASSPRIDE.NET and made its festival debut with a float in the San Francisco Pride Parade that year. San Francisco’s Pride celebration is one of the world’s biggest, and there were some 270 floats in the parade that year. Despite being new to the game, the Bluegrass Pride crew, complete with three different bands showcasing the breadth and depth of the music, took home the top-ranking Best of the Best prize. It was an important moment of recognition, acceptance and encouragement for the organization, whose mission statement reads, in part, “We want to make sure that if you love bluegrass, then bluegrass loves you right back.”

It makes sense, then, that San Francisco Pride has remained central to Bluegrass Pride’s efforts.

With this year’s SF Pride canceled due to COVID-19, Bluegrass Pride has replaced its in-person programming — which was to include events in San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and an inaugural happening in Nashville — with the all-streaming Porch Pride: A Bluegrass Pride Queer-antine Festival. A slew of musicians will appear Saturday and Sunday via Bluegrass Pride’s official website, including local aces Rachel Baiman, George Jackson, Molly Tuttle and Justin Hiltner. Old-time music legend Alice Gerrard is another highlight of the lineup, as is string-band scholar and member of Our Native Daughters Amythyst Kiah. The stream is free to watch, but a $10 donation is encouraged; funds raised will be shared by Bluegrass Pride and the performers.

The streaming festival was the brainchild of Jake Blount, an acclaimed old-time banjo player and a board member of Bluegrass Pride.

(Blount will perform Saturday with his band The Vox Hunters — see bluegrasspride.net for a full schedule.) He tells the Scene he was inspired to pitch the festival to the rest of the Bluegrass Pride team after successful streaming concerts early in the pandemic.

“I had been part of several different streaming

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THE SPIN ONLY IN STREAMS

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN AND RON WYNN

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JUSTIN HILTNER

festivals, and thought it would be great if we could do something like that, so that some form of Bluegrass Pride still happens,” Blount says via a video call. “And maybe it would open it up to folks like me who are on the East Coast and hadn’t been able to attend the annual Pride festivities before.”

“People have tried to get me to do a festival before,” says Bluegrass Pride executive director Kara Kundert, speaking on the same call. “At the time, I was like: ‘We have SF Pride in two months. We don’t have the capacity for it.’ Then three weeks passed and SF Pride wasn’t happening anymore.”

Porch Pride boasts a mostly queer lineup, with many of the participating artists already members or friends of the Bluegrass Pride community. Blount notes that this year’s lineup is the most musically diverse they’ve had yet. All participating artists have the option to be compensated for their Porch Pride set, though Kundert explains that some have chosen to donate their time to the cause. Paying artists is essential to Bluegrass Pride, considering how many musicians have lost the majority of their income since the beginning of the pandemic.

“Over the past two years, we have been trying to book all LGBT bands at our float for SF Pride,” Kundert says. “So we already had that arranged before the pandemic hit. … From there it was reaching out to the rest of our network to see who had the time and technology available.”

Kundert was an early member of Bluegrass Pride, having attended a planning meeting for that fateful debut at SF Pride. Then a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, she was excited to find a community of people who shared two of her biggest interests: bluegrass music and LGBTQ issues. She was tapped to helm Bluegrass Pride’s social media marketing efforts, and eventually rose within the ranks to become the organization’s executive director.

“That first year in the parade, people really loved us,” Kundert says. “It was the first time that a firsttime entrant won. I’d never been to Pride before, so it was a whirlwind first year. We realized pretty quickly that there was a lot of interest in Bluegrass Pride outside of California.”

Since that first year, Bluegrass Pride’s reach has spread internationally, with local chapters hosting events across the United States as well as in Canada. While the organization’s members will miss attending SF Pride in person this year, they are also excited by Porch Pride’s ability to reach members of the community who wouldn’t otherwise be able — for financial or geographic reasons — to attend one of their events.

“We’re excited to bring Bluegrass Pride to people right where they are, right when they need it most,” says Kundert. “And to help these artists, who really don’t have a lot of ways to make money right now.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

hen May turns to June, the amount of shows happening in town usually skyrockets — from DIY touring bands in small venues to Bonnaroo and beyond. But between the threat of COVID-19 and the urgency of the protests against systemic racism and police violence, it’s been an awfully quiet month music-wise.

One exception: Far Out Fest. Rather than cancel the multidisciplinary psychedelic music and art extravaganza they’ve put on each summer since 2017, organizers Kari Leigh Ames and Brianne O’Neill made the bold move in April to pivot online. The duo amassed more than 60 original video submissions, from music videos and poetry readings to short films and seminars, as well as live performances. From Thursday night through Sunday afternoon, they streamed them all via Far Out Nashville’s website under the banner Far Out Free Fest.

The heady mix of clips was strung together with a homespun visual aesthetic reminiscent of late-night public-access TV. There was no fee to watch the stream, but the organizers have been taking tips for the bands via Venmo (@faroutfreefest), and 10 percent of sales from vendors in the marketplace are to be donated to Teens for Equality, the group of Nashville teenagers who organized a massive peaceful protest downtown on June 4. The musical programming of the fest spoke to a comment O’Neill made in the Scene’s June 18 preview story about increased commingling between the local psych-rock and ambient-electronic micro-scenes.

With his recent Third Man debut Altar of Harmony, Luke Schneider effectively invented a new genre: New Age pedal steel. Flanked by a wall of TVs and incense burning all around, Schneider’s spellbinding Friday set, one of three multi-camera performances filmed for the fest at East Nashville’s Meltface Studios, was self-care in musical form. Elsewhere, the off-the-cuff synth dronescapes of L.A. artist-producer Al Lover recalled early M83, the Drive soundtrack and those MIDI versions of rock songs from flip-phone days. Scene fave Diatom Deli’s haunting yet soothing synth-andnylon-string-guitar meditations could’ve passed for something from a Numero Group comp of obscure ’70s folk.

Rock acts of note included Atlanta power trio Death Panels, checking in Saturday night from a Columbus, Miss., living room. Led by singer-shredder Arjun Kulharya, whose sitar-based Naan Violence project played the inaugural Far Out in ’17, the band alternated between droning raga-esque pieces and amped-up riff-fests that channeled Pentagram and Deep Purple, jam-packed with towering fills and dramatic solos. Murfreesboro garage-punk foursome Mouth Reader’s snotty, Devo-esque monotone vocals and zippy dual-guitar action were enough to make you pine for house parties. Watching their Meltface taping, you could practically

SHOW BIZZ, BABY: BIZZ AND EVERYDAY PEOPLE smell the spilled beer. The same went for a pair of ferocious, MC5-inspired rippers from locals Kings of the Fucking Sea, filmed during the trio’s rowdy two-night stand at East Side showspace Soft Junk back in February. (Those gigs were also recorded for a forthcoming live LP.) Bridging the rock and ambient worlds was a stellar solo set from Memphis’ Kelley Anderson, alias Crystal Shrine. Superimposed with ax and pedalboard against a backdrop of a geode floating through space, the Those Darlins and Southern Girls Rock Camp cofounder melded rich instrumental guitarscapes to soulful, surf-inflected pop songs.

Offering something completely different: Atlanta percussion savant Klimchak, whose elaborate stand-up rig included theremin, mbira, Baoding balls, and an assortment of plates and bowls repurposed as instruments, arranged by tone and timbre.

Presentation-wise, the Far Out crew nailed it. Sets were nice and short, stylistically varied and visually stimulating. The feed ran smoothly, and the lack of ads or other distractions was refreshing. It felt both professional and punk-as-fuck. The longer live music stays shelved, the more livestreams start to feel like a sad reminder of what’s been lost. If more virtual happenings follow Far Out’s lead, we’ll see just how much room for creativity remains within the format.

As is the case with so many other events this year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a big change in the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival. What would normally have been a gala outdoor celebration marking the festival’s 20th anniversary instead became a virtual one. It featured a collection of interviews with key figures as well as an impressive showcase for the dynamic Nashville R&B band Bizz and Everyday People.

The event was hosted by Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership CEO and Metro Councilmember Sharon Hurt. It served to not only remind and update those who viewed the stream on Facebook about the lengthy and impressive history of music on Jefferson Street, but also to help raise funds for JUMP, whose building was destroyed during the March tornado.

A strong list of participants talked with Hurt about both their involvement in the festival and its importance in Music City’s overall cultural growth. Butch Spyridon, president and CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitor’s Corp., expressed his organization’s long support for the fest, as did the Nashville Jazz Workshop’s Roger Spencer and Lori Mechem, who also talked about the forthcoming relocation of the NJW and its Jazz Cave venue to nearby Buchanan Street. The

National Museum of African American Music’s CEO and president Henry Beecher Hicks III discussed the museum’s opening, currently set for Sept. 3. He also reaffirmed the power of Black music and the festival’s standing as a top musical event.

Veteran performers Jimmy Church and Paula Chavis were also among the interviewees, looking back at their time in the city and past performances in the festival.

Church cited the generational changes he’d witnessed and the fact that integrated audiences have helped keep jazz, blues and soul alive. Chavis delivered a spontaneous performance of the Ellington standard “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing” with gusto, displaying the swing and rich delivery that have made her one of the city’s finest jazz vocalists. Eric Holt of the promotions group Lovenoise talked about how the festival’s musical menu has expanded to include contemporary acts as well as the legacy performers it’s long been known for.

The performance segments with Bizz and Everyday People, which appeared to have been filmed in a space inside Bridgestone Arena, expanded on the points made in the interviews, and provided the musical flair and soul for the event. An area staple for nearly a decade, the band features vocalists Wendell “Bizz” Bigsby-Church (eldest son of Jimmy Church) and Katrice Donaldson, backed by keyboardist Erskine Ford Jr., trumpeter David Kellert, guitarist Khristopher Miller, saxophonist Marcus Moore, bassist Jarvis Mosby and drummer Marvin Sams. The group performed an array of outstanding Black music, with first-rate covers including the late Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and “Lean on Me,” as well as a vibrant version of the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell duet “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.”

Donaldson had the lead vocal on their opening rendition of the Chaka Khan and Rufus song “Ain’t Nobody,” and also excelled on the group’s performance of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love.” Bizz also brought topical and political fire to his rendition of Gaye’s “Inner City Blues.” The vocalists’ stage presence and charisma, even without an audience, was also delightful, and they worked in some unexpected material, like a cover of Experience Unlimited’s 1988 Grammy-nominated single “Da Butt.” While predominantly a funk-soul ensemble, the backing band offered solid doses of improvisational flavor.

Everyone who’s previously enjoyed the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival most certainly looks forward to seeing and hearing it outdoors next year. But this year’s virtual event offered ample musical thrills and plenty of valuable historical perspective.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 25 – JULY 1, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PRIMAL STREAM XIV The latest from Spike Lee and lots of queer cinema, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA

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DA 5 BLOODS et’s get revolutionary in tone, shall we? As always, see some recommendations for streaming titles below, and check out the past 13 issues of the Scene for lots more suggestions.

DA 5 BLOODS ON NETFLIX It’s always a good time for a new Spike Lee movie, and like all his best work (and even some of his less successful films), Da 5 Bloods is a heaping buffet of everything — it’s rich with ideas, motifs, aspect-ratio shifts, finely tuned perspectives, and big, careening sledgehammer blows. Four Vietnam vets return there to retrieve the remains of their squad leader (and the intercepted gold they buried until the heat was off). They’re coming to terms with their identities, the American response to the Vietnam War (as well as what it means to be a Black soldier for American interests) and how the intervening decades have changed them. This movie is messy and awesome, and Lee has never made anything that wasn’t absolutely relevant to whatever was going on in the world. I wish Netflix had been as free-flowing with the effects budget for this as the company has been with other projects (there’s some dodgy blood spatter and helicopter appearances that clang, even though they cannot break the film’s spell).

Delroy Lindo is great, but Clarke Peters and Chadwick Boseman steal the whole thing — and two-and-a-half hours fly by. Also, if you dig co-star Van Veronica Ngo’s turn in this film and would enjoy seeing some human traffickers get their asses demolished, her merciless action epic Furie is also streaming on Netflix right now.

TONGUES UNTIED ON KANOPY Marlon Riggs’ documentary about the Black gay experience was considered scandalous enough in 1989 that our local PBS affiliate (as well as several other affiliates throughout the country) refused to air it.

Constructed with interviews, poetry and a central thesis exploring the lack of intersection and awareness in Black and queer communities at that time, it’s still an essential document today. None of the issues Riggs

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raises has become irrelevant over time, and it’s always overwhelming when one finally gets to see some of the art that was weaponized and wielded against domestic arts funding. This film so scared the first Bush administration and its reactionary toadies — like Pat Buchanan, Donald Wildmon and Jesse Helms — that they set about tanking the NEA because of it. Kanopy, if you aren’t familiar, is a streaming platform for public libraries and universities. Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason, currently streaming on Criterion, is also an essential document in the history of Black queer lives.

PIONEERS OF QUEER CINEMA ON DEMAND VIA THE BELCOURT AND KINO LORBER When I found out about this trio of restorations (Mädchen in Uniform, Michael and Viktor und Viktoria), I called up my friend, colleague and eternal inspiration Tiffany Minton — a manager at the Belcourt Theatre, a local drummer and an organizer of the She’s a Rebel girl-group tribute shows — to see if she was interested in talking about them. What follows are some highlights of that discussion.

Tiffany Minton: It was a pleasure to watch these films again; I had watched Mädchen in Uniform and Viktor und Viktoria back when I worked at OutLoud during and after the college years, and they had such an amazing film section, and I hadn’t revisited those since 2007. And Michael I had never seen, but it was awesome.

Jason Shawhan: I had seen Michael back during my college years, but the other two were new to me except by reputation. I had seen the 1982 Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews, though. But what’s fascinating to me is how each of the three films has such a different perspective — and with Michael it is immediate that some things never change. Even now, you can totally throw your life away for someone you adore who is easily distracted and not even paying attention to you. And then when that realization catches up to you, it comes along with realizing that you were that grail slipping out of the reach of someone you didn’t notice being lovestruck on your behalf.

It’s a vicious realization for now, and it’s extravicious for 1924.

TM: It’s all about those confused feelings of being a gay person. Perhaps you’ve spent your entire adolescence and part of your adulthood with no customs or space around you to explain what that even means, to reconcile boundaries and desire and to understand your own feelings and how to name them. And almost 100 years later, it’s still a problem.

JS: “You’ve got so many dreams that you don’t know where to put ’em / So you’d better turn a few of them loose.” It all leads or comes back to Jim Steinman. And when you see something like Viktor und Viktoria, which is set on shaking things up across the board, do you even know what to expect from a musical about gender performance from that early in the history of film?

TM: People were thinking about gender in new ways — that gender is part of your identity and of other people’s identities, and that these identities could be influenced by larger power structures in society. And this movie was playing with that concept, and that was really interesting to me, perhaps for the first time presenting this idea that gender and sexuality are an illusion and a performance of our own desires, but also of our collective desires, and that those concepts are permeable and malleable. That film and gender are both sites for the illusion of performance. And the movie came out in 1933, right as the Nazis were rising to power, just before all of these new pathways were quashed.

JS: In the tradition of drama, it is a performance for people, or sometimes at them.

But with comedy, there’s always some level of interaction — you have to be able to read the room, so when you take that relatable and empathetic instinct that comedians have, and use it that for the purposes of drama, it gives you a hook to bring the audience in. So comedy often has an endurance that drama doesn’t.

TM: You suspend your disbelief, and you engage with reality, or a projection of reality reflecting back onto us. And because of that, theater, cinema and comedy are all inherently queer, which is something to consider in light of all of these films.

JS: Since the Middle Ages, the very art of acting has been considered suspect by respectable folks, so there’s a lot of truth

to that. And there’s something very revolutionary at heart to each of these films, but particularly in Mädchen in Uniform. It’s not just the stirrings of young queer desire, but reacting against an unjust system that exploits and represses the passions of youth and its resources.

TM: I love the anti-fascist suggestions throughout that film, and how it deals with the multiplicity of desire and how that gets complicated by adolescence. And that’s still difficult subject matter for a lot of people to address. It reminded me, actually, of the Miranda July film Me And You And Everyone We Know, and how she tried to tackle representing that issue, that sort of complicated — JS: Back and forth forever?

TM: Exactly. When you’re trying to understand your own desires, whether they’re misplaced or not, and you’re fumbling within yourself, and also in a society that is not adept at dealing with it or wanting to recognize it in any way.

JS: And it’s also about trying to find an appropriate place to have that discussion. And that’s always a thing. Tap shoes in a minefield, I guess, would be the proper metaphor.

So which of the three would be your starter recommendation for someone who maybe doesn’t have a deep-dive triple feature in them but wants to be an ally and support queer art?

TM: I would go with Mädchen. Cinematically, it’s gorgeous. Michael does that as well.

JS: Well, yeah, that’s director Carl Theodor Dreyer for you. He knew how to make a close-up speak, even in a silent film.

TM: But Mädchen is compelling across the board. It uses all these techniques and concepts in storytelling that we still see used today, and it’s nice to see where that comes from. But it’s also about totalitarianism and fascism, and it has a very feminist text throughout it. Even when things get a little campy, these young women have each other’s back, and as a film it deals with the complicated continuum of lesbian desire.

JS: And it’s directed by a Jewish woman, in 1931. Which is so many kinds of revolutionary, even today.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS Leslie Woodhead’s new documentary offers a powerful portrait of Ella Fitzgerald

BY RON WYNN

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ritish director Leslie Woodhead’s powerful, often poignant documentary Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things provides a comprehensive portrait that doesn’t shortchange its audience in any deELLA FITZGERALD: JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS partment. The film, NR, 89 MINUTES which the Belcourt OPENING FRIDAY, JUNE 26 will begin streaming VIA BELCOURT.ORG Friday via its site, provides a thorough history of the singer’s evolution from teen prodigy to global icon — beginning with her 1934 appearance at the Apollo Theater at age 15. From there, the documentary follows Fitzgerald’s rise to stardom in the swing era, her embrace of bop and ability to transition into its demanding tempos and harmonies, and her final role as a sublime interpreter of the Great American Songbook and a tireless world traveler who once worked 48 weeks out of the year, touring concert halls and nightclubs around the world.

Woodhead’s analysis and examination is no less extensive and penetrating when covering Fitzgerald’s life off the bandstand. The impact of devastating losses are spotlighted, from the death of her mother at 13 to the premature passing of mentor and champion bandleader Chick Webb at 30. For a time following her mother’s death she became unruly and difficult, a phase that eventually resulted in her being arrested and spending time in a reformatory.

SWING VOTE

Irresistible cuts deep into problematic election culture

BY CORY WOODROOF

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ne of the generally held tenets of good citizenship is the importance of voting — and one of the important but less-discussed issues facing our country is how we get to the voting booth. That isIRRESISTIBLE sue is at the crux of Jon R, 102 MINUTES Stewart’s new film IrreAVAILABLE FRIDAY, JUNE 26, sistible, the former Daily VIA VIDEO ON DEMAND Show host’s second foray into directing after 2014’s underappreciated journalist-in-Iranian-captivity drama Rosewater.

With his run on The Daily Show now in the rearview, Irresistible — available this week on demand and via an array of streaming services — is Stewart’s biggest soapbox in a half-decade. Though the film is slow in building to its coda and might provoke frustration for its both-sides critiques, Stewart doesn’t miss his shot to deliver something at once decidedly peeved and relatively hopeful, sometimes in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Stewart’s satire takes pride in ruffling all kinds of

But that fueled a determination to succeed and a desire to entertain that would remain for the rest of her life. Fitzgerald took the reins of Webb’s band upon his death, leading it for two years until the start of World War II. This came in an era when women seldom ran anything — in or outside the jazz world — and Black women even less so. That period toughened her mentally, giving her a resolve that would enable her to persevere, no matter how rough things got.

The film also addresses how the ugly twin factors of racism and sexism frequently affected Fitzgerald. At 2, her mother moved the family to New York from Virginia to escape the harshness of Jim Crow. As a teen she discovered that the North has its own version of segregation in Harlem, with The Cotton Club allowing Blacks to work there but requiring them to enter through the back door and otherwise totally ignoring them. Much later in her career, Fitzgerald was wrongly arrested by Houston cops because they observed some band members

feathers — Aaron Sorkin this is not. Stewart doesn’t depict the world of American government as a romanticized Camelot filled with fast-talking intellectuals and moral crusaders. He gives the “circus” aspect of politics a swift kick in the pleated pants. The sketchy world of campaign finance takes most of the brunt, but a wide range of topics — from performative values to vapid cable news outlets — draws Stewart’s ire throughout.

Stewart enlisted former collaborator Steve Carell, the patron saint of smarminess and cringe, to play Gary Zimmer, a cocksure Democratic campaign expert. Zimmer begins his journey trying to make a retired Marine (Chris Cooper, the very depiction of decency) the poster child for the new-age Democratic Party in a Wisconsin mayoral race — out there in the “heartlands” the party felt like it lost in the 2016 presidential election.

Stewart doesn’t spend his 102 minutes trying to dissect why Hillary Clinton lost that election. On the contrary, he uses the film to indict a system that turns

playing dice in their hotel. There’s also the lengthy struggle that manager and ardent advocate Norman Granz had getting Fitzgerald into certain nightclubs and venues — a battle aided by no less than Marilyn Monroe.

Fitzgerald’s stardom didn’t insulate her from mistreatment and inequity, nor did her immense talents prevent other musicians from making callous, scathing remarks about her looks or physique, or insensitive writers from inserting snide comments about her weight into supposed concert reviews. She continually dealt with self-esteem issues, and endured a lengthy period of estrangement from her adopted son Ray Brown Jr. Still, this is far from a morose, overly bitter presentation. Indeed, the primary focus of Ella Fitzgerald is on the joy the iconic performer felt and expressed onstage, her brilliance as a melodic interpreter and rhythmic vocal improviser, and her ferocity as an entertainer. The scope of her impact on other singers is revealed by the variety of performers interviewed, a list that in-

struggling small towns into voting battlegrounds. He seeks to call shenanigans on how some citizens are used for their votes without seeing their needs met by those they elect.

While Irresistible at first lingers on a mild story about a local election, it eventually dissolves into something more aggressive and outlandish. The moment Zimmer’s conservative counterpart (Rose Byrne, one of our great comedic actors) comes to town to back the incumbent mayor, the arms race begins,

cludes not just jazz stalwarts like Tony Bennett, Cleo Laine and Jamie Cullum, but also mainstream pop stars like Johnny Mathis and R&B/soul legend Smokey Robinson, the latter of whom recalls that his mother’s favorite song was Fitzgerald’s first mega hit, “A Tisket, a Tasket.” Such writers as Pulitzer Prize winner Margo Jefferson and Will Friedwald, arguably the nation’s most astute critic of jazz vocalists, add ample historical and cultural context. Friedwald marvels at Fitzgerald’s ability to turn her voice into an instrument, and Jefferson provides ideal insight and wisdom regarding her musical and social accomplishments.

No one — not even the great Louis Armstrong, whom she loved and admired — surpassed Ella Fitzgerald as the consummate vocal performer of the pre-rock canon. But Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things goes deeper than just spotlighting her artistry — it reveals the toll it took, while cementing the fact that the journey was still well worth it.

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complete with the kinds of sordid situations small communities find themselves in when candidates start with the pie and handshakes. If Stewart has empathy for anyone in this story, it’s for the townsfolk, not the politicians or pundits.

In recent years, Stewart has done laudable work on behalf of 9/11 first responders — perhaps seeing the sausage of federal government being made in real time made him even more jaded. Getting permanent health care benefits for those who rushed to the front lines on one of our country’s darkest days was a long and difficult process. That seems to have affected Stewart something fierce.

With Irresistible, he has no interest in a Hollywood ending. He knows talk is cheap, and the yeoman’s work awaits those who truly wish to make a difference in our broken political system. But Stewart does see an avenue here where people really can push for governmental change. He may not have much regard for how we elect our leaders, but you can bet he has a lot of faith in the voters.

If you’re wondering what sets this film apart from its satirical peers, it’s the confidence its filmmaker has in his audience.

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ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE S P A T P O R E F I F T R A L T A N U R S D N A G L U S A G G S R I T O N G A B S O G O T U S T A T

This cause came to be heard on the 4th day of October 2019, before the Honorable Mike O’Nea;, Judge of the Juvenile Court of Davidson County, Tennessee upon a status hearing. Counsel for Mother made an oral motion for Service of Process by Publication filed. In this cause it is appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Larry Davis, it is ordered that said Defendant be served by publication and enter his appearance herrin within thirty (30) days from the last day of publication of this notice, and defend or default will be taken against him. The hearing to be held at 100 Woodland St., Nashville, TN 37213. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks. It is further ordered that said four (4) week succession publication will constitute service upon Larry Davis in the above-captioned case.

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