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MUSIC: ORVILLE PECK’S RODEO COMES READY TO DISMANTLE A TIRED IMAGE OF NASHVILLE
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WITNESS HISTORY
From the exhibit Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present
These boots were made for George Jones by Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors in 1969, and Jones gave them to Marty Stuart in 1987 “in perfect condition.” By the end of ’87, which Stuart called the roughest year of his life, the boots “were a perfect reflection of me, worn out.”
RESERVE TODAY artifact: Gift of Marty Stuart, Willard & Pat Walker Charitable Foundation, and Loretta and Jeff Clarke. From the Marty Stuart Collection artifact photo: Bob Delevante
Nashville Republican Women Christen West End Headquarters
Tre Hargett stokes fears about voter fraud at August lunch meeting
BY ELI MOTYCKA
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
COVER PACKAGE: YOUR MOVE, NASHVILLE
The Nuts and Bolts of ‘Choose How You Move’
Mayor’s $3.1 billion transit plan focuses on buses, sidewalks, transit centers and traffic signals
BY ELI MOTYCKA
Riders Evaluate Bus Network on Efficiency and Experience
Excited for upgrades, regular WeGo bus riders harbor concerns about timeliness, cleanliness and accessibility BY ELI MOTYCKA
Infographic
What is it like driving, cycling or riding the bus to work in Nashville?
Talking Transit With the Mayor Diving into the details of ‘Choose How You Move’ with Mayor Freddie O’Connell BY NICOLLE S. PRAINO
‘Choose How You Move’ and Pedestrian Safety
From sidewalks to signals to calmer traffic, the transit referendum wants to make walking safer and more enjoyable BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
A Passenger Princess’s Guide to Taking WeGo
How to get started with bus riding in Nashville BY HANNAH HERNER
CRITICS’ PICKS
Steve Earle, Roy Wood Jr., Maggie Antone, Dirty Dancing, Improv Decathlon and more
FOOD AND DRINK
Nonna Endures
What it takes for an independent restaurant like Caffé Nonna to survive Nashville’s boom BY ELI MOTYCKA
VODKA YONIC Coffee Crawl
Making my world bigger, one coffee shop at a time BY RIVER JAMES WITHEROW
ART
Red Grooms Gets His Flowers
Nashville’s preeminent modern painter shows off his back-porch still lifes at David Lusk Gallery BY ELI MOTYCKA
BOOKS
A Venomous Presence
Erica Wright’s latest novel features real and metaphorical serpents BY BRADLEY SIDES; CHAPTER16.ORG
MUSIC
Show ’Em the Ropes
Orville Peck’s Rodeo comes ready to dismantle a tired image of Nashville BY JASON SHAWHAN
In the Long Run
For 20 years and counting, The Long Players celebrate the album as art BY DARYL SANDERS
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out Benny the Butcher at Skydeck BY P.J. KINZER
YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
THE COVER: Illustrations by Jacob Lucas
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Lasagna at Caffé Nonna • PHOTO BY ANGELINA CASTILLO
AUGUST 23, 24, 25 | 7 PM
Songwriters Under the Stars
Wendell Mobley, Kelly Archer & Lee Thomas Miller
Experience top Nashville hitmakers and musicians in a one-of-kind setting. Nestled on gorgeous Swan Lawn, the concert features chart-toppers sharing songs and stories, accompanied by the renowned String Light Symphony.
SEPTEMBER 6 | 7 PM
Sam Bush & Davidson County String Band
Experience an iconic bluegrass legend set against the picturesque backdrop of Cheekwood’s gardens. Revel in the musical brilliance of national champion fiddler and award-winning mandolin player Sam Bush.
Reserve tickets at cheekwood.org
WHO WE ARE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers
MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez
SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin
ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter
MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser
DIGITAL EDITOR Kim Baldwin
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cole Villena
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman
Kelsey Beyeler, Logan Butts, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams
SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan
Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, Christine Kreyling, J.R. Lind, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Andrea Williams, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian
EDITORIAL INTERNS Aiden O’Neill, Joanna Walden
ART DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones
PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters
Sandi Harrison, Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck
GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN Jacob Lucas
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello
FESTIVAL DIRECTOR Olivia Britton
MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MANAGER Robin Fomusa
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS MANAGER Alissa Wetzel
DIGITAL & MARKETING STRATEGY LEAD Isaac Norris
PUBLISHER Mike Smith
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski
SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS MANAGERS
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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016
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8.15 Steve Moakler
8.17 Pedal Steel Noah’s Guitar Party w/ Whit Wright, Steve Fishell
8.19 Buddy’s Place Writers’ Round w/ Mae Estes, Alex Hall, Carson Beyer
8.23 Josh Ward
8.24 Kevin MaC & The Homies, Philip Bowen
8.25 Pick, Pick, Pass w/ Kevin MaC, Philip Bowen, Hannah McFarland 8.27 Cigarettes & Pizza w/ Aaron Raitiere, Maggie Antone 8.28 Tom Douglas - Love, Tom 8.29 Joanna Cotten
8.30 The Vegabonds w/ Taylor Hunnicutt 8.31 Danielle Peck
8.23 josh ward 8.29 joanna Cotten
8.15 steve moakler
NASHVILLE REPUBLICAN WOMEN
CHRISTEN WEST END HEADQUARTERS
Tre
Hargett stokes fears about voter fraud at August lunch meeting
BY ELI MOTYCKA
FOR A CERTAIN SET of Nashvillians, nothing speaks louder than West End real estate. The historic connector between Belle Meade and downtown has always commanded upmarket prices — and with them an air of importance. While the city’s recent booms have largely struck formerly low-rent districts like 12South and Germantown, you can’t move a road, and West End’s convenience still draws gridlocked inbound and outbound traffic, making its storefronts equal parts billboard.
Earlier this summer, the Nashville Republican Women moved quickly to secure an election season headquarters at West End’s former Civic Bank & Trust branch. The nearby intersection funnels traffic from Sylvan Park, Green Hills and two I-440 exits, drawing eyeballs from the western half of Davidson County. In the first few days of August, the lawn spawned yard signs and banners for all Republican candidates who safely survived their primaries. The group appears resourceful, organized and committed, and the space itself is a testament to the group’s logistical command.
“After six or seven drafts of the lease, it happened,” said NRW president Mary Obersteadt during her introductory remarks at the group’s Aug. 14 meeting. “It took a long time, but I can tell you, this place came as is — in other words, no air conditioning. But the location, the visibility, the square footage far outweighs the cons. I’ve been asked, ‘How can we afford it?’ Well, we really can’t. But I have a lot of faith that we can sell lots and lots of T-shirts, hats, flags, jewelry, headscarves, koozies, Trump flags, socks and bumper stickers. We’re gonna make it. It’s a prime place for every Republican candidate in Nashville and Davidson County to put their signs and literature. This is for the candidates.”
Polite applause rippled through the audience. The sea of gold jewelry and patterned floral dresses, most of them red, suggested a camaraderie among the group closer to a social club than a political faction. Individual packed lunches had been ordered beforehand and, midway through the speaking lineup, moved through each row of folding chairs. About 20 rows faced a makeshift stage at one end of the bank lobby, part of which had been converted into a booth for Trump-branded merchandise and apparel.
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett headlined the event. Just before lunchtime, he delivered a conversational lecture on why Tennessee’s voting security has been emulated and praised throughout the nation.
Voting access was one of the few political issues broached by the group. The others — immigration and transgender athletes in sports
— formed a trifecta of fear, stoked anew with regular anecdotal comments about violent acts committed around the country by immigrants. Reproductive rights, a central organizing plank for the Davidson County Democratic Women since Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion protections, did not come up.
Hargett, the state’s top elections official, walked a narrow line during his speech. He repeatedly affirmed members’ fears about election security, particularly conspiracies about voter fraud and ballot harvesting, spread by Donald Trump after his 2020 presidential election loss. Republicans, including Hargett, have seized on methods of expanded voting access — like ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting — as sources of voter fraud, attempting to pass isolated incidents or circumstantial conjecture as evidence.
Early in his speech, Hargett explained a recent barrage of mail sent to certain residents questioning their voter eligibility.
“Recently we discovered that there are many people who may potentially be noncitizens on our voter rolls,” Hargett said. “Maybe. We don’t know. So we decided we’re going to mail a letter to these 14,375 people. So now we have put anybody who is a noncitizen on our voter rolls on notice that noncitizen voting is a felony in the state of Tennessee, and if you vote illegally, we’re going to work with law enforcement officials to make sure you’re prosecuted.”
Hargett also reminded the room that the state offers $1,000 for reporting voter fraud that leads to a conviction. Hargett introduced the bounty system in 2020. In the past 10 years, Tennessee has won three cases of ineligible voting, two
Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty began his statewide economic development tour in Spring Hill last week by visiting Worldwide Stages, an entertainment production venue. Hagerty said he’s proud the state is thriving and added that his colleagues in the U.S. Senate likely envy that. He also claimed the U.S. GDP growth rate was twice that of any other major world economy before the pandemic, and added that under the Biden administration the U.S. has less of a competitive advantage. At one point, Hagerty said the country’s Trump-era economy was growing at twice the rate it is today, which is not true. Hagerty was correct that the GDP growth rate of the U.S. was higher than those of other advanced economies prepandemic, but that is also still the case today.
of which related to voting by individuals with prior felony convictions. Unprovoked, Hargett assured the room that Tennessee’s air-gapped voting system means there is “no way somebody can get into that machine through some server in Venezuela, Iran or North Korea.”
Hargett then helped the room conceptualize a hypothetical voter-fraud scheme perpetrated by Democrats.
“I want you to imagine this,” he said. “If we allow ballot harvesting in the state of Tennessee, a bunch of Gloria Johnson supporters are going out, and they’re knocking on doors and asking for ballots, and they’re looking down at the voter list and they see who the R’s are. They know who the likely Marsha Blackburn voters are, and they’re going around gathering ballots. Do you think they’re gonna turn those in? No, they wouldn’t turn those in. That’s why we don’t allow ballot harvesting and ballot trafficking in the state of Tennessee.”
With every hypothetical voting breach, Hargett emphasized Tennessee’s uniquely secure elections, assuring the room that the state has earned national acclaim for its election integrity. Hargett proudly cited Tennessee’s No. 1 ranking in election integrity from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that developed Project 2025. Voting rights groups argue that the same choices earning Hargett top marks from Heritage — requiring extensive residency proof, purging voter lists and limiting absentee voting — have suppressed voter registration and participation, turning Tennessee into a voting desert and putting the state in last place for voter turnout. ▼
Demolition of a historic former fire station building located on Charlotte Avenue in West Nashville is underway after having been put on hold in May. As Scene sister publication the Nashville Post reported last year, Vita Firehouse LLC paid $2 million for the property. The LLC is overseen by Anthony Sanfilippo and Jake Sudduth In March 2023, Sanfilippo said his team planned to restore the Charlotte Avenue building “to its original firehouse character,” adding the effort would require about 10 months. Tim Walker, Metro Historical Commission executive director, told the Post in May that the department had the opportunity to review the request to demolish, as the building was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Last week, the Nashville Banner’s Laura Dean reported that the Tennessee Preservation Trust is refusing to sell the land it owns in Monteagle — land that once belonged to legendary civil rights hub Highlander Folk School before the state took it from them — back to the Highlander Center Scene columnist Betsy Phillips gets in the weeds on the TPT’s planned sale of the property to another buyer, writing: “To make a long story short, this nonprofit bought land they knew had been what we might call ‘stolen’ from the Highlander Folk School by the state, and then sold off. And now this group — which would seem to be about preserving the property, being the Tennessee Preservation Trust and all — is selling the land they own in Monteagle to someone else.”
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
NASHVILLE REPUBLICAN WOMEN HEADQUARTERS
Digging into Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit referendum, which will be on the ballot in November
NASHVILLE’S PROPOSED $3.1 BILLION transit plan could bring huge changes to the city’s transportation infrastructure. Voters will find the referendum to approve or reject the plan, “Choose How You Move,” on the ballot in November, and so our cover story this week aims to help you understand it.
Reporter Eli Motycka digs into the details to help voters wrap their heads around what the plan might bring to Nashville. He also speaks to regular transit users about their concerns. Managing editor Alejandro Ramirez explores how the plan could bring improvements to pedestrian safety, and reporter Nicolle Praino sits down with Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a longtime transit advocate who’s pitching the referendum as a way to “give the green light to more green lights.” Nicolle also teamed with associate editor Cole Villena — a regular bike and bus commuter who guest-edited this cover package — to compare commutes using a car, a bike and the bus to the Scene’s office in East Nashville. Reporter Hannah Herner, meanwhile, covers her experience riding the WeGo bus for the first time.
The Nuts and Bolts of ‘Choose How You Move’
Mayor’s $3.1 billion transit plan focuses on buses, sidewalks, transit centers and traffic
signals
BY ELI MOTYCKA
DRY LANGUAGE DESCRIBING Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s proposed transit upgrades may take less than 30 seconds to read when Nashvillians see it in a voting booth on Nov. 5. The official description, stamped last month by the Davidson County Election Commission, legally outlines a complex transaction proposed by O’Connell to his constituents.
He needs voters to approve the plan, officially branded “Choose How You Move: An All-Access Pass to Sidewalks, Signals, Service, and Safety.” Per state law, O’Connell’s proposed 0.5 percent sales tax increase requires a referendum — direct democracy for direct taxation — to add to the state’s 7 percent flat tax and 2.25 percent in existing county sales taxes. A 9.75 percent total sales tax rate will bring the city in line with conservative neighbors Wilson, Williamson and Rutherford counties. Critics point out the raw financial burden of adding an extra 50 cents to every $100 grocery bill. Unlike taxes on income or capital gains, sales taxes ask the same dollar amount at the register from the teacher, the
bartender and the banker — a burden that hits lower earners harder than higher earners.
The plan also requires city bonds, state assistance, federal funding and fare revenue. Metro Council approved the plan, officially dubbed a “transit improvement program,” in July.
Once tapped, sales tax money flows to every transit mode operating in Davidson County and, crucially, to none that doesn’t. Rather than go for light rail, a contentious feature of former Mayor Megan Barry’s failed 2018 referendum Let’s Move Nashville, O’Connell’s plan doubles down on what people already know: buses, cars and pedestrians.
Expanded bus routes that crisscross the county used to be the plan’s top-line selling point. The plan promises a 60 percent increase in bus service with added routes, extended lines and expanded hours of operation. WeGo, currently funded with yearly allocations, commands the bulk of the plan’s total $3.1 billion price tag. About $1.3 billion goes toward turning major arteries like Gallatin Avenue, Murfreesboro Pike and West End Avenue into “All Access Corridors,” with dedicated lanes running buses every 15 minutes for “walk-up” service. Several other transit centers, including new facilities on the county perimeter meant to catch commuter traffic, will build out crosstown capacity. It’s a welcome investment for the Nashvillians who rely on the bus — about 30,000 a week and growing — with potential to attract new users.
“Where I’m from, public transit wasn’t widely available, so upon moving to Nashville, I wanted to go visit some friends downtown from East Nashville,” says 24-year-old Hayden Davis, who moved from rural Alabama last year. “I saw it took 40 stops, an hour-and-a-half to get downtown.”
Minutes earlier, Davis had shared, with shock and dismay, the annual maintenance cost for his car quoted that day by his mechanic. “If there are more widely available options, I would use it. It’s easier and better for the environment.”
The plan tacks on traffic management infrastructure, like signals that can adapt to traffic flow, and supports the new Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure traffic management office. Such strategies were adopted by cities across the country decades ago. O’Connell also promises to double the pace of sidewalk construction, focusing both on the proposed All Access Corridors and the city’s hefty sidewalk backlog.
The line from O’Connell’s early days on the WeGo (then MTA) board to the Nov. 5 vote could not be much straighter. The mayor’s typical stump speech starts with a well-worn anecdote about how, as a 20-something, he got around Nashville without a car to save money for a down payment on a house. As a candidate, he sold himself as the nuts-and-bolts city manager who knew how to bend the vast Metro bureaucracy away from tourists and toward real people. For the mayor, this vote is personal. ▼
Riders Evaluate Bus Network on Efficiency and Experience
Excited for upgrades, regular WeGo bus riders harbor concerns about timeliness, cleanliness and accessibility
BY ELI MOTYCKA
ORANGE CONES AND construction barriers mark off the last few unfinished areas of WeGo’s new North Nashville transit hub on Clarksville Pike. Buses slowly creep through the site’s five bays, and in an airy, air-conditioned atrium, flat-screen TVs show ETAs and ETDs for routes toward Edgehill and the airport.
Officially the Dr. Ernest “Rip” Patton Jr. North Nashville Transit Center — named for the Nashville-born civil rights activist, musician and freedom rider who died at 81 in 2021 — WeGo’s new addition formally opens in late August. The project broke ground in November 2022, and buses have been running there since early summer, a few months behind the site’s projected spring completion date.
Public transit is a utility. Riders who spoke with the Scene want an efficient and predictable network with sensible routes and minimal transfers. Structurally, a better bus network starts with eliminating the entire system’s dependence on Fifth Avenue’s WeGo Central; practically, riders want buses that arrive and
leave on time.
For regular riders, the new transfer station solves a geometry problem. Major lines run to WeGo Central, a hitch that requires regular transfers at the downtown hub and devastating traffic slowdowns. Bus hubs outside the core, like the Patton Center, can help bypass downtown altogether. Months before voters decide whether to entrust Mayor Freddie O’Connell with a $3.1 billion commitment to transit, the new site’s clean benches, crisp concrete, attractive art, shaded patio and comfortable waiting area also work as a proof of concept meant to win over jaded riders harboring years’ worth of bus complaints.
WeGo riders lost a collective voice with the sudden dissolution of Music City Riders United (MCRU), an advocacy group that pushed multiple successful public transit campaigns before petering out in the past few years. The same bread-and-butter concerns presented by that group still dominate bus stop buzz among riders
and during the WeGo Board’s public comment period, one of a few remaining options available to concerned transit users.
“The buses seem to be running much more on schedule lately — that’s a real good thing, because under the previous administration, they were pretty sloppy,” says John Bull, who started riding WeGo in December 2019 when optic nerve damage made driving too dangerous for him. He says he’s taken around 5,000 WeGo rides since. “You can depend on them showing up in a timely manner.”
Riders also want improvements to their experience on and off the bus. WeGo vehicles are outfitted with security cameras that pick up audio, enabling real-time responses to any potential safety incidents, but riders say the city has not reliably delivered basic amenities at stops and stations. Top priorities include clean and well-lit facilities, comfortable waiting areas, sheltered benches and, when possible, air-conditioning and heat throughout the WeGo system.
Many frustrated riders point to WeGo Central, a dark terminal built like a parking garage, and roadside stops that are little more than a metal sign stuck in the grass.
QuickTicket, a payment system adopted by WeGo last year, has also revealed systemic deficiencies in a transfer-rich bus system. Each bus ride incurs a $2 fare, bringing the total sticker price of some crosstown rides to $10 or $12. But all-day passes (with unlimited transfers) go for $4, and a monthly QuickTicket costs $65 ($33 for seniors and youth). The system’s burdens become even harder to justify considering the single-digit percentage of WeGo’s budget supplied by fare income.
Dozens showed up to WeGo’s July 25 board meeting to testify about WeGo’s accessibility options. As several riders recounted experiences using accessible transit options, they emphasized that reliance on the program compels them to make it better.
About halfway through, Theresa Khayyam, who went blind 13 years ago, made a point worth repeating to transit users, car drivers and board members.
“I found myself with this condition,” Khayyam said. “I started riding with WeGo, and many times they would no-show me, and I would have to argue with the customer service rep. I assume many of you — all of you on the WeGo board — are ambulatory. You never know what condition you will find yourself in. Next week, next month, it could be you. What type of service would you want to provide for you?” ▼
What is it like driving, cycling or riding the bus to work in Nashville?
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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
WEGO BUS
Talking Transit With the Mayor
Diving into the details of ‘Choose How You Move’ with Mayor Freddie O’Connell
BY NICOLLE S. PRAINO
THE SCENE SAT down with Mayor Freddie O’Connell to talk about his proposed transit plan, and what pieces he thinks are important for Nashvillians to consider when voting in November. Visit nashvillescene.com to read a longer version of this interview, which is edited here for space and clarity.
What’s the biggest thing you want a voter to take away from the transit plan? The biggest-picture thing is the overall program should not only help you as somebody in the city — it should help the entire city. Even if you are very committed to your current commute pattern and you drive by yourself, almost everywhere you go, you’re gonna get more green lights out of this program. If you’re in a neighborhood that is challenged because you’ve got a corridor that runs right by where you live, and it’s got a broken sidewalk network, and you have to walk on dirt paths, you’re gonna get something out of this. If you are spending two hours on your commute because you’re transit-dependent right now, this is probably going to bring either better frequency and more likely even that point-topoint opportunity to not just have to come into downtown everywhere. So child care gets closer, groceries get closer, health care gets closer. If you’re working a third shift, you’re finally going to be able to actually have an opportunity to catch a bus after 1 a.m. We really did try to structure the program to meet people where they are and offer them better options, no matter how they’re moving around the city.
Can you delve into signaling in particular, since so many people who are car-dependent want to know how that will work for them? We had started to see some of this work. In fact, we’re picking up on a thread that came up in Mayor [John] Cooper’s transportation plan, which absolutely informed our overall program. When we started the Nashville Department of Transportation out of what used to be Public Works, there was this idea of traffic management centers. So we’ve got a smaller one that’s a combined police substation and TMC about to open on Broadway, and then a more comprehensive one over at the Howard Office Building. Every time we convert signals to this, it’s a grid. It’s not even just that at your traffic signal that you might otherwise be stopped at a red light when no cars are coming the other way. Now, because of understanding traffic patterns with each one that comes online, it may be the entirety of Broadway, for instance, where a whole network of lights stays green after a special event to help traffic flow. It not only knows that you’re at this intersection — it probably knows, “Oh, you’re trying to get on the interstate to head back home after something.” It will ultimately literally mean a larger number
of Nashvillians have more green lights than red lights as they’re traveling around the city. The program lets us, over the period that it’s in effect, modernize two-thirds of our signalized intersections.
Many people had expected light rail in the plan. Why did you decide not to include it? Fundamentally, it’s a math question. Even the single light rail possibility from the airport to downtown at a probably minimum cost of $300 million per mile that you would need for implementation of a light rail corridor would mean that that single corridor would effectively consume all of the financial envelope for the program. Basically, we could do one light rail route for a key corridor, or a program with citywide impact. We just wanted to design a program that could have the most impact the most quickly, with the best overall cost-benefit analysis from Nashvillians, and frankly just the sheer cost is what made the decision not easy, but necessary.
And I would add to that, when we went into this conversation six years ago, it was [before the plan to partially fund a new Titans stadium with public money]. Where it might be nice to have a balanced financing approach that included hotel/motel tax, after we just added a percent to the hotel/motel tax, I think that would have been pretty difficult for the hospitality scenario in the city. So what we’re left with is a very simple lower overall financial envelope program that just can’t support light rail meaningfully. Since the plan’s dedicated funding opens up the chance for more federal dollars, is there any potential for light rail expansion if this passes and the city can then tap into those funds? Absolutely. What we kind of guided both WeGo, NDOT and our consultant team to design — and Metro Planning right alongside them — was to ensure that all of these corridors were actually rail-ready. So that you could imagine a corridor that when we look at a federal program … when we get to local, preferred alternatives suggest this would be a great corridor for rail. We’ll be ready to make that decision on the basis of federal funding availability.
What’s your argument for the plan when some might say they don’t want to or can’t afford to pay for it right now? I think there are a couple ways to look at it. One, there’s a tremendous amount of financial accountability built into the way the state created bipartisan legislation to let us do this in the first place. We had to go get our accounting process approved by the state comptroller. We had to go get an independent audit for the financing plan. We have to show you what we’re doing. This isn’t us just asking for money and it’s like a blank check. This money is directly aligned with all of these improvements. Now, if you don’t want to pay for it, then you get exactly what we’ve been doing for the past quarter-century, which is little better than nothing. And it’s why we ranked as one of the worst commutes in the country earlier this year in a report that came out in Forbes magazine. That’s not what I want for the city. We are continuing to see growth that … started a couple of years ago continue, and we’ve got to interact with it more successfully. I’d also say for most house-
holds, this is going to be $6 or $7 a month. When you go into Target and spend $50, you’ll throw a quarter in the jar to pay for this program. And the majority of the program’s local revenues are actually going to come from out-of-county residents. This actually lets us capture the success of Nashville’s destination economy.
How do you fight back against opposition groups? That was a problem for the last transit plan with a lot of money in opposition, and there is at least one group this time around that mainly focuses on the sales tax. We think we’ve gotten the program to meet Nashvillians’ needs. I think a lot of previous efforts maybe under-accounted for how Nashvillians are experiencing moving around the city, and so we really did want to build a plan that has something for everybody embedded in it. But I think the easiest way to talk about this is: As people go to the polls this November, our hope and expectation is that we’re trying to get the green light for more green lights. And I think that’s one thing that’s been missing from the conversation. This isn’t a program that’s intent is to produce a bigger volume of empty buses. This really is a program that is trying to create more options for people who have told us for more than a decade that they desperately want them, and in some cases desperately need them.
What’s the logistical challenge of placing the infrastructure in places that haven’t had it before?
We really are going to have to take this on a corridor-by-corridor, block-by-block basis to figure out where today, right now, we could start engineering in some places, because we know we’ve got the curb-to-curb width to do stuff, that the sidewalk network may already be in reasonably good shape. There are other places where you’re going to have to deal with complex complications of things — like, there’s a rail crossing here, or we have to acquire a bunch of right-of-way to put a sidewalk into place. That’s also one of the reasons why, on one hand, we know we’re going to be able to deliver some things that you can see, touch, feel, experience in year one. But we also know that across 15 years, that’s one of the reasons why dedicated funding is actually so important — so you can do that long-term planning and know that while we’re delivering a sidewalk over here in the first couple of years,
“ THIS ISN’T A PROGRAM THAT’S INTENT IS TO PRODUCE A BIGGER VOLUME OF EMPTY BUSES. THIS REALLY IS A PROGRAM THAT IS TRYING TO CREATE MORE OPTIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE TOLD US FOR MORE THAN A DECADE THAT THEY DESPERATELY WANT THEM, AND IN SOME CASES DESPERATELY NEED THEM.
we’ve got to be doing right-of-way acquisition and corridor design and something else out here [that] may happen in year six or seven. But if we can’t depend on that [dedicated funding], we also can’t go as easily to our state and federal partners, and so the dedicated funding element lets us do these longer-term looks at corridors that may have some more complexity to them. What’s the importance of these corridors? One of the things that we heard over and over again in reflections on the last time we’ve looked at something was, “Where is the regional connectivity?” One of the best parts about this is, we started this conversation with awareness that Nashville is at the heart of a growing region. And so while we’re not paying for everybody who lives out of county all the way — we are making sure that we have park-and-ride locations, that we’re increasing some express service, that even the WeGo Star with a recent study is going to get some attention with nights and weekend service improvements. Seeing the level of regional thinking in the implementation has been enough to earn the support of the Regional Transportation Authority, enough to earn the support of the Greater Nashville Regional Council. Again, just like we think we’ve gotten this right for Nashville and Nashvillians, we also think we’ve gotten this right in a way that our regional partners are going to appreciate and benefit from. ▼
MAYOR FREDDIE O’CONNELL
PHOTO: MICHAEL W. BUNCH
‘Choose How You Move’ and Pedestrian Safety
From sidewalks to signals to calmer traffic, the transit referendum wants to make walking safer and more enjoyable
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
Among the myriad improvements proposed by Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s $3.1 billion transit overhaul are several that aim to make life better for pedestrians. The most obvious element is a proposal to install or upgrade 86 miles of sidewalks in Nashville over the next 15 years. But plans to reimagine the city’s busiest corridors for drivers and bus riders could also make Nashville a safer place to walk, according to the mayor and transit advocates.
Adding urgency to the project is the fact that last year, 37 pedestrians died in Nashville. While that’s lower than the record high of 47 deaths seen in 2022, frustrations about the quality of Nashville sidewalks — or lack thereof — remain, especially for citizens with disabilities. Meredith Montgomery, executive director of local transit advocacy organization Walk Bike Nashville, notes that the majority of fatal accidents for pedestrians and cyclists happen on just 6 percent of Nashville’s streets. Advocates posit the transit improvement plan itself as one way to help Nashville meet its goal of reducing annual pedestrian deaths to zero by 2050.
The plan currently calls for big improvements to major roadways like Nolensville and Dickerson Pike that would include revamping sidewalks, traffic signals and transit service. O’Connell tells the Scene that the goal isn’t to get drivers out of their cars or change commuters’ behavior, but to respond to unmet demands.
“What you see right now on the ground is demand by way of dirt paths and ditches where people are trying to walk,” the mayor says.
Smarter crosswalk signals would be supported by the plan as well, especially when installing crosswalks in the middle of city blocks. The most important tool here could be HAWK
beacons, which have been shown to improve pedestrian safety in cities like Phoenix. HAWK signals (which get their name from the acronym for “High-Intensity Activated crossWalK”) give a solid red light when pedestrians are crossing, and then allow traffic to resume once the crosswalk is clear — drivers don’t need to wait for a green light, as with traditional signals.
“It’s significantly safer than any other kind of crosswalk for a pedestrian,” says Montgomery.
“When we have this upgraded signalization … it allows them to not only put more of those in, but it allows them to coordinate with the lights on that whole corridor to make sure that it’s activated in a way that doesn’t completely back up traffic,” she says. “So it really significantly improves the pedestrian experience while also keeping the drivers in mind, and it keeps the traffic flow moving.”
Making walking conditions more pleasant can also make them safer. Montgomery says that while a sidewalk set up against a 40 mph road is “better than having to walk in a ditch on the side of the road,” the experience could still be improved by adding a green buffer, trees for shade (which can have a traffic-calming effect) or even a bike lane — all of which create more space between pedestrians and traffic.
Montgomery says Nashville needs a “transformative” plan like the one proposed by O’Connell, in contrast to the city’s historically piecemeal approach to fixing and adding sidewalks.
“If we go in there and completely change the landscape and put in, you know, trees for shade, and put in bus stops that look really appealing to use, it creates a more dignified experience,” she says.
O’Connell points to pedestrian, bike lane and bus shelter improvements on 12th Avenue South as an example of Nashvillians taking advantage of new options. The “traffic still flows” in that busy neighborhood, he says, but there are also more pedestrians.
“What we saw was our constituents literally telling us they started walking more because the corridor simply seemed safer,” he says. ▼
Nightfall at the Hall
PRESENTED BY AN AFTER-HOURS PARTY FOR TROUBADOUR MEMBERS
FEATURING A PERFORMANCE BY JORDAN DAVIS
6:00 – 9:00 PM AND A SPECIAL PERFORMANCE BY MILEY HENDERSON
SEPTEMBER 16, 2024
BECOME A TROUBADOUR MEMBER TO ATTEND
HAWK SIGNAL ON DICKERSON PIKE
A Passenger Princess’s Guide to Taking WeGo
How to get started with bus riding in Nashville
BY HANNAH HERNER
WHEN I VISIT other cities, getting to use public transport is often the highlight of my trip.
While Nashville’s buses are way less sexy than, say, the trains in Boston, I wondered if I could still make them work for me as someone who has a reliable vehicle but would like to save money on rideshares and parking.
It’s not my first rodeo. When I attended The Ohio State University, a swipe of my student ID on the Central Ohio Transit Authority took me to art crawls and concerts on a “Night Owl” bus aimed at students. But when I moved to Nashville, my eagerness for transit faded. I worked at The Contributor street newspaper and heard negative reviews from many of the paper’s vendors who relied on the bus.
But for this issue I decided to give it another crack. I’m happy to report that I arrived where I was aiming to go. My tips are below.
GETTING A TICKET
1. Download the Quick Ticket app.
2. Create and activate an account via email.
3. Add your credit card.
4. Add money (in $5 increments) or passes.
5. Scan the QR code on the fare reader when you enter the bus.
(It’s not all that different from a Starbucks reward card. But if you’d like to use cash, more on that below.)
COSTS
If you don’t want to mess with the app, simply putting $2 into the cash machine at the front of the bus will get you a ride. (The exact cash fare is required.) The catch in Nashville is that going across town often means a transfer, so you’d have to do the same on the second bus. Using the app, you can load $2, which will pay for two hours and allow for transfers.
When I took the bus to work, I loaded a $4 allday pass that covered my four bus rides.
MENTALLY PREPARING
Using WeGo’s YouTube videos, I got a refresher on the rules of pulling the yellow stop request cord (do it when your stop is next), letting others off before you get on, and other rider courtesies. It’s eight minutes well spent. I used the Maps app on my iPhone to plan my route, selecting the transit option rather than the car option. The timing was relatively reliable in my limited experience, never off by more than five or 10 minutes.
GOING DOWNTOWN
When traveling from my home on West End to Broadway or the Gulch, the bus is a nobrainer. What would be a $15 Uber ride cost just $2 and dropped me right by Hume-Fogg High School so I could take part in Nashville’s most spirited nightlife. It took 22 minutes to take the bus instead of around 12 minutes to drive, but I didn’t have to deal with parking.
Rating: 10/10. I took a Lyft back home but would take the bus one way again.
GOING TO WORK
Using the bus to get to work required a more difficult cost-benefit analysis. What would be an 11-minute drive to East Nashville took 40 minutes due to a transfer at the downtown station. The downtown bus station, which has been the setting of several violent crimes in the past few months, is not somewhere I’d like to hang out by myself, especially at night. But it is where you can manage physical passes, if you prefer.
The tricky part on my first try was finding which of the 24 bays the bus I wanted would be in. For example, the No. 3 bus I took into town stopped in the No. 5 bay. I found guidance in the temperature-controlled waiting areas, and if you’re really confused, you can ask at the information booth.
I think commuting to work via bus makes a lot more sense for my co-worker, who uses the commuter bus from Murfreesboro.
Rating: 5/10. I would do it if my car were out of commission.
Overall, riding the bus gave me a real gift — uninterrupted time to read the latest issue of the Nashville Scene! ▼
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
Celebrating Giancarlo Guerrero
7:30 PM
Eric Roth, conductor
Opening Weekend: Rachmaninoff and Mahler with the Nashville Symphony SEP 13 & 14 | 7:30 PM
Giancarlo
ConcertSponsor:FourSeasonsHotelNashville SEP
CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO
FRIDAY, AUG. 23 - OCT. 5
ART [CREATURE COMFORTS]
BRETT DOUGLAS HUNTER: CRYPTIDS AND CRINOIDS
Brett Douglas Hunter has one of the most recognizable styles in Nashville, and we’re glad to have his vibe representing our fair city — it’s like if Keith Haring’s drawings and Wayne White’s character designs had a totally original baby. That is to say, he walks on the same path as some of pop art’s greatest, without being derivative of any one of them in particular. You may have seen his large-scale concrete works at Bonnaroo — there was even a marriage proposal in front of one of them this summer. And since his show Aminals way back in 2017 was the very first Elephant Gallery exhibition, Friday’s opening of Cryptids and Crinoids is likely to be a banger full of weirdos and art collectors alike. Hunter’s made more than 200 cutout wooden characters for the show, all decorated in his usual bright palette — think ’90s skater designs in Memphis Group color patterns. The reception runs from 6 to 9 p.m.; get there early if you want to snag your favorite. These are likely to sell quickly. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
THURSDAY / 8.22
MUSIC
[RHINESTONED]
MAGGIE ANTONE ALBUM RELEASE
In a city that can sometimes feel overrun by dream-chasin’ troubadours, Maggie Antone is one up-and-coming storyteller who can’t be missed. Antone — a Virginia native who delivers sharp-as-hell country songs with a crisp voice and down-to-earth honesty — celebrates the release of her debut LP Rhinestoned with a headlining gig at The Basement this week. New to Antone’s music? Start by spinning “Suburban Outlaw,” an ode to the type of boys who go to Lower Broadway for fun. (“No, you ain’t an outlaw, boy, you’re just redneck suburban trash / Crown Royal on your visors and Reds on your dash,” she sings in the opening lines.) From there, dig into upbeat album opener “Johnny Moonshine” and title track “Rhinestoned,” a number that’s equal parts self-aware and touching. Can’t make the release show? Catch her downtown a few days later, when Antone will share the stage Tuesday night at Chief’s with sought-after songwriter Aaron Raitiere.
MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
7 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT 1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.
MUSIC
[OLD FRIENDS] BRENNEN LEIGH
I’m a fan of pop country. The string arrangements producer Billy Sherrill used on George Jones’ 1970s records never gave me any kind of aesthetic headache, and Sherrill was more interested in making popular music than he was in adhering to the strictures of whatever you think country is. A half-century after the heyday of Jones and Tammy Wynette, country traditionalism might be exemplified by the superb work of North Dakota-born singer and songwriter Brennen Leigh, who grew up in Minnesota and moved to Nashville in 2017. What distinguishes Leigh’s 2023 album Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet from the music of thousands of superficially similar practitioners of retro country is the fact that it doesn’t sound retro. Producer Chris Scruggs folds background
IMPROV DECATHLON PAGE 18
DIRTY DANCING PAGE 20
SONDER PAGE 22
singers and hot licks into a mix that’s dominated by Leigh’s fluid post-Mary McCaslin vocals. (McCaslin added pop sensibility to her folkish renditions of songs like The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” and The Beatles’ “Things We Said Today.”) Meanwhile, Leigh evokes the feel of circa-1970 country by writing terrific songs that address modern problems. Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet proves that sincerity can coexist with playfulness. George Jones, not to mention Melba Montgomery, would be proud. Elijah Ocean opens. EDD HURT
7:30 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY
818 THIRD AVE. S.
FRIDAY / 8.23
MUSIC
[THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS] WRETCHED BLESSING, BAZOOKATOOTH, WOUNDFLOWER & HUMAN SHIELD
Some of the friendliest people you’ll ever encounter make music that sounds like a full-body skin graft of raw aggression. If you frequented Drkmttr in its earlier incarnations, before the current spot on Dickerson Pike, you’re likely no stranger to the musical legacy of Kayhan Vaziri. Vaziri was a cheerfully hardworking mainstay of the Nashville DIY underground who booked shows and played in a slew of bands like Yautja, the criminally underappreciated Choking on Ash and longtime Louisville post-punk/hardcore unit Coliseum. Now based in Chicago, Vaziri will trek down I-65 for a weekend run with his new duo Wretched Blessing, a two-piece destruction unit with seasoned drummer Rae Amitay of Immortal Bird and Woods of Ypres, to promote their first cassette release. The tape features five original tracks of genre-twisting, earth-scorching heaviness and a 49-second homage to Steve Buscemi’s character in Spy Kids 2. Newfound three-man blastbeaters Woundflower (Bled to Submission/Option Anxiety alumni) will also have their crushing new 13-track tape available at the show. Their sound mercilessly blurs the borders of ultra-fast metal-punk and harsh noise. Rounding out the gig will be West Tennessee powerviolence slammers Human Shield and veteran Nashville hardcore troupe Bazookatooth. P.J. KINZER
7 P.M. AT DRKMTTR
1111 DICKERSON PIKE
[ELECTRIC CABARET]
MUSIC
FABLE CRY W/THE DEAD DEADS & THIRD SEVEN
Where else can you find a double-wide trailer full of steampunk-loving goths rocking out to theatrical metal — and at a decent hour, no less? Music City’s most macabre band, Fable Cry, is set to host an evening of spooky serenades and over-the-top operas. It has been a few years since founder/frontperson Zac Fable and company released new music, but their live show remains an especially strange and electrifying experience that stands out among the usual Americana roundups happening about town.
Local cohorts and previous tourmates The Dead Deads will join the raucous bill. The all-female alternative-rock trio promotes inclusivity and empowerment through their music. “We can rage and fight / We can rock, we can roll all night / Hey girlfriend, I’m on your side,” sings vocalist/guitarist Meta on the aptly titled “Hey Girlfriend” off the group’s 2021 album, Tell Your Girls It’s Alright. Third Seven, the ever-evolving solo project of Oregon-based cellist Billy Mickelson, opens the show. Is it too early to start celebrating Halloween? JASON VERSTEGEN
6 P.M. AT DEE’S COUNTRY COCKTAIL LOUNGE
102 E. PALESTINE AVE., MADISON
COMEDY
[GOLD MEDAL PERFORMANCES] IMPROV
DECATHLON
The Paris Olympics may be over, but the spirit of competition is still going strong with Third Coast Comedy Club’s Improv Decathlon. Here two teams compete in a variety of Whose Line-style improv games and challenges in a battle to the finish. The evening kicks off with the host (or referee) facilitating a live draft of comics and determining the specific games that team captains will need to prepare for in order to compete. The audience provides scene topics throughout the show, and the comics must win over the audience to score points. Running just about 90 minutes, the action unfolds over two halves, allowing plenty of time for folks to visit the bar during intermission. Improv Decathlon features a slew of Nashville-based comics, including Arianna Guillard, Bekah Stogner, Katie McDonald, Maggie Thompson, Sam Brewer, Andrea Ley and Briley Barnett, with Bill Hillsman as the referee. Come cheer on the winners — and while you’re there, be sure to check out upcoming shows, classes and more.
AMY STUMPFL
9 P.M. AT THIRD COAST COMEDY CLUB
1310 CLINTON ST.
THEATER
[OUT OF THE SKY] LIGHTNING GIRL!
Juliane Koepcke’s story is one of remarkable
courage and endurance. At just 17 years old, this young German Peruvian would make international headlines as the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 plane crash. It’s a darkly fascinating tale that’s been the subject of many books and films, including Werner Herzog’s moving 1998 documentary Wings of Hope. (Speaking of Herzog, read about one of the filmmaker’s greatest works, which is screening this weekend at the Belcourt, below.) This weekend, you can check out a new play that explores Koepcke’s harrowing ordeal as Doust Productions presents Lightning Girl! Penned by Rita Anderson, Lightning Girl! offers a “surreal fictionalization” of Koepcke’s incredible journey — from surviving the initial lighting strike that caused the plane to disintegrate midflight to wandering the Peruvian rainforest for the next 11 days, desperately injured and alone. Shawn Whitsell directs a terrific cast, including Victoria Hagni, Deborah Seidel, Martina Doust, Tom Oberon, Prenda Mercado and Paj Jackson Jr.
AMY STUMPFL
AUG. 23-24 AT THE DARKHORSE THEATER 4610 CHARLOTTE AVE.
MUSIC
[THE TAPE IS NOW THE MUSIC] LIVE FROM DRKMTTR VOL. 1 LISTENING PARTY AND TAPE SWAP
Since Drkmttr launched in 2015, the venue’s organizers and volunteers have put in heaps of work that goes well beyond its basic brief as an all-ages space. From their lockdown-era pivot to hosting the Nashville Free Store to welcoming fundraiser events for causes like abortion access and youth arts education and more, they’ve shown up for the Nashville music community time and again — all in an environment where the challenges of running a small venue have only increased. In the spring, Drkmttr organizers launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to bridge the gap while they went through the process to become a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which will open up a wide array of opportunities for grants and other resources. Also in support of this effort, the
venue announced a cassette compilation of performances recorded at Drkmttr in 2023, appropriately titled Live From Drkmttr Vol. 1 The original May release date was pushed back to August, and the collection expanded to 24 tracks. Local faves like Lou Turner, Joe Kenkel, Impediment, Yammer Jaw, The Sleeveens and Total Wife are featured alongside touring greats like Gustaf, Kowloon Walled City, Horse Jumper of Love and Sweet Pill. Saturday afternoon, swing by the venue for a release party where you and your tapehead buds can listen to the comp and participate in a cassette swap, which will involve folks from local labels including YK Records, Second Floor Recordings, Trance// Furnace and more. STEPHEN TRAGESER 2-5 P.M. AT DRKMTTR
1111 DICKERSON PIKE
[DOUBLE HELPING
OF DREAMERS]
FILM
WEEKEND CLASSICS: FITZCARRALDO & BURDEN OF DREAMS
It’s practically an unspoken rule that if you’re planning to see Werner Herzog’s 1982 epic Fitzcarraldo, you have to follow it up with Burden of Dreams, Les Blank’s making-of documentary. (It also works the other way around; I saw Dreams way before I finally caught Fitzcarraldo.) After all, both films are about driven, possibly unstable men who go through hell and back just to provide some memorable art. In Herzog’s film, an opera-loving immigrant (longtime Herzog leading man Klaus Kinski) recruits Indigenous Peruvians to help him transport a massive steamship over a mountain. But in Dreams, it’s Herzog who helms a crew to move the steamship depicted in his film. Just as Herzog had to deal with the tirades and outbursts of the notoriously unhinged Kinski (see Herzog’s 1999 doc My Best Fiend for more details), Blank had a stressful time with Herzog and his chaotic way of filmmaking. Thanks to the Belcourt, you can take in both Dreams (in a brand-new 4K restoration) and Fitzcarraldo this weekend as part of the theater’s ongoing Weekend Classics series. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
AUG. 25-26 (FITZCARRALDO) AND AUG. 23-26 (DREAMS) AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
SATURDAY / 8.24
MUSIC
[CALL IT DREAMING] IRON & WINE
If you’re looking for beautiful harmonies, expert musical ability and enrapturing lyrics, look no further than Iron & Wine. After I was first exposed to Samuel Ervin Beam’s music as a teenager (Beam uses the stage name Iron & Wine), I quickly realized his unmistakable talents as a singer and songwriter. Songs like “Naked as We Came,” “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” and his sparse, deconstructed cover of the Cyndi Lauper classic “Time After Time” have all become mainstays in my playlists as I have grown out of my teenage years, and they remain
LIGHTNING GIRL!
AUGUST 25
SEPTEMBER 13 MOLLY TUTTLE &
NOVEMBER 11, 12 & 13
NOVEMBER
FEBRUARY 1,
MARCH
beautiful reminders of the moments they accompanied as I found my way through that universally awkward phase in life. The music of Iron & Wine elicits feelings akin to snuggling up with a warm blanket on a cool autumn afternoon. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable, and it’s a moment you will never forget. Nashville’s own folk-punker Sunny War will open for Iron & Wine at Saturday’s Ryman show. ROB HINKAL
8 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
MUSIC [AT LARGE]
THE MEDIUM ALBUM RELEASE FEAT. BATS
Time and again, Nashville rock outfit The Medium proves you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make something fresh and special. Their blend of rootsy and gutsy rock feels like Dad’s favorite flannel shirt — in this context, Dad was a young adult in the ’70s or ’80s before becoming a dad, and maybe he bequeathed you some Badfinger LPs — but their writing is pointed, poignant and focused on contemporary concerns. Saturday, they’ll celebrate the release of their third LP City Life via Earth Libraries, featuring songs connected by feeling displaced in our consumption-driven society. “Sellout City,” a standout that’s been in the band’s live set for a while, spells it out plainly: “Hey baby, I’m a sellout / Now people do it, there’s no doubt / They turn their life into cash flow / But wait a minute, where did my soul go?” It feels a little cheeky to call the band who’ll be celebrating with them “birds of a feather” since said group is called Bats, but central figure Jess Awh has a knack for addressing the same kinds of feelings in her work; if you’ve heard folks raving about her knockout recent LP Good Game Baby, do yourself a favor and don’t be late.
STEPHEN TRAGESER
8 P.M. AT SOFT JUNK
919 GALLATIN AVE. NO. 14
SUNDAY / 8.25
FILM [LOOK OUT]
FATHOM’S BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: REAR WINDOW
Like most of Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic work, Rear Window has been continually reevaluated and dissected by critics and scholars throughout the decades. All you have to do is Google the title and you’ll get essays, dissertations and blog posts breaking down the themes that Ol’ Al was dropping in this flick. It’s been hailed as a cautionary tale about voyeurism; a paranoid Cold War-era allegory; a suspenseful, claustrophobic take on men’s fear of commitment; and even a swan song to moviegoing itself, as television was beginning to make people look for entertainment closer to home. But it will always be a great-ass picture that still thrills after 70 freakin’ years. Jimmy Stewart, continuing his outstanding run as Hitch’s leading man, stars as a wheelchair-bound photographer who wiles his days away dodging marriage talk from his ravishing girlfriend (Grace Kelly, who makes one of the best screen entrances ever put on film) and peeking in on his neighbors, including a possible wife killer (future TV crimefighter Raymond Burr). Fathom Events is presenting the Hitchcock classic at Regal and AMC locations in celebration of the film’s 70th anniversary. CRAIG D. LINDSEY AUG. 25 & 28 AT AMC AND REGAL LOCATIONS
MONDAY / 8.26
[HUNGRY EYES]
FILM
DIRTY DANCING
I’ve found that a nearly universal truth is that all women — and also my father — love the 1987 classic Dirty Dancing. When we visited the filming location, Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia, my dad said he wouldn’t mind if we spread his ashes there one day. As someone who is certainly more than a casual fan of Dirty Dancing, I must remind readers that this film is based on the life of a real woman: writer Eleanor Bergstein. The story is based on her family’s summers in the Catskills and her time as a teenage mambo queen, and Bergstein named it Dirty Dancing because all the dirty-dancing scenes from her previous film It’s My Turn were cut. Jennifer Grey stars as everygirl Frances “Baby” Houseman, but I’ve personally long wondered if I’m really more of a Lisa (Baby’s sister). In the film’s coming-of-age summer of 1963, characters wrestle with issues including abortion, consent and class. It gives the movie weight and historic relevance, even if you walk away thinking about how hot and sexy Patrick Swayze was. Given the aforementioned universal truth, I take every chance I can get to see it on the big screen, sharing the moment with other people. Arrive on time, as The Franklin Theatre won’t show previews at this screening. Let’s swoon together! HANNAH HERNER
7 P.M. AT THE FRANKLIN THEATRE
419 MAIN ST., FRANKLIN
TUESDAY / 8.27
MUSIC
[SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT] FMRL: JAYVE MONTGOMERY AND TATSUYA NAKATANI/KEN VANDERMARK AND PNL/JUSTIN MILLER
For musicians with exceptional improvisational skills, performance can be like a conversation, picking up the thread whenever the players meet again. Tuesday at East Nashville sake bar Rice Vice, arts nonprofit FMRL will let us listen in on two renowned percussion-and-saxophone duos whom you might not ordinarily get to see in our region outside a festival like Big Ears. Over the past two decades and change, saxcentric Chicago musician Ken Vandermark and Norwegian percussionist PNL have frequently made time to perform and record together among a slew of other projects. On a quick survey, the rhythm of their work tends toward brisk and brawny exchanges that resolve into sections with a groovy lilt before the intensity ramps up again. Japan-born and New Mexicoresiding percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and Nashville’s own master of wind and electronic instruments JayVe Montgomery each have extensive careers including a wide variety of collaborations. They performed together for the first of several times at an FMRL show at Proper Sake in 2019 — a showcase for their thoughtful blend of extended techniques and more conventional ones from a variety of traditions — making this a special kind of reunion. Justin Miller, a flutist whose work draws on his Native American heritage, will open the show with what he’s described as a brief “sonic invocation.”
STEPHEN TRAGESER
8 P.M. AT RICE VICE 3109 AMBROSE AVE.
WEDNESDAY / 8.28
MUSIC [BACK IN GUITAR TOWN]
STEVE EARLE
Steve Earle, the singer-songwriter who inspired a generation of six-string howlers with essential roots-rock albums like Guitar Town and Copperhead Road, returns to the Mother Church for a one-night show … without his longtime band The Dukes. This summer, Earle is criss-crossing North America to play solo gigs on the Alone Again Tour, a 69-show acoustic run he described via Relix as a return to “performing solo like I did in coffeehouses when I first started.” Those wanting a preview of what to expect at the Ryman show can check out Earle’s new live album, Alone Again (Live), which he captured during his 2023 run of solo dates. The album includes stripped-back (but no less rowdy) renditions of Earle staples including “The Galway Girl,” “The Devil’s Right Hand” and “Copperhead Road.” The tour includes a stacked lineup of opening support, including Buddy Miller, who kicks off festivities in Nashville.
MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
MUSIC
[HATE YOUR FRIENDS]
THE LEMONHEADS
Evan Dando has kept his New England college band going for nearly 40 years. He founded The Lemonheads as a trio in 1986 with bassist Jesse Peretz and multiinstrumentalist Ben Deily, splitting the vocals/ guitar/songwriting/drums duties with Deily. This lineup played around the underbelly of Boston, releasing three stellar albums of jangly, aggressive riffs before imploding in 1989. In 1990, The Lemonheads signed to Atlantic with only Dando left to carry on the band’s name. The four major label albums saw a much cleaner sound and scored monster hits on college stations, alternative-rock radio and MTV with lovesick hit ballads like “Into Your Arms” and their omnipresent cover of Simon
THE MEDIUM
IRON & WINE
PHOTO: RYAN HARTLEY
BIG EVENTS IN SEPTEMBER:
and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.” Since then the extensive list of Lemonheads has included (but is not limited to) alt-rock superstar Juliana Hatfield, Bill Stevenson of Descendents/Black Flag fame, Dinosaur Jr.’s drummer Murph, Bullet LaVota guitarist/Rutgers professor Corey “Loog” Brennan, Descendents/All bassist Karl Alvarez and Nashville music uber-exec John Strohm. Though the bright lights of the music biz have dimmed, Dando’s constant touring, new music and cyclical reissues of the classic Lemonheads material have kept the fan base returning for more. P.J. KINZER
8 P.M. AT THE MIL AT CANNERY HALL
1 CANNERY ROW
COMEDY
[CHARISMATIC CRANKINESS] ROY WOOD JR.
I was a kid in the ’90s, a politically curious teenager post-9/11 and a furious but hopeful college student, voting for the first time in the early-teens. So yes, I was kind of a huge Jon Stewart fan. I felt like I had literally grown up with his goofy explainers and desk scribbling. In 2015, I was heartbroken and maybe a bit in denial that Stewart was actually leaving The Daily Show. But while it wasn’t the same as before, Trevor Noah and his new correspondents — Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng and Roy Wood Jr. — proved that I had nothing to be that bummed about. The Daily Show was filled with talent to look forward to, and Wood’s ascension over the years is the proof in the pudding. He’s performed three Comedy Central specials —
the second, No One Loves You, remaining the highest-rated original stand-up premiere on the network — and in 2023, headlined the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with its highest ratings since 2017. His performances are stacked with what Entertainment Weekly aptly called “charismatic crankiness,” and I genuinely can’t wait to hear his riffs on all the insane political stuff that is, uh … constantly happening.
RYNE WALKER
7 P.M. AT ZANIES
2025 EIGHTH AVE S.
OPERA
[OUT OF THE BOX] SONDER
You might associate opera with stuffy theaters and long, drawn-out narratives. Annabella Gelmetti wants to show you a different side of the art form. The Nashville musician and producer will debut Sonder, a 16-minute “street opera,” Wednesday in front of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. The title comes from a neologism — that is, a new word — referring to “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” Fittingly, passersby will make up the audience at three pop-up performances, which run consecutively starting at 11 a.m. The performances will feature Rachel Darr (soprano) and Sarah Antell (mezzo) accompanied by harpist Vonda Darr and violinist Maria Kistner Conti. COLE VILLENA
11 A.M.
1
PHOTO: DUANE COLE
ROY WOOD JR.
NONNA ENDURES
What it takes for an independent restaurant like Caffé Nonna to survive Nashville’s boom
BY ELI MOTYCKA
IF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL bookie created a betting market for Nashville restaurants, the smart money would go toward pizza, beer, hot chicken and the restaurant group Strategic Hospitality. Familiar restaurant news usually falls in one of two categories: buzzy grand openings and old favorites closing. Precious few underdogs survive the long odds facing independent kitchens, especially where real estate booms have remade landlords’ math over the past decade, making restaurant lifespan prediction into a tempting parlor game for locals old enough to remember Sunset Grill. In an industry of daily drama, what separates surviving city staples like Monell’s, Silver Sands or Sperry’s from departed classics like Dandgure’s, Hermitage Cafe or The Gold Rush?
From the outside, the mark of death appeared over Caffé Nonna when, in November, the 25-year-old neighborhood Italian spot got its third owner in five years. From the outside, it
also began to look cleaner. And busier. The patio opened up to fit a few extra seats. The petunias bloomed in hanging beds, watered daily by Will Spiva, Nonna’s newest proprietor — a sociable industry veteran with a short attention span and the Nashville skyline tattooed on his bicep.
“I didn’t want to touch the menu until I knew the restaurant better — I was really, really careful and nervous about the menu, because it had been working for 25 years,” Spiva tells the Scene five hours before service starts on a Tuesday. “I started with little things, a lot of aesthetics and cleaning and ways to maximize the space.”
Spiva notched stints inside Taqueria del Sol, DeSano Pizza, Le Sel and a handful of downtown bars before coming to Sylvan Park. His dad and stepmom had their first date at Caffé Nonna and, years later, paid Spiva’s way for a first date there with his high school sweetheart.
“People were nervous that I was going to jack up all the prices or commercialize the Nonna
experience,” Spiva says. “Or put something else here, which probably would have made more sense. Pizza and beer make a lot more money. But I didn’t buy a restaurant that I love to put a different restaurant inside of it.”
The block, a commercial strip where Murphy Road runs into McCabe Park, also benefits from some market protections. A small natural creek runs behind the building, which used to house a dry cleaner — two factors that come with strict regulatory codes. Major redevelopment — the type remaking city blocks in Midtown and East Nashville — would be incredibly daunting and expensive. Spiva describes an essential balance that determines restaurant viability in Nashville. “It all has to do with the relationship between the landlord, rent and the restaurant — and then, final menu price,” Spiva says between quick tangents comparing the business models of Buttermilk Ranch, Mafiaoza’s, Locust and Josephine to make a point about 12South, where
he quotes space at $150 per square foot. “A nice kitchen means big upfront investment, so you need to own the property or have a 20-year lease to make your money back. For a mom-and-pop restaurant, rent’s going up from 6 percent of your sales to 10 percent or 11 percent. If profit was 6 percent or 7 percent, you just lost your profit. You have to cut or close.”
Italian cocktails and an approachable wine list have helped buoy Nonna, which had strayed into the red during COVID, back to profitability. The menu emphasizes simplicity and comfort over novelty, executing classics like lasagna and arancini rather than reaching with creativity. A scratch-made cacio e pepe, flecked with salty hunks of pork, will likely become a permanent fixture after finding success in July as a blackboard special. Build-your-own pasta still dominates sales, revamped only by daily fresh pesto.
On a menu built with Italian standards, Seafood Angelina — a lightly sauced fettuccine
“I DIDN’T BUY A RESTAURANT THAT I LOVE TO PUT A DIFFERENT RESTAURANT INSIDE OF IT.”
LAMB SHANK TOSCANA
dragged through the ocean — is one exception. Along with the arancini, it’s one of two dishes hit with a healthy dose of saffron, the expensive aromatic spice more commonly found in Indian and Persian cuisine. Spiva contacted Nonna’s original owner, Daniel Maggipinto, for menu tips. He also hired back Maggipinto’s old head line chef, Juvi. Spiva relies on former employees from previous kitchens as his labor pool to hedge against turnover. Volatility, unpredictability and chaos spells doom for restaurants.
Independent restaurants, especially at a lower price point, struggle against deep-pock-
eted chains but benefit from intimacy, character and loyal customers. A second location brings a paradigm shift, explains Spiva. Dishes must remain consistent, so supply chains dictate decisions. Daily, weekly and seasonal specials become too complicated to source reliably. Two chefs in two kitchens need to prepare every dish identically; they become simpler, incorporating more shelf-stable ingredients that can be prepped hours ahead. Nonna can use orange tomatoes for its caprese because Spiva can find them at The Produce Place, the nearby neighborhood grocer, on the days when his delivery truck only has red romas. ▼
SUN-DRIED
TOMATO PASTA
ARANCINI
SEAFOOD BRUSCHETTA
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getting into college and becoming a dragon-riding Chosen One with a destiny-defining Quest seemed like equally attractive and plausible options. One day my grandmother, frustrated that I was constantly bad-mouthing the Middle Tennessee town where she’d built half her life, asked, “What do these other places even have that we don’t?”
The fact was, I didn’t actually know what all those giant, big-city buildings held. I just assumed it was more interesting than my then-current life of after-school hangouts in the Walmart parking lot. So, put on the spot, I gave her the only answer I had:
“Coffee shops.”
hit my regular spots (shoutout to Flora + Fauna and Ugly Mugs, who absolutely killed it as always), my goal for this crawl was to find places I’d never visited before. Luckily, with 36 participants, I had plenty of exciting new options. For most of my quest I explored alone. That might seem sad, but I actually love a solo adventure. Adult life is busy, and if I waited for my friends’ schedules to align every time I wanted to try a new bakery, I’d miss out on a lot of great croissants. Besides, there’s something precious about claiming moments for yourself, sitting in a window seat with your thoughts and a drink named after the Chappell Roan song that’s been stuck in your head for weeks (8th & Roast’s “Peach Pony Club” or The Village Forager’s “Good Luck Babe” — take your pick). While I was excited to tell the tale of my quest later, in the moment those experiences were all mine to savor.
THERE’S SOMETHING PRECIOUS ABOUT CLAIMING MOMENTS FOR YOURSELF, SITTING IN A WINDOW SEAT WITH YOUR THOUGHTS AND A DRINK NAMED AFTER THE CHAPPELL ROAN SONG THAT’S BEEN STUCK IN YOUR HEAD FOR WEEKS.
We lived in an espresso desert. There weren’t any cozy independent coffee shops in my town. We didn’t even have a Starbucks — just a halfbuilt Dunkin’ whose construction I followed like a Bostonian in withdrawal. Every few years someone would open a new cafe, drawing in my classmates and teaching us exciting new words like “macchiato” and “chai,” but the businesses would inevitably fold within a year.
Or so I thought. I later learned there was a coffee shop — every inch the charming hideaway with fresh-baked scones I’d been yearning for — a mere three-minute drive from my house. It had opened when I was 12 and remains open to this day. I simply didn’t discover its existence until I was leaving. (For college — not the dragon thing, unfortunately.) I’d been so focused on exploring the world that I never bothered to explore my home.
Now Nashville is my home, and I’ve learned from the complacency of my youth. I will take every chance I can to discover more of this endlessly evolving city. Recently, that chance came in the form of a Pride Month coffee crawl organized by Matryoshka Coffee. Thirty-six shops in and around Nashville made unique Pride-themed drinks that were available for two weeks only. I had a mere 14 days to try as many special little gay drinks as possible. Quest accepted.
As with all great adventures, mine started with a spreadsheet. I made a list of every single stop, along with detailed notes on operating hours, driving distance and drink choice. I charted a course, I consulted the oracles, and I set out into the unknown. While I made sure to
Of course my quest wasn’t only about coffee. Coffee was just the plot device that sent me There and Back Again. At my first shop, Bagelshop, I had a Troye Sivan-inspired drink and a rainbow bagel. That would have been nice all on its own, but afterward I decided to explore the businesses around it as well. I discovered a comic-book store, and the smell of glossy color issues brought me all the way back to that small town I left behind.
There’d been a comic-book store back home — the center of my small universe once upon a time. It’s years gone now, and in that moment I missed it so much I almost started weeping in front of the Funko Pops. Instead I just thanked that rainbow bagel for giving me this new place to love.
That’s the thing with discoveries. They’re like dominos, one leading into the next. A coffee run leads you to a comic-book store, a park, a new friend, a new song, a new chapter of your life. By Day 14 of the crawl, I’d hit 24 total stops, 12 of them completely new to me. I’d gone to a coffee shop inside a drum store, a hotel and a flower shop. I ventured to the exotic land of Donelson and tracked down a pop-up at a bookstore’s birthday party. I’d found new thrift stores and gay bars and taco places. I made my world a little bigger, one coffee shop at a time. ▼
RED GROOMS GETS HIS FLOWERS
Nashville’s preeminent modern painter shows off his back-porch still lifes at David Lusk Gallery
BY ELI MOTYCKA
RED GROOMS USED to show his artwork in the front windows of a Thompson Lane frame shop. It was the mid-1950s, and the now-worldrenowned artist was a flame-haired teenager on a $45-per-week retainer, painting and biding his time.
“In Nashville back then, there was nothing like a painter,” remembers Grooms. “You were either a teacher or a commercial artist. I wanted to be rich, so at first, I wanted to be a commercial artist.”
Today his art — noted for its colorful pop style and broad appeal — is sought by the nation’s finest museums and top collectors. Grooms’ most recognizable works depict lively, caricatured scenes of city life in Manhattan, where he’s lived and worked for 65 years. But these days, Grooms is preparing to bring a career’s worth of stock back to Middle Tennessee — a move the 87-year-old referred to as an “orderly retreat” from New York City.
Marlborough Gallery, the blue-chip showroom that has represented modern superstars like Mondrian and Kandinsky, helped Grooms break out as a young artist in the 1970s. In April, Marlborough announced that it was closing, which prompted new representation for Grooms in the form of Tennessee gallerist and art dealer David Lusk. Moving his physical inventory from Marlborough storage to Beersheba Springs — the wooded retreat town in Grundy County long favored by Nashville elite — presents its own logistics tangle. The end result will be his entomb-
ment, Grooms says with a wry smile.
The paintings from his teenage days at the frame shop haven’t come back around (“I would love to see some of those,” Grooms says), but for the price of a used Toyota, interested patrons can buy a Grooms still life at David Lusk Gallery in Wedgewood-Houston. Plainly titled It’s All About Flowers, the show ends Aug. 31.
At a Lusk reception on Aug. 15, Grooms was open about his lifelong struggle with drawing straight lines. Soft edges, collapsed dimensions and a full-color palette bridge Grooms’ static flowers and his zany, career-making cityscapes, which burst with action and movement.
Grooms’ colorful style continues to influence Nashville, from the now-shuttered carousel he designed for the riverfront to the cartoonish style of Myles Maille, a prolific local artist and Grooms acolyte.
Each still-life canvas combines watercolor — a medium cursed by Grooms for its punishing translucence — with acrylic and charcoal. Artists (and art teachers) throughout history have favored the still life because its simplicity enhances attention to color, light, perspective and decision-making. It is a stylistic mirror. For Grooms, now late in his career, it’s also a chance to place his fully matured hand among the great painters through history.
David McCarthy, a Rhodes College professor who interviewed Grooms at the Lusk reception alongside curator and Grooms specialist Marina Pacini, drew comparisons to Van Gogh, who
painted flowers obsessively. After spending much of his career working against traditional painting, he’s ended up back at the fundamentals — like the boring reproductions he remembers seeing in his grandparents’ living room, he says.
“It’s all about the light,” Grooms explained, looking up at a dozen canvases. “If I start in the morning, it could be drizzling or raining, and then you might not get the same light.”
In several works, a colorful flowering foreground gives way to deep, lush greens and browns of Grooms’ screened-in Beersheba porch, where he passed the months during COVID. Practical considerations provide the best explanation for the still-life binge: lots of time, simple media, accessible subjects and a possible desire by Grooms to simplify composition as a way of distilling his own artistic identity.
The show also reflects Lusk’s success securing Nashville’s preeminent living painter. With more Grooms art heading down the interstate, the city may await a Grooms reinfusion. He praised the neighborhood as completely unrecognizable from his days painting here, pointing out beauty in both the historic Merritt Mansion and the area’s modern townhomes. ▼
Red Grooms: It’s All About Flowers Through Aug. 31 at David Lusk Gallery
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A VENOMOUS PRESENCE
Erica Wright’s latest novel features real and metaphorical serpents
BY BRADLEY SIDES
KNOXVILLE AUTHOR Erica Wright opens her latest novel, Hollow Bones, with the image of a snake being pulled onto a lap. It’s an eerie beginning, and it serves as the perfect transition from the author’s 2020 essay collection, Snake, about the often-maligned creature. In both the earlier book and this new one, fear exists — and it is consuming.
Hollow Bones is a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure set in West Virginia, and it follows three characters: Essa Montgomery, Merrit Callahan and Juliet Usher. While Wright fully develops each, Essa is the soul of the novel.
Essa’s story begins unassumingly enough. At the age of 20, she’s already been working for several years at the Vintera Wildlife Investigation Laboratory, where she minds the lab and assists Dr. Kester with tasks like performing a necropsy on a dead bat. She’s a quiet woman, the kind of person who does what she is supposed to do when she is supposed to do it. Her seemingly simple life, though, gets a sudden jolt as the town’s local police sergeant and lieutenant pay her an unexpected visit, informing her that New Hope Pentecostal Church has succumbed to a fire, killing the two people inside — and that her brother Clyde is the primary suspect.
Wright carefully unfolds Essa’s backstory, informing us of her past and of her relationship with New Hope and snake handling. While Essa has escaped the grip of her fundamentalist childhood, the complexities with New Hope still linger: “The practice had all but died out. The South had once claimed hundreds of so-
called ‘signs-following’ Pentecostal churches, congregations that took the Gospel of Mark literally and praised Jesus while dancing with cottonmouths or drinking strychnine. Now only a handful remained. West Virginia was the holdout, the last state to legally allow the practice. And yet New Hope thrived.” The very presence of this church and its congregants allows tension to build.
Essa’s personal history, too, aids in developing the venomous presence of New Hope’s devilishly charismatic, serpent-wielding Pastor Micah, who balances the task of being a savior to some and a villain to others. In numerous scenes, Wright allows us to see the spell Pastor Micah casts: “His voice — with a slight twang Essa still couldn’t place — caressed the crowd. When he whispered, everyone else leaned forward, and when he boomed, it felt like being baptized in warm lake water.”
Pastor Micah’s gifts as a preacher have made him a powerful figure in a troubled place and a “hero” to the local police, despite his murky background:
A few months before he arrived from who knows where, they’d had a shortage of naloxone, the antidote for an opioid overdose. Too many needed in too short a time. Cops and EMTs alike were overworked and underpaid. No amount of complaining to the state would magically make extra resources appear. A fair number of responders quit. The governor suggested more thoughts and prayers. Pastor Micah arrived, as if he’d heard them, and addicts
started to call themselves “saved.” Never “cured” but “saved.”
Essa’s narrative soon collides with that of Merrit, an ambitious reporter, and Juliet, a medium who is Clyde’s partner. Each barrels toward a showdown with Pastor Micah and the secrets held within their small community.
Hollow Bones is a layered novel that explores a variety of issues, including the impacts of religious trauma, small-town life, familial responsibility, the duty of humans to care for animals and the natural world, how fear can manipulate us. Don’t let the novel’s slimness fool you: Hollow Bones is an incredibly rich work of literature.
Mystery fans will likely devour this book. There are certainly twists aplenty, and the short chapters give the novel a rapid pace. But what makes Hollow Bones most successful is that it isn’t only a smart and surprising mystery novel. It’s also a rewarding character study.
In other words, there’s nothing hollow here. For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼
Hollow Bones
By Erica Wright Severn House 208 pages, $29.99
Wright will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books, Oct. 26-27.
PHOTO: ELAINE JOHANSON ERICA WRIGHT
September 9 – 11
Nashville, TN
Hundreds of founders, investors and tech enthusiasts from across dozens of industries gather every year for Launch Tennesseeʼs leading entrepreneurship conference. If you want to connect with Tennessee startups, 3686 is the place to do it.
Scan the code or visit attend3686.com to get your ticket.
LEIGH with ELIJAH OCEAN
8/22
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring AMY SPEACE, MIKE YOUNGER & NOEL MCKAY
STEVE with DRUGSTORE COWBOY! 8:00
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring ROGER COOK, GORDIE SAMPSON, GARY NICHOLS & RAY STEPHENSON
THE LONG PLAYERS Celebrating The Classic Sounds of Memphis Soul! 8:00
Polychrome Ranch Presents MASSIE 99, WEAK DAZE, BLACKPOOL MECCA, SMALL VICTORY, AMBRETTE, CROCODYLE, JUNE ROSEWELL + CAMPER
BRETT DENNEN - Golden State of Mind Tour with CECILIA CASTLEMAN THE TIME JUMPERS
FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN
A Tribute to Marshall Tucker Band featuring CHRIS HENNESSEE & FRIENDS; JAMEY JOHNSON, DRAKE WHITE & more!
BUTCH WALKER
Letters- Celebrating the 20th Anniversary with an Intimate Solo Performance with support by TYLER BOONE
MUSIC
SHOW ’EM THE ROPES
Orville Peck’s Rodeo comes ready to dismantle a tired image of Nashville
BY JASON SHAWHAN
NASHVILLE IS A city with a lot of closets, and we’re not just talking about empty luxury apartments proliferating wherever a venue, restaurant or funky tradition threatened to become just a bit too beloved. But there is a residual kayfabe to show business when it comes to queerness — an unspoken détente that accepts showmanship and flamboyance in the context of performance. Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Jim Nabors, Barry Manilow — again and again we find examples of beloved gay performers who were allowed to coexist with the traditional fame track, cultivating audiences who would happily vote against their interests but who didn’t dig too deep or ask too many questions as long as they were sufficiently entertained.
So in that respect, Orville Peck’s creation and curation of himself and his iconography serves as an indictment of that mentality. It’s not a gimmick — it’s a signifier of suppressed rage. It is very much in keeping with his punk rock roots, and it also allows inquisitive zoomer fans a pathway to discover the history of how mainstream industries run on queer energy.
Respect is due Peck’s process, refining his look and media presence with each successive release, reworking his mask and making his ongoing arc of revelation into something that suffuses his records even as it also becomes something tactile, observable from the outside and concrete. The dulcet baritone hits you in the solar plexus first thing, an Eddy Arnold cattle call and Barry White bedsheet serenade at the same time — multiple-level odes to sweaty balls. That voice is one for the ages, conscious of what it must represent in the modern country game and steeped in a sincerity that tangles in the spine and sets off the artist’s wry sense of humor in a way that disarms the listener. The mask, inescapable, is a fascinating conversation piece, as well as an undeniable reminder about the legacy of queer artists in all manner of Nashville musics. Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country and k.d. lang blazed trails but were shut out of the traditional country game. Others did their best to play along but either got dragged out of the closet or, more often, stayed there and calcified. As with lang, Peck’s Canadianness (he is also of South African descent and spent much of his childhood there) served as a bit of a deflector shield for knee-jerk corporate countrythink, and thankfully, the passage of time has mellowed things somewhat. Plus, Peck has made a point of spreading the attention he’s been getting around, playing nice with genre pollination and keeping the guest list vibrant.
The blessings of Saint Kylie Minogue, the Tom of Finland Foundation and Elton John should
make things very clear: Peck is a major queer voice in contemporary music generally and country music specifically. His cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy” with TJ Osborne, Fancy Hagood and Waylon Payne is the queer country equivalent of that remix of Craig Mack’s “Flava in Your Ear,” and that’s just one track on his current album Stampede, a heaping serving of smart duet pairings and excellent song selection. (Personal fave: the Nathaniel Rateliff collab “Conquer the Heart.”) And “Papa Was a Rodeo” was always late, great Scene editor Jim Ridley’s favorite Magnetic Fields song, and Peck’s take on it with Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway is similarly exquisite.
Which brings us to Orville Peck’s Sixth Annual Rodeo, a multinight, multivenue extravaganza with all manner of guest appearances and enough queer energy to power the whole city. The event draws from multiple disciplines
and Nashville voices to create the kind of continuum-spanning experience that speaks to the strengths of diversity and makes the smallminded deeply nervous. Friday’s kickoff at The Basement East — with the aforementioned Hagood as well as Bad Girl Bible and Monday Night Football diva Reyna Roberts and drag artist Alexia Noelle Paris — had already sold out by print deadline, with the other two evenings getting close to doing so as well.
Saturday at Ascend Amphitheater promises living legends Tanya Tucker and John Waters (!); CMA, Grammy and CMT Award nominee Mickey Guyton; onetime MTSU student Medium Build; and Goldie Boutilier, who’s finding her way from EDM to a path of more traditional instrumentation. And then Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl offers indie queen Marci, rawk rapscallions The Nude Party and masters of the beat Sparkle City Disco. What this tells us is that Peck has a gift for
putting together shows like assembling a quality dinner party: maximum variety and vibe that grabs hold of the audience, finds their groove and plays their song. It’s going to be the kind of queer extravaganza that shines all manner of lights into all those many closets — a pulsating iridescence to show that Nashville isn’t just decades of hollow shells built on empty aspiration, but rather a beacon of heartfelt hooting and hollering in the face of empty-headed contempt. Set your faces to stunning. ▼
Friday, Aug. 23, at The Basement East, Aug. 24 at Ascend Amphitheater and Aug. 25 at Brooklyn Bowl
PHOTO: STACIE HUCKEBA
MUSIC: THE SPIN
THE MEAT OF THE MATTER
BY P.J. KINZER
IN CONVERSATION WITH poet Tiana Clark onstage at TPAC’s James K. Polk Theater during his 2019 book tour for The Water Dancer, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates retold the story of the first time he heard Nas’ “N.Y. State of Mind.” The track is a highlight of Nas’ debut Illmatic, rightfully considered a work of genius a full three decades after its release. What Coates hears in the song is a lyricist elevating street culture to high art, and he said he envies the Brooklyn rapper’s ability to create a complete narrative using so few words. There’s an entire crime story that takes up only one eight-line verse, which goes in part: “Heard a few chicks scream / My arm shook, couldn’t look / Gave another squeeze, heard it click / ‘Yo, my shit is stuck.’”
Nas is among a cadre of MCs who have a bulletproof track record for spinning a brilliant tale with only a beat, a microphone and three minutes of lines that rhyme. Few would dispute that the list also includes Ice Cube, Guru, Lupe Fiasco, Big Pun and Ghostface Killah. Based on his show Thursday at Skydeck on the roof of Fifth + Broad — an appearance that concluded a run of the venue’s free show series Skydeck Sessions — I think it’s time we add another: Benny the Butcher Born Jeremie Pennick, the Buffalo, N.Y., native goes by a handle that sounds like it belongs to a big-screen hitman with a grisly reputation. As part of the Griselda Records clique of upstate New York rappers, Benny has been on the fringes of the underground since he was still a teenager, and released his first mixtape Tana Talk more than 20 years ago. In an industry that tends to reward a fast-food pace (and mentality), he cooks slowly, steadily expanding his scope while staying rooted in the East Coast boom-bap sound. He scored big in 2022 with Tana Talk 4; it features the J. Cole collab “Johnny P.’s Caddy,” which netted Benny his first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100. Released in January, Everybody Can’t Go is his first album for starmakers Def Jam, featuring household names like Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss and Lil Wayne. Benny made his debut in Music City on the heels of the Aug. 9 release of Summertime Butch, a 10-track set featuring the gritty “Kitchen Table,” which keeps him close to home with help from his Black Soprano Family crew.
If you’re visiting Skydeck for the first time, you might not realize that it’s a separate venue from any of the stages in Assembly Food Hall; Skydeck is one level up, a covered space on the top floor of the building that’s open to the city on the sides. As Brooklyn’s DJ Stakz warmed up the crowd, I peered over the railing onto Broadway, half expecting a blast of noise to blow my hair back like in a cartoon. However, all the chaos was some 60 feet below us and didn’t interfere.
About 30 minutes later, one of Nashville’s most gifted MCs took the stage: Tim Gent, who hasn’t released heaps of new singles or albums
lately but has been hard at work behind the scenes. Appropriately enough, Gent was also booked by storied promoters Lovenoise to open for Nas when he performed with the Nashville Symphony in 2021. His set was only about half an hour, but he used the time wisely and paused only to introduce his two guests, top-notch R&B singer Bryant Taylorr and fellow Nashville rapper Case Arnold. A quick scan of the giant patio showed me that the Nashville hip-hop community — including stellar rappers and engaged community organizers Mike Floss and Gee Slab — showed up to support Gent.
After a longer-than-expected intermission during which Stakz kept the beat rocking, Benny the Butcher was finally ready at about 10:30 p.m.
A loop of black-and-white footage on the screen behind the stage accompanied his whole set with images that reinforced his ruthless commitment to excellence, including clips from the The Sopranos, LeBron James’ legendary block on Andre Iguodala in the 2016 NBA Finals and Steph Curry’s world-famous “Night Night” celebration.
Benny barely took a breath, perhaps having to rush the set a bit before the outdoor event had to end to comply with Metro regulations; he didn’t get to banter as much as you might hope given his knack for storytelling. While I expected a lot of material from the two albums he’s released this year, he pulled out a lot of old favorites. One that got a lot of love from the crowd was “Rubber Bands & Weight” from 2018’s Tana Talk 3. It’s a prime showcase for his lyrical ability, with an elegance similar to what Coates praised in “N.Y. State of Mind,” and it reflects a tenet of the Butcher’s philosophy: “I was young, the plug said / ‘Just be patient, I’m’a hit you / Shit slow, work with me / Just take what I can give you’ / I took that, doubled back and got greater / I continued.”
As his fame grows, Benny the Butcher has access to slicker sonic production and more marketing muscle. But he keeps proving over and over that brilliant storytelling is among the most important tools in an MC’s kit. And he keeps his sharpened to the finest edge. ▼
Saturday, August 24
SONGWRITER SESSION
Sam Williams NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, August 24
HATCH SHOW PRINT
Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Sunday, August 25
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ON THE BLINK
Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut hits and misses
BY SADAF AHSAN
A mildly depressed cocktail waitress who dreams of bigger things.
One night, while helping cater an event spearheaded by a very hot tech billionaire whose very real name is Slater King, the hot tech billionaire takes a liking to you, inviting you to join him and his friends on his private jet to his private island. Would you decline? Hell no.
Such is the situation in which Frida (a wacky and endearing Naomi Ackie) finds herself in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice, which stars Kravitz’s real-life fiancé Channing Tatum as the aforementioned hot tech billionaire. Of course, as this darkly comic thriller unwinds, it’s clear Frida may have made a very poor choice by setting foot on that island.
Night after night, debauchery ensues, with endless blunts and bottomless booze. The playlist always delivers on the vibe, the dinners are incomparable, and everyone looks even more beautiful coated in a layer of island sweat under the moonlight. But at some point, Frida begins to notice little things she can’t explain: dirt under her fingernails, memories she can’t place and nights she can’t remember. Scariest of all, she doesn’t know the time or the date, and no one else seems to either. Frida’s alarm bells don’t truly go off until she realizes her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat, stealing every scene as always), who joined her on the trip, has suddenly disappeared. And Slater, along with all his friends and hangers-on, denies ever having seen Jess on the island. According to them, Frida came alone. Frida starts playing detective with the help of Sarah (Adria Arjona), who also picks up on clues that suggest things are not as glamorous as they seem. (Here’s a little hint: The movie’s original title was Pussy Island.)
Up until this point, Blink Twice feels like one film — all fun, revelry and seduction. Then it splits into another film — one attempting to take a page from Jordan Peele, though it never quite pulls it off. What the women discover is shockingly dark, and as Slater keeps reminding them, it’s always better to forget our pasts and, presumably, the traumas we’ve left behind and the ones that await us.
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t earn its re-
Blink Twice R, 102 minutes Opening wide Friday, Aug. 23
veal, making what should be treated with a lot more gravity feel laughable. And as the women attempt to expose the toxic masculinity plaguing the island, their team effort feels like an on-the-nose reminder that, hey, if women just drop their issues with each other and join forces, imagine all the good they could do.
It’s clear what loose themes Kravitz is getting at as co-writer alongside E.T. Feigenbaum (who created the sorely missed 2020 series High Fidelity, which starred Kravitz). The movie spotlights the greed and excess of the world’s billionaires and tech overlords, and seeing as how Kravitz is a privileged nepo baby herself, there are certainly layers here. But it seems she’s bitten off more than she can chew, with the film feeling poorly plotted, and the traumatic reveal ultimately feeling like a poor plot device. Where there’s humor, it’s often clichéd or rooted in simple gags. Apart from Shawkat, Blink Twice is not as funny as it thinks it is, nor as smart.
But the film succeeds elsewhere. It’s gorgeously shot, it’s clear Kravitz has a lot of ideas, and there are successes when it comes to the technical side of things. It’s easy to feel as though you’re on the island alongside Frida thanks to Blink Twice’s sunny, sumptuous cinematography (kudos to cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra) and slick visual cues. It also has a wonderfully quirky cast, including Kyle MacLachlan, Christian Slater, Geena Davis, Simon Rex and Haley Joel Osment.
More than anything, though, what’s fun to watch is how Kravitz shoots her love, Tatum, who has never looked better — and he does indeed manage to pull off the eerie charm of a millennial megalomaniac. In every shot, he towers tall and glows gold, as if the sun always shines on his rich ass.
Blink Twice calls to mind the wonderful work many directors have pulled from leads who are also their romantic partners: Noah Baumbach with Greta Gerwig, John Krasinski with Emily Blunt, even John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands (two big inspirations of Kravitz and Tatum). While Tatum isn’t quite in the same league as these folks, he may get close in the hands of Kravitz. Who would’ve thought? ▼
Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...
IMAGINE YOU’RE
36 Scruff
1 Indy 500 directive
5 Epiphany that precedes a major change
10 Neon sign outside a motel
14 Bit of roofing
15 Like some mobile-device purchases
16 “My dudes!”
17 Actor Omar
18 Sticks firmly
19 Name on an AAdvantage credit card
20 Bit of flight info
22 Cheer of encouragement
24 Siren’s setting
25 Tetanus, by another name
28 Group of assets?
31 Orthodontic device
32 Excessive
33 One on a mission
37 “What’s up?,” in text shorthand
40 Charlottesville sch.
41 Major faults
45 Words of commitment
46 Part of a neural network
49 Portion
50 New Jersey borough known for its shopping malls
52 A long, long way back
54 The green light in “The Great Gatsby,” for one
56 Generational divide
57 Depositing checks with one’s phone, say
60 Quartz-filled rock
62 Small change in party parity?
63 Like many bars during happy hour
66 Harold who composed “Over the Rainbow”
67 “Gross!”
68 Muppet with a distinctive snickering laugh
69 Port in western France
70 Caustic cleaner
71 Carl who wrote “Cosmos”
1 Fortifies 2 First-rate
3 Domesticated relative of the vicuña
4 “Hi” follower
5 An “e-” one was first developed in 2003, for short
6 Barely simmering, say
7 Badly rough up
8 Olympic weapons
9 Festoons with bathroom tissue, informally
10 Oldest major TV network in the U.S.
11 Question that casts doubt
12 Say “nay”
13 Popular Italian cheese
21 23
26 Classic Chrysler
27 “___ is long, life is short” (Greek aphorism)
29 Org. that might organize a book fair
30 Indian flatbread
34 Routes down a ski mountain
35 Products of oogenesis
37 Where one’s hands are placed at the end of the macarena
38 Anita of jazz
39 Portal represented by each pair of circled letters in this puzzle
42 Losing steam
43 Word repeated in an “Animal House” chant
44 “Enough!”
47 Wintry season
48 Enjoy a bath
51 Houses
53 Title with a tilde
55
58 Back out unexpectedly
59 Figure in the Louvre’s “Winged Victory of Samothrace”
60 “Gift” that can be annoying to others
61 Transgress
64 One-named pop singer with hits such as “Elastic Heart” and “The Greatest”
65 Hunger or thirst
PUZZLE BY KAREEM AYAS
work remotely. Requires a Master’s degree. (ref. code 001431). Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 001431. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V. #LI-DNP.
Care Management Product Analyst (HCA Management Services LP, Nashville, TN) Req: Bach (US/frgn eqv) in CS or rel; exp working on IT prod dev proj w/proven delivery track record; demonstrated adv subj matter exp of a service line app; exp w/JSON Streaming msgng; exp w/creation of standardized programmatic reports at enterprise level; exp w/enterprise support inc config, testing & training. Email resume: Elaine.Healy@HCAHealthca re.com.
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Drafty
UBS Financial Services Inc. has the following position in Nashville, TN. Director, Product Manager to build deployable machine learning models and embed them in scalable Natural Language Processing (NLP) platforms that support abstraction, summarization, sentiment analysis, emerging theme discovery, and search. Can work remotely. Requires a Master’s degree. (ref. code 001431). Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 001431. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V. #LI-DNP.
Senior Manager, SAP Finance (Mult Pos), PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC, Nashville, TN. Asst clnts wth maxmzng the value of their SAP instment with offerings that address sales, fin, supply chain, engg, & human capital. Req Bach’s deg or foreign equiv in Bus Admin, Fin, Comp Sci, Info Sys, Engg or rel+ 6 yrs rel wrk exp, of whch at lst 5 yrs mst be post- bach’s, prgrssv rel wrk exp; OR Master’s deg or foreign equiv in Bus Admin, Fin, Comp Sci, Info Sys, Engg or rel + 4 yrs rel wrk exp. 80% telecommtng permitted. Mst be able to commute to designated local office. Domestic and/or intl travel up to 80% req. Please apply by sending your resume to US_PwC_Career_Recruitme nt@pwc.com, specifying Job Code TN4325 in the subject line.
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