Nashville Scene 9-21-23

METROPOLITIK: COOPER LEAVES O’CONNELL WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS >> PAGE 10

MUSIC: BILLY STRINGS, TYLER CHILDERS, MORE TAKE TOP AMERICANA HONORS >> PAGE 35

Justin Kanew mixes advocacy, journalism and progressive outrage with his online success story the Tennessee Holler

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Featuring approximately 80 collage and collageinformed works, Multiplicity explores the breadth and complexity of Blackness in the United States today. With an intergenerational group of 52 living artists, the exhibition examines how concepts such as cultural hybridity, notions of beauty, gender fluidity, and historical memory are expressed in the practice of collage.

THROUGH DECEMBER 31

Downtown Nashville

919 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203

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Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Archetype of a 5 Star, 2018. Acrylic, spray paint, glitter, ink, and cut paper on canvas; 60 x 48 in. Rubell Museum, Miami. © Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Street View: Lipscomb University

Continues to Expand Its Footprint

A neighborhood group has opposed further development of the school’s 112-acre campus

BY LENA MAZEL

Metropolitik: Cooper Leaves O’Connell With Unfinished Business

Incoming mayor will inherit half-finished real estate deals and budding city initiatives

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Pith in the Wind

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

COVER STORY

Yell the Truth

Justin Kanew mixes advocacy, journalism and progressive outrage with his online success story the Tennessee Holler

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

CRITICS’ PICKS

SZA, Native Guitars Tour, InterNASHional Night Market, The Chicks, Pilgrimage Music Festival and more

FOOD AND DRINK

Toast of the Town

Six things to know about cocktail expert Kenneth Vanhooser

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

At the Market: Una Acre Farm

In Madison, Tonya and Michael Bradford grow a lot of food in a little space

BY KELSEY BEYELER

CULTURE

Toy Story

Totally Rad Toyhouse delivers nostalgia and helps collectors heal their inner children

BY HANNAH HERNER

MUSIC

Nashville to Nashville

Five years after the conclusion of their hit show, the cast of Nashville returns

BY ASHLEY SPURGEON

The Envelope, Please

Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, more take top Americana honors

BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

Hello, It’s Me

On their Serious Person EPs, corook embraces pure pop

BY EDD HURT

Negative Space

Amid the chaos, Roselit Bone sees the seeds of a brighter future

BY RACHEL CHOLST

The Spin

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Be Your Own Pet at The Blue Room and The Walkmen at Brooklyn Bowl

BY P.J. KINZER AND D. PATRICK RODGERS

FILM

Back in Black

18th edition of the International Black Film Festival continues a groundbreaking tradition

BY RON WYNN Culture Shock

It Lives Inside is a monster movie that addresses the Indian American experience

BY KEN ARNOLD

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD MARKETPLACE

ON THE COVER: Justin Kanew. Photo by Eric England.

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Una Acre Farm • PHOTO BY ERIC ENGLAND

NASHVILLE IS IN GOOD HANDS WITH MAYOR-ELECT FREDDIE O’CONNELL

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IN A DECADE marked by half as many mayoral administrations as there have been years, Nashville has elected a mayor who is hitting the ground running to make a positive difference for all residents. Mayor-Elect Freddie O’Connell is the right man for the job. His emphasis on correcting the inequalities in public education, public transit and affordable housing is both practical and noble.

After a decisive victory in last week’s runoff election, O’Connell has also begun to select key figures in his transition team and in his administration. There are always small indicators of success or failure woven throughout the early decisions in any administration when observed in retrospect, and O’Connell’s early decisions are sound. As the Nashville Banner’s Steve Cavendish reports: “The wheels of the formal transition kicked in hours after O’Connell’s victory party left Eastside Bowl as he named three transition co-chairs: Alex Jahangir, the Vanderbilt surgeon and former Board of Health chair who led the city’s COVID-19 response for Cooper; Christy Pruitt-Haynes, a corporate human resources leader and consultant; and David Esquivel, a partner at Bass, Berry & Sims who has led the firm’s pro bono efforts.”

Watching O’Connell’s campaign messaging transform into administration goals is important. As Cavendish writes, O’Connell’s transition team is “meant to lead the transition on what the campaign outlined as three areas: How Nashville grows, how Nashville moves (transit) and how Nashville works (making government more responsive). The reports each of these committees are producing will be ready at the end of October.”

These early steps toward productivity and efficiency are clear indicators that O’Connell means business. As a former Metro councilmember, O’Connell has watched Nashville endure far too many mayoral administrations and abrupt changes in leadership. As soon as

one administration got its sea legs, it was gone — with more and more elections still to come.

Nashville deserves to have greater continuity in its leadership, and I think we have the right man to stay the course. O’Connell has demonstrated strong commitment to Nashville in his years on the Metro Council and in his work on affordable housing and public transit.

One of the greatest signs of hope for Nashville is O’Connell’s emphasis on supporting everyday Nashvillians. As the Associated Press reports, O’Connell is continuing his emphasis on supporting Nashvillians over big business and tourists. He stated in his victory speech on Sept. 14: “Every part of this city deserves the public resources that bind neighborhoods and neighbors together — schools, parks and libraries. And when we do that, our interactions with our local government should leave us feeling satisfied that a real person worked to solve our issue.”

Nashville Scene editor D. Patrick Rodgers may have said it best: “A two-term representative of Nashville’s District 19, O’Connell built his campaign — which he launched nearly 17 months ago — on prioritizing the needs of residents over business interests. His message and de facto campaign slogan, ‘I want you to stay,’ worked.”

Time will tell, but his campaign message certainly did work in propelling O’Connell to the mayor’s office. Nashville also has reason to trust that the message of improving functional city needs will transition into effective and productive improvements in our daily lives as residents of this fine city.

Congratulations, Mayor-Elect O’Connell. We have selected a fine man to lead Nashville.

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PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

O’CONNELL CELEBRATES WITH HIS FAMILY ON ELECTION NIGHT

LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY CONTINUES TO EXPAND ITS FOOTPRINT

A neighborhood group has opposed further development of the school’s 112-acre campus

BY LENA MAZEL

Street View is a monthly column in which we take a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.

OVER THE PAST two years, Lipscomb University has been on a significant property-buying spree. In 2022, Scene sister publication the Nashville Post reported that Lipscomb purchased a property at 4101 Belmont Blvd. for $1.9 million in August, three nearby single-family properties for an additional $1.95 million in September, two properties on Ferndale Avenue for $1.38 million in October, and a home on Morrow Avenue for $949,000 in December. This year, Lipscomb’s buying spree continued: In February, it bought a Glen Echo Road property for $3.26 million, and in August, it bought another home at 1309 Grandview Drive for $909,500.

Notably, Lipscomb bought every one of the above properties from RER Partnership, a group that includes Lipscomb alumnus Bruce Church. According to Post reports, Lipscomb has spent about $7 million buying RER properties in the past two years. (In late January, Lipscomb also bought a property on Ferndale Avenue from board of trustees chair David Solomon. Lipscomb officials did not respond to the Scene’s specific questions about their connection to RER and the Church family. )

As the university continued purchasing properties from RER, it also amended its master plan to expand its campus. In April, Lipscomb petitioned Nashville’s Metro Council to convert two areas of R10 and CN zoning adjacent to the campus to institutional overlay zoning. The R10 zoning currently limits the land’s use to low-density residential buildings — typically one or two

homes per lot — whereas institutional overlay zoning would give the university more flexibility to develop properties differently, though the school would still have to go through a planning process with Metro to do so. An amended plan that didn’t include the properties west of Belmont Boulevard passed on third reading and was signed by Mayor John Cooper in July.

Lipscomb spokesperson Kim Chaudoin tells the Scene that the updated institutional overlay is a routine process required by the Metro Planning Commission every 10 years. Lipscomb created its original master plan in 1988; the city adopted it in 2003. Since then, there have been amendments in 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2023.

Lipscomb’s campus is currently about 112 acres — a bit larger than Belmont University’s (92 acres) and about a third the size of Vanderbilt’s (340 acres); Vanderbilt has also expanded significantly in recent years. Lipscomb’s latest proposed master plan includes new areas of institutional overlay zoning south of Grandview Drive and east of Granny White Pike.

When the 2023 master plan suggested expanding institutional overlay zoning to three properties west of Belmont Boulevard, local residents spoke in opposition.

Russell Willis is the president of the Avalon Neighborhood Association, a group of neighbors who have worked with Lipscomb since the original master plan’s adoption in 2003. Willis says Avalon opposed the university’s multiple requests to expand the institutional overlay zoning west of Belmont Boulevard.

“The university initially proposed expanding west of Belmont back in 2004 but agreed to withdraw that request when Avalon opposed

the request,” Willis says. “The university made a second effort several years ago, which Avalon opposed. That expansion request was denied by Metro.”

This summer, when Lipscomb tried again, Avalon again opposed the expansion. A group of Green Hills residents created an online petition, and Avalon sent a written objection to the university. In a Metro Planning Committee meeting on May 11, residents raised concerns about developing in local floodplains and giving the community enough chance to give input on the IO zoning. (Some of the initial scheduled meetings happened shortly after the Covenant School shooting, which impacted the community response process.)

Willis, who has been involved with the Avalon Neighborhood Association since its inception, says communication with the university has overall been “fairly good,” but that the latest planning process was the first time Lipscomb didn’t contact the group about proposed changes prior to community meetings — something he says “had been the standard practice for the past 15-plus years.” At the planning meeting, some residents said Lipscomb had not notified them about proposed zoning changes, but university spokesperson Brent Culberson says it sent all residents within 1,250 feet of the campus written notifications and also posted about it on Nextdoor.

While Lipscomb is a major landowner in Nashville, the campus’s expansion wouldn’t necessarily affect the city’s housing shortage in direct ways. The university typically buys parcels with single-family homes in R10 zoning or similar: not areas zoned for high-density projects.

Metro’s 2021 Affordable Housing Task Force report estimated that the city would have to produce 5,250 new affordable units every year to keep up with demand; the same study estimated that the city built only 1,344 affordable units per year.

In its own high-density student housing, Lipscomb’s least expensive double dorm rooms are $4,126 per four-month semester, or about $1,000 per month.

Regardless of the campus’s impact on local housing, Lipscomb’s Green Hills neighbors won’t see any significant changes anytime soon. “The additional properties that were added to the institutional overlay are already owned by the university, and we plan on continuing with their current usage,” Chaudoin says. She also confirms that Lipscomb has removed the properties west of Belmont Boulevard from its institutional overlay application.

At the Metro Planning Commission meeting and elsewhere, neighbors of Lipscomb acknowledged some perks of living close to a university, like proximity to green spaces and other facilities. And community advocates say Lipscomb’s willingness to take on community input has made growing pains easier. “History has shown that engagement with Avalon and interested neighbors has improved every master plan proposed by the university,” says Willis.

As with many universities, Lipscomb’s property acquisition seems far from over. But as the school grows and changes, its track record of community engagement hopefully signals a collaborative future. And for now, a sleepy enclave west of Belmont Boulevard won’t welcome a new dorm — or a parking garage. ▼

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY

COOPER LEAVES O’CONNELL WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Incoming mayor will inherit half-finished real estate deals and budding city initiatives

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Metropolitik is a recurring column featuring the Scene’s analysis of Metro dealings.

EARLY ON JAN. 31, reporters started getting texts from TJ Ducklo. “Call me,” said the mayor’s spokesperson. There was a surprise press conference downtown, scheduled for midmorning. Ducklo told media they wouldn’t want to miss it: The mayor had news.

Police and fire unions had endorsed Mayor John Cooper for reelection just days before. At the time I called Cooper’s reelection “the city’s worst-kept secret,” a foregone conclusion for a man who had set up big projects on long timelines and was actively fundraising into a campaign account. Eighteen hours before Cooper bowed out of the 2023 race, Ducklo, then the mayor’s communications chief, was rounding up reporters for an off-the-record roundtable about Metro’s response to the new state legislative session.

At 11 a.m., Cooper broke the news that he wasn’t seeking a second term, a starting pistol for a long and crowded mayor’s race that finally wrapped up on Sept. 14. Cooper came into office touting his background in business and penchant for real estate, a streak that has Nashville embroiled in an array of ambitious projects that Cooper leaves at various degrees of completion. It will be up to incoming Mayor Freddie O’Connell to separate the exciting opportunities from the dead ends and the sunk costs from the salvageable. Here are the big ones in order of

significance and unfinished-ness.

TITANS STADIUM DEAL

While technically inked, Metro’s $760 million pledge toward a new Titans stadium will require nearly constant collaboration between the team and the city until (and beyond) its ribbon-cutting. The two have entered into a “living deal” on the East Bank, where both entities will together spend lots of money raising a futuristic mixed-use campus around the arena. The Titans officially registered Tennessee Stadium LLC, referred to as StadCo in official documentation, as its go-between entity to run the new site — similar to the Predators’ Powers Management at Bridgestone Arena. O’Connell, who just wrapped two terms as the Metro Council’s District 19 representative, was a chief critic of the stadium deal when it came in front of the council in the spring. He repeatedly affirmed his commitment to a long and fruitful partnership with the Titans over the next few years.

THE GLOBAL MALL AT CROSSINGS

Despite few details and loose commitments, Cooper and his deputies cajoled the council to close on a $46 million acquisition of the Global Mall in April 2022. After the city bought the mall, Vanderbilt University Medical Center would stand up an extensive health care outpost à la 100 Oaks, went the story. Cooper brandished a letter of intent with VUMC and chose the site for his 2022 State of Metro address.

“I cannot identify a time in recent memory where Metro bought public land specifically to become a landlord soliciting commercial tenants,” O’Connell wrote to his constituents at the time. “This is an unprecedented investment approach, and it seems to carry unusual risk.”

Negotiations began to drag almost immediately. “We are hopeful that VUMC will continue to participate in the project in a scaled-down footprint,” Deputy Mayor Sam Wilcox told WKRN in August. Metro’s most recent drafted plans show no VUMC presence at all, instead pitching the space as a combination of artist housing, community green space, transit infrastructure and mixed-use buildings. District Councilmember Joy Styles, who represents the area, continues to preside over the community input process.

NASCAR AT THE FAIRGROUNDS

Bristol Motor Speedway ran up against a tight end-of-term timeline — alternately seen as an unfortunate miscalculation of the Metro meeting calendar or a strategic scheduling scheme by Councilmember Colby Sledge — forcing the regional track operator to halt its Fairgrounds Nashville push in August. At July’s marathon community meeting, at least one pro-track Calvert Street lobbyist was overheard saying they’d be back in force to secure the $117 million fairgrounds renovation after both the council and the mayor’s office turn over in the fall.

WHARF PARK

Perhaps more than any other project, Wharf Park was John Cooper’s white whale. Guided by a vision for transformative riverfront urbanism, Cooper pushed the council to acquire 88 Hermitage Ave. for $20 million in June 2022 after opposing a plan to purchase the same parcel from the state for $11 million in 2019, while he was an at-large councilmember. Cooper got a lot of flack for buying high but justified the purchase as a one-two punch of historic preservation and inspired city planning that would add a waterside jewel to the Metro Parks system. At the time, O’Connell called it a “strategic acquisition” that should have been bought the first time for half the price. Public meetings ended in January with a promise to post Metro’s final draft master plan, which isn’t up yet. Promotional PowerPoints envision a landscaped greenway snaking down to the Cumberland — 14 acres fully refurbished for an estimated $70 million. About $24 million of that goes toward a city boathouse, Cooper’s gift to Nashville’s rowing community.

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING

Direct allocations for city improvements typically come every year via Metro’s Capital Improvements Budget and the mayor’s Capital Spending Plan. Participatory budgeting started under Cooper with $2 million for North Nashville and Bordeaux in 2021 to find and fund critical neighborhood infrastructure via a parallel process that included project proposals

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

and open voting. Two more rounds followed, culminating in a $10 million pot this year pulled from American Rescue Plan money. Critics — like O’Connell’s friend and supporter Whitney Pastorek, who resigned from the PB steering committee in May — call the process an overly burdensome sea of red tape that delays city improvements. Proponents, like Fabian Bedne of Cooper’s office, emphasize the philosophical and practical benefits of direct democracy. O’Connell has promoted PB on his newsletter but said in January that he’d like to track participation to see who’s actually making decisions.

PSC SCRAPYARD

The city’s most literally unfinished business might be Carl Icahn’s real estate play on the former site of PSC Metals. The billionaire has orchestrated a lucrative hostage situation on the East Bank, where he owns about 45 acres of land abutting Metro’s future mixed-use campus. No vision of a clean redevelopment includes the mountains of metal and scrap currently residing on Icahn’s land. In 2022, Cooper told The Tennessean his strategy was (roughly) to wait for Icahn to die. The city holds little leverage, and negotiations between the two parties have gone nowhere. State economic official Stuart McWhorter is angling with Icahn’s son, Brett, according to the latest buzz, teasing the possibility of a city-state combo deal that could give O’Connell easy relief from the East Bank’s current biggest burr.

JEFFERSON STREET CAP

Remember when a Jefferson Street cap would repair the harms of decades of racist urban policy in North Nashville? The Metro Council paused the project when it withheld critical funding in 2021 in response to wary residents who saw the cap — an expensive and expansive concrete plaza that would cover I-40 between Jefferson and Scovel Street — as a table-setting for increased speculative real estate capital and subsequent displacement. At an eye-popping $120 million, the project was contingent on $72 million in federal grant money to complement $48 million from the city. While deadlines have passed and momentum has stalled, the Nashville

Department of Transportation’s

Cortnye Stone

tells the Scene that Metro got a $3 million federal allocation to continue planning improvements in the Jefferson Street corridor throughout 2023 that may or may not include a cap.

POLICE SHORTAGES

Failed conservative mayoral candidate Alice Rolli made police her No. 1 campaign issue in the runoff, emphasizing the city’s deficit of Metro Nashville Police Department officers and referring to a general morale crisis among MNPD’s rank-and-file. The city’s police have indeed struggled with turnover and vacant positions. Three years later, the Metro Finance Department is still waiting on reimbursements from FEMA worth $7 million for “Tornado Watch,” a police overtime program in tornado-affected areas that ran through September 2020 and cost the city $13 million total. If that doesn’t come through, it could be an additional black eye for MNPD management teeing up additional funding requests for a new training facility and automated license plate readers, which O’Connell already challenged as a councilmember. O’Connell has repeatedly expressed his faith in MNPD Chief John Drake, an indication that he will leave MNPD to sort itself out.

CLIMATE CHANGES

Cooper signed onto the Global Covenant of Mayors, an environmental coalition that focuses on city-level solutions, almost immediately upon taking office in 2019. His emissions goals were way behind recommended national targets and lacked step-by-step planning, but for a second, it looked like something. Early enthusiasm turned into sporadic gestures — like a strongly worded letter last summer opposing the TVA’s fossil fuel expansion — and Metro climate work has since fallen to sustainability chief Kendra Abkowitz. O’Connell passed a suite of climate bills in 2019 (which he dubbed a “Green New Deal for Nashville”) as a senior councilmember. He’s shown enough interest and knowledge to make effective climate-friendly interventions from city hall. As mayor, he could do a lot more. ▼

Freddie O’Connell defeated Alice Rolli in last week’s runoff election to become the next mayor of Nashville. O’Connell previously served two terms representing downtown in the Metro Council and knit together a broad, dedicated Democratic coalition to take down the conservative Rolli in an absolute drubbing, winning by 29 percentage points. O’Connell won huge margins in the city center and outperformed in Donelson, southeast Nashville and Bellevue compared to the last explicitly partisan mayor’s race — Megan Barry versus David Fox in 2015. Metro’s next legislative term starts in October, giving O’Connell just days to get his office up and running. He has so far announced that Vanderbilt doctor Alex Jahangir, business adviser Christy Pruitt-Haynes and attorney David Esquivel will help lead his transition.

Nashville also elected Burkley Allen Quin Evans-Segall, Olivia Hill and Delishia Porterfield to join incumbent Zulfat Suara as the city’s at-large councilmembers. Allen is the body’s other at-large incumbent, while Porterfield, the runoff’s highest vote-getter, previously served one term representing parts of Antioch. Evans-Segall, an attorney, has sat on the city’s Industrial Development Board since 2018. Hill is an engineer and Navy veteran who formerly helped manage Vanderbilt’s in-house power plant. She will be Tennessee’s first openly transgender elected official.

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After a six-month search for a real estate principal to oversee the city’s East Bank development, the city chose the Boston-based Fallon Company Metro released extensive renderings of the company’s glossy vision for the city’s 30 acres of land surrounding the current and future sites of the new $2.1 billion domed Titans stadium. Fallon pitched more than a thousand units of affordable housing as part of a mixed-use complex of retail, residential and park space slated for what is currently parking lots near Nissan Stadium. Financial projects estimate about $630 million in additional Metro revenue, split between lease payments and property taxes, over the next 30 years. In the spring, the city budgeted an outlay of $753 million for new streets, a transit hub, greenways, parks and related development infrastructure.

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

RENDERING VIA METRO

FREDDIE O’CONNELL ON ELECTION NIGHT

MNPD CHIEF JOHN DRAKE

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

Nightfall at the Hall

YELL TRUTH THE

Justin Kanew mixes advocacy, journalism and progressive outrage with his online success story the Tennessee Holler

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

JUSTIN KANEW IS GLAD to be back at the Tennessee State Capitol, though it’s not exactly a joyful occasion. Emotions are already high at the start of the legislature’s special session on Aug. 21, which Gov. Bill Lee convened to focus on gun reform following the deadly March 27 shooting at the Covenant School.

Republican lawmakers made it clear they wouldn’t pursue such changes. Despite conservative recalcitrance, protesters still take to the Capitol in droves on the morning of Aug. 21 calling for action. They form a prayer ring around the Capitol building and march through the streets. Nearby, members of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys, armed with weapons and their faces mostly hidden, rally against any reform.

The seven-day session ultimately proved to be hectic, hopeful and sad, and Kanew documented as much of it as possible with just a cellphone for his popular progressive outlet the Tennessee Holler. Kanew has been a frequent and familiar face on the Hill since launching the Holler in 2019, building its reputation on both confronting Republican lawmakers directly and pushing out shareable videos of their most alarming and ridiculous quotes.

He’s always drawn the ire of conservatives, but the negative attention turned scary when a mystery gunman fired at his house in Williamson County in early April. The shooter was never identified. The legislature was still in session at the time, but Kanew laid low for his and his family’s safety. Kanew says it wasn’t easy to return to the Capitol for the special session, but it felt important to make the effort.

“It feels good to be back with all these people around,” he says, waiting for a press conference to begin on the ground floor of the Cordell Hull State Office Building. Protesters fill the room and hallway, many of them wearing red shirts — the color of ad-

vocacy group Moms Demand Action as well as one of Covenant’s school colors.

“Even if nothing happens on gun safety reform … people are awake now,” says Kanew. “They’re dialed in, and it feels like the beginning of something.”

As the day continues, it becomes more apparent that the Republican supermajority would do everything in its power to silence the opposition and bar as many protesters from the chambers as possible. Troopers block off access to one of the public galleries, water fountains are turned off despite the summer heat, and rules to ban signs and punish lawmakers who speak out of turn are passed.

Kanew takes to social media with a photo of state troopers blocking access to the House chamber and a bold caption: “Today at the Capitol is by far the most un-American fascistic day we have seen, by far.” That Instagram post went on to receive more than 2,800 likes in one hour.

When Kanew posts photos and videos, Tennesseans notice — and sometimes so do people outside the state. His posts have been repurposed by

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

progressive flagships like MSNBC and Last Week

Tonight With John Oliver and big social media accounts like Rex Chapman on X (formerly Twitter). The Holler has 196,000 Twitter followers and another 101,000 on Instagram.

“I can do a lot of damage with a little phone,” says Kanew.

The Holler has had perhaps its biggest year yet in 2023, amplifying controversies like a high school photo of Gov. Lee in drag and unearthing new ones like audio of House Republican infighting after a high-profile hearing to expel Democrats Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. Even though Kanew wasn’t at the Capitol for the Tennessee Three hearings, search results for the Tennessee Holler skyrocketed around that date according to Google Trends. The media outlet has a broad reach that inflames the outrage of progressives both inside and outside state borders.

Hate it or love it, you can’t deny the Holler’s success.

KANEW WASN’T INVOLVED in politics or journalism for most of his adult life. He used to be a screenwriter in Los Angeles, worked for National Lampoon, and was even a contestant on The Amazing Race. He arrived in Tennessee in 2016 and ran for Congress one year later as a Democrat, partly in response to the rise of Donald Trump and the far right. He lost the 2018 race to conservative Republican Mark Green.

Afterward, he and Holly McCall — a reporter turned Democratic political operative — founded the new media outlet, believing there was a need to highlight progressive movements in Tennessee. McCall had met Kanew through politics, and though she wasn’t part of his campaign, she offered him friendly advice throughout. Though she’s a co-founder of the Holler, she stresses the platform is mostly Kanew’s endeavor.

“I’m a little jealous of him, because he produces so much content, and he gets seen by so many people,” says McCall, now editor of nonprofit watchdog outlet Tennessee Lookout. “As journalists, we’re not really here for clicks, [but] why produce the stories if people aren’t going to see it?”

Some of the success is owed to Kanew’s confrontational style: Videos feature him approaching Republican politicians and shouting charged questions. Officials usually respond with outrage, offense, disdain or some combi-

nation of the three. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) called Kanew a “jackass.” Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) labeled him a “hippie with a cellphone.”

There’s a long tradition of journalists chasing down public figures — WSMV’s Carley Gordon sprinted after disgraced former Speaker Glen Casada while she was pregnant — but Kanew’s approach feels different. Sometimes he seems to be seeking a more emotional reaction, hurling accusations at elected officials that they’re afraid of democracy or don’t care about constituents, and tacking on a question mark at the end.

Kanew says he’s asking questions he wishes the rest of the press would ask, but the confrontations can feel more performative than informative. At the same time, watching the most powerful men in the state squirm with discomfort or turn red in frustration is cathartic. That’s especially true when Kanew is calling out hypocrisy.

One video, which has 2.9 million views on Twitter alone, shows Kanew confronting Gov. Bill Lee at a press conference about a ban on drag performances. A photo of the governor dressed in drag for a high school event had surfaced. Kanew printed out the photo and showed it to Lee, asking, “Do you remember dressing in drag in 1977?” Lee reproached Kanew, but he didn’t relent, following the governor to his car while asking more questions like, “Is it only illegal when gay people [dress in drag]?”

Kanew is not a bad interviewer when the Republicans stop and chat. There’s footage of him having a reserved conversation with former Rep. Bruce Griffey about a social media censorship bill. Kanew allows Griffey to explain himself and blurt out contradictions, and Kanew’s pointed follow-ups feel sharper. (Granted, Griffey does eventually walk off, leaving Kanew to shout a follow-up question.)

Kanew says that while some lawmakers stop and talk to him, most don’t. “And so when they do that, yeah, sometimes you’ve gotta shout the questions at their backs as they run from you.”

The Holler’s slogan even alludes to this approach: “Always yell the truth.”

His friend and co-founder McCall has some mixed feelings on Kanew’s in-your-face style.

“I love Justin, but I wouldn’t do things the way he does,” she says. “On the other hand, sometimes I look at that and I think, ‘Boy, I wish my balls were that big.’”

ON DAY TWO of the special session, the area in the Capitol outside the House chamber is blockaded by stanchions to give politicians an easy exit, while spectators and protesters huddle shoulder to shoulder against the walls. It’s a special setup for the August session, and it means Justin Kanew can’t get as close to the representatives leaving the chamber as he usually does. State troopers also provided an additional buffer — Kanew describes one cluster as a phalanx while recording.

When Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) stops by the stanchion for an interview with Kanew, two white men in cowboy hats begin shouting at the politician, calling him a communist and saying his work for gun control is equivalent to slavery. (Pearson is Black.) Kanew turns his phone on them, and asks them to define what a communist is, shouting the question as they walk away.

Besides his phone, the only hardware Kanew has is a $100 mic that plugs into his iPhone. He used to have a steady-rig for his phone but

abandoned it, finding it too clunky and invasive. He says he relies on about three programs, including an editing app. Phones have “definitely democratized a lot of things,” including journalism, he says. His video captions feature big, bold text against solid blues and reds — not the most artistic presentation, he admits, but it does tell potential viewers what the video is about.

Kanew calls social media the Holler’s lifeblood. Shake-ups to Twitter — now called X — have hampered his reach somewhat, but the Holler still performs well there and on Instagram.

“Our engagement levels have been pretty high for a while because our audience isn’t just listening, they’re participating,” he says. The platform doesn’t just push its own content, but is quick to repost and amplify content from other progressive and critical news sources. And though the Holler is free, the popularity has helped grow a base of donors backing the platform.

Most photos and videos are emblazoned with the Holler’s bold, mostly red logo. Progressive politicians and activists get retweeted and

@THETNHOLLER ON INSTAGRAM

“I CAN DO A LOT OF DAMAGE WITH A LITTLE PHONE.” —JUSTIN KANEW

boosted, witty takes and journalists’ critical observations about the legislature are preserved via screenshots, and Kanew often adds his own commentary to aggregated content.

“I like to say that when people like [NewsChannel 5’s] Phil Williams light a fire, we pour gasoline all over it,” says Kanew.

Sometimes the most damning footage the Holler posts has nothing to do with Kanew’s foot-chases at the Capitol. Tennessee Republicans say bizarre stuff frequently while in session, like Frank Niceley’s confusing comments about Hitler’s homeless period or Reps. Mike Sparks and Andy Holt defending Ku Klux Klan leader and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. It’s all livestreamed and archived online, and the Holler reposts it.

“We’ve tried to take on the role of combing through these boring — frankly — session videos and finding the minute-long exchanges that the people need to see to understand what’s happening in their Capitol,” says Kanew.

He says the people in charge aren’t telling the true story about what’s happening in Tennessee: “Things like us being number one in medical bankruptcies [and] at the bottom in poverty.”

“I feel like people really are voting against their own best interests in our state,” he says. “And the only way for them to know about that is to show them.”

THE TENNESSEE HOLLER’S voice is often one of righteous progressive anger. Because of that, critics have accused Kanew of publishing clickbait, he says. His unorthodox style and slanted messaging does raise an important question: Is Kanew a journalist or an activist?

McCall has a short answer: “He’s both.”

“I don’t think Justin gets enough credit amongst all the old-school journalists around here,” says McCall. She says people need to recognize that journalism is evolving. “It’s not going to be what it was 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago.”

Kanew breaks or bends some of the more staid tenets of journalism regarding opinions and reporting. He’s openly in favor of progressive bills and candidates and a harsh critic of conservative schemes to undermine rights like abortion or squash debate in the Capitol. He roots for politicians like state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), has spoken out at a school board meeting in Williamson County and even visited the White House with state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville).

Kanew doesn’t try to hide his biases, and it’s likely that builds trust with his followers. “I’m aware of what it looks like when Justin Jones brings me to the White House, but I’m not hiding the fact that Justin and I see eye to eye on most policy issues,” says Kanew.

Kanew calls objectivity a myth — and to be sure, the standard notion of objective journalism is facing more scrutiny than ever these days. For one example, journalism scholar Anita Varma argues that journalism is more effective when it focuses on addressing inequalities instead of aspiring for passive objectivity.

The Holler’s clear point of view, especially in a time of diminishing local media, has likely helped the outlet find a foothold.

Perhaps more compromising is the fact that Kanew made videos for Democratic candidates and donated money to political campaigns. His forays into politics as both a candidate and an advocate seem to be enough to keep him out of the Tennessee Capitol Hill Press Corps, the collection of reporters who monitor the state legislature for various outlets. Kanew says the group has voted to deny him entry multiple times.

“If Fox News and Newsmax can be in the White House Press Corps, we sure as shit should be able to be in the press corps here in Tennessee,” says Kanew. “Especially since we tell the truth, they don’t.” He says that because he’s not in the corps, he isn’t allowed on the House chamber floor after a session like other outlets are. He also thinks there’s a double standard, since The Tennessean also runs editorials and endorses candidates.

McCall arguably faces similar issues as Kanew when it comes to perceived conflicts of interest. After leaving journalism for a time, she ran for office and worked as a campaign manager. But while Kanew built up his nontraditional platform, McCall returned to a more traditional newsroom that, while funded by a progressive think tank, lacks a bold partisan alignment. And while McCall pens fiery, liberal columns for her outlet, Republicans will still talk to the Lookout’s legislature reporter Sam Stockard because of his

own reputation and history of reporting. In contrast, the Tennessee Holler is a one-man show most of the year — the editor’s opinion is also the reporter’s.

The Holler’s verification standards may also be too loose for traditional newsrooms. Kanew says the Holler wants to be a place where people can “sound the alarms” — like teachers who want to express concerns about schools’ lack of COVID-19 precautions. Sometimes, tips get published and pushed out even when the claims can’t be totally verified. Kanew says the Holler makes clear what has and hasn’t been confirmed, and that he doesn’t double down if the tip is disproven.

“When we find out something isn’t true, we will walk that back,” says Kanew. “We’ve apol-

ogized in the past. … We’ve deleted stuff and issued corrections in the past. I think that’s all part of a commitment to the truth.” He notes that bigger publications still make mistakes too.

One source familiar with the press corps’ decision tells the Scene that in addition to concerns about Kanew’s political involvement, there was also trepidation that allowing in the Holler would also mean admitting the conservative Tennessee Star, which had a staffer who was actively lobbying for Republican causes. The discussion and decision inspired the creation of a new document: a written set of rules of conduct for Tennessee Capitol Hill Press Corps members, which explicitly prohibits involvement in political campaigns and advocacy. The source adds that membership in the pool doesn’t guarantee

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

JUSTIN KANEW (FAR RIGHT) RECORDS REP. WILLIAM LAMBERTH (FAR LEFT) DURING AUGUST’S SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE SESSION

“I LIKE TO SAY THAT WHEN PEOPLE LIKE [NEWSCHANNEL 5’S] PHIL WILLIAMS LIGHT A FIRE, WE POUR GASOLINE ALL OVER IT.” —JUSTIN KANEW

floor access — the House speaker determines that. (Kanew says he would be fine with allowing the Star in.)

In the end, McCall isn’t sure Kanew would gain much from joining the corps. “Like, what, would he be sitting up in that Plexiglas media booth?” she asks. “That’s not who he is.”

Joy Jenkins, a former reporter and current University of Missouri professor who has researched the changing nature of local journalism, says that in some ways the Holler fits into a much longer tradition of “partisan journalism.” It’s a tradition that stretches back to the colonial days, preceding modern styles and notions of objective reporting.

Jenkins — who used to teach at University of Tennessee — also points to an interesting difference in the way national and local outlets define the Holler. National publications may call it a local website, or Kanew a reporter. But local outlets are more likely to label the Holler a “progressive news site” or highlight its activist nature — still recognizing it as “something worth referencing and sourcing,” says Jenkins, but less certain about what to call it exactly.

The distinction might not matter much to most followers online, especially since even doubters of Kanew’s reporting credentials can’t deny the Holler produces newsworthy items.

The Holler had two major scoops this year that might give Kanew his best case for being a legit newshound. The first — and more salacious — was exposing Republican Lt. Gov. Randy McNally’s flirty emojis on racy photos of a young gay man. The second was a leaked recording of a closed-door House Republican meeting following the expulsion hearings of the Tennessee Three, which was full of infighting.

Kanew calls it his favorite scoop, especially since the leak came from one of the Republicans — “I guess they realized the best way to piss their own people off is to do it through us.” But he won’t reveal where the leak came from.

With big gets like those, plus constant pressure on the Republicans in person, could you blame the average news consumer for lumping the Holler in with other outlets? McCall expresses concern that viewers might think all journalists need Kanew’s exact confrontational approach. But she thinks there’s room for many styles of reporting.

“I think as journalists, we have to embrace all forms,” says McCall. “And Justin, his way is not my way. But there’s a lot about it I admire, and I think he has shown that there is more than one way to communicate political news in Tennessee.”

Jenkins says that while opinions will differ on whether Kanew is a journalist, it’s important to recognize that the Holler is “self-promoted as a progressive site.”

“Readers can see that and recognize that and understand it is coming from a particular point of view,” she says. “The hope for any good concerted news consumer is that they’re looking at multiple sources.”

And the Holler’s model might have aspects worth noting for more traditional newsrooms. Jenkins points out that the Holler leverages social media in effective ways by updating its plat-

forms consistently and amplifying the voices of like-minded progressives.

“It’s a fascinating model, and I imagine others will take notice,” she says.

No matter how he’s labeled, Kanew shows no sign of slowing down. “He’s got an incredible amount of energy,” says McCall.

“I wake up feeling like I got shot out of a cannon every single morning,” says Kanew. What keeps him going, he says, “is just a strong desire to make this a better place for my kids to grow up. [It’s the] same thing that got me to run for Congress, [as well as] a strong commitment to getting out the truth.

“And then also, you know, I’d be lying if I didn’t say … there was a pissed-off energy behind a lot of it. I feel like there’s a lot of gaslighting and lying going on in our state.”

THE SPECIAL SESSION lasted longer than expected, but it still didn’t result in any new gun laws. There was frustration and disappointment as voices from around the state, including those of Covenant parents, were ignored. Kanew was there to capture the struggle — and to get in the faces of politicians.

One video from the final day shows Kanew belligerent as ever, even telling a staffer with a broken arm to “get your cast out of my way.” The exchange is just seconds of the minutes-long video, which is mostly Kanew walking alongside a cluster of lawmakers, including state House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), shouting questions and comments at them.

“That was embarrassing,” says Kanew in the clip. “Why are you afraid of democracy? This isn’t a good look. I’m just trying to help you guys.”

One politician tells Kanew to leave the state if he doesn’t like how Tennessee is being run.

Online, people reacted positively to the video. Several of the more than 140 quote-tweets laud Kanew’s efforts: “They really hate people actually asking them questions”; “This is good — watch these cowardly evil bullies smirk at each other for the entire walk”; “We need people who push back like this.”

It’s hard to imagine an Associated Press or Tennessean reporter badgering lawmakers the same way. But not because those reporters aren’t brave enough to ask difficult questions of those in power — they are, even when it doesn’t look flashy, or when accountability looks more like some well-timed records requests. But it’s also hard to imagine the lawmakers responding any differently no matter how gentle or hostile the question. And after an emotional special session in which they ordered state troopers to remove grieving mothers from assemblies, it’s very hard to think they deserve respect or civility.

For a few minutes, their bubble of authority is pierced as Kanew follows and shames them, broadcasting it for all to see. The lawmakers will go home and return to whatever their normal lives look like, but at least they also know they’ll have to deal with this incessant hippie with a cellphone next session. And perhaps that’s the appeal of the Holler’s motto to always yell the truth. ▼

OCTOBER 1

THE MARS VOLTA WITH TERI GENDER BENDER

OCTOBER 2

BRIAN SETZER

ROCKABILLY RIOT!

OCTOBER 8

MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER AND SHAWN COLVIN

OCTOBER 25

BRANDY CLARK

NOVEMBER 24, 25 & 26

BRETT ELDREDGE

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

DECEMBER 12

THE OAK RIDGE BOYS

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

FEBRUARY 24

KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD BAND

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

SUNDAY / 9.24

MUSIC [SPECIAL] SZA

It took six years for SZA to follow up her debut studio album, 2017’s Ctrl, with the acclaimed 2023 LP SOS. It was worth the wait. After the curated collection of hip-hop and neo-soul-infused alternative R&B that was Ctrl, SZA swung for the fences with a more sprawling, genre-bending effort in SOS. The risks paid off as the record has gone triple platinum and produced five top 20 singles. In an era full of discourse about the “death of the album,” it’s the sort of album-based success usually reserved for the biggest names in the industry. SZA proved her bona fides among that group, and now she’s bringing the hits to Nashville for a stop on her SOS Tour. D4vd, a young artist best known for the viral hit “Romantic Homicide,” opens. LOGAN BUTTS 8 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE

THURSDAY / 9.21

MUSIC [IT RETURNS TO NASHVILLE!] JIMMY MCDONOUGH, TIM ORMOND, THE EXOTIC ONES & IT’S ABOUT THE SECOND COMING

In 1996, late, great Scene critic Jim Ridley and his colleague David D. Duncan wrote an epic account of Nashville filmmaker Ron Ormond and his family. “It’s safe to say that Ormond movies are unlike any other movies ever made,” wrote Ridley and Duncan in a story headlined “It Came From Nashville!” “They belong to a time … when maverick independent moviemakers risked their family fortunes to piece together financing for picture after picture. On the fringes of the big business of moviemaking, only one criterion applied: Could it sell?” From wild Westerns like The Girl From Tobacco Row to Christian exploitation flicks like If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, the Ormond filmography is peppered with some of the most madcap moments ever committed to celluloid from the 1950s through the 1980s. This week, in conjunction with Third Man Records, beloved Nashville institution the Belcourt will present an Ormond-apalooza: a screening of 1968’s horror-musical-comedy The Exotic Ones (aka The Monster and the Stripper), a screening of 1982’s rare It’s About the Second Coming, and a presentation from Ormond obsessive Jimmy McDonough, author of The Exotic Ones: That Fabulous Film-Making Family From Music City, USA. (Presented by noted Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, McDonough’s book, plus a Blu-ray bundle, can be purchased now via Fab Press.) Also on the docket for the Belcourt event: an “Ormond-inspired performance from New York chanteuse Tammy Faye Starlite,” as well as a Q&A with McDonough and Tim Ormond (Ron’s brother and collaborator). For fans of all things weird-Nashville-history and filmmaking in general, this one’s not to be missed.

D. PATRICK RODGERS

8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

THEATER [HONORING A TRUE LEGEND] HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW

Born into crushing poverty in the slums of Philadelphia, Ethel Waters would go on to become a true icon of American music, film and theater with a career spanning more than 60 years. This weekend, you can learn more about this groundbreaking artist, as Kennie Playhouse Theatre presents Larry Parr’s His

PHOTO: DANIEL SANNWALD

Eye Is on the Sparrow: The Ethel Waters Musical The piece explores Waters’ incredible rags-toriches story, from her early days in vaudeville to conquering Broadway and Hollywood. A true trailblazer, Waters is credited as the first Black woman to integrate Broadway, starring in Irving Berlin’s As Thousands Cheer in 1933. She also was the first Black performer to star in her own television show, and just the second to be nominated for an Academy Award. Directed by Kenny Dozier, this production of His Eye Is on the Sparrow features local singer-songwriter Saaneah and Nashville favorite Connye Florance. AMY STUMPFL

SEPT. 21-OCT. 1 AT THE Z. ALEXANDER LOOBY THEATER

2301 ROSA L. PARKS BLVD.

MUSIC [EARS ON INDIGENOUS]

NATIVE GUITARS TOUR

In an effort to increase Native American representation and economic development, Native Guitars Tour strives to provide a platform for Indigenous musicians, artists and vendors. NGT works to reclaim the Native American narrative while advocating for contemporary Indigenous art, music and community. As AmericanaFest lands in Music City, The Blue Room will play host to a celebration of what NGT dubs “Native Americana,” featuring a dynamic collective of Indigenous voices. Acts include heavy-metal artist Sage Bond, blues ace Levi Platero, singer-songwriter Scotti Clifford and rocker Mozart Gabriel, among others. “There’s thunder in my chest / Only the rain can hear my past,” sings Clifford on his track “Cry for Vision,” encapsulating NGT’s vision for future Indigenous artists. The afternoon also includes an eclectic market highlighting Native artisans and vendors.

JASON VERSTEGEN

NOON AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS

623 SEVENTH AVE. S.

MUSIC [SIDE TO SIIIIIIIDE] SYLVAN ESSO

Even for those who aren’t big fans of electronica — hello, it’s me! — Sylvan Esso is undeniable. For one thing, they live in Durham, N.C., where I worked for the alt-weekly INDY Week and constantly heard my co-workers rave about the husband-and-wife duo (singer Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn). It wasn’t until I saw them live, though, that I finally got them. Showing up to a Sylvan Esso gig feels like attending a private dance party thrown by two people who have a blast making music together, and it just makes you want to move. Bonnaroo got an invitation to that party this year as Meath and Sanborn performed in drag to protest Tennessee’s so-called anti-drag legislation. Even if you don’t think you like beeps, boops and whoosh-ing synths, check out “Ferris Wheel” for a terrifically catchy and danceable pop tune. They’ll play Marathon Music Works with support from GRRL, another Bull City product.

COLE VILLENA

8 P.M. AT MARATHON MUSIC WORKS

1402 CLINTON ST

OPERA

[THE TEARS OF A CLOWN]

NASHVILLE OPERA: PAGLIACCI

It’s no wonder that, thanks to its dark themes and soaring arias (“Vesti la Giubba” may well be one of the most powerful tenor arias of all time), Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci is such a classic. But did you know that this passionate tale of betrayal and revenge was reportedly inspired by a true story? Leoncavallo insisted that his opera was based on a real-life incident from his childhood involving the murder of a family servant — though some scholars have since questioned this. Despite such controversy, however, Pagliacci remains a perennial fan favorite, and you can catch it this weekend as Nashville Opera opens its 2023-24 season at TPAC’s Jackson Hall. Artistic director John Hoomes has assembled a wonderful cast — including Jonathan Burton, Keri Alkema, Andrew Manea, Joseph Lim and Anthony Ciaramitaro — and the Nashville Opera Orchestra will be performing live. AMY STUMPFL

SEPT 21 AND 23 AT TPAC’S JACKSON HALL

505 DEADERICK ST.

FRIDAY / 9.22

DANCE [A NEW SEASON, A NEW CHAPTER] NASHVILLE BALLET: FIREBIRD

Nashville Ballet opens its 2023-24 season this weekend with a stellar lineup of dance including artistic director emeritus Paul Vasterling’s dazzling Firebird, along with the Nashville debut of Justin Peck’s Year of the Rabbit and Jiří Kylián’s moving Un Ballo Audiences may recognize Peck as the Tony Award-winning choreographer behind Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of West Side Story, but Peck has also worked extensively as a director and filmmaker. He is currently serving as the resident choreographer for New York City Ballet, and his Year of the Rabbit — which is set to music by Sufjan Stevens — offers an intriguing “song cycle based on the popular Chinese zodiac.” Audiences can also look forward to checking out Kylián’s Un Ballo, which is set to music by Maurice Ravel. The Nashville Symphony will be on hand to perform Stravinsky’s iconic Firebird It’s hard to imagine a more worthy season opener for Nashville Ballet — or for its new artistic director, Nick Millikin. AMY STUMPFL

SEPT. 22-24 AT TPAC’S POLK THEATER

505 DEADERICK ST.

MUSIC [IRISH GOODBYE] STEFAN MURPHY ALBUM RELEASE

Forty-five years ago The Cramps played a famous set at a psychiatric hospital in the wine country township of Napa, Calif. The band was relatively unknown at the time, but thanks to Bay Area punk documentarians Target Video, the concert was seen by countless fans on VCRs worldwide. (By the way, the so-called Napa State Tapes will screen Oct. 2 at the Belcourt as part of the theater’s Doc Spotlight series.)

Stefan Murphy’s new Hospital Verses album has nothing to do with that famous Cramps gig, but he too will be going worldwide, returning

to his native Dublin soon after releasing his new LP on Sweet Time Records. Murphy, the frontperson of the Nashville power-pop quartet The Sleeveens, features some of his bandmates and other guests on his solo album. Murphy is the consummate raconteur, and his work holds a sonic similarity to that of Spiritualized honcho J. Spaceman, along with the croon and twang of Billy Bragg and the soulful songcraft of Scottish popster Lloyd Cole. The gig will also feature Atlanta’s Rod Hamdallah, the former Legendary Shack Shaker whose bluesy punk boogie strikes pretty close to the sound of The Gun Club or the aforementioned Cramps. Top it all off with a fresh pint and some of Babo’s magnificent Korean street grub. P.J. KINZER

6 P.M. AT BABO

1601 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

MUSIC [WHAT ABOUT P!NK?] P!NK W/BRANDI CARLILE

The inaugural concert season at Geodis Park wraps this weekend with tenured pop star P!nk and Americana powerhouse Brandi Carlile, an unexpected one-two punch for a major summer tour — or unexpected at first glance, at least. While one built a career on inescapable pop anthems and the other forged a long-burning career by blurring lines between folk, rock ’n’ roll and country influence, both singers found success with cathartic songs delivered by voices big enough to stun a room into silence. On the American Carnival tour, P!nk returns to Music City in support of her early 2023 album Trustfall, while Carlile — a Nashville favorite who continually shows up for the city’s singer-songwriting scene — returns for her first proper tour stop in the area since headlining Pilgrimage Music Festival last fall in nearby Franklin. The bill also includes “Tongue Tied” indie-pop band GROUPLOVE and tour DJ KidCutUp. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

6:30 P.M. AT GEODIS PARK 501 BENTON AVE.

MUSIC [FREAKIN’ OUT ON TRINITY LANE] BRISTON MARONEY ALBUM RELEASE

What better spot than Grimey’s for the release of Briston Maroney’s Ultrapure?

The Nashville-based indie artist debuts the Nashville-recorded album just weeks before the

second iteration of Paradise, the October music festival organized and headlined by Maroney at Brooklyn Bowl. Five tracks off Ultrapure were released earlier this year, led by “Body” and the upbeat “Detonator,” all shot through with the kind of existential longing Maroney does best. The release promises a sophomore statement that will build on Maroney’s reputation as an artist capable of matching heady songwriting with a lush, lo-fi sound — the kind of music made for vinyl. ELI MOTYCKA

5 P.M. AT GRIMEY’S

1060 E. TRINITY LANE

SATURDAY / 9.23

DRINK [MARKET VALUE]

&

INTERNASHIONAL NIGHT MARKET

The first InterNASHional Night Market was held in 2021, a time when businesses of all sizes were still struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event was organized by the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and was a boon for small businesses, food vendors and performers from Nashville’s diverse international community. We’re happy to see it return for a third year this weekend at TIRRC’s headquarters. It doesn’t hurt that the food offered there is so tasty — you’ll be able to find cuisines ranging from Filipino to Haitian to South Asian at the event. (If you don’t know what to order at a Filipino restaurant, try some sweet longaniza sausage, which I highlighted as one of my favorite dishes in Nashville in the Scene’s Food & Drink issue earlier this year.) Twenty food vendors and restaurateurs from around the area are set to show up and offer tastings while performers in a variety of international arts give performances. Tickets are available at Eventbrite. COLE VILLENA

FOOD

6-9 P.M. AT THE TENNESSEE IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS COALITION HEADQUARTERS 3310 EZELL ROAD

MUSIC [SOMETHING IN THE SUBURBS]

PILGRIMAGE MUSIC FESTIVAL FEAT. ZACH BRYAN, THE LUMINEERS & MORE

Pilgrimage Music Festival returns to the Park at Harlinsdale Farm in Franklin with a two-day lineup anchored by one of the most buzzed-

BRISTON MARONEY

PHOTO: MURIEL MARGARET

This Grammer guitar with pearlescent gold finish was custom-built for Bill Anderson c. and used to perform his aptly named song “Golden Guitar,” which recounts the story of a blind World War I veteran who “added the gold and the diamonds as he played his way to fame.”

From the exhibit Bill Anderson: As Far as I Can See

artifact: Courtesy of Bill Anderson

artifact photo: Bob Delevante

about artists in music: Zach Bryan. A 27-year-old Oklahoma singer-songwriter known for a fastgrowing collection of Kerouacian tunes that chronicle blurry-eyed nights and early-morning ’s all-genre 200 album sales chart and Hot 100 singles chart this month behind his new self-titled album and Kacey Musgraves collaboration “I Remember Everything,” respectively. (The ex-Navyman also scored his first mugshot days after the album debuted, but I digress.) Behind Bryan’s ever-growing buzz, Pilgrimage neared a pregates sell-out for his headlining day (Sunday) at publication time. With a well-curated cohort of Americana, country and rock ’n’ roll talent, the 2023 bill also includes: The Lumineers, The Black Crowes, Ashley McBryde, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Margo Price, The War & Treaty, Yola, Tommy Prine … the list goes on. The best part (for fellow I’m-too-oldfor-this folks, at least)? Music typically wraps by 10 p.m. at the latest, leaving plenty of time for showgoers to pop an ibuprofen and be in bed before midnight. So pack a lawn chair (because you can do that at this fest) and head a half-hour south for one of the most underrated weekends of music each year in Middle Tennessee.

MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

MUSIC

[READY TO RUN, NOT TO MAKE NICE] THE CHICKS

After weathering a 2003 controversy about their members’ political stances, The Chicks made their best album, Gaslighter, in 2020, just as the pandemic hit. In their former incarnation using a moniker that referenced an old-fashioned name for the South, the Texas trio defined the outer edges of commercial country as it existed 20 years ago. Not exactly country belters and too skilled in the construction of catchy tracks and songs to be true folkies, Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer went for a kind of musical hybridization that drove home their 2003 criticism — delivered in England just as the United States prepared to invade Iraq — of then-President George W. Bush’s handling of the situation. As Maines implied in her comments, there’s country music that massages the power structure, and there’s tough women from Texas who value free speech. The Chicks brought home Grammys in 2007 for the previous year’s single “Not Ready to Make Nice” and their album Taking the Long Way. Of course, country radio barely played it, but that didn’t matter. The Chicks’ music and career prove you can be commercial — and cop bluegrass and Fleetwood Mac to serve your purposes — and still define the cutting edge of country music. Gaslighter combines the personal and political in innovative ways, and the music really works — check out the rap country of “March March.” Bridgestone will host the band this weekend after the original July show date was postponed.

EDD HURT

7:30 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA 501 BROADWAY

[TENACIOUS DAYDREAMS]

ART

CANEY HUMMON: DAYDREAMS

Caney Hummon’s actual daydreams must be pretty wild if they inspire the fantastical vistas in these paintings. Think prog-rock album covers and airbrushed vans, but somehow sweet. From Hummon’s artist’s statement: “The animals forming in the skies of my work represent the oldest and rawest parts of our minds, unrestrained emotions and passions coming forth unbidden, and at times unstoppable.” I’m partial to the grizzly bear descending from the heavens with a school of sockeye salmon at its paws — if only The Avengers had visuals this cool. The Nashville native will be showing 14 of his canvases at LeQuire Gallery through the end of October, and will host an artist’s reception on Sept. 30 from 5 until 8 p.m.

STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2023: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE

There’s a whole lotta shit going on in Howl’s Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki’s 2004 adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ 1986 fantasy novel (and the penultimate selection in this year’s Studio Ghibli Fest). For starters, we have a young hatmaker who becomes an old lady thanks to a spell from a very doughy-looking witch. Hoping to break out of this elderly hell, she sneaks into the location-bouncing manor of a slovenly but charming wizard who can help her get back to normal. Unfortunately, the wizard is too busy sprouting wings and interfering in a war between rival kingdoms. As always, Miyazaki comes up with an ultra-surreal story — complete with imagery that ranges from majestic to nightmarish — to address deeper themes. Since dude was pissed off about the Iraq War at the time, this is basically his Bush II-era anti-war movie. You can catch this animated fuck-you to Dubya and them in both subtitled and dubbed versions. (Christian Bale, Lauren

SEPT. 23-24 AT THE PARK AT HARLINSDALE FARM 239 FRANKLIN ROAD, FRANKLIN

FILM [THIS IDIOTIC WAR]

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER THROUGH OCT. 28 AT LEQUIRE GALLERY 4304 CHARLOTTE AVE.

“DAYDREAM 13,” CANEY HUMMON

10.8 YACHT ROCK NIGHT WITH YACHT’S LANDING

PEACOCK

10.14 LAVENDER ROOTS: CELEBRATING QUEER COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY

10.15 BILLY JOEL AND ELTON JOHN BRUNCH WITH THE PIANO MEN

10.15 MALINDA

10.16

DOVE WEEK WITH JESUS IN A BAR FEATURING: CONSUMED BY FIRE, LYDIA LAIRD AND MORE!

10.17 BEN OTTEWELL & IAN BALL (OF GOMEZ) WITH SPECIAL GUEST BUDDY

10.18

10.19

10.20 BLKBOK

10.21

10.21

Bacall and Billy Crystal are some of the voices in the dubbed version.)

SUNDAY / 9.24

[PUT YR WEIRD EARS ON]

MUSIC

SEAN THOMPSON’S WEIRD EARS

Over the past decade, stellar guitarist Sean Thompson has become a first-call touring and session player among thoughtful Nashville songsmiths in the country-folk-pop-rock realm. At the same time, he’s developed his own distinctive cosmic American catalog, including 2019’s Time Has Grown a Raspberry EP and last year’s Weird Ears LP. A major theme for Thompson, who grew up in Nashville before the tide of “it” city, is figuring out how to cope with the dehumanizing effects of not-so-wellmanaged growth. In Raspberry, he imagines trading in the overheated bustle of the city for life on a farm, and some highlights of Weird Ears include reviving one’s connection to the earth by, say, bugging out to the Smokies or hitting the trail with a faithful hound; whatever keeps things as cool and weird for you. On Sunday’s hometown stop at The Basement, he’ll be joined by Los Angeles’ GracieHorse, who reflects on the particular peculiarities of her town on her recent album L.A. Shit. Rounding out the bill is Nashvillian by way of Vermont Michael James Wheeler, whose 2022 LP Roll Another Dime feels immediate and intimate even though it’s the product of about five years of work. STEPHEN TRAGESER 7 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT 1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.

MUSIC [WHAT GOES ON?]

RINGO STARR AND HIS ALL STARR BAND

Peter Jackson’s three-part, eight-hour documentary series The Beatles: Get Back hit Disney+ two Thanksgivings ago, though it felt more like Christmas morning for Fab Four obsessives. Culled from unused footage of the recording sessions for Let It Be, the series showed us a lot of special, never-before-seen moments, and also reinforced a few things we already knew — including the fact that Ringo Starr is one of the most laid-back, lovable chaps on the planet. The affable drummer with unbeatable feel is spreading peace and love to the masses to this day, taking His All Starr Band on the road

on a nationwide tour that stops in Nashville this weekend. The All Starr Band has had iconic members over the years, from Dr. John and “Fifth Beatle” Billy Preston to The Band’s Rick Danko and Levon Helm. These days the lineup includes Men at Work’s Colin Hay, Toto’s Steve Lukather and prolific multi-instrumentalist Edgar Winter among others, and the set lists tend to feature tunes from those folks’ catalogs as well as those of The Beatles and Ringo as a solo artist. As of this writing, tickets are very nearly sold out, but if you manage to get into the Ryman for this one, expect a parade of hits and immaculate vibes. D. PATRICK RODGERS

7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN

116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.

MONDAY / 9.25

FILM [NATIONAL TREASURES] THE AMERICAN BUFFALO

The American Buffalo, the new film by Ken Burns, airs nationally on PBS Oct. 16 and 17. But Franklin is one of the few communities across the country getting a sneak peek of the story of the iconic animal. On Sept. 25, the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County, Nashville Public Television and The Better Angels Society are sponsoring a preview of the film. The Better Angels Society, which raised more than $5 million to fund The American Buffalo, is a nonprofit dedicated to educating Americans about their history through documentary film. The movie looks at the history of the animal in the country, and efforts to revive its population. After the excerpts of the movie are screened, there will be a Q&A session moderated by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, The American Buffalo writer Dayton Duncan, Southeastern Grasslands Institute executive director Dwayne Estes and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Jon Meacham. Tickets range from $100 to $200 and can be purchased online. MARGARET LITTMAN

7:15 P.M. AT THE FRANKLIN THEATRE

419 MAIN ST., FRANKLIN

TUESDAY / 9.26

FILM

[SIX-LEGGED SICKNESS] A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FRIEDKIN: BUG

For a brief time in the early 21st century, William

DAMIEN ESCOBAR: VICTORY LAP TOUR

FACE VALUE: TRIBUTE TO PHIL COLLINS

CITY OF LAUGHS FEATURING DERIC “SLEEZY” EVANS, SCOTT EASON, THOMAS LEON & J MCNUTT

PATTON OSWALT: EFFERVESCENT TOUR (2 SHOWS)

CRAIG D. LINDSEY SEPT. 23-27 AT AMC AND REGAL THEATERS

THE AMERICAN BUFFALO

PHOTO: CRAIG MELLISH

Thursday, September 21

CONCERT

Hank’s 100 th

In Celebration of Hank Williams

Presented by Spotify

3:30 pm · CMA THEATER AS PART OF AMERICANAFEST

Saturday, September 23

SONGWRITER SESSION

William Prince

NOON · FORD THEATER AS PART OF AMERICANAFEST

Saturday, September 23

CONVERSATION AND PERFORMANCE

A Celebration of Merle Travis

Featuring Deke Dickerson, Tommy Emmanuel, Eddie Pennington, Cindy Travis, and Merlene Travis-Maggini

2:30 pm · FORD THEATER

AS PART OF AMERICANAFEST

Sunday, September 24

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Caroline Jones

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, September 30

SONGWRITER SESSION

Max T. Barnes

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, October 1

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Bruce Bouton

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, October 7

SONGWRITER SESSION

Joe Doyle

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, October 7

HATCH SHOW PRINT

Block Party

3:00 pm · HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP

LIMITED AVAILABILITY

WITNESS HISTORY

Museum Membership

Receive free admission, access to weekly programming, concert ticket presale opportunities, and more.

Friedkin found the perfect collaborator/partnerin-crime in Tony/Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts. They had a grand ol’ time getting Matthew McConaughey to play a cold-blooded assassin who helps (and eventually terrorizes) a white-trash family in the NC-17 adaptation of Letts’ Killer Joe in 2011. But their first bigscreen collabo was Bug, a nasty hodgepodge of claustrophobia and paranoia from 2006. Based on Letts’s 1996 play, the film stars Ashley Judd as a lonely waitress who welcomes a Gulf War vet (Michael Shannon, reprising the role he originated onstage) into her motel-room bed and becomes hooked on him and his catshitcrazy conspiracy theories. It’s basically an hour and 42 minutes of two seriously broken people descending into self-destructive madness. Also, it’s quite possibly the closest Friedkin ever came to making a traditional love story. Man, I miss that sick sumbitch. CRAIG D. LINDSEY SEPT. 26 AND OCT. 1 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC [ECLECTIC MASTER] ESPERANZA SPALDING

Multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, composer and vocalist esperanza spalding (she does not capitalize her name) has been a sensation ever since her first LP exploded onto the jazz scene in 2006. Junjo presented both an intriguing, formidable vocalist and a brilliant bassist, as well as a conceptualist whose merger of jazz and Latin music elements established her credibility as a fresh and innovative figure. In addition to collaborating with artists like Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Prince and Stevie Wonder, spalding has also continued her genre-busting forays with her distinctive LPs. Spalding’s won five Grammys and greatly expanded perceptions regarding what material fits within the framework of jazz. One notable collaboration was Iphigenia — a production Wayne Shorter conceived based on a 2,400-yearold play by the Greek writer Euripides — which featured spalding, a chamber ensemble, a jazz trio and a dozen opera singers. Spalding’s own compositions and performance brilliance will be on full display Tuesday night when she appears at the Schermerhorn. RON WYNN

7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN

1 SYMPHONY PLACE

WEDNESDAY / 9.27

MUSIC [ALL MY EXES LIVE IN TEXAS] TRUE WIDOW W/SRSQ

The hypnotic, down-tuned hum of True Widow gets listeners lost in a psychedelic labyrinth that one never wants to escape. Through 16 years and four albums of eerie, wandering melodies, the band has explored a lot of territory on the desolate spiritual plane where their music exists. Their expansive sound, both sparse and dissonant, never calls for resolution — only further exploration. Self-described “stonegazers,” the Texan trio continuously finds ways to remain fresh and interesting without ever diverging from their melancholy mood, with a tempo that never exceeds the speed of a glacier. Their Lone Star State tourmate Kennedy Ashlyn, aka SRSQ, is known for her trill vocal melodies, polyphonic synthesizer tones and vintage drum machine sounds. Pronounced “seer-skew,” SRSQ has two albums of dreamy, supernatural pop out on L.A./Brooklyn post-punk imprint Dias Records, drawing frequent comparisons to Kate Bush, David Lynch film soundtracks and This Mortal Coil. P.J. KINZER

7 P.M. AT DRKMTTR

1111 DICKERSON PIKE

FILM [FROM YOUR GROIN TO YOUR GULLET] PIZZA AND A MOVIE: CANDYMAN

Candyman is so much more than a horror movie about a bogeyman who appears when you say his name five times in front of a mirror. Bernard Rose’s 1992 film is a beautifully shot, beautifully scored (Philip Glass!) take-down of white women made decades before the Karen trope became mainstream. It’s also the perfect vehicle for Tony Todd, whose voiceover must have been on Robert Eggers’ mind when he made The Witch — just imagine Candyman saying, “Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?” Or Black Phillip saying, “I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom,” for that matter. Candyman is also completely, utterly terrifying. There’s no better way to bring in the horrormovie season, courtesy of the local heroes at Slim & Husky’s, who partner with the Belcourt for the Pizza and a Movie series highlighting great Black cinema.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

ESPERANZA SPALDING

PHOTO: HOLLY ANDRES

A GOURMET MARKET OF CA Y MADE PROVISIONS FEATURING DOZENS OF MUSIC CITY-BASED FOOD VENDORS.

- 4PM

UPGRADE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH TICKETS TO THE BISCUITS & B ODY MARY GARDEN!

Enjoy unlimited biscuits & jam, a full size bloody mary with your choice of garnishes and a tote bag full of gi s from our sponsors! TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

SPONSORED BY

MEET THE VENDORS

615ChuTNey

931 Cookie Co.

Bake to Belong

Bix Bakery

Cocorico Cuisine

Coyote Kitchen

De-Lish by Deb

Eat Bubbles

Egg Drip

Elle & Jo Tea Co.

EVOriginals

Fudge Daddy

Honey Child Jellies

Hot Sauce Nashville

Jim's Spaghetti Sauce

Mama Yang and Daughter

MorEmpanadas

My Sauce Lab

Norwegian Blue Farms

Perfectly Cordial

Pink Door Cookies

Quentin's Sauces

Quirk 'N Co Donuts

Suraj Spices & Teas

The Honey Collective

The Liege Wa le Co.

Ugly Bagel

Upstate Pierogi Co. West Iris

WHISK Cheesecake Shop

The Wok Bros

ME HUNGRY

In addition to all the delicious samples you’ll get from our market vendors, enjoy incredible food truck fare from your favorites!

SPONSORED BY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

IF YOU’RE DRINKING a crafted cocktail in Nashville these days, there’s a decent chance Kenneth Vanhooser helped develop the idea for what’s in the glass. He’s mixed drinks at some of the best bars and restaurants in New York (including Tenpenny, Piora and Eleven Madison Park), and the Nashvillian is now cooking up creative cocktail ideas at the spaghetti-Western-themed Four Walls in the Joseph Nashville hotel, and directing the sake bar, omakase tasting and other cocktails at Present Tense in Chestnut Hill. Before taking on these two new projects in 2023, Vanhooser was the beverage director at the Le Loup, Star Rover Sound and other chef Ford Fry concepts.

We wanted to get to know the guy behind the bars. Here are six things you should know about Vanhooser before you choose your next cocktail.

TOAST OF THE TOWN

Six things to know about cocktail expert Kenneth Vanhooser

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

1. HE

WAS NASHVILLE BEFORE NASHVILLE WAS COOL.

Vanhooser grew up in Nashville, Hendersonville and Gallatin. “I moved to New York in 2009,” he says. “And by 2009-and-a-half, everyone was asking, ‘So have you ever heard of Nashville?’” He intended to go to New York, learn a lot, come back, bring what he learned home, and open a place of his own. “Literally six months after landing in New York, everybody was talking about Nashville. And while I did know Nashville, of course, I did not know the Nashville it was becoming.”

2. HE’S ONE OF THOSE NASHVILLE NATIVES WHO ISN’T EMBARRASSED TO SAY HE STILL LIKES BROADWAY.

Vanhooser worked at several bars on Broadway for nine years. “True Broadway,” he says. He likes that Four Walls is close enough to get to Broadway, but it is almost removed enough

from the “chaos” for those who want a break. He refers to that ring of increasingly popular places around the perimeter of downtown as “the halo.” Still, you’ll catch him in Rippy’s Honky Tonk, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Robert’s Western World. “Whenever I have people in town, I say, ‘You have to go and see these places, because they are Nashville.’”

3. HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN SECRETS.

“Spill secrets, not cocktails” is the mantra for Four Walls. You can have the exact recipe with the exact same ingredients, and still your cocktail experience won’t be the same as it would be in a bar with a professional mixing it in front of you. So inside the Four Walls bar is a typewriter (Olivetti, which is Italian, because everything at the Joseph has Italian roots)

where they’ll type out the recipe to a cocktail if you ask. Some drinks at Four Walls use the Joseph’s custom olive oil and balsamic vinegar blends.

4. HE LIKES TO KEEP A LOT OF CREATIVE IRONS IN THE FIRE.

Negroni Week

Cocktail Class 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, at Four Walls, 401 Korean Veterans Blvd.

Currently, that means directing beverage programs at Four Walls and Present Tense. And he has a garage of screen-printing supplies — he’s just waiting for some downtime to use them again. The history of screen printing in Nashville led him to learn the art while he was in high school. “I was the weird guy in college that had a basement with a screen-printing press.” He’s also worked in textiles, colorization and digital prints. The Joseph is known for its art collection. (The Pizzuti family, which

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

KENNETH VANHOOSER

owns the hotel, has a contemporary art museum named after them in Columbus, Ohio.) Head to the hotel’s eighth floor to admire Vanhooser’s favorite pieces in the Pizzuti collection.

5. WITH ITS SPAGHETTI WESTERN THEME, FOUR WALLS IS NOT THE FIRST BAR HE HAS BEEN INVOLVED WITH THAT HAS A CONNECTION TO FILM.

Syndicated Bar Theater Kitchen in Brooklyn is a diner and theater. “We played cult films — every day there was a new film playing. So we were creating cocktails on a daily basis that revolved around the theme of the film. Four Walls was the chance to kind of run with an idea. It wasn’t just creating a drink menu based off of what I like. It was trying to make a menu that stays true to the roots of the Joseph.”

6. HE’S NOT AFRAID TO PUT SOMETHING ON THE MENU THAT EVERYONE DOESN’T LOVE. FOUR WALLS, FOR EXAMPLE, HAS NINE DIFFERENT NEGRONIS.

“Negronis are a classic cocktail that are very polarizing,” he says. “People either really like it or they don’t. I consider a Negroni a bittersweet tea, and I grew up on sweet tea.” One of his favorite things is to get one in the hands of a customer and see what they think. You can try it yourself: This Saturday, Sept. 23, Vanhooser and lead bartender Mickey Stevenson will have more opportunity to do that when they lead a Negroni Week Cocktail Class. They’ll cover the history and technique of the Italian classic, with three variations from the Negroni family tree. ▼

UNA ACRE FARM

In Madison, Tonya and Michael Bradford grow a lot of food in a little space

BY KELSEY BEYELER

With our series At the Market, we’re highlighting some of our favorite farmers market vendors from the Nashville area.

YOU CAN GROW a whole lot of food on just an acre or so of land, and Una Acre Farm is proof of that. The organic Madison farm, run by husband-and-wife duo Tonya and Michael Bradford, grows enough produce on 1.25 acres to sell at two different farmers markets, distribute in CSA boxes and supply food to local restaurants.

Tonya was a chef and Michael worked in business development and digital media in New York City before they eventually ended up in Nashville and started the farm in 2019. Both were ready to leave the fast pace of the city for a more rural area — they point out that they’ve since had tomato patches as large as their Manhattan apartment.

Tonya took an interest in farming, and after moving to Nashville she worked with locals like Lost Weekend Farms and Sugar Camp Farm before starting her own operation.

“It’s not a competitive spirit — we’re not out to outsell each other,” says Tonya. “Truly we are there to help other people, and pivot and brainstorm ideas. That’s something that I’ve never really had, especially in the restaurant world in New York, where it can be really cutthroat.”

At Una Acre Farm, the Bradfords prioritize practices like covering crops and planting flowers to divert insects, spraying only organic-approved pest deterrents when it’s absolutely necessary. They’ve learned a lot through trial and error, and after breaking her foot this year, Tonya’s major lesson has been “letting go of perfection and control.”

“It’s her company, I’m just trying to get an employeeof-the-month parking spot every month,” jokes Michael. Tonya notes that he is in fact a co-owner and has been picking up the slack on the farm while her foot heals. Both put in hard work and long hours to grow everything from strawberries and fennel to tomatoes, broccoli and more. Tonya also sells items like jams and salsas. You can find Una Acre at the 12South and Amqui Station farmers markets, and check out their website for information on CSA boxes and recipes. ▼

Una Acre Farm unaacrefarm.com

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

L.J. LANDRUM AND MATTHEW POWELL help people identify which toys have a place in their store, and which just have a place in the owner’s heart.

Earlier this year, the business partners moved Totally Rad Toyhouse from its original home, which opened in Woodbine in 2019, to a new location at 6309 Charlotte Pike. With the move, they were able to combine warehouse and retail spaces.

Collectors themselves, Landrum and Powell keep it real with their customers. Sometimes that means suggesting a customer sell a prized toy on their own rather than going through a middleman like Totally Rad.

“I always tell people, especially collectors that bring me a collection, ‘If you think you’re going to regret selling it, don’t bring it to me,’” Powell says. “I’ve done it before. I’ve sold collections and regretted it.”

What money they may lose due to that earnestness, they gain back in, for instance, a rare Japanese toy worth $300, or a $400 sale of a single My Little Pony figurine. (The male ponies are hard to come by.)

“This woman walked in and she had just gotten her inheritance or something, and she dropped like $2,500 on ponies that day,” Landrum recalls.

The store focuses on vintage toys from the 1980s and earlier. Transformers and G.I. Joe figures fly out of stock, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are, well, evergreen. People love Jem and the Holograms, He-Man and Care Bears. In the summer of Barbie, however, they’ve had more sellers than buyers.

“Every grandmother got their granddaughter a Holiday Barbie every year thinking, ‘It’s a special edition — better hang on to it,’” Powell says. “Unfortunately, so many grandmothers did that — they produced so many of them — they’re just not hard to come by. They’re actually worth less now than they were when they bought them.”

The same is true for Beanie Babies. The shop has a disclaimer that they don’t accept sales of the slightly stuffed plush, and yet they still get multiple calls a week from folks claiming they own valuable bears. Most aren’t worth very much.

“Just because somebody listed it on eBay for $50,000 doesn’t mean it sold for $50,000,” Powell says. If so, he says, it was probably money laundering.

A rule of thumb in the toy world is rarity. The highest resale value often goes to toys made at the end of the run, when kids began moving on and manufacturers made fewer.

The toy-collector industry is geared toward “boy” toys, but the demand is there for “girl” toys too, Landrum says.

“I don’t like saying ‘girl’ toys, ‘boy’ toys, because of how we live in society now,” Landrum says. “If a boy wants to come in here and buy a

TOY STORY

Totally Rad Toyhouse delivers nostalgia and helps collectors heal their inner children

BY HANNAH HERNER

Barbie, I think that’s rad. But when you’re looking at nostalgic toys, that’s the only way you can say, ‘This was geared toward girls. This was geared toward boys.’ I think the collector world is sort of geared more toward men, but the girl stuff is the hardest to get and keep. If we get it in,

it sells super fast, and it’s rare that it comes in.”

Landrum’s personal collection is of what she calls “green girls” — wicked witches, She-Hulk, Gamora, Poison Ivy. She’ll pick up some nostalgic favorites, like Rainbow Brite or Fraggle Rock. Powell’s personal favorites are He-Man, Thun-

derCats and SilverHawks. Without going too deep into imagining the sentience of the toys, they picture the figures as being happier when they are not stored away in an attic somewhere and can have a second life.

“We were the first generation to have so much thrown at us as far as cartoons and toys and things,” Powell says. “It was such a big part of our childhood. Nobody thought 40 years later, a lot of us would be like, ‘Man, I’d really like to have a Voltron sitting on my desk like I had as a kid.’”

Toy collecting is becoming more and more mainstream, the pair points out. In a post-Marvel Cinematic Universe society, Powell says, the toys aren’t just for nerds. A stop in the store allows people to participate in another trend: healing the inner child.

“It’s going back and trying to hunt down things that you either had as a child that you remember or for something that you really wanted that you’ve never got, and kind of feeling that little void that’s always been missing.” ▼

Totally Rad Toyhouse 6309 Charlotte Pike totallyradtoyhouse.com

PHOTOS: ANGELINA CASTILLO

MATTHEW POWELL AND L.J. LANDRUM

Feat. ERIC BOLANDER, RUEN BROTHERS, JONELL MOSSER, NAT MYERS & A TRIBUTE TO LORETTA LYNN

Feat. DARLING WEST, LOGAN LEDGER, JIM LAUDERDALE, WILLIAM PRINCE & FANTASTIC CAT

Backstage Nashville feat.

BERG, TRAVIS HOWARD, JAMES SLATER & BUDDY OWENS

Feat. THREE TIMES A LADY, ELLES BAILEY, JP HARRIS’ DREADFUL WIND & RAIN, AMYTHYST KIAH & LEON TIMBO

MODERN ENGLISH with PALM GHOSTS

THE TIME JUMPERS

Spreading Hope On The Row feat. LEVI HUMMON, SMITHFIELD, RYAN GRIFFIN, NOAH THOMPSON, LEWIS BRICE, ELVIE SHANE, CALEB LEE HUTCHINSON, MORGAN MYLES, STEPHANIE QUAYLE, CHRIS GELBUDA, ERIN GRAND, PAULINA JAYNE & MORE! Hosted by Eryn Cooper

STEVE ‘N’ SEAGULLS with ADRIAN + MEREDITH

BILL & JILIAN NERSHI (Of The String Cheese Incident) with JASON HANN

AMERICANAFEST: Band of Heathens, Kaitlin Butts, The Panhandlers, carter faith, Drayton Farley

AMERICANAFEST: A Tribute to 1973

AMERICANAFEST: Sarah Jarosz, Maggie Rose, The Wilder Blue, Blue Water Highway, The Shindellas [7pm]

AMERICANAFEST - Right in Time: A Tribute to Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road [2pm] zz ward w/ jaime wyatt noah gundersen w/ casey dubie mo lowda & the humble W/ JIVE TALK

SHAWN JAMES W/ RACHAEL DAVIS & EVAN BARTELS ambar lucid w/ rubio & ethanuno International Blues Challenge

LANCO w/ Meghan Patrick & Willie Tate

vacations & last dinosaurs w/ Eliza McLamb

Wilderado w/ Sego and Baseball Game

The National Parks w/ Zach Seabaugh

Doobie w/ Call Me Karizma

DEHD W/ SARAH GRACE WHITE

You Got Gold: John prine tribute

americanafest: Channing Wilson, Mia Borders, Jack Botts, Sons of the East, Jake Kohn

americanafest: Trapper Schoepp, Tyler Ramsey, Mikey Ferrari, Autumn Nicholas, Cruz Contreras

Commonwealth of Kentucky at Americanafest: Brit Taylor, Nine Pound Hammer, Jeremy Pinnell, Leah Blevins, Boa Boys, The Josephines, Laid Back Country Picker [12pm]

AMERICANAFEST: Brother Elsey, Jake Ybarra, The Magi, Joelton Mayfield, Mike Stinson & Johnny Irion [7pm]

Sean Thompson's Weird Ears, Gracie Horse, Michael James Wheeler

Abby Hamilton [7pm]

Letdown. w/ Blackpool Mecca [9pm]

Abbey Cone BAERD w/ AG Sully [7pm]

Sam Lewis and Luke Davids [9pm]

Harper O'Neill [6pm]

Kat Hasty w/ Rachel LaRen [7:30pm]

get happier fridays w/ Friday Night Funk Band,

NASHVILLE TO NASHVILLE

BY ASHLEY SPURGEON

of Nashville returns

THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE

Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, more take top Americana honors

BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

ON WEDNESDAY, the spectacular display of wide-ranging talent doubling as the 22nd annual Americana Music Association Honors and Awards ceremony headed to the Ryman.

Among those recognized were the previously announced lifetime-achievement honorees, including soul and blues icon Bettye LaVette (who received the Legacy Award, presented in conjunction with the National Museum of African American Music) and country ace Patty Griffin, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting Folk-rootsand-pop champions The Avett Brothers and Nickel Creek were each honored with a Trailblazer Award, while the Lifetime Achievement Award for Executive went to New West Records co-founder George Fontaine Sr.

CRAZY TO THINK, but it’s now been five years since actor-musicians Clare Bowen, Charles Esten, Jonathan Jackson and Sam Palladio — who are all performing together at the Ryman on Sept. 25 — starred in Nashville. What, we’re at reunion tours already?

The show, which ran from 2012 to 2018 on ABC and CMT, showed off right away, armed with both Tinseltown and Music City bona fides: Created by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri and with her husband T Bone Burnett acting as musical producer at the start of the series, Nashville very successfully reintroduced our fair city to an audience eager for all the delightful contradictions of downhome glamour. The fact that a non-sci-fi show can hold a global audience is impressive. But of course, who doesn’t love a sad song dressed up in sequins?

One of the best, most consistent things about Nashville was that it always understood there are two sides to the music business — there’s the music, you see, and then there’s the business. Our Ryman performers Bowen, Esten, Jackson and Palladio all happen to portray the “music” side — for their characters, life is about rehearsals, side hustles and making sure you always carry a notebook. The “business” side? That’s hangdog managers, chaotic-evil label executives, and life on the road to such an extent that a show called Nashville often took place everywhere else.

East Nashville roll call! Bowen was, of course, Scarlett O’Connor, the third female lead and folk-music foil to co-stars Connie Britton as Rayna James, a ’90s country sensation (died in a car crash), and Hayden Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes (survived a plane crash), a pop-country crossover-cum-controversy-courter. (Scarlett was also like if the smell of a sewing basket took

human form.) Esten was Deacon Claybourne, Scarlett’s uncle, Rayna’s on-again-off-again soulmate and sideman guitarist extraordinaire. He was an alcoholic who once bought a bar, Cheers-style! Jackson and Palladio were Gunnar Scott and Avery Barkley, respectively, Scarlett’s sometimes-boyfriends who drifted away from performing and toward songwriting and producing. If memory serves, Gunnar had to live with roommates forever and Avery married money. Verisimilitude appears in the strangest places sometimes.

Sadly, viewers never got the chance to see the late Powers Boothe whip out a guitar and go full Matlock on us, but Nashville was an honest-toGod musical above all else, with every episode utilizing good old-fashioned diegetic singing via live concert, music video shoot, in-studio recording session, practice noodle, onstage rehearsal — there are lots of opportunities to sing your heart out in Nashville — to highlight good old-fashioned character insights with perfectly on-the-nose titles that would make Broadway blush. “No One Will Ever Love You,” a romantic Esten duet with Britton, is a personal favorite, as is “Fade Into You,” a dreamy, mournful ballad from Palladio and Bowen (not to be confused with the Mazzy Star song of the same name). Both songs showcase the bare-bones stories and old-country harmonizing that begat country music in the first place. (Nashville was a soap opera second — the mayor’s wife faking a miscarriage with a tub of pork blood is iconic, sorry not sorry.)

Across the series, some of the very best songs were duets, including “Undermine,” a Season 1 Esten-Panettiere number, co-written by Kacey Musgraves (and Trent Dabbs) just prior to her popping off with 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park. But Nashville was careful to never box itself into one musical genre: There were

boot-scooters, of course, but also flirtations with straight-up gospel, country-rock, blues and more; the show’s back catalog is surprisingly dense. Other notable cast contributions came from Lennon and Maisy Stella and Chris Carmack. (Carmack will make a guest appearance at the Ryman in addition to a stop at Chicago’s Rosemont Theatre two days earlier.) There was also a glut of guest stars who recorded for the show — including an extended run from Rhiannon Giddens, who is — as far as I know — the only person to appear in a soap opera nursing a celebrity with a broken spine back to health with the power of music, and then later go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in real life.

The music from the show earned real-life chart success too, with multiple soundtracks (including a Christmas album) landing in country’s top 10. The actors who played characters most in tune — pun intended — with the music have kept the beat going to varying degrees. Most prolific by far is Esten, who has made himself at home, continuing the songwriter grind and clocking in more than 100 performances at The Grand Ole Opry. Post-show, Jackson has still played with his long-running band Enation, and Clare Bowen and her husband Brandon Robert Young have recently recorded and performed together under the moniker BOWEN YOUNG. After the Ryman, the gang’s taking the show on the road — Great Britain beckons with dates in Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, London and Cardiff. Will any of our traveling troubadours drop in at Glasgow’s Grand Ole Opry? One can certainly hope. ▼

A couple of the winners in the member-voted categories repeated their feats from 2022. Rocking bluegrass songsmith and phenomenal picker Billy Strings claimed a second consecutive Artist of the Year title, while The War and Treaty — who are also nominated as Vocal Duo of the Year at November’s CMA Awards — are once again Duo/Group of the Year. Both wins are well-deserved, though one wonders what Artist of the Year nominee Charley Crockett — an outstanding and prolific songsmith who was 2021’s Emerging Artist of the Year — has to do to take home that trophy.

Tyler Childers’ Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?

— an inventive record that presents three different interpretations of the same set of eight gospel songs — won Album of the Year in a crowded field that included Margo Price’s Strays. On Sept. 8, Childers and Allison Russell both released new LPs — Rustin’ in the Rain and The Returner, respectively — that are already strong contenders for next year’s awards; like Price, Russell had multiple nominations this year but no wins.

While Adeem the Artist, who kindly spoke with us for our AmericanaFest preview, did not take Emerging Act of the Year honors, an also-excellent and thoughtful artist did: That’s S.G. Goodman, whose Teeth Marks was a highlight of 2022. However, the wide-traveling sibling duo of Chauntee and Monique Ross, aka SistaStrings (who also spoke with us), were recognized as Instrumentalist of the Year Living legend Bonnie Raitt won two Grammys for “Just Like That,” the titular song of her most recent LP, and she took home Song of the Year on Wednesday as well. ▼

Five years after the conclusion of their hit show, the cast

Nashville: Reunion Tour 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at the Ryman

HELLO, IT’S ME

On their Serious Person EPs, corook embraces pure pop

BY EDD HURT

NEGATIVE SPACE

BY RACHEL CHOLST

PORTLAND, ORE.’S ROSELIT BONE lives comfortably in the spaces between punk, ranchera and country and Western. The band grew gradually from a duo to an eight-piece juggernaut, complete with strings and horns. With grandiose gothic lyrics and big arrangements, Roselit Bone’s music crackles with the tension of thunderheads far on the desert horizon.

On the band’s latest album Ofrenda — released Aug. 25, it shares its name with the altars that Mexican families have traditionally set up in their homes to honor the dead during Día de los Muertos — frontwoman Charlotte McCaslin offers a small ray of hope among the tumult of contemporary life. Ofrenda encapsulates many contradictions: Divorce, death, pandemic and police violence form a backdrop to the beginnings of McCaslin’s new relationship and her transition. Ofrenda seeks to make sense of this duality. Ahead of a tour stop at Springwater, McCaslin spoke with the Scene about her musical influences, Roselit Bone’s evolution and her newfound sense of self.

THE FIRST SHOW singer and songwriter corook played in Nashville was at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge, a venue in Madison that mostly caters to alt-country singers, bluegrass pickers and the occasional rock band. It was in March 2020, just before the pandemic began shutting down live shows, and corook had only recently landed in town, having made the move the previous summer. Three years later, corook is a star whose music pushes pop in progressive directions, as you can hear on their new EP Serious Person (Part 2), which is out on Friday. They might have been unfamiliar to the clientele at Dee’s in 2020, but corook grabbed their attention.

“That first show was way before anything was really happening for me,” they tell me from their home in Nashville. “I remember starting to sing, and obviously being a pop act, and everybody that was playing pool stopped playing and looked over and said, ‘What the hell is going on?’ But it was in a good, curious way, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna do this; I’m gonna kill it.’”

Serious Person (Part 2) makes its case for corook as a master whose music doesn’t recall any referents that would place it in the context of, say, Americana. Like the first installment of what amounts to a radical statement of self-determination, Serious Person (Part 2) gets over on sheer craft. Every song on the twin EPs works as great pop, with the Serious Person (Part 1) tracks “CGI” and “Natalie” mind-boggling examples of corook’s gift for creating concise and subtly fucked-up music that contains hidden angles and ultra-hip chord changes.

Talking to corook, I know I’m in the presence of a devotee of an aesthetic that’s in short sup-

ply in the New New Nashville. They were born in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1995, and grew up on the city’s South Side. The future pop star went to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, a town about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. They explain that they listened to a typical mix of old-school music and radio hits.

“My dad had this really eclectic taste, and my mother just turned on the radio,” they say. “I feel like corook has become kind of a mix of those two worlds. I want anybody to be able to sing it, but no one to be able to quite understand how it was made.”

This is spoken like a high-level songwriter who knows the techniques for creating addictive pop. Perhaps the biggest trick of all is to disguise the tricks by placing tart melodies on top of changes that would satisfy the most muso-friendly members of your audience. This means, for one thing, that corook graduated from Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music in 2017 and emerged with their pop sensibilities intact.

“When it comes to the really brainy part of Berklee, I was pretty detached,” they say. “For me and most other peers, it feels like Berklee’s this wonderful place to meet the music industry before it’s the music industry.”

Whatever corook gleaned from Berklee, you get the sense that a corook song is ineffably right in its composition, down to the smallest detail. The aforementioned “CGI” uses the warm harmonic structures you find in the work of Todd Rundgren, XTC and Prince, while the Serious Person (Part 2) track “Party” is supported by a framework that reminds me of the ’60s soul of Brenton Wood and Jay and the Techniques.

Their use of keyboards borders on the eccentric, but corook keeps everything clean and uncluttered throughout the two EPs.

You can see corook’s process at work in the performance video they and their girlfriend Olivia Barton made for the duo’s 2023 song “If I Were a Fish,” which garnered corook and Barton accolades for the song’s charm. The song addresses negative online comments corook and Barton had received about their gender identity and their image. The song is simultaneously childlike and very adult, and corook’s enthusiasm for recording and writing comes through in the video.

Saturday night’s show at The Blue Room is part of corook’s first headlining tour, after serving as an opening act for the likes of X Ambassadors and Jukebox the Ghost. They’ll have a full band, and corook says they’ll play everything from guitar and banjo to kazoo. Since they turned the heads of the pool-playing contingent at Dee’s, corook has come a considerable distance. Their music represents a new take on the ancient avant-garde verities, which means corook respects musical rules that avant-gardists often discard.

“Everybody says it’s so easy to write pop music. I would beg to differ, and ask them to try again. It’s a difficult thing to make something so simple and yet move you.” ▼

Country music is often about individualism and a very personal style of songwriting. Your music paints these very epic pictures with a spaghetti Western sound. How does that style speak to you? I do feel like my songwriting is personal in a lot of ways and is very informed by my own life experiences. I have been through a lot It might be a little more than the usual country affair, perhaps.

I think that in order to get the full scope of the emotions that I’m going for, I draw on a lot of different influences, and some cinematic influences to drive home the scope of whatever the song is about — whether it’s a personal song, or something that’s more of a storytelling thing.

It varies by song. Some songs are definitely story songs, but even a lot of those stories are directly informed by things that I experienced or witnessed. Western music is very good at conveying loneliness, and a hardened take on how you deal with pain, and that goes hand in hand with the songs that I write.

You experienced those feelings when you moved to a town in rural Oregon. A lot of our early songs were written when I lived out in the woods. I lived out in rural Oregon for about a year, and there were no jobs around. I had to find scrap metal to sell and try to get a job at the fishery.

It was pretty hard living out there. My only real escape was just playing music 10 hours a day in this little shack that we lived in. Those early songs were the most lonely of the batch that I’ve written. As I started arranging them a couple of years later for a band, the cinematic and atmospheric traits of Western music helped drive that loneliness through everything that I was trying to do. Even though at times the vocal delivery can be very heart-on-my-sleeve, the background of Western music is often very cold and inhuman-sounding. I think that helps provide a contrast.

When you moved to Portland, Roselit Bone began as a duo. How did the band evolve? All the

Amid the chaos, Roselit Bone sees the seeds of a brighter future

Serious Person (Part 2) out Friday, Sept. 22, via Atlantic Playing 8 p.m. Sept. 23 at The Blue Room

upcoming events

2023

• 9/22-23 – Mighty Roots Music Festival

• 9/30 – Bad Apple Blues Festival

• 10/4-7 - King Biscuit Blues Festival & Symposium, Helena, Arkansas

• 10/8 - Super Blues Sunday

• 10/12-14 – Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival

• 10/12-15 – Deep Blues Festival

• 10/26-28 – Hambone Festival

• 10/27-28 – Cruzn The Crossroads Car Show

• 12/30-31 – Clarksdale’s New Year’s Eve Blowout Weekend (various venues)

2024

• 1/26-28 – Clarksdale Film & Music Festival

• 4/11-14 – Juke Joint Festival & Related Events

• 4/14 – Cat Head Mini Blues Fest

• 5/11 – Clarksdale Caravan Music Festival

• 5/24 – Ground Zero Blues Club 21st Anniversary

• 6/14 – Birthplace of American Music Festival

• 8/9-11 – Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival

songs were written as folk songs, and I think I still work in that way — where I make sure that the song works as a solo piece before I let the band hear it. Early on, I was really influenced by Delta blues and ragtime guitar, which have a lot of moving parts in them. I started to hear parts that I couldn’t play. We added a bassist and continued adding members with violin and trumpets, keyboards, synths, drums, bass, and, like, six guitars. [Laughs] When I hear an influence in a song that I’m writing, I absolutely try to pursue it. If that means adding instruments, or going in a [different] stylistic direction, I follow whatever the song is.

You grew up around mariachi music in California, and it’s a big influence on Roselit Bone. Have you done any study of it? Just casually. I listen to it a lot. I have a lot of ranchera records. There’s a handful of ranchera artists that I adore, like Miguel Aceves [Mejía], Javier Solís — and Chavela Vargas is one I’m the most influenced by. I have learned to play a lot of the songs. What we do is not in any way an authentic version of any of that, but we do use some of the same instrumentation, and I play a fairly unique guitar that is only used in certain regional styles of Mexican music: I play a requinto and not a normal classical guitar, which adds to the sound.

A lot of what people consider “spaghetti Western” music, when talking about cinematic stuff — a lot of the horn arrangements are drawn from mariachi and ranchera. When I started making music, I wasn’t necessarily trying to make Western music, but I was drawing from a lot of the same influences that Ennio Morricone did. I was really drawn to twangy, Duane Eddy guitar and ranchera string and trumpet arrangements, and the strong operatic vocals that come from a lot of Mexican music.

MUSIC: THE SPIN

WELL SEASONED

BY P.J. KINZER

SATURDAY NIGHT at The Blue Room felt like a step into the pre-bachelorette Nashville of 2006. The space was filled with familiar punk-scene faces of post-Y2K Music City, whom you might have spotted on Elliston Place. I spied Drkmttr co-parent Olivia Scibelli, Cleft Music bossman Loney John Hutchins, G.U.N. bassist Stephen Sutton, Deluxin’s Eric Wright and a host of other regulars who were gigging around town back then, but still contribute to the local DIY world today. The kids of that era — now in their 30s or 40s — had hired babysitters so they could catch Be Your

Own Pet

For four short years, the quartet was the strongest thread in the vibrant tapestry of Nashville’s indie scene, before unexpectedly signing off after releasing their second album in 2008. The members of BYOP don’t seem to regret disbanding back then — after all, they got together while they were still in high school and had the music business and everything that comes with it to grapple with, right off the bat. But Saturday was about far more than just nostalgia-bombing, as the reunited group was playing in their hometown for the first time since the August

After your previous record, 2019’s Crisis Actor, you transitioned. How has that changed your relationship with your music and performing? Most of my songs, though extremely personal before, always felt

release of their third LP, Mommy. Old heads and new fans alike lined up for the hometown debut of the new material the group wrote after returning from the dead in 2019.

Leadoff hitters Being Dead, from Austin, Texas, were the perfect kind of opener. I had never heard of them before, and I had a lot of fun watching them. The sparse sound of the drumbass-guitar trio had the off-kilter jangle of ’80s Sarah Records releases, the stompy ’60s reverb of The Trashmen and a hint of the dissonance of The Raincoats. At the core of the band is a duo of multi-instrumentalists who go by Falcon Bitch and Gumball — true entertainers who switch between drums and guitar midsong, with bassist Nicole Roman-Johnston anchoring the sound. Their stage banter felt heavy on inside jokes, but in a good way. I was excited to find out they had a few releases out over the past several years, including their twangy 2023 LP When Horses Would Run — time for a deep dive. They made an impact; before I left the show, I already spotted two new converts in Being Dead T-shirts fresh from the merch table, a mark of fandom seldom seen outside Metallica-grade arena rock. Then Third Man co-founder and co-owner, occasional emcee and all-around scene enthusiast Ben Swank announced a special guest. Falconetti’s Face, the performance art alter-ego of film critic and regular Scene contributor Jason Shawhan, appeared on the stage that Jack White

like I was singing from a character’s viewpoint, like I was performing as a man. Since transitioning, everything is a little closer to my heart. I have very few blocks in my songwriting now. I do think that it has softened some of

the violent edges of my lyrics. The newer music doesn’t have the same hopelessness or inner turmoil as before. I’m just trying to play music that’s as authentic to how I feel now, and what I want to make now, as I can. ▼

built for 15 minutes of a witty, dramatic rant about being interviewed for a job exploring outer space and being asked to list his greatest regrets. I was familiar with Shawhan’s kitchen-sink approach to humor from watching his film introductions at the Belcourt for many years, but this project shifts that idea into fifth gear. His spoken-word piece came with a full bag of campy tricks, and he pulled out anecdotes and references tying together the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion, a liaison at a

Los Angeles realtor’s showpiece home, LSD and more. He also shouted out no wave poet Lydia Lunch and insinuated that he may have been involved in an international crime.

Be Your Own Pet’s members have been involved in a variety of musical projects that have played around Nashville and elsewhere since the band broke up. When they reunited, they played a not-so-secret warmup last year at East Side arts space Soft Junk and opened for the aforementioned Mr. White at Ascend Amphithe-

Playing 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22, at Springwater

PHOTO: DANNY DODGE

PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO

MOTHER OF PEARL: BE YOUR OWN PET

ROSELIT BONE

ater. But Saturday’s show, coming after several festival appearances and some U.K. dates, was the quartet’s first proper headline gig in Nashville since their initial run; it would also be local fans’ first opportunity to hear BYOP performing new music. Mommy is just as ferocious and musically proficient as their earlier efforts and even more insightful. But the studio and the stage are different places, and it wouldn’t be unexpected for the band to tone down its legendary rambunctiousness a notch.

Within seconds of taking the stage, they put any questions to rest. Frontwoman Jemina Pearl is just as bombastic as ever, shrieking and writhing, charming the crowd and maybe terrifying them a bit too. Guitarist Jonas Stein is still one of the most imaginative players in town, weaponizing his unique knack for pairing melody and noise. Stein’s freedom to do what he does comes from the confidence of playing off the locked-in rhythms of bassist Nathan Vasquez and drummer John Eatherly

The now-veteran punk unit blasted through a set list that included revived old favorites, standouts from Mommy and even a few covers highlighting their influences. Snooper vocalist Blair Tramel came out for a duet with Pearl on Devo’s “Girl U Want.” Late in the set, BYOP busted out a snarling version of the Misfits anthem “Attitude,” and they opened their encore with The Damned’s ripper “Neat Neat Neat.” The night wrapped up with Mommy closer “Teenage Heaven,” a dreamy pop slow dance.

The show was more than just a hometown victory lap for a phenomenal and influential band. It showed that Be Your Own Pet is still a force in Nashville music — every bit as crucial to this scene as they were as kids.

BEST FOOT FORWARD

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

SINCE THE LAST TIME legendary indie-rock quintet The Walkmen went on tour, we Walkmen fans have grown a bit older. A bit rounder. A bit grayer. Indeed, it’s been 11 years since the band put out a record — 10 since they last went on tour — and that made the lyrics of their undeniable banger “The Rat” hit just a little bit harder when they played it Saturday night at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl

“When I used to go out I would know everyone that I saw,” sang frontman Hamilton Leithauser in that impossibly high tenor of his. “Now I go out alone, if I go out at all.”

Four songs in, “The Rat” landed a lot earlier in the set than most of us likely expected, seeing as how it’s the band’s best-known song and a nuclear-level blast of energy, powered by Matt Barrick’s explosive drumming. But this is a band that doesn’t really have any lackluster songs, or weak-link members, or anything that made their roughly 100-minute set drag for even a moment.

The evening kicked off with an opening set from The Walkmen’s fellow New Yorkers Yeah Baby, a very young and very shoegazy quartet.

Heavy on vibes, Joy Division influence and Jesus and Mary Chain sonics, Yeah Baby had all the aesthetics of a band that would’ve hit its peak about a decade-and-a-half before frontwoman Hanna White and her colleagues were likely even born.

The venue had filled out a bit by the time Leithauser & Co. took the stage around 9:15 — it may not have been a sellout, but the place certainly looked like it was close to full capacity. It was off to the races from the downbeat of “What’s in It for Me” from 2004’s Bows + Arrows: guitarist Paul Maroon’s raw, deafening tone; multi-instrumentalists Walter Martin and Peter Bauer swapping off between bass, keys and percussion; Leithauser grinning his way through it as hundreds of voices joined him on tunes like “In the New Year” and “Wake Up”; the whole band looking vaguely like an assemblage of rumpled professors from some Northeastern liberal arts college.

Leithauser was talkative throughout the set, informing us that 2008’s You & Me is his favorite Walkmen record and that years of loud rock shows have given him a condition known as “machine gunner’s ear.” Between picking up his old, beat-up Telecaster to strum on every third or fourth song, he also asked who at Brooklyn Bowl had been present for the band’s very first show in Nashville, on some “street corner” as he recalled it. (Best guess? He was referring to a 2002 performance at East Nashville’s Slow Bar, which has since become 3 Crow Bar, and will soon become a cannabis bar.) Other set highlights included the optimistic, forward-looking “Juveniles” — a good bookend to the harsh, acerbic “The Rat” — and a main-set-closing “Heaven.”

Leithauser noted that the latter, from 2012’s album of the same name, was the last song the band has written together to date.

After a brief departure from the stage, The Walkmen returned for an encore featuring “Thinking of a Dream I Had,” “We’ve Been Had” (the first song the band ever wrote together, we were told) and Leithauser contending with a seemingly broken mic stand. Earlier in the night, the singer said that when the band was first deciding to reunite and return to the road, he wasn’t sure anyone would remember “who the fuck The Walkmen were.”

Turns out plenty of us remember. And lucky for us, Brooklyn’s finest haven’t lost a step. ▼

PHOTO: CLAIRE STEELE

RAT RACE: THE WALKMEN

International Black Film Festival

Sept. 27-Oct. 1 at multiple venues ibffevents.com

BACK IN BLACK

18th edition of the International Black Film Festival continues a groundbreaking tradition

BY RON WYNN

SINCE ITS INCEPTION in 2006, Nashville’s International Black Film Festival has distinguished itself from other similar events. First, it’s the state’s only African American-established and African American-inspired film festival. Second, it has presented and debuted domestic and international works from filmmakers that spotlight often underexposed or overlooked aspects of the Black experience. And third, through its various panels and seminars, it has helped expose the Nashville community and indeed the Mid-South at large to cutting-edge cinematic developments from both a business and technical standpoint.

For its 18th year, IBFF will run from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 with an intriguing and attractive group of selections. It continues to reflect the broad artistic vision and direction of its CEO and founder Hazel Joyner Smith, as well as chief operations officer Ingrid Brown and chief creative officer Ivy Brown. The lineup continues IBFF’s mission

as a nonprofit organization to “encourage culturally accurate depictions of all people in film with special emphasis on providing a forum of access for underserved and unheard voices as well as to showcase the artistically rich creativity and diversity found around the globe.”

This year’s roster is divided between Marquee & Special Features, Narrative Features, Narrative Documentaries, Long Documentaries and Short Documentaries. There are four primary venues: the Looby Center Theater (2301 Rosa Parks Blvd.) will be the site for competition films; Belmont University’s R. Milton and Denice Johnson Center (1909 15th Ave. S.) will host both competition films and Marquee & Special Features as well as some panels; some other panels and special industry conversations are being held at Fisk University’s Appleton Hall (1000 17th Ave. N.); and a fourth site, The Loading Dock (2028A Lindell Ave.), will host additional panels as well as event parties and mixers. All four sites will have open box offices.

Among numerous festival highlights are Curt Hahn’s Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll, a documentary whose interview subjects include B.B. King, Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte, and South African thriller Four Walls from the creative team of Kgosana Monchusi, Menzi Mzimela and Juvaiś Dunn. Another promising title is Knock, Robert Louis Dean III’s contribution to the ever-growing field of Black horror.

Key panels include one celebrating 50 years of hip-hop, another on social justice in entertainment, and a third on a hot topic at the heart of the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes — “The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in Creative Spaces.”

This edition will rank among the most varied, timely and informative in the festival’s history. A complete list of IBFF films, panels and special events, as well as information on obtaining tickets and passes, can be found at ibffevents.com. ▼

FOUR WALLS

LEADBELLY: THE MAN WHO INVENTED ROCK AND ROLL

CULTURE SHOCK

It Lives Inside is a monster movie that addresses the Indian American experience

BY KEN ARNOLD

REPRESENTATION FOR INDIAN AMERICANS

in Western media has long been plagued by stereotypes, from supporting characters like The Simpsons’ Apu Nahasapeemapetilon to The Big Bang Theory’s Raj Koothrappali The former is a caricature voiced by a white voice actor (Hank Azaria) doing a cheesy accent, and the latter falls into the sexless, model-minority category that has plagued male Asian characters in Hollywood. Orientalism in film and television has led to dehumanizing depictions of Indians — take for example the “primate parfait” in Temple of Doom, or the countless instances of poverty porn seen in comedies and charity ads These depictions don’t only seep into the psyche of the general public, but as shown in Bishal Dutta’s It Lives Inside, they can even seep into the psyche of Indian Americans.

High-schooler Samidha (Megan Suri) lives in an American small town and tries to fit in with her mostly white classmates by distancing herself from her Indian heritage. When her former best friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) comes to Samidha for help with something inside a jar that is clearly taking a toll on Tamira, a rift between the two friends escalates — until a demon from Dharmic mythology called a pishacha is freed. Samidha then has to reconnect with her heritage to save her old friend.

It Lives Inside is undeniably at its best when dealing with Samidha grappling with her cultural identity — torn between the Indian heritage she was born into and the North American culture she grew up in. The pishacha is a driving force that sends her back into the culture she

tried to abandon for the purpose of assimilation. The perspective of Indian Americans has long been overlooked in cinema, so it’s good to see movies being made that give not only cast and crew representation in the industry, but also give representation to an entire community whose voice has been silenced for too long.

For his first full-length feature, director Dutta wears his influences on his sleeve; many scenes feel straight out of The Ring or A Nightmare on Elm Street. Elements of the plot feel at times formulaic and unoriginal — a common but unfortunate offense in horror movies. Besides the skin of Dharmic mythology, the bones of the film will be very familiar to horror fans, and as indicated by its PG13 rating, this isn’t a movie that uses heavy gore. Instead it leans on sound and lighting design to fulfill the expectations of the genre.

Overall, It Lives Inside gives a new perspective on familiar horror, and is a solid first feature with rough edges. It’s definitely worth a watch for horror fans, but it may be largely drowned out in the busy horror season. Hopefully this one finds enough success to earn a sophomore feature from Dutta. Perhaps he can sand off the rough edges and make something truly special next time. ▼

It Lives Inside PG-13, 99 minutes

Opening wide Friday, Sept. 22

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ACROSS

1 Costa ___

6 Wow, that’s upside down!

9 “Be for real!”

13 Tapped in, so to speak

14 “High” number?

15 Modern initialism for Black dialect

16 Cup of noodles, and others?

18 Rebuff in Rostov

19 Tips

20 Shrimp egg rolls, and others?

22 Porcine “palace”

23 Head of une école?

24 Some tape players

25 Boots, water bottle, backpack, etc.

27 Bud

30 Paradigm movement

32 Clean up, in a way

33 Something to clean up

37 Chicken and rice, and others?

39 Coq au vin, and others?

41 Cuba, por ejemplo

42 Word after Bernese or Tyrolean

44 Locale for a shopping cart

45 Covered with bryophytes

47 Minuscule

48 Chuffed

50 “What ___?”

52 Longtime show for Robin Roberts, for short

55 Baked rigatoni alla Norma, and others?

58 Fly high

59 Part of the Hollywood monogram

J.E.J.

60 Baking ingredient used multiple times in this puzzle?

62 Watering hole, maybe

63 Watering hole, maybe

64 Many a retirement residence

65 Knock ’em dead

66 “Can I help you with something?”

67 Department of labor?

DOWN

1 Election night list

2 Response to “Don’t forget!”

3 New Edition’s debut single (“You look so sweet, you’re a special treat”)

4 ( and )

5 Prefix with liberal

6 Make out sloppily in the library?

7 Not liking anymore

8 Arizona city

9 Question suggested by a door knock

10 Participant in a “key to the city” ceremony

11 Bake-offs have them

12 Team sharing a home arena with the Liberty

14 Sweat it

17 App store customer

21 Family-friendly rating

23 “Later!”

26 First woman in the National Baseball Hall of Fame

28 Row for a musical group

29 “I’ll give ___ read”

30 STEM part: Abbr.

31 Is ill with

32 Sargasso Sea spawners

34 Chill

35 Bistate metro area: Abbr.

36 157.5 degrees from N

38 Dorm leaders, in brief

40 Very self-interested

43 Things with coils that can be dangerous

46 “Huh!”

47 Take a Covid precaution

48 Something highly sought after

49 Grub, e.g.

51 Goat group

53 “This Is Us” co-star Moore

54 Its atomic number is this clue’s number divided by three

55 Inanimate objects with heads and feet

56 Game played on the road

57 Inanimate object with a tongue

58 Gatekeeping sort

61 ___ Style gel

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PUZZLE

Pima Road, Madison, TN, 37115, Map/Parcel 042-12-035.00 (the “Property”) and described

Legal Description: The real property is described in the Warranty Deed dated March 26, 1999, of record at Book 11404, Page 424, Register’s Of ce for Davidson County, Tennessee.

Being Lot No. 29 and the northerly part of Lot No. 26, on the Plan of W.W. Gray Subdivision, of record in Book 974, Page 22, Register’s Of ce for Davidson County, Tennessee.

Said Lot No. 29 and part of Lot No. 26 front 100 feet on the southerly margin of Pima Road, formerly Walnut Avenue, and extends back between parallel lines 150 feet, to a line in the rear on which it measures 100 feet.

Being the same property conveyed to Sharon M. Hayes by Warranty Deed dated March 26, 1999, of record at Book 11404, Page 424, Register’s Of ce for Davidson County, Tennessee.

Map/Parcel Number: Map/Parcel 042-12-0-35.00

Street Address: The street address of the property is believed to be 509 Pima Road, Madison, TN, 37115, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description herein shall control.

This sale is made pursuant to Tenn.

R. Civ. P. 69.07(4) and Tenn. Code

Ann. § 26-5-101, et. seq. and is in satisfaction (whole or in part depending on amount of sale) of the judgment in favor of Plaintiffs contained in the Memorandum and Order entered by the Chancery Court on November 17, 2020, as supplemented by the Memorandum and Order entered by the Chancery Court on June 9, 2021.

All property is sold “as is”. No warranties or guarantees are made, expressed or implied.

Other interested parties receiving notice: None.

At 10:00 o’clock A.M., on October 18, 2023, at the south front entrance of the Metro Historic Davidson County Courthouse, Public Square, Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, the Sheriff will sell the above property for payment toward said judgment together with all expenses and legal costs accruing.

TERMS OF SALE: Cash, Certi ed

Check, or Receipt on Judgment from Plaintiff. Bidding will start at $89,550.00, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-5-115. High bidder will

be required to execute a written sale agreement at conclusion of bidding. Plaintiff is allowed to credit bid.

Redemption rights and equity of redemption are waived, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8-101(2). The sale and ultimate sale terms shall be approved and con rmed by the Davidson County Chancery Court, the Court which issued the process directing this Sale, and that approval Order shall direct the Sheriff to provide the deed described at Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8111 after entry of the order of con rmation of the sale and after con rmation of payment to Plaintiff.

As to all or any part of the Property, the right is reserved to (i) delay, continue or adjourn the sale to another time certain or to another day and time certain, without further publication and in accordance with law, upon announcement of said delay, continuance or adjournment on the day and time and place of sale set forth above or any subsequent delayed, continued or adjourned day and time and place of sale; and/or

(ii) to sell to the next highest bidder in the event any high bidder does not comply with the terms of the sale. In the event of a Bankruptcy Case ling, the Sheriff shall continue the Sale to a new date.

Questions related to the sale or the underlying debt can be addressed to: David Anthony, attorney for judgment creditor, at Exo Legal PLLC, 615-8690634; david@exolegal.com.

THIS 7th day of September, 2023.

BY: Davidson County Sheriff NSC: 9/7, 9/14,

LEGAL NOTICE

Howard C. Gentry, Jr., Criminal Court Clerk

It is my privilege as your elected Criminal Court Clerk to notify all citizens of Davidson County, that relative to grand jury proceedings, it is the duty of your grand jurors to investigate any public offense which they know or have reason to believe has been committed and which is triable or indictable in Davidson County. In addition to cases presented to the grand jury by your District Attorney, any citizen may petition the foreperson (foreman) of the grand jury for permission to testify concerning any offense in Davidson County This is subject to provi- sions set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12-105. Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12104 and 40-12-105, the application to testify by any citizen must be accompanied by a sworn affidavit stating the facts or summarizing the proof which forms the basis of a llegations contained in that application Your grand jury foreperson is Warner Hassell Their address is 222 Second Avenue North, Washington Square Building, Suite 510, Nashville, Tennessee 37201. The grand jury will meet at 8:00 A.M. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays for three (3) months. Submission of an affidavit which the applicant knows to be false in material regard shall be punishable as perjury. Any citizen testifying before the grand jury as to any material fact known to that citizen to be false shall be punishable as perjury. For a request for accommodation please contact 862-4260.

NSC 9/21/23

Sr. Analysts, IT Enterprise Data Analytics and Governance. Work directly with business partners to capture and refine business requirements into core system capabilities for a major retailer. Tractor Supply Company. Location: Headquarters in Brentwood, TN. May telecommute from any location in the U.S. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume to S. Case, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027. Ref job code 22-0242.

Senior Analysts, IT OMS Systems. Meet with business partners, project managers, and vendor partners to determine project scope and vision, set system goals, identify and resolve system issues, and lead prioritization of build items for a major retailer.

Employer: Tractor Supply Company. Location: Headquarters in Brentwood, TN. May telecommute from any location in the U.S. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume to S. Case, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027. Ref. job code 22-0210.

Episode Solutions, LLC seeks

Sr Business Intelligence Developer in Nashville, TN. Reqs: Bach (US or foreign equiv) in Comp Sci or rel.; 4 yrs exp in dev role; exp in ETL dev; strong SQL skills & familiar w/ analytic languages (DAX); exp w/ columnar & tabular data models & dimensional data warehouse design concepts; expertise in data warehousing & modeling principles & systems; exp w/ Common Data Model a plus; exp w/ Azure framework. Send resume to whester@episodesolutions.c om.

Sr. Analysts, IT Logistics Systems. Support logistics systems for a major retailer’s distribution centers and mixing centers. Employer: Tractor Supply Company. Location: HQ in Brentwood, TN. May telecommute from any location in the U.S. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume to S. Case, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027. Ref. job code 21-0229.

Senior Analysts, Financial. Create systems to collect data from different company reports and analyze assigned areas of financial data for a major retailer. Employer: Tractor Supply Company. Location: Headquarters in Brentwood, TN. May telecommute from any location in the U.S. Multiple openings. To apply, mail resume to S. Case, 5401 Virginia Way, Brentwood, TN 37027. Ref. job code 22-0174.

Bluegrass Musicians Collection

381 LP's, 53 78's, 405 45's, 15 CD sets, 106 CD's, All Mint Condition! (813)758-7651 Babette