Nashville Scene 9-28-23

Metropolitik: O’Connell Takes Over in Mayoral Transition

The former councilmember swears in, staffs up and gestures toward multiyear efforts

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Pith in the Wind

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

The Lingering Effects of COVID-19 in Metro Schools

Schools look more like they did pre-pandemic, but with new, lasting challenges

BY KELSEY BEYELER

229 Offenders. Thousands of Crimes. No Easy Answers.

A number of misdemeanors in Nashville are committed by people who are incompetent to stand trial but can’t get the mental health resources they need

BY CONNOR DARYANI, NASHVILLE BANNER

COVER STORY

Reel Nashville

The 54th annual Nashville Film Festival brings panels, events and more than 125 films to Music City

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

I Know I’ll Stay Alive

The Nashville Film Festival’s Opening Night Presentation explores the storied career of a music icon

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

Feature Presentations

From what we’ve seen to what we’re looking forward to, here are 24 films to check out at this week’s festival

BY

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IS TENNESSEE FED UP WITH MARSHA? GLORIA JOHNSON IS DETERMINED TO FIND

OUT.

WE WILL SOON be given another opportunity to elect representatives who we hope will fairly and accurately represent us in Washington, D.C. In the upcoming election for one of Tennessee’s two seats in the United States Senate, state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) recently declared her candidacy. Pitting herself against Republican incumbent Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Johnson aims to be a hardworking, honest alternative. As her campaign materials say so clearly, “Gloria is running for U.S. Senate because she knows it is time to shift power back to where it belongs: with working and middle class families.”

As her campaign has also clearly made it known, Johnson is aiming directly at Blackburn’s voting record and policy platforms: “Tennesseans are fed up with corrupt, ‘do nothing’ politicians, like Marsha Blackburn, who has taken millions from the pharmaceutical industry, the NRA and the insurance industry while voting against lowering our drug costs, against bipartisan gun reform, and for denying coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.”

I have long been impressed with Johnson’s background and experience, as well as the matter-of-fact manner she brings to the Tennessee General Assembly. If you were to draft a wish list of what we need in our elected officials, Johnson checks an awful lot of boxes. A heart for children and families? Check. Johnson built her career as a special education teacher in Tennessee’s public schools and retired after 27 years of service. Experience as an elected official who is thoroughly familiar with the ins and outs of government?

Check. Johnson has been elected to our state House of Representatives four times. Determination to do the right thing? Double check. Johnson garnered national attention for speaking her mind on the floor of the state House and becoming one of the renowned “Tennessee Three.” Johnson’s straightforward, no-nonsense way of conducting business and ensuring our government is working for us and not against us would

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be a refreshing change in Washington.

The contrast between Johnson and Blackburn could not be more stark. We all know where they share commonalities: They’re both college-educated white women raised in the South.

But that’s where the commonalities end.

While the South was being ripped apart during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Marsha Blackburn was entering beauty pageants in her native Laurel, Miss. Where was Gloria Johnson? She was the daughter of an FBI special agent tasked with investigating the murderous criminal activities of the Ku Klux Klan. While Marsha Blackburn was learning to pose, smile and wave, a young Gloria Johnson was sleeping in the hallway of her family’s Knoxville home at night to avoid potential gunfire — the Klan’s possible retribution for her father’s bravery.

While Marsha Blackburn was learning to push the “hard sell” as a door-to-door salesperson, where was Gloria Johnson? She was a special education teacher in Knoxville’s public schools, working to ensure that all children could learn and achieve in a safe environment.

It’s no wonder that Gloria Johnson, the little girl who grew up seeing firsthand the ugliest sides of people, became the woman who spent her career as a no-nonsense public school teacher and took up the mantle of public service after retirement. This is the same woman who had no patience for our extreme, far-right state representatives who refused to take action on common-sense gun reform following the horrific Covenant School shooting.

Time will tell if enough Tennesseans are indeed fed up with corrupt politicians to vote Marsha Blackburn out of office, but Gloria Johnson certainly aims to see if that time is now.

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O’CONNELL TAKES OVER IN MAYORAL TRANSITION

The former councilmember swears in, staffs up and gestures toward multiyear efforts

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

JUDGE DAVID BRILEY opened his courtroom

— a nice corner spot on the fifth floor of the Metro Public Courthouse — early on Monday morning. Mayor himself for a brief 18 months that ended with a runoff loss to John Cooper four years ago, Briley presided over the swearing-in of Mayor Freddie O’Connell, elected by a wide margin on Sept. 14.

The moment between Judge Briley and Mayor O’Connell was an approximation of continuity for the city, which has been subject to a five-mayor pileup in eight years: Karl Dean, Megan Barry, Briley, Cooper and now O’Connell. With the exception of Bill Boner (who served a full four years in the late 1980s and early ’90s), there was strong multiterm precedent that ended after the second term of Dean, the city’s sixth mayor in 52 years. At his first press availability as mayor, just moments after his oath, O’Connell gestured at long-term thinking, if not a second term.

“It will be a multiyear effort to try to get universal aftercare in place,” O’Connell told a handful of reporters in the courtroom. “It will be a multiyear effort to try to change high school start times. It will probably be at least a year effort to get all of the legal arrangements and staffing arrangements to make solid waste not a part of our Metro Water Department anymore.”

Those three bullet points are part of his “15 Fixes on Day One,” a campaign short list of policy promises ranging from the very concrete (create a Metro department dedicated to housing) to the broadly philosophical (“Transparency”). None could be accomplished on day one or week one. Just before 8 a.m., O’Connell told the room that his day would mostly be spent doing paperwork and administrative tasks — this meant signing certificates for police academy graduates, O’Connell said later on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

At the request of a TV news reporter, O’Connell stole some minutes discussing that morning’s breakfast. The softball quickly turned into a monologue about his family’s before-school routine, though O’Connell stopped short of identifying himself as his two daughters’ primary caregiver. His wife, Whitney Boon, is a pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt. Since a tweet about sandwich-making for his daughters went (sort of) viral, O’Connell — an avid internet user — has leaned into the meme-ificiation of his dad-ness.

After breakfast, O’Connell’s first-order problem is figuring out who he wants around him at work. Rumors about who’s staying, who’s going and who’s coming with O’Connell into his firstfloor suite have percolated since before he was

BY ELI MOTYCKA

officially elected.

Wally Dietz will stay on as Metro legal director. Dietz has quarterbacked Metro Legal since 2021, when he moved up Second Avenue from Bass, Berry & Sims, the Metro-cozy superfirm where Dietz worked on government investigations and anti-corruption cases. His son Scott helped run O’Connell’s field campaign. Wally’s predecessor, former Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper, left the Metro job to work in compliance at BB&S. Dietz has overseen significant legal tasks like defending the city’s sidewalk ordinance, a legal albatross he inherited from Bob Cooper, and proofing the Titans’ lease, a main priority of his former boss, outgoing Mayor John Cooper. Perhaps Dietz’s magnum opus, though, has been shaping the city’s various legal arguments against a state hailstorm of preemptive legislation over the past year.

Dietz notched a win in April when a court halted the state law seeking to halve the Metro Council. Earlier this month, Metro won again by blocking a state effort to assist lobbyists’ push to land NASCAR at The Fairgrounds Nashville. Nashville’s losses come when state laws go unchallenged or stay pending, as is the case with Metro’s suit against the state’s airport authority putsch. In the meantime, BNA has two airport authorities, and has embarrassed itself in front of the Federal Aviation Administration. Dietz briefed the new council on state overreach at the body’s orientation last week. He referenced Metro’s latest defense, a suit against a state law seeking greater control over the Metro Sports Authority, the city’s pro sports intermediary. Because of its bonding capacity and billion-dollar leases across three stadiums, the sports authority is a linchpin for the city’s financial future.

Keeping Metro’s anti-preemption architect

in the heat of multiple legal battles — and with the promise of several more — is a no-brainer. O’Connell told media on Monday that the citystate relationship will be a top priority heading into the next legislative session, which starts in January.

“The governor reached out personally on election night,” O’Connell told reporters. “We’ve stayed in touch about getting something else down soon.”

Finance director Kelly Flannery is out after three years under John Cooper. Nashville’s finances have been rock-solid under Flannery, and O’Connell hasn’t been an outspoken critic, referring to her only once in his constituent newsletter as “clearly qualified” before her confirmation in 2021. The ouster could clear the way for a political ally, or a finance professional more explicitly tasked with O’Connell’s agenda. The finance director works more closely with the mayor’s office than perhaps any other department head.

Lastly, campaign spokesperson Alex Apple will be O’Connell’s deputy communications director. Apple, nephew to District Attorney Glenn Funk, helped run and win a competitive race with an underdog candidate. Though Councilmember Sean Parker has taken credit for O’Connell’s signature slogan, “I want you to stay,” Apple did legwork for an outfit that crushed opponents on messaging. A little bit of photo chaos at the swearing-in and an incomplete press list for a Friday afternoon release show that Apple’s still getting used to day-today logistics at the high office, but the Scene welcomes a new staff that promises a new era of transparency and outreach.

O’Connell’s formal inauguration comes Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at Public Square Park. ▼

A three-judge panel sided with Nashville last week in the latest legal battle over state overreach. Metro Legal will be shielded from a hastily passed state law that would have enabled the city to pass NASCAR-ready upgrades with just 21 Metro Council votes, rather than the charter-mandated 27. Lobbyists pushed the measure at the state level on behalf of Bristol Motor Speedway, the regional track operator that struggled to secure a lease with the city in the waning days of the Cooper administration. Metro argued successfully that the law targeted Nashville specifically and without allowing the city final say on the matter, a violation of the Tennessee Constitution’s Home Rule Amendment

Vanderbilt University dropped five spots in the annual U.S. News & World Report university rankings, prompting the administration to schedule a webinar explaining the slide to alumni, students, faculty and parents. Chancellor Daniel Diermeier criticized the standings for methodological changes made by U.S. News meant to more heavily weight financial mobility among students, a shift that negatively impacted many private schools while buoying many public universities. Diermeier argued to alumni that these changes unfairly penalized Vanderbilt by not taking its complete financial-aid picture into account, and that Vanderbilt was still a top-flight school despite sliding from No. 13 to No. 18.

Federal officials recently chastised Tennessee for chronically underfunding Tennessee State University, one of the state’s largest historically Black universities. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack sent a letter to Gov. Bill Lee addressing underfunding at TSU, citing data that implies TSU has missed out on more than $2.1 billion over the past 30 years. The letter comes a month after TSU President Glenda Glover announced her retirement after a decade leading the school. In February, a state probe blamed the school’s financial issues — specifically a housing deficit that has plagued TSU since 2017 — on executive mismanagement.

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

POOL PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TENNESSEAN

FREDDIE O’CONNELL IS SWORN IN AS MAYOR, SEPT. 25, 2023

THE LINGERING EFFECTS OF COVID-19 IN METRO SCHOOLS

Schools look more like they did pre-pandemic, but with new, lasting challenges

BY KELSEY BEYELER

THE DAYS OF SCHOOL mask mandates, virtual learning and contentious COVID-19-centered debates are behind us — even if the virus itself isn’t. Apart from some students and staff still masking, this school year there aren’t many visible signs of the pandemic that thoroughly scrambled the education sector just a few years ago. Nonetheless, many of its lasting effects still permeate the public school system.

Metro Nashville Public Schools no longer reports COVID case numbers, limits school visitors or requires students to quarantine after close contact with someone who has COVID (as long as the student tests negative). Those who do test positive for COVID must isolate for five days after the first symptoms or a positive test result, and may return when symptoms have subsided and it’s been at least 24 hours since a fever has subsided without the use of medication. If symptoms persist, caregivers should contact students’ school nurses.

In September, the state of Tennessee experienced an uptick in COVID hospitalizations, with 344 hospitalizations reported on Sept. 19 alone. Because Tennessee’s designated COVID-related state of emergency has expired, cases are no longer tracked at the community level. School COVID cases and statewide hospitalizations are significantly lower than they were during the height of the pandemic — around this time in 2020, there were more than 700 hospitalizations on a given day. An MNPS spokesperson tells the Scene that 60 students and 19 staff members were confirmed positive between Sept. 4 and 19, though that number could be higher due to unreported cases.

“It does not seem as prevalent this year as it

did last year,” says Apollo Middle School teacher Paige La Grone Babcock, though she says she often hears of students and teachers contracting COVID across the district. She compares it to other illnesses like the flu and strep throat, but stresses that caretakers should keep sick students home so they don’t spread any illness. When teachers get sick and miss several days at a time, it can stunt students’ academic progress — still a delicate issue given the pandemic’s lasting negative impact on student progress. While MNPS has sought to address teacher and substitute teachers shortages, including through a new model that relies on building-specific subs to fill in as needed, schools still struggle with staffing, and La Grone Babcock notes that subs aren’t trained as well in pedagogy or classroom management.

Anti-vaccination sentiments could also present future problems. As recently reported by Hannah Herner at our sister publication the Nashville Post, there has been a recent decline in kindergarten vaccination rates. During the last school year, 92.5 percent of kindergarteners were fully vaccinated in Davidson County — a figure that falls short of the 95 percent threshold medical professionals cite as the figure needed to curb infectious diseases from spreading across entire communities.

Because of the pandemic, students have lost loved ones, experienced social isolation and fallen behind on academics. This is particularly true for students of color and those from low-income households. Further, families of students who entered the school system during the pandemic are now contending with legislation that could retain third- and fourth-graders who don’t

perform well enough on standardized tests, which has added even more stress to elementary schools.

MNPS has used federal COVID relief funds to mitigate many pandemic-related issues, from investing in mental health initiatives to adding academic supports like tutoring, providing free meals and upgrading buildings and technical infrastructure. The district has until July to utilize about $195 million of remaining funds, but must avoid funneling them into recurring costs that may not be supported when they run out. Even as case numbers decline and schools return to operating the way they did before COVID, MNPS and school districts across the country must continue responding to the

Police officers on the scene recognized the 39-year-old man immediately. It was not the first time Williams had been arrested at that Mapco. And it is unlikely to be the last. It is likely impossible for Williams to comprehend the process unfolding around him. But to those who know Williams, it’s one that has become very familiar.

“Mr. Williams has repeatedly been found not competent and not likely to ever become competent due to the nature and degree of his symptoms, despite lengthy inpatient treatment,” reads a letter from Dr. Kimberly Brown to Judge Marcus Floyd, who presided over Williams’ case.

This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene For more information, visit NashvilleBanner.com.

ANTYON WILLIAMS has been charged with more than 350 misdemeanors since 2003.

On Aug. 18, Williams was arrested at the Mapco gas station on 21st Avenue South for “refusing to leave and placing people in fear by asking for money in an aggressive manner.” He was charged with aggravated criminal trespassing.

Williams is an extreme case, but he’s not the only person caught in a system with nowhere to go. Across Davidson County, there are roughly 229 repeat offenders who have at some point been deemed mentally incompetent and continually commit misdemeanors. Most of them, unlike Williams, have been determined likely to become competent with treatment. But between a lack of funding, differing viewpoints on the perfect end goal for these cases and a decidedly rocky history of how this country treats mental illness, the current system affords those with mental competency issues very little in the way of help, leaving them in limbo between the streets, the courts and the mental hospital.

But one fact remains true: Someone who is deemed mentally incompetent cannot be prosecuted.

challenges presented by the pandemic for years to come.

Beverly Whalen-Schmeller is a local school psychologist. Even though she isn’t as worried about COVID as she used to be, she still feels anxious about it, which may be a result of “residual trauma.” She’s noticed over the past couple of years a rise in suicidal ideation among students and overall stress levels among students and adults.

“We all are carrying more stress, because we just lived through a global traumatic experience, and that doesn’t happen very often,” says Whalen-Schmeller. “In our quest to feel normal again, I think we sometimes diminish how much of a strain that really is.” ▼

“Gosh, the amount we pay to rearrest these people and house them in jail every two weeks,” Brown tells the Nashville Banner with a dejected laugh. “We could buy them all a house by this point.”

Brown is the director of the Forensic Evaluation Team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. When someone who may be mentally incompetent is arrested for a misdemeanor, typically their defense attorney will request an evaluation. Once the judge presiding over the case orders it, Brown’s team carries out those evaluations, which are based on available case-related information, jail and mental health documents, and an interview with the defendant, either in person or over video.

In the case of Williams, he had already undergone multiple prior court-ordered evaluations, and had been deemed mentally incompetent each time. So despite Williams refusing Brown’s attempt at an interview, the conclusion was obvious.

“There continues to be no reasonable likelihood that Mr. Williams could be restored to competency in the foreseeable future,” read Brown’s letter.

For a majority of people found to be mentally incompetent, rehabilitation is possible. While some people may be “unrestorable” due to years of drug use, untreated mental illness or intellectual disabilities, Brown says that is a small fraction of the population. Mental incompetency can look a lot of different ways and requires a broad range of solutions, which is what makes

229 OFFENDERS. THOUSANDS OF CRIMES. NO EASY ANSWERS.

A number of misdemeanors in Nashville are committed by people who are incompetent to stand trial but can’t get the mental health resources they need

BY CONNOR DARYANI, NASHVILLE BANNER

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

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MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE FOLLOWING:

‘UNFORTUNATELY, HE’S ONE OF THE ONES THAT JUST FELL THROUGH THE CRACKS’

“I drove to our other Mapco the other day right after I got off work here, and Antyon was sitting on the corner of the building just naked,” says Cameron Wilson, a senior sales associate at Mapco. “Antyon is someone you got to watch out for. He needs help.”

Wilson says he first encountered Williams eight years ago, and that he has been a constant presence at multiple Mapco locations since.

“He grew up in these neighborhoods,” says Wilson. “Unfortunately, he’s one of the ones that just fell through the cracks. But Antyon’s been around here his whole life.”

Wilson has watched Williams be taken away by Metro police multiple times, and was unsurprised to hear how many times Antyon has been charged with misdemeanors. And even though he didn’t know Williams had been found incompetent, that didn’t surprise him either.

“It’s really hard to approach someone like that and find common ground,” says Wilson. “If you’re talking to him, you’re really not talking to him. To help him you would have to be a psychologist. … He ain’t gonna tell you nothing if it ain’t about some cigarettes and beer.”

Wilson says he used to try to help Williams by bringing him food and water, but that he has since given up on interacting with him. And while he says lots of people around the neighborhood, including himself, know Williams and want to find a way to help him, most people don’t have the resources to do so.

“It’s weird because the neighborhood has even shut him out,” says Wilson. “The neighborhood he come from shut him out. Nobody wants nothing to do with him. And I think really what that is, is nobody has the ability to understand or work with him.”

So while on one end Williams is rejected by a system that doesn’t have a place to put him, at the other end his community doesn’t know how to deal with him. It’s a predicament that is all too common.

In May, Williams was arrested for “trespassing and exposing his genitals in public” at a different Mapco. Those charges were dropped. In May 2021, Larry Brown assaulted six people in the parking garage of Saint Thomas Midtown. After an evaluation found him mentally incompetent and unlikely to respond to treatment, all charges were dropped. He has been arrested more than 200 times. In 2008, Marquitas Hodge was arrested for criminal impersonation after being stopped by police officers for looking into vehicles. Sixteen years and 118 charges later, Hodge is currently sitting in jail awaiting trial for stealing a firearm from a vehicle, a felony.

All three men have been repeatedly found mentally incompetent.

“The United States Supreme Court says if somebody’s incompetent and cannot assist in their own defense and doesn’t even understand the roles of the people in the courtroom, they can’t be prosecuted,” says Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk. “So those cases get dismissed. Well, if the case gets dismissed and there’s no support given to the individual, what are they gonna do when they get back out on the streets? They’re going to reoffend.”

The result is a problem in cities all across the country: Mentally incompetent people, without a home or a job or the resources they need, are left to their own devices and become a constant source of tension between the community and the system that doesn’t know what

to do with them.

VUMC’s Brown believes one of the first steps in finding a solution to this problem is likely going to be simply helping people to better understand what mental incompetency is.

“I think we have to distinguish between three things,” says Brown. “One is being mentally ill. Two is being incompetent, but capable of becoming competent, and three is being incompetent and unrestorable.”

Someone who is mentally ill isn’t necessarily incompetent. Incompetency comes when someone’s mental illness directly inhibits their ability to have a rational understanding of their legal situation and assist their attorney in their defense. Someone can still be in desperate need of mental health treatment, but if they have been deemed at least able enough to go through the court system in a rational way, then they are competent and will face their charges.

Eighty percent of people who are incompetent to stand trial for misdemeanors are diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Mental incompetency is less a medical term and more a legal one — mental incompetency only comes when someone’s illness renders them unable to stand trial.

“For example, if you are so disorganized that you can’t have a logical conversation with your attorney, or if you believe that you’re Jesus, and you have immunity from the court system,” says Brown. “Or if you believe your attorney is working in cahoots with the FBI to have you in prison for life.”

Once a person is deemed mentally incompetent, the judge has no choice but to drop their case and either direct them toward the limited resources that are available at that point or send them back out onto the street until they commit another misdemeanor, and they do it all over again. But it hasn’t always been that way.

FEW OPTIONS, LITTLE MONEY

“So about 15 years ago, maybe 20,” says Funk, “the legislature, in order to save money, decided that they would continue to pay for [Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute] stays for felons but no longer would do it for misdemeanants, and they would leave that up to the local jurisdictions to pay for any type of competency evaluations and training.”

The options for getting someone to competency right now are limited, but one is sending a mentally incompetent person to MTMHI for a 30-day treatment. The goal is that by the end of that treatment, they get reevaluated, found competent, and prosecuted for their misdemeanor. But of course it doesn’t always work out that way.

For someone like Williams, who is likely permanently incompetent, a trip to MTMHI is extremely unlikely to be helpful. And Brown says that even for those who are rehabilitable, MTMHI is something of a “Band-Aid solution.”

“A lot of times, not all the time, but there’s a number of cases that went to MTMHI, stayed there 30 days and at the time of discharge, they were still so sick that they were not competent,” says Brown. “It’s like, ‘OK, they came back in exactly the same situation as they went in. We accomplished absolutely nothing in that process except spending thousands of dollars when we probably could have gotten just good mental health treatment in the community.’”

Brown adds that the process can actually make a patient’s condition worse. Beds are limited, and the large backlog means that someone who is facing a severe psychological disorder might spend months sitting in a

jail cell before finally getting sent to MTMHI for questionably successful treatment.

This means that in many cases, cash-strapped local jurisdictions don’t even bother trying to get misdemeanor offenders into MTMHI. Until recently, that included Nashville. But in 2021, Mayor John Cooper announced a $600,000 investment in expanding mental health services within the Davidson County court system. This funding pool has helped not only for sending people to MTMHI, but also to connect people with other resources such as housing. Brown says that not only will we need more funding to actually solve the crisis, but that there isn’t much in that pool that can address cases like Williams, where someone is permanently mentally incompetent.

“It’s not one-size-fits-all,” says Brown. As a part of her work with the task force, she and her team developed a flow chart to help address the various situations someone who is mentally incompetent could be in. She explains that while some severe cases would likely still need to be sent to the mental health hospital, even in an ideal world, others could be dealt with in a wide range of ways, such as connecting them with medication, housing and jobs.

Brown is a part of a camp that believes we need to start diverting mentally ill defendants away from the criminal justice system in order to get them the resources they need to actually be rehabilitated.

“The jail does have mental health treatment,” says Brown. “I don’t want to make it sound like they don’t, and they do a good job, the best they can, but jail has limited mental health treatment, and if you refuse that, you get locked into self-segregation 24 hours a day. The gradual defunding of the mental health system resulted in, you know, where are these people going to go?”

An ironic byproduct of the deinstitutionalization movement since the 1960s: When mental hospitals around the country were shut down, a steady increase in the criminalization of mental illness began, with

offenders being placed in the criminal justice system rather than getting treatment.

A study conducted by Brown and her colleagues found that “the criminal justice system has become the largest mental health provider in the United States, with an estimated 14-31 percent of inmates diagnosed with a major mood and/or psychotic disorder.” This population represents a wide range of mental illnesses, and people who are mentally incompetent make up just a small fraction of people who have been swallowed up by a system ill-designed to deal with their problems.

A number of programs have popped up across the city in an effort to divert the mentally ill from the criminal justice system to mental health resources: REACH and the Sheriff’s Behavioral Care Center, to name just two. But not only will these programs need more funding in order to fully deal with the mental health crisis, they are currently more equipped to deal with severe mental illness, and not so well-equipped to deal with those who are mentally incompetent. REACH is meant to address low-acuity crises — not someone with severe psychotic disorders. Similarly, Brown says the Behavioral Care Unit has the potential to be helpful for those who are mentally incompetent, but it currently is aimed toward helping people with severe mental illness who are competent.

Partners in Care is one program that Brown says is one of the best in the city for dealing with the mental incompetency problem. Because it connects people to mental health resources without ever even bringing them to the courts, people who would be or have been deemed mentally incompetent can get the treatment they need without ever having to address their competency. But not all of the Metro Nashville Police Department precincts are currently staffed with Partners in Care, and the program is funded to run only Monday through Friday.

Visit nashvillebanner.com to read a longer version of this story. ▼

MUGSHOTS OF ANTYON WILLIAMS TAKEN FROM HIS ARRESTS FOR MORE THAN 350 MISDEMEANOR CRIMES

CREDIT: MNPD BOOKING PHOTOS

WITNESS HISTORY

artifact: Courtesy of Richie Furay artifact photo: Bob Delevante

From the exhibit Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock, presented by City National Bank

This 1959 Gibson ES-355, played by Richie Furay in Poco and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, was part of the cross-pollination of country and rock that flowered in Los Angeles in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.

Reel Nashville

TELLURIDE. SUNDANCE. TORONTO INTERNATIONAL. They’re among the best-known film festivals in North America. And you know what predates each of them by a half-decade or more? The Nashville Film Festival.

As a matter of fact, NaFF — which launched in 1969 under the name Sinking Creek Film Celebration — is one of the oldest still-running film festivals in the United States, predated by only a handful of others (a dinky little upstart by the name of the New York Film Festival among them).

Programming director Lauren Thelen has been with the Nashville Film Festival since 2019. Her responsibility, as she puts it, is “evolving and pushing people’s tastes in Nashville while also recognizing what works here and what people love.”

“Striking that balance between the two is a challenge, but it’s fun,” she says of this year’s festivities, which will take place at the Belcourt, Regal Green Hills, The Franklin Theatre, Vanderbilt’s Rothschild Black Box Theater and Sarratt Cinema.

So what is the programming director herself most excited about? Some of her favorite narrative features this year include

I KNOW I’LL STAY ALIVE

The Nashville Film Festival’s Opening Night Presentation explores the storied career of a music icon

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

I WILL SURVIVE.

Your brain just just jumped to the next line didn’t it? As long as I know how to love … I’ll let you finish the chorus while we ruminate on the enduring global impact of Gloria Gaynor’s biggest hit. “I Will Survive” has survived three generations of weddings, soothed three generations of divorces. It outlasted the peak of disco and disco’s death, disco’s rebirth and twice-a-decade revivals since. “I Will Survive” has outlasted more than half a dozen presidential administrations and a small truckload of audio formats. It is an essential part of the American musical-emotional fabric, and it was recorded by a woman in a back brace — though that’s just the tip of the bad-shit iceberg that strikes our protagonist in the documentary Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive

Screening Thursday evening at the Belcourt as the Nashville Film Festival’s Opening Night Presentation, the doc follows Gaynor as she tries to redirect her career from disco diva to gospel singer while making her Grammy-winning album Testimony. Director Betsy Schechter is in the room for an artistic and personal rebound,

the buzzy La Chimera and Eileen, as well as A24’s experimental narrative All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, written and directed by Tennessee native Raven Jackson. Thelen also cites this year’s Tribeca U.S. Narrative Feature winner, Cypher, as well as the Brazilian feature A Strange Path — the rare film featuring COVID-19 as a central plot element that Thelen says she actually likes — and “delightfully awkward comedy” Free Time

Among Thelen’s favorite documentaries this year are religious doc Natalia and The Disappearance of Shere Hite, the latter of which explores the life of the titular feminist author and sex educator. There’s also Alison O’Daniel’s groundbreaking The Tuba Thieves, which focuses on the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community and is presented at NaFF in conjunction with local nonprofit Bridges for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, as well as artificial-intelligence exploration Another Body

Naturally, the festival will also feature a wide slate of panels and interactive events, including “AI Illuminated: The Future of Film,” “Catalyst Presents: How TV Really Works,” the annual Filmmaker and Screenwriter Mixer and much more. Thelen notes

handling Gaynor’s struggles with empathy and an open heart. Guileless in places where a little guile would be totally warranted, GG: IWS doesn’t engage nostalgia so much as graze, with Gaynor’s faith and vision for the future centered in the narrative. Gaynor — who suffered an onstage fall in 1978 that has had lifelong effects, including the aforementioned back brace — is a model of grit and fortitude, a musician with ultimate road-dog bona fides. She’s a master of her instrument who excels in a studio environment. Schechter captures a septuagenarian who is, frankly, going as hard as kids a third her age.

What Schechter and Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive don’t do, however, is give disco the cultural credit it is due. Fifty years on, we know that disco was right, that the people invested in the genre’s death were operating from places of misogyny and racism and homophobia, and that this artform will resonate long after the Jann Wenner era of rock chauvinism is over. I Will Survive could take more credit for disco’s enduring cultural significance — Gaynor certainly deserves it. The film’s tepid interrogation of the mainstream gospel music industry’s refusal to work with the disco legend deprives the film of some tension, but it also feels right for the subject: After years of mismanagement and music industry indifference, Gaynor — as we see in this documentary — is on a path of self-discovery and self-reliance. Gaynor doesn’t dwell, and neither does the film.

Where Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive thrives

that “Virtual Production: Bridging the Gap Between Practical and Virtual” should feature some interesting demos, while “Indie Insights: A Conversation With Filmmakers and Producers” will offer budding filmmakers the opportunity to access crucial information that’s often gate-kept within the industry.

Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, this year’s event won’t feature actors promoting their films. But, Thelen notes, “We have a ton of directors coming to the festival this year.”

Also in this week’s issue, find our feature on Nashville Film Festival Opening Night Presentation Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive — screening Thursday at the Belcourt — as well as 24 of our picks for which films to see.

You can find details about this year’s Nashville Film Festival, or purchase tickets and passes, at nashvillefilmfestival.org.

—D. PATRICK RODGERS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL

SEPT. 28-OCT. 4 AT THE BELCOURT, REGAL GREEN HILLS, THE FRANKLIN THEATRE, VANDERBILT’S ROTHSCHILD BLACK BOX THEATER AND SARRATT CINEMA NASHVILLEFILMFESTIVAL.ORG

is in the studio — Nashville’s own storied RCA Studio A, to be specific. The film was shot during the recording of Testimony, where we see Miss Gloria reveling in the warmth of the room and the companionship of some of Nashville’s most soulful studio folk. This footage is worth the price of admission. There’s some spine-tingling vocal artistry sprinkled throughout the film that needs to be heard on a top-notch sound system. So much of Gaynor’s enduring appeal is that her voice has the sort of richness and depth that sounds better the louder you play it, and a

theater will work as well as a discotheque. While GG: IWS might have benefited from a more concerted effort to confront the industry that cast Gaynor aside, the film succeeds as a beacon of joy and faith in the face of enduring hardship.

Spoiler Alert: She survived. ▼

GLORIA GAYNOR: I WILL SURVIVE 100 MINUTES SHOWING 6 P.M. THURSDAY, SEPT. 28, AT THE BELCOURT AS THE NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT PRESENTATION

The 54th annual Nashville Film Festival brings panels, events and more than 125 films to Music City

PHOTO: ALEX ARROYO

Feature Presentations

WHAT WE’VE SEEN

‘HIT

MAN: SECRETS OF LIES’

Between David Fincher’s The Killer and Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, fall 2023 is proving to be a season rich with assassin tales. Add to the watchlist writer-director Elias Plagianos’ short film “Hit Man: Secrets of Lies,” starring beloved character actor Richard Kind. Kind, an extremely familiar face in comedy, is playing against type here as a stoic contract killer who heads to a small town to find and eliminate a target. It’s more character study than action/thriller, and while a couple of characters’ motivations prove to be a touch perplexing, Kind’s performance alone makes the 19-minute runtime absolutely worth it. Throw in performances from a couple other top-notch performers (Karen Allen! William Sadler!) and you’ve got yourself a short that feels like a teaser for a forthcoming HBO prestige drama. 11 a.m. Sept. 29 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt D.

PATRICK RODGERS

CYPHER

Tierra Whack’s rise to fame seems almost too good to be true in Cypher, a psychological thriller disguised as a music documentary. A film crew follows the Philadelphia phenom around, but they soon learn they aren’t the only ones with cameras on the rapper. A conspiracy begins to reveal itself, and Tierra Whack, and her rising profile, seem to be key to it all. The rap star is charismatic and an instantly likable protagonist, and the film’s structure shows off a studied understanding of mockumentaries and found-footage horror. It’s fitting that a rapper as experimental as Tierra Whack, whose debut album was entirely one-minute songs, stars in something so nontraditional. The film plays with entertainment conspiracy theories — like the cloning of Gucci Mane — to explore themes about what artists give up en route to stardom.

6:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

CALLED TO THE MOUNTAINS

I can’t say enough about how happy this hourlong documentary about a 50-year-old Japanese bluegrass band made me. Archival footage from Bluegrass 45’s 1971 debut trip to the United States combined with modern-day scenes from the band’s own bluegrass festival in the mountains of Japan (you’d be forgiven for confusing the scenery with West Virginia’s) and their return to the U.S. as old men collectively paint a picture of joy, friendship and the pursuit of obscure passions. The music, beautiful Japanese and American mountains and rich characters would have been plenty to make this story compelling, but cinematographer (and director/producer) Josh Goleman’s creativity and keen eye in shooting the modern-day scenes are the cherry on top. 11 a.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre; available to stream Oct. 2-8 STEPHEN ELLIOTT

TIME BOMB Y2K

A pitch-perfect snapshot of what the late ’90s felt like, this documentary chronicles the years leading up to Jan. 1, 2000, when people ranging from unassuming computer programmers to far-right militias to President Bill Clinton expected a computer malfunction to cripple the world. This strictly archival documentary fails to answer the one question I had about Y2K: Was it all a big false alarm, or did the years of intense work on the problem prevent catastrophe? Still, the deftly compiled footage, unspoken parallels to the present day, and building tension as the date approached in the film were enough to

keep me hooked. 11 a.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 STEPHEN

ELLIOTT

FOOD ROOTS

Chicago native Billy Dec is a restaurateur, a hospitality celebrity, an actor and a part-time Nashvillian. He’s a Filipino American, and his restaurants — like Sunda Nashville — reflect his passion for new twists on Asian classics. Documentary Food Roots follows the entrepreneur on a journey to the Philippines to reconnect with long-lost family and uncover the foundations of his ancestors’ foodways. The Dec-produced doc might have been a self-indulgent vanity project — Dec once played himself on an episode of Entourage — but instead Food Roots is a warm, sometimes endearingly intimate family portrait. It’s also a homespun primer on the trending flavors of the Filipino foodie craze. 11:30 a.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2; 11 a.m. Oct. 4 at the Belcourt JOE NOLAN

DUSTY & STONES

This 2022 doc follows a pair of country-and-Western-loving musicians from the African kingdom of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Their dreams of walking the U.S. streets with six-strings on their backs becomes a reality when they are invited to perform at a Texas-based awards show. Before they do that, they make an emotionally overwhelming stop in Nashville, where they get to record their music. Director Jesse Rudoy will have you rooting for these sensitive singer-songwriters, especially

when their journey becomes a trial by fire as they get to the Lone Star State and mingle with the condescending natives. 1:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre CRAIG D. LINDSEY

COUNTRY BRAWLERS

Boxing stories have often revolved around poor people overcoming adversity. It’s cliché, but the athleticism and dedication always hit a sweet spot for moviegoers, even if that bootstrap message is flimsy. But in some places, the fight inside the ring is just part of several battles outside the ring. The documentary Country Brawlers looks at the fight scene in Appalachia, a boxing circuit that is struggling and desperate to compete and stay alive, much like the communities where the subjects live. Ashland, Ky., has been hit with job loss and drug addiction, and a pair of plucky fighters try to thrive in the bleak, hollowed-out environment. The townspeople muddle through life with old-school toughness, the boxers aren’t superstars (though one is a hometown hero), and the camera work is artful. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

DIVINITY

For a movie made up of several interesting parts — including a score tag-teamed by DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill and David Lynch’s go-to sound designer Dean Hurley and a truly otherworldly, lo-fi visual aesthetic — Divinity does not equal the sum of its ambitious parts. However, for those missing out on the fail-son/God-complex

From what we’ve seen to what we’re looking forward to, here are 24 films to check out at this week’s festival

‘HIT MAN: SECRETS OF LIES’

CYPHER COUNTRY BRAWLERS

father-son dynamic from Succession, it is worth the price of admission to see Stephen Dorff (playing a character named Jaxxon Pierce) and Scott Bakula operate in director Eddie Alcazar’s hallucinogenic black-and-white world. Plus, it’s only 88 minutes. 9 p.m. Sept. 30 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt LOGAN BUTTS

THE PUPPETMAN

Messy and at times overeager to create something enduring and iconic in the all-too-rarefied pantheon of franchise slashers, The Puppetman somehow finds a way to use its flaws and missteps as part of an overall pathway that you can’t help but respect. The survivor of her father’s deranged murder of her mother, Michal (Alyson Gorske) is suffering the ongoing fallout from an unimaginable horror. There’s a very elastic metaphor about survivor’s guilt, abuse and the legacy of religious grooming here, skillfully deployed to feel perceptive and icky at different points in the story. Just when you think it’s lost you, it rallies with a one-two punch of deeply imaginative gore that will stick in your head forever. Similarly, there’s a point when you wonder what they’re going to do given the attrition of cast members, with which the filmmakers ramp things up with a narrative feint that reengages the viewer. In a way, this beast is structured so that with Michal and the Puppetman, you go through the emotional evolution that happens over the course of the first three or four films in a franchise — it just all happens in less than 100 minutes. But damned if it doesn’t work, leaving you ready for wherever the Puppetman pops up next. 9:15 p.m.

Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2 JASON SHAWHAN

BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY

Now that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie basically saved the movies with their billion-dollar-grossing Barbie adaptation, let’s start talking about this other Barbie film that hit the festival circuit early this year. Director Lagueria Davis traces the history of the first African American Barbie doll, which dropped in 1980, interviewing the women of color who inspired and shaped it (including her aunt, a former Mattel employee). Davis also rounds up Barbie fans young and old and gets their thoughts on finally seeing a melanin-enhanced version of America’s favorite plastic everywoman. 1:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at Sarratt Cinema at Vanderbilt CRAIG D. LINDSEY

IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL

Indigo Girls documentary It’s Only Life After All captures the duo’s legacy while avoiding one of the common pitfalls of the modern doc: a copious amount of talking-head celebrity interviews. This film has none, allowing Amy Ray and Emily Saliers’ life-changing music and activism to stand in the spotlight, framed by old footage and interviews with the Girls and punctuated with commentary from fans spanning their decades-long career. Director Alexandria Bombach paints a tender and meaningful portrait of the world’s most famous lesbian band, filled with strife and heartache as well as their cultivation of belonging and friendship. It’s funny

and tender, a fitting tribute for two of music’s unabashed trailblazers. 3:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at The Franklin Theatre HANNAH CRON

THE SACRIFICE GAME

A structural triumph, this brisk Christmas shocker plays out with the loosey-goosey charm of an RPG session and the organizing instincts of the most ghoulish of dinner parties. A big leap forward from writer-director Jenn Wexler’s equal parts alienating and charming 2018 debut The Ranger, The Sacrifice Game is always a few steps ahead and never afraid to mess with the status quo. As our protagonists, Georgia Acken and Madison Baines are just superb, alongside a great turn from Wexler regular Chloë Levine and The Boys’ Love Sausage Derek Johns. And the vibes are off the charts, somehow starting with stylish home invasion and austere boarding school allegory before shifting gears like you’re in a sports car that they won’t even let you drive with American auto insurance. Versatile for

hangouts and headtrips — and a new classic of Christmas chaos. 9 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JASON SHAWHAN

WHEN EVIL LURKS

Vicious in a way that makes you feel like it’s aiming to make Talk to Me seem like a laugh riot,

the latest film from Demián Rugna (Terrified) pulls no punches and sets itself on damaging its psychic points of impact. There’s a sense that this film is working in the same style sandbox as the Ju-On universe — not in terms of its narrative specifics, but in its inescapable fatalism, easily transferable and impossible to escape. Demon-as-virus is fertile ground, and When Evil Lurks yields unimaginable dispersion and growth rates from its points of incursion. As far as gonzo shocker moments, this one has several, and there are many instances when this could absolutely break members of the audience. Just know nothing is sacred. Nothing. Deadbeat dads will probably adore this, without realizing it’s disassembling them every step of the way. 9 p.m. Oct. 2 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2

JASON SHAWHAN

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO ‘RAADA’ (‘MUCK’)

A bright, colorful short, this film tells the story of three friends who get caught up in crime, scandal and tragedy in rural India in the 1980s. This one looks like it includes elements of gritty crime stories, boisterous Bollywood productions and friendship tales, and it should be well worth its 22-minute run time. 11 a.m. Sept. 29 at the Rothschild Black Box Theater at Vanderbilt STEPHEN ELLIOTT

FINGERNAILS

Featuring a murderers’ row of hot young actors (Women Talking’s Jessie Buckley, Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed, The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy), Fingernails sounds like a unique combination of science-fiction and psychological drama: Buckley plays a woman who starts work at an institute tasked with determining the romantic compatibility of various couples. Greek writer-director Christos Nikou received acclaim for his 2020 feature debut Apples — a film that caught the eye of Cate Blanchett, who signed on as a producer for Fingernails. If that’s not enough of a vote of confidence for you, Nikou also previously collaborated with fellow Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos, one of the most interesting filmmakers to emerge in the past two decades. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hill Theater 2

D. PATRICK RODGERS

THE PUPPETMAN

BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY

IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL

FINGERNAILS

Education is for Everyone

Lipscomb University’s Lifelong Learning program is currently registering for Session II courses, starting in October and running for five weeks. Join us as we explore new ideas in an informal, relaxed environment with no exams, grades, credits or prior educational requirements.

Courses include: The American Constitution and the Bill of Rights; Christmas in Prose, Poetry and Song; Spiritual Growth and the Impact of War and Conflict; and America’s Civics Lesson: Prelude to 2024 (A Three-Part Series).

Register for one or more Session II courses at lipscomb.edu/lifelonglearning. If you have questions, call 615.966.6216 or email amy.hamar@lipscomb.edu

PATRIA Y VIDA: THE POWER OF MUSIC

A feature-length documentary, this is the story of a song by Cuban rappers that went so viral, and was so tied to recent protests on the island, that one of the rappers was imprisoned and another creator of the song exiled. The song won two Latin Grammys and racked up millions of views, and one of its creators met with President Joe Biden. Patria y Vida should help explain whether the song’s impact has had an even more lasting impact than that on the island. 9 p.m. Sept. 29 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1

STEPHEN ELLIOTT

PENCILS VS. PIXELS

Animation has changed. And while some inventive endeavors like the two Spider-Verse films show off how magical and inventive digital animation can be, many — like myself — are probably missing the old-school cel animation style that dominated that ’90s and prior eras. Pencils vs. Pixels seeks to tell just what happened to cause the shift away from 2D storytelling. The film focuses in particular on Disney and American films, which may disappoint fans of foreign animation (definitely an oversight), but a stacked cast of interviews should still make for a fascinating oral history with top-notch visuals. 4 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Franklin Theatre; available to stream Oct. 2-8 ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

ASLEEP IN MY PALM

Tim Blake Nelson is a Cohen brothers regular (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) who brings his rangy dramatic chops to Asleep in My Palm. The film is directed by the actor’s son, Henry Nelson, making his feature debut. They say casting is everything, and the elder Nelson is teamed with Chloë Kerwin (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) to tell the tale of a father and daughter living off the grid in self-imposed isolation near the outskirts of an elite university campus. The younger Nelson also wrote the script, which might be the story of a troubled veteran suffering from PTSD — the film’s trailer mentions that Nelson’s character “saw some bad things in the war.” This is one of the films I’m most looking forward to seeing at the fest. 6:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JOE NOLAN

EILEEN

Based on the acclaimed 2015 novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen might be the most eagerly anticipated book adaptation since Gone Girl. The period thriller stars Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho) and Anne Hathaway (you know her) as two women working at a prison who become entangled in a disturbing crime. The film debuted at Sundance and is directed by William Oldroyd, who directed Florence Pugh in 2016’s Lady Macbeth, and the script was written by Moshfegh and Luke Goebel. Eileen — Moshfegh’s debut — powerfully explores the relationships between women in a strange, sometimes off-putting way. I imagine it might be the perfect thing for fans of Mary Gaitskill or Dancer in the Dark 7 p.m. Sept. 30 at Regal Green Hills Theater 2

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

LA CHIMERA

La Chimera received a nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes back in May. Alice Rohrwacher’s stylized story is part romantic costume drama, part crime yarn, part comedy of longing. Rohrwacher deploys a variety of historical film and theatrical techniques to tell the tale of a young archaeologist caught up in the illegal underground trade of Etruscan artifacts. The movie’s depictions of the Italian countryside recall the heightened realism of Italian postwar cinema, and even the casting of Isabella Rossellini feels like a nod to the Italian Golden Era. La Chimera is a movie about love and crime, but also a movie about movies. And it feels like it’s about to break in the U.S. just in time for awards season. See it now and brag about it when your friends can’t get tickets for

the Thanksgiving theatrical release. 4 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 JOE NOLAN

ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT

A24 didn’t give us an opportunity to view this time-bouncing, Southern-based drama, which had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. In her feature-film debut, writer/director/Tennessean Raven Jackson goes back and forth through the decades as she tells the story of Mack, a woman of color loving and learning in rural Mississippi. (It was also partially shot in Jackson’s home state.) Three different women play Mack, including British actress Zainab Jah as older Mack. With Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) handling producing duties, we’re just gonna assume that some harrowing, heartbreaking, hella-Black shit will

go down. 6:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 CRAIG D. LINDSEY

I USED TO BE FUNNY

Writer-director Ally Pankiw, known for her work as a story editor on Schitt’s Creek and as a director on shows such as The Great and the most recent season of Black Mirror, makes her feature film debut with I Used to Be Funny. The film stars Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby, Bottoms), who’s in line to take the throne from Danny McBride as Funniest Person Alive, in my humble opinion. Sennott plays Sam, a stand-up comic in Toronto struggling with depression after a girl she used to nanny goes missing. Sam must decide whether to join in on the search for the missing girl in this comedy-drama that borders on thriller territory. 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at Regal Green Hills Theater 1 LOGAN BUTTS

A TASTE OF THINGS

Known as The Pot-au-Feu in France, A Taste of Things sees Vietnamese French filmmaker Trầ n Anh Hùng (Norwegian Wood, Eternity) teaming up with Benoît Magimel and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche for what looks like a scrumptious romance between two French foodies in the 1880s. Trầ n won the Best Director honor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this project in May. In his review for The Telegraph, film critic Robbie Collin says the “culinary romance is so vividly and lovingly made, you’ll swear you can smell and taste every shot.” Sounds like you’ll want to grab a bite before watching. 12:30 p.m. Oct. 3 at the Belcourt CORY WOODROOF

FALLEN LEAVES

From Le Havre to The Other Side of Hope, Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki has made a career of unforgettable character studies steeped in humanist ideas and hard-earned emotions. His latest film Fallen Leaves won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and has been selected by Finland as its submission for the Best International Feature Film at next year’s Academy Awards. Indiewire film critic David Ehrlich described Fallen Leaves as the director’s “lovely ode to movies” that “finds light in the darkness of modern life.” If that’s not the perfect description for a Kaurismäki film, we’re not sure what is. 1 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Belcourt CORY WOODROOF ▼

PENCILS VS. PIXELS

EILEEN

LA CHIMERA

NOVEMBER 6

NATHANIEL RATELIFF WITH KEVIN MORBY ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

JANUARY 11

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

50TH ANNIVERSARY ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

JANUARY 29

ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS

WITH CHARLIE SEXTON ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

FEBRUARY 10

FLATLAND CAVALRY ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

MARCH 29

A.J. CROCE PRESENTS CROCE PLAYS CROCE ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

APRIL 2

DUSTIN LYNCH WITH SKEEZ ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

APRIL 5 & 6

BLACK PUMAS

WITH COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

SEPTEMBER 28-29

MUSIC [NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY] MUSICIANS CORNER FEAT. JOSIE DUNNE, JESSIE BAYLIN & MORE

As we come into the homestretch of harvest season, it’s time for the fall run of much-loved free music festival Musicians Corner to wind down. Throughout September, the fest has been bringing impressive bills to Centennial Park on Friday evenings, and the two-day grand finale continues the trend. Friday’s lineup focuses on songwriters who lean toward pop-schooled R&B and R&B-enhanced pop, with YSA and VEAUX leading the charge and Gramps Morgan and Josie Dunne finishing out the night; right in the middle is The Explorers Club, who wear their love of The Beach Boys on their sleeves. Saturday’s afternoon hangout doubles as the Corner’s annual vendor-packed Fall Market, with jazz singer Sonja Hopkins kicking it off, followed by wide-ranging songsmith Larysa Jaye, who’ll be fresh off the release of her single “A Little at a Time” and on a break from her role as Balthasar in Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s Summer Shakespeare production of Much Ado About Nothing. In the middle of the lineup are bilingual singer-songwriter and immigrant advocate Gustavo Moradel and rock-andblues-leaning Americana duo Striking Matches. Capping off the whole fest is an alltoo-rare hometown performance from stellar songsmith Jessie Baylin, whose 2022 LP Jersey Girl is a platter of old-school pop perfection.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

5-9 P.M. SEPT. 29, NOON-6 P.M. SEPT. 30 AT CENTENNIAL PARK

2500 WEST END AVE.

THURSDAY / 9.28

MUSIC

[SHOW OUT AND GLOW OUT] GLOWING STRONG

Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Firefly program was founded just over two years ago to provide care and treatment for pregnant and postpartum women struggling with substance abuse disorder as well as for their children. The organization, made up of medical professionals providing an impressive array of specializations, is one of several aiming to fight the impact of opioids in our state. Thursday, Firefly will host a fundraiser at City Winery to further its mission, with a performance from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat. Caillat had several hits in the late Aughts — you’ll probably remember “Bubbly” from her 2007 debut — and

JESSIE BAYLIN

picked up a shared Album of the Year Grammy for her work on pop superstar Taylor Swift’s Fearless. The performance should be a highlight, and the fundraiser will also feature a seated dinner, a silent auction and words from some of the patients and care providers who know Firefly best. More information is available at give.vanderbilthealth.org. COLE VILLENA

7 P.M. AT CITY WINERY

609 LAFAYETTE ST.

MUSIC

[BIG TIME IN LITTLE INGLEWOOD] UNDIE FEST 2

The Underdog’s transformation from a townie NASCAR bar to a refuge for some of Nashville’s finest musicians is nothing short of astonishing. In celebration, the quirky Inglewood dive proudly presents the second annual Undie Fest. A whopping 60-plus artist roster will be featured across two stages over four days. “We are passionate about the artist and want to provide a comfortable platform with minimal rules, making the place feel like home to everyone,” says bar owner and festival organizer Calvin Ecker. “We are for the underdog and want to be here in a positive light to lift up everyone.” The behemoth list of performers spans the Americana spectrum and includes notable acts such as guitar aces Guthrie Trapp, Ford Thurston and Grace Bowers, as well blues wailers The Hi-Jivers and singersongwriter Afton Wolfe, to name just a few out of such a stellar lineup.

JASON VERSTEGEN

SEPT. 28-OCT. 1 AT THE UNDERDOG

3208 GALLATIN PIKE

FRIDAY / 9.29

MUSIC

[WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?] LITTLE FEAT’S THE ALBUMS TOUR: SAILIN’ SHOES AND DIXIE CHICKEN

It’d feel a little weird to have a tribute show for legendary Los Angeles rockers Little Feat — proto-Americana blenders of traditions who also set a bar in the jam-band world — since they are still well and truly cooking, more than five decades after their start. This weekend, cofounding keyboard wizard Bill Payne and his crew — a mix of new recruits and players who were in the band alongside late, great frontman Lowell George and also-late, also-great guitarist Paul Barrere — return to the Mother Church to celebrate two milestones in their catalog. Friday, they’ll play their second LP, 1972’s Sailin’ Shoes

The record was their commercial breakthrough, with highlights like the power-pop-esque opener “Easy to Slip” and the international truckers’ anthem “Willin’,” an oft-covered song you’re as likely to know from Linda Ronstadt’s classic rendition. Saturday night, they’ll play 1973’s Dixie Chicken, a deep dive into New Orleans soul with which the group also honed their skill at collective improvisation. Both the titular sing-along and “Fat Man in the Bathtub” spotlight artful storytelling that mixes blues and R&B traditions with, say, A Confederacy of Dunces; both also have grooves for days, as does the group’s interpretation of Crescent City hero

Allen Toussaint’s “On Your Way Down.” Expect lots of fan favorites from throughout the Feat repertoire peppered into both nights, and if last year’s Waiting for Columbus celebration is anything to go on, expect the band to be red hot from start to finish.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

7:30 P.M. SEPT. 29-30 AT THE RYMAN

116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.

MUSIC [POISON IDEAS] POISON RUIN

The more aggressive side of punk often ignores the idea of nuance within the sound itself. But thankfully some artists like Blitz, Amebix and Naked Raygun eventually found a way to weave different textures into their music without ever diminishing the power of their righteous fury. The latest in that lineage is Philadelphia’s Poison Ruin. The band will be making the trek to Memphis’ GonerFest for a rare Southern run that includes Nashville’s Drkmttr. Their imaginative music is as cold and bleak as a windswept tundra, without losing sonic hostility. Vocalist Mac Kennedy spins his criticisms of life in the capitalist, neoliberal West through the use of imagery from feudal Europe, fantasy tales and medieval folklore. After a stunning string of demos and EPs, Poison Ruin dropped last year’s masterwork Harvest on their hometown’s long-running metal label Relapse Records. Harvest is a swirling stew of heavy postpunk, melancholy synthesizers, blitzkrieg thrash and cultural criticism — absolutely the album to fill the space left when you stopped listening to Amebix because you found out that The Baron had lost his mind and become a Holocaustdenying clown.

P.J. KINZER

7 P.M. AT DRKMTTR

1111 DICKERSON PIKE

FILM [LOVE AND WARFARE]

FAIR

PLAY

Chloe Domont’s erotic thriller Fair Play arrives at the Belcourt off a festival run at Sundance and the Toronto Independent Film Festival. It stars Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich as Emily and Luke, an engaged couple and co-workers in the finance industry. Tension builds as Emily gets promoted over Luke, revealing his insecurities about losing a promotion to a woman. Domont’s debut tries to peel back the gender roles that have defined heterosexual relationships and the patriarchal structure of the corporate world, and it stays a satisfying thriller throughout, getting the conversation going on gender roles in society. The writing can get a bit shaky at times, but it’s never enough to take away from the overall experience, especially with the stellar performances of the leads. Fair Play is a solid directorial debut that has much more impact on the big screen, but it will only have a short theatrical run before going on to Netflix Oct. 13.

KEN ARNOLD

SEPT. 29-OCT. 1 AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC [CAVE & COMPANY]

OTEIL AND FRIENDS

Jam giants Dead & Company — an offshoot

of legendary live act Grateful Dead — embarked on an expansive farewell tour this summer, criss-crossing the country for marathon shows inside amphitheaters, arenas and ballparks. The tour gained a ton of buzz from longtime Deadheads … but it didn’t come within 300 miles of Nashville. For those who missed the farewell run, one of the next-best experiences comes to The Caverns this weekend when Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge enlists a rotating cast of ace musicians for his Oteil and Friends show, which will stop inside the Grundy County cave-turned-concert-hall on Friday. For Burbridge, the tour comes on the heels of Lovely View of Heaven, a new album paying tribute to Dead legends Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Those joining him in The Caverns include Melvin Seals, who toured for years in Garcia’s solo band; Duane Betts, solo artist and son of Allman Brothers band co-founder Dickey Betts; and tenured rock and blues sideman Jason Crosby, known for playing with Robert Randolph and Susan Tedeschi, among others.

MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

8 P.M. AT THE CAVERNS

555 CHARLIE ROBERTS ROAD, PELHAM, TENN.

ART [ARTS AND CRAFTS] ARTVILLE

The American Artisan Festival is a beloved tradition for craft lovers throughout the region, and this year it’s in a new location with a new name — Artville. The weekend-long event will be held in Wedgewood-Houston instead of its typical spot in Centennial Park, and its mission has shifted to celebrate local contemporary art in addition to the slate of more than 100 artisans and vendors featured in the outdoor tented festival. But even more than its location change, the event’s biggest shift is the incorporation of public art — and some of the area’s best artists will be participating. Andrés Bustamante, Lindsy Davis, Troy Duff, Rachel Hayes, Brett Douglas Hunter, Alex Lockwood, Bryce McCloud, Beth Reitmeyer, Kit Reuther, Camilla Spadafino, Vadis Turner, Yanira Vissepo and Herb Williams are all on deck to have public art installations in front of Merritt Mansion, in the outfield by the Nashville Warehouse Company, along Chestnut Street and around the neighborhood. You can drop by the mansion and grab a map for a self-guided tour. What’s more, a mural project called Artville Walls will feature works and murals by Jeremiah Britton, Joe Geis, Violet Hill, Meg Pollard, Xavier Payne, Maggie Sanger and Brian Wooden. Visit artville.org to learn more.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

SEPT. 29-OCT. 1 IN WEDGEWOOD-HOUSTON

FILM [LITERARY DISASTERPIECE]

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM

The usually dirty-minded Ken Russell (Tommy, The Devils) gave zero fucks when he loosely adapted Bram Stoker’s critically reviled 1911 novel and made 1988’s The Lair of the White Worm, the naughtiest, most tongue-in-cheek horror movie Hammer Film Productions never made. Former L.A. Law lead Amanda Donohoe rules every scene she’s in as a slithery priestess

(a role originally offered to Tilda Swinton, obviously) who wreaks havoc on a rural English county, slamming her fangs in poor suckers and wearing little to no clothing while doing it. Hugh Grant and Doctor Who’s Peter Capaldi, both baby-faced, are some of the young townsfolk who try to put a stop to her reign of terror. Even though it became one of those ’80s bombs that most of the cast has distanced themselves from (Grant has predictably said he’s embarrassed by it), it can’t be denied that it’s some sexy, campy fun. I remember catching this late at night on cable back in my younger days and wondering how something so silly can also be so gotdamn arousing.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

9 P.M AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX

3455 LEBANON PIKE

SATURDAY / 9.30

[FAIRE GAME]

FOOD & DRINK

NASHVILLE FOOD FAIRE

This weekend, the fine folks across the office in the Scene’s events department will once again bring the Nashville Food Faire to OneC1ty on the West Side. The free daytime event will feature a stacked lineup of 30-plus vendors offering everything from pasta sauce, bagels, cookies, fudge and cheesecake to sandwiches, bao, spices, hot sauce, honey and kimchi. What’s more, attendees can check out demos from Jonathan Ross (Master Sommelier and wine director at the Justin Timberlake-coowned Twelve Thirty Club) and Dung “Junior” Vo (executive chef at popular new East Side spot Noko). Folks willing to fork over a little cash can also help themselves to the Food Faire’s Biscuits + Bloody Mary Garden (open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.), and guests are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items for donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. (Think peanut butter, canned fruits and veggies, soup, stew, cereal and pasta.) For more details and a full list of vendors, visit nashfoodfaire.com. D. PATRICK RODGERS 11 A.M.-4 P.M. AT ONEC1TY

8 CITY BLVD.

FILM [TRUE LIFE TERROR] THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN

It’s kinda surprising that this fact-based 1976 thriller (distributed by 1970s exploitation temple American International Pictures) — in which a hooded murderer is on the loose in 1940s Texarkana, and a Texas Ranger (The Last Picture Show Oscar winner Ben Johnson) is brought in to lead the manhunt — is not a better-known serial killer cinema title. Perhaps it’s because writerdirector Charles B. Pierce (The Legend of Boggy Creek) sprinkles this sinister tale — inspired by the still-unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946 — with baffling moments of comedy. Pierce even adds some comic relief on screen as a bumbling patrolman known as “Sparkplug.” Also, it’s more of a police procedural than a goreified slasher flick; think of it as a Southernfried Zodiac. It’s certainly an odd grindhouse relic. I mean, the final girl is played by Dawn

UPCOMING

Wells — Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island herself! What’s even crazier is that a Blumhouseproduced sequel/remake (directed by the guy who did Me and Earl and the Dying Girl?!) came out in 2014 — and I bet you didn’t know about that shit, either.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

9 P.M. AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX

3455 LEBANON PIKE

THEATER

BROADWAY, HER WAY] EMILY SKINNER: BROADWAY, MY WAY

[CELEBRATING

Emily Skinner has rightfully been called one of Broadway’s most versatile performers, having appeared in everything from Side Show (for which she was nominated for a Tony Award that she shared with co-star Alice Ripley) to The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, The Cher Show and, most recently, New York, New York. This weekend, Nashville audiences can check out this dynamic artist as the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and Studio Tenn Theatre Company close out their 2023 Cabaret on Stage series with Skinner’s acclaimed solo show Broadway, My Way. When the show hits the James K. Polk Theater stage, audiences can look forward to revisiting memorable show tunes from Skinner’s extraordinary career, along with classic songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Kander and Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, George Gershwin and more. And, of course, there’s sure to be plenty of storytelling and thoughtful commentary as Skinner looks back on her life in the theater. AMY STUMPFL

8 P.M. AT TPAC’S POLK THEATER

505 DEADERICK ST.

SUNDAY / 10.1

[GASP!]

THEATER

STORY PIRATES: THE AMAZING ADVENTURE

If you have young children, you’re likely familiar with the award-winning Story Pirates Podcast. It’s a great concept, taking stories written by kids and turning them into sketch comedy and goofy songs — often featuring celebrity guest artists, such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bowen Yang and Sara Bareilles. This weekend, you can catch this hilarious crew live onstage as the Story Pirates present their Amazing Adventure Tour at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. As with the podcast, the live show promises plenty of fastpaced, interactive fun — with familiar songs from the podcast (I like “The Raccoon’s Very Hard Choice” and “Fart Out Loud Day”), along with improv sketches based on ideas from kids in the audience. It’s a great way to feed your little one’s imagination while sharing a few laughs together. AMY STUMPFL

October is Filipino American History Month, which means there’s no better time to dive into work from some of our state’s talented pinoy artists. The Bahay (Tagalog for “house”) Works show at Fido highlights five such artists across a variety of disciplines. Malaka Gharib is a journalist and cartoonist who’s spotlighted her experience as an Egyptian Filipino American in graphic memoirs I Was Their American Dream and It Won’t Always Be Like This. Heather Moulder is a proud “Fil-billy” who creates letterpress works. Aimee Cericos Cedro is a performance artist who also goes by Grandmafun. Giro Gabayoyo is a Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse by day and creates visual art with oil, acrylic and mixed media. Finally, Benedict Cabatingan Vitualla is a mixed-media artist whose pieces incorporate photography, sculpture, painting and video. An opening reception will run Oct. 4 from 6 to 9 p.m., and it should be a great way to plug into the pinoy community here in Middle Tennessee while taking in an impressive collection of works from across the artistic spectrum. COLE VILLENA

OCT. 1-31 AT FIDO

1812 21ST AVE. S.

[TWO-TONE TIME]

SPORTS

TENNESSEE TITANS VS. CINCINNATI BENGALS

Are the up-and-down Titans for real this season? Are the Bengals beginning to bungle again? We don’t know! It’s way too early to tell. But we do know that when the NFL schedule dropped earlier this year, fans of the two-tone blue likely circled Bengals day as a can’t-miss game in the early season. Despite continued injury questions surrounding hunky Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (his status was questionable ahead of our deadline), beating the Cincinnati football team could prove a momentum-booster for a Titans team that some pundits believe to be a step behind top-tier conference competition this season. At the very least, Titans fans who head to Nissan Stadium for the game can hope to see the team execute on two things that usually — but not always, this is the NFL, after all — help score a win for the home team: a game-shaking pass rush and a few bomb-throwing play-action passes.

MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

NOON AT NISSAN STADIUM

1 TITANS WAY

MUSIC

You might also hear hints of Lou Reed, to whom Weiner dedicated the album. Like Reed, Weiner likes to combine the ribald with the compassionate, and Art Dealers contains a heartfelt song titled “Sleaze Me On” that repositions sleaze as a category you might find reassuring, or at least not totally sleazy. I could also compare Low Cut Connie to early Steely Dan, which means a Weiner composition — check out the amazingly beautiful title track — carries a hint of the gravity-defying chord changes you hear on the Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill Another reference point is Lou Reed fan Alex Chilton, whose 1979 tune “Hey! Little Child” Weiner has covered. Art Dealers may be the band’s masterpiece to date — Lou and Alex would applaud Weiner’s ability to turn sleaze into art. Matthew Logan Vasquez opens. EDD HURT 7 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY

818 THIRD AVE. S.

MONDAY / 10.2

MUSIC [WE’RE GONERS]

POST GONERFEST THROWDOWN

One of the advantages of being only three hours east of the garage-punk mecca of Memphis is that Nashville gets a lot of runoff shows on the days surrounding GonerFest. Sweet Time Records is attempting to put all their egg punks in one basket for a night, inviting several bands to play on a Monday at The Basement a day after the West Tennessee festival. Home team Part Time Filth is the trashy surf-rock product of local Tony Filth, like a basement-tape version of The Trashmen. The show will also feature the acidic howl of Detroit mainstay Timmy’s Organism, familiar to Music City from frequent gigs here and a new LP on Sweet Time. The real treat is the pair of Australian acts: the saccharine hooks of 1-800-MIKEY and the screaming guitars of Tee Vee Repairmann. And absolutely don’t skip the frenetic mania of Kansas City’s Silicone Prairie. Prairie frontman Ian Teeple will be doing double duty as a member of Nashville’s Snooper, which will be closing out the stacked bill. P.J. KINZER 7 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT

1604 EIGHTH AVE. S

TUESDAY / 10.3

1 P.M. AT TPAC’S POLK THEATER

505 DEADERICK ST.

[PINOY POWER!]

CULTURE

BAHAY WORKS FEAT. MALAKA GHARIB, HEATHER MOULDER, AIMEE CERICOS CEDRO, GIRO GABAYOYO & BENEDICT CABATINGAN VITUALLA

[REPOSITIONING

SLEAZE] LOW CUT CONNIE

When I try to explain the appeal — heck, let’s call it a certain kind of genius — of the Philadelphia rock band Low Cut Connie, I end up referencing a lot of pretty old music. The group’s guiding light is singer, pianist and songwriter Adam Weiner, whose command of the rock vocabulary matches his feel for good old American sleaze — the sort of dive-bar interactions, say, that you find funny as long as you’re in the bar. Weiner plays piano like a guy who wouldn’t dream of getting too fancy, so you’ll hear The Guess Who and maybe Jim Dickinson in the music Weiner came up with for Low Cut Connie’s new album Art Dealers

BOOKS

[BANNED ON THE RUN] BANNED WAGON

With a Tennessee law empowering a state commission to prohibit certain school textbooks, we’re apparently back in our bookban era. Penguin Random House, The Freedom to Read Foundation, PEN America and Little Free Library are trying to stop the insanity. They’re sponsoring The Banned Wagon, which is stopping at independent bookstores across the South to give away banned and challenged books. On Tuesday, the wagon will roll up to East Nashville’s The Bookshop, where guests are welcome to take one copy of one censored book (and other swag) and peruse

Sept 29 — Oct 1

Nashville, TN

Free festival, open to the public!

artville.org

@artvillenash

Public Art Installations

Community Art Show

American Artisan @ Artville

Artist Talks

Live Music

Food/Refreshments

Kids and Family Activities

WEDGEWOOD HOUSTON/CHESTNUT HILL

MARGARET LITTMAN

the store’s section of other inclusive titles. The idea behind the wagon is to spark conversations about the societal impact of book bans in our communities. “With the alarming increase in books that are being banned these days — often books that address racial inequality and feature LGBTQIA+ characters, and often challenged by individuals who haven’t even read them — it’s more important than ever to raise awareness about the dangers of censorship and the importance of the freedom to read,” says The Bookshop owner Joelle Herr. “Books have the capacity not only to entertain, but also to make us think, broaden our horizons, and increase our empathy for others, and it’s vital that traditionally marginalized readers be able to recognize their experiences within the pages.”

3-6 P.M. AT THE BOOKSHOP

1043 EASTLAND AVE.

[SMOKY MOUNTAIN

MUSIC

FAREWELL]

RONNIE MILSAP TRIBUTE

Ronnie Milsap — the piano-playing Country Music Hall of Fame hitman known for classics “Smoky Mountain Rain,” “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World” and “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me,” among others — gets the Nashville tribute treatment this week at Bridgestone Arena with a one-night show featuring an eclectic collection of performers. Those lining up to sing a tune from his collection of well-traveled countrypop hits include pop staple Kelly Clarkson, chart-topping country group Little Big Town, Music Row upstart Breland, Texas rock group Band of Heathens, Christian mainstay Steven Curtis Chapman, Nashville session legend Charlie McCoy, tenured troubadour Elizabeth Cook and local gospel favorite The McCrary Sisters, among many others. And it may be the last time many in Music City get a chance to sing Milsap’s songs with him in the building; the night comes billed as the 80-year-old’s “final Nashville show.”

MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

7 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA

501 BROADWAY

WEDNESDAY / 10.4

MUSIC [HOME COOKED CARE]

loin and the restaurant’s famous roasted chicken. Tickets are $250. MARGARET LITTMAN

5:30 P.M. AT ADELE’S

1210 MCGAVOCK ST.

MUSIC [THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER] FATS KAPLIN PRESENTS ROY BOOK BINDER

You may know Fats Kaplin from his stints with acts like Jack White, John Prine or his own Fats Kaplin Gang. But back in the 1970s, long before he was one of the most sought-after multi-instrumentalists in Music City, he was a 17-year-old kid heading out on the road for the very first time with acoustic blues maestro Roy Book Binder. Somehow, 50 or so years later, both musicians are still at the top of their game, and Book Binder, who turns 80 the day after this gig, still hits the road regularly. Book Binder learned from the greats — he traveled with the Rev. Gary Davis in the late ’60s, and he’s also toured with Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Hot Tuna, J.J. Cale and Bonnie Raitt. He’s also quite the raconteur, sharing tales with wry humor when he’s not singing over his deft fingerpicking acoustic guitar work. Stop in for the early show at The 5 Spot to check out these two fine musicians, witness the magical rapport that can only come with decades of collaboration, and don’t forget to wish Roy a happy 80th birthday. JACK SILVERMAN

6 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT

1006 FORREST AVE.

MUSIC [THUNDER ROLLS] JIM ROONEY AND ROONEY’S IRREGULARS

MUSIC HEALTH ALLIANCE’S

HEAL

THE MUSIC BENEFIT DINNER

It’s no secret that many of the city’s musicians are underinsured or uninsured altogether. The Music Health Alliance works to provide the music industry with free, confidential health care advocacy and access to lifesaving health care and mental health resources. Over the past decade, the nonprofit has served more than 20,000 music industry workers, saving over $120 million in health care costs. This year their fundraiser, which enables them to do this work, takes place at Adele’s in the Gulch. The MHA Benefit Dinner and Auction features live music from country star Gary Allen, a cocktail reception, seated dinner and both silent and live auctions. (Items you could win include a Gibson Les Paul guitar.) The dinner menu includes lots of Adele’s favorites, such as kale salad, grilled pork

Only a super-folkie like producer, singer, songwriter and song publisher Jim Rooney can lay claim to interviewing Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters, overseeing great records by Iris DeMent and John Prine, and managing one of the emblematic folk venues of the 1960s, Club 47. Rooney was born in Massachusetts in 1938, and he hosted the likes of Fred Neil and Joan Baez at Club 47, which was located in the rootsmusic capital of Cambridge. An early adapter of ’50s country music, Rooney began visiting Nashville in 1963 — that’s when he met Monroe, whom he profiled along with Waters in the 1971 book Bossmen: Bill Monroe & Muddy Waters, itself an example of post-Plutarch, parallellives biographical writing. After he moved to Nashville in 1976, he got into song publishing via his company, Forerunner Music, which found success with songs like Garth Brooks and Pat Alger’s 1990 hit “The Thunder Rolls.” Rooney has also produced albums by David Olney, Tom Paxton and Nanci Griffith. Wednesday’s show at 3rd and Lindsley marks the final performance by Jim Rooney and Rooney’s Irregulars, who have been appearing at Nashville’s Station Inn for several years. The band includes pickers and singers on the level of Alger, Shawn Camp and Sam Bush, and Rooney fronts the ensemble with his brand of easygoing cool. Sometimes folkies have more fun — grab yourself a piece of 20th century history before it’s gone.

7:30 P.M.

MOVIE

Date Night is a multipart road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.”

WHEN I WAS A KID, one of the neighborhood dads faked his own death. Got up one morning, went to his Music Row office, ransacked the place, fashioned a bloody handprint on the door and stepped right out of his life. At the time, I couldn’t imagine what would push a parent to leave his family. Now that I’m a parent myself — of someone who is a real, live teenager by the time this column is published — I can see how fragile the line can be between holding on and taking off.

I’d head straight for New Orleans: Everyone who knows me knows this, so I’d be found before I could change my name and get a job serving crawfish omelets in a neighborhood cafe. Plus, my husband Dom watches too many

SPICY BOY’S, ICY BOY’S AND THE BOOKSHOP

A night in New Orleans (the East Nashville version)

BY DANNY BONVISSUTO

late-night murder mysteries to be fooled by a contrived crime scene. New Orleans has always felt like freedom to me, years before I was responsible for anyone besides myself. When I long for that freedom — and believe me, I long — I recalibrate with a po’boy and a patio.

STOP 1: SPICY BOY’S

But not just any po’boy, and not just any patio. Spicy Boy’s (yes, just one boy) is as close as I’ve ever felt to New Orleans without a Southwest flight. It doesn’t have the raunchy energy and unmistakable hot-piss-and-vomit smell of the French Quarter, but instead the leafy, lazy, stayall-day easiness of a Magazine Street hang.

It’s in an old house at the corner of West Eastland and McFerrin — or where Mas Tacos meets Lyra meets The Pharmacy — and there’s a Saints flag flying, unashamed. Heading up the walk and opening the front door is a little like going to Grandma’s house, but Grandma doesn’t have an order window, serve water out of an Igloo cooler or have a badass red neon sign in the shape of a crawfish on her wall.

After we ordered, Dom and I walked past the booths in the front and the bar in the main room and took a table on the back patio. That’s where a guy wearing a neon-orange “BUG OFF” hat

delivered our paper-lined metal trays of wings (dry rub, lemon pepper and Crystal hot sauce reduction); Cajun fries; Abita mustard dipping sauce (which put their ranch in the shade); a Styrofoam bowl of red beans and rice with a wedge of cornbread; chicken and smoked andouille sausage gumbo; and half a Gulf shrimp po’boy. In the end, the only leftovers were the red beans and rice, which I took home and ate cold by the spoonful for days afterward until every sliced green onion top was gone.

Any time there’s a po’boy on a menu, I always order it, then usually regret it because the combination of breaded and fried seafood between two pieces of bread is too much. Spicy Boy’s uses French bread from Leidenheimer Baking Co. in New Orleans, which has just enough crust to keep the lettuce, tomato, mayo, pickles and shrimp (or fried catfish, roast beef, Andouille sausage, cheeseburger, fried mushroom or smoked turkey) firmly contained, and just enough sponginess to make what could come off as heavy feel instead impossibly light.

Next time: two gold upholstered bar seats, a meat pie, red beans and rice, Cajun fries with Abita mustard for dipping and a sherry vinaigrette salad so there’s some sort of green involved.

STOP 2: ICY BOY’S

Two-hundred steps from Spicy Boy’s is Icy Boy’s, their sister snowball shack. Dom says I take “dainty woman” steps, but he’s exactly a quarter-inch taller than me, which surely doesn’t affect his stride. It’s a small pink cinderblock building just past the Vape World gas station, and has a mural of a sunglasses-wearing gator reclined on a chaise, holding a snowball. Hard to miss, even in East Nashville.

Snowballs are serious business in New Orleans. This is not traditional shaved ice, which — as the woman at the window explained — is more like tiny ice cubes that take on some of the flavored syrup and let the rest pool at the bottom. Snowballs are a particular shave of ice that

Spicy Boy’s 924 McFerrin Ave. spicyboysnashville.com

Icy Boy’s 726 McFerrin Ave.

The Bookshop 1043 W. Eastland Thebookshopnashville.com

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

SHRIMP PO’BOY AT SPICY BOY’S WINGS AT SPICY BOY’S

comes off creamier, like real snow, and holds the syrup so it’s there in every bite.

If you don’t have a go-to flavor, prepare for overwhelm: There’s everything from cherry and blue raspberry to dill pickle, banana, Cajun red hot, amaretto and tiger’s blood. You can get clear flavors like wedding cake and spearmint. You can add sweetened condensed milk or something called sour spray for 50 cents. I asked the man in front of us what he ordered and he said “allofum,” which I took to mean rainbow ($1 extra). And surprisingly, if you need a snowball between 8 a.m. and noon, you can also have a breakfast sandwich.

Fun fact: You can get a snowball at Icy Boy’s, walk it back over to Spicy Boy’s and get a $5 well floater on top from the bar. I don’t recommend trying this when it’s more than 90 degrees outside, but it’d be fun if you can make the timing work. Icy Boy’s is open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., so in order to pull this this off, you have to eat dinner at Spicy Boy’s on the early side to make it to Icy Boy’s before they close the walk-up window for the evening. If you miss it, have the bread pudding or an Abita root beer float at Spicy Boy’s, or a Sazerac or sidecar.

Dom’s a cherry/cola combo guy. I went with tiger’s blood, which was a mix of fruity red flavors. We skipped the floater and ate them on our walk up West Eastland to The Bookshop.

STOP 3: THE BOOKSHOP

Snowballs and bookstores don’t mix: Dom and I spooned up the last of our syrupy ice before we stepped in. The Bookshop is proof that great bookstores don’t have to be big bookstores. Owner Joelle Herr is smart with the space and has perfected the art of the well-displayed, well-stacked book. I want them all. I also want the stickers and small selection of games. I desperately need the light fixtures shaded with overlapping circular cutouts of book pages.

Going to a bookstore — please friends, support your local independents — is my favorite way to be together but separate on a date night. I head straight to the memoirs. Dom seeks out the sports section. I lose track of time reading jackets and flipping through pages. He gently suggests that it might be time to go. I look at my stack of selections and pare it down to a reasonable, budget-friendly amount: Just a few stories to focus on when I get tired of my own. ▼

SNOWBALL AT ICY BOY’S

DUCHESS is an intelligent 2 and ½ year old, 54 pound, doggo who enjoys spending time in the great outdoors, playing with her toys, and spreading love to EVERYONE she meets. This requires giving hugs to everyone she passes and sitting in anyone’s lap for the best scratches. She is 100% Forever Home ready, too, including being leash-trained! This isn’t a good dog in the making; she’s already an incredible dog! If you’re looking for a loyal and loving pup to share your life with, come meet a staff favorite - Duchess!

Call 615.352.1010 or visit

TYLER RENÉ ANGELO FUSES ART AND FURNITURE

The artist finds inspiration in spy movies and Frank Stella

BY SHERONICA HAYES

Artists Talk is an ongoing series that gives artists a platform to describe a particular artwork.

SOMETIMES A CHAIR is just a chair — but sometimes, a chair can be a sculpture. Tyler René Angelo blurs the fine line between art and furniture each time he dreams up and designs a new piece. Inspired by a childhood spent watching spy movies and exploring the bayous of Southern Louisiana, Angelo constructs captivating pieces that function as both high-end furnishings and dynamic artistic devices. His pieces incorporate unusual earthly elements such as volcanic ash, and some take upwards of three years to complete. An exhibition of his design in June at The Forge was titled Side A: If You Need Me, I’ll Be in My Studio. The Scene caught up with him to talk about his furniture-sculpting journey.

“Growing up in Louisiana gave me a lot of opportunities to be outside on the water or on the marshes,” he says. “We were always outside, surrounded by the sounds of it. The movement of everything that’s natural — watching it breathe. It was where I let my imagination run wild as a kid.

“I feel like my journey has been a unique one. Being Black in America, I often get put in a box. I used to draw and paint a lot, but would often get asked why I didn’t make more African-themed art. As if that was the only thing I was allowed to do. I always wanted to push beyond that and make art to cross boundaries and clash cultures. No boxes. No boundaries. Don’t get me wrong — I love and am proud that I’m Black. Ain’t nothing more beautiful than my chocolate skin. I just don’t want it to be the deciding factor to my life.

“It was a lot of figuring things out on my own, because there’s not that many furniture designers who also make their own furniture in Nashville. I originally came to Nashville to go to [Watkins College of Art] and study fine art to get a BFA in 3D design, which is just the tech-

nical term for a sculpting degree. It was there I studied drawing, painting, graphic design, experimental 4D, photography and sculpting. Everything enhanced the other.

“The simplest way to describe my first piece, ‘Reference I,’ was to make something that reminded me of the feeling that I had as a kid growing up, always in connection with my imagination. Something that was a mix of natural materials, but had a secret-agent feeling. In the end, I was no longer designing a piece of furniture. I was creating a piece of art that referenced moments from my childhood. A piece of art that wanted to be furniture.

“The process of creating and meditating and being inspired again led to the creation of my favorite piece, ‘Reference II.’ I name all of my main pieces ‘References’ as a nod to my belief that I make sculptures that reference furniture. I wanted ‘Reference II’ to be a coffee table that was so enticing to look at that it stood to be a work of art. Not just a space that was useless until you sat a book or a drink on it. I get annoyed when I go over to someone’s house and they say you have to use a coaster to put a drink down. When you have a small space, you want a stylish and versatile item. I designed

this modular coffee table made up of three separate parts in varying sizes, heights and slight changes to the shape. The surface was molded to create ripples, curves and round-overs — like a Frank Stella painting. Its uneven surface was my backhanded nod to ‘needing to put a coaster’ on the coffee table. It was playful and drew you in, while also guiding you throughout the whole object.

“My first exhibit, If You Need Me, I’ll Be in My Studio, was a peek into my process. It was to highlight the journey of me learning how to make my own furniture. The show had furniture ranging in all categories: chairs, side tables, dining tables, coffee tables, benches, hand-forged chef knives and some graphics imprinted on sculptures. My friends, who are also amazing artists, helped me out every step of the way. I didn’t expect 200-plus people to show up for my first show, but all of my friends came from around the U.S. to support me. It was an amazing night — also very overwhelming, but it was encouraging to learn that Nashville also loved the kind of pieces I was producing. The art scene needs more furniture, and the furniture scene needs more art. I guess I’m just here to help bridge the two.” ▼

PHOTOS: ANGELINA CASTILLO

BILL & JILIAN NERSHI featuring JASON HANN (of The StringCheese Incident)

WMOT Roots Radio Finally Fridays featuring THE TENNESSEE WARBLERS, THE MIKE THOMAS BAND & CHARLOTTE MORRIS

LAUREL CANYON

Bluebird on 3rd featuring DON HENRY, ANNIE MOSHER & DAVE BERG with MICHELLE PEREIRA & RIVERLAWN

THE TIME JUMPERS

A Tribute To THE POLICE Celebrating the 40th Anniversary SYNCHRONICITY featuring GABE DIXON, THEM VIBES, DEREK WEBB, TIM HALPERIN, CODY BELEW, ANDY DAVIS, MAUREEN MURPHY, MODA SPIRA, ALAINA STACEY with COURT CLEMENT & CALEB CROSBY

JOSH MATTHENY

GUILTY PLEASURES

LOW CUT CONNIE with MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ

Rooney’s Irregulars: JIMM ROONEY, SHAWN CAMP, SAM BUSH, STUART DUNCAN, TIM O’BRIEN, PAT MCLAUGHLIN, PAT ALGER, “JELLYROLL” JOHNSON, PETE WASNER, DAN DUGMORE, RICHARD BAILEY, BILL KENNER & More!!

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

eloise w/ james smith

del water gap w/ kristiane neighbor w/ Sugadaisy

dan deacon w/ flesh eater

sam barber w/ elliot greer

deer tick w/ country westerns

noah floersch w/ edgehill gone gone beyond w/ Laura Elliot & Happie

ashley cooke w/ matt schuster medium build w/ henry j star trousdale w/ anna vaus

Jalen ngonda

death from above 1979 w/ demob happy Próxima Parada w/ olive klug mipso

the emo night tour

My So-Called Band: The Ultimate 90s Halloween!

Genesis Owusu w/ Enumclaw

Ritt Momney w/ Noah Pope & Shane T

Kendell Marvel's Honky Tonk Experience

Mudhoney w/ Hooveriii

The Hotelier & Foxing w/

Harper O'Neill [6pm]

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

get happier fridays ft. Friday Night Funk Band, Gyasi, Brian Brown, Claire Ernst bandit heart, tj fink [7pm] phix [9pm]

Dogs on Shady Lane, Budge, Will Orchard, Joiner Snooper, 1-800-Mikey, TeeVee Repairman, Timmy's Organism, Silicone Prairie, Part Time Filth molly burch w/ christelle bofale (7pm] shannon mcnally w/ alicia gail (9pm] summerlyn powers w/ sj mcdonald (7pm]

nehoda w/ caleb hayden christopher (9pm] dale hollow zach meadows, lonehollow miles miller

brendan abernathy w/ sammi accola the weathered souls briscoe (7pm)

stammer, starchie, and the far between (9pm)

melissa erin w/ dee white (7pm)

miki fiki w/ amelia day (9pm) GET HAPPIER FRIDAYS ft. Oginalii, Multi Ultra, High Fade, The Woods

HARVEST SEASON IS in full swing, Nashville musicians keep right on churning out records you’ll want to get to know, and the Scene’s music writers have seven new recommendations for you. Add ’em to your streaming queue or pick them up from your favorite record store. Many of our picks are also available to buy directly from the artists on Bandcamp; the platform’s Bandcamp Friday promotion, in which they waive their cut of sales for a 24-hour period, returns Oct. 6.

MITSKI, THE LAND IS INHOSPITABLE AND SO ARE WE (DEAD OCEANS)

For an artist with such consistent work, critical favor and avid fan base, Mitski — you would think — might be a household name. She has yet to become such, and her newest work, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, is unlikely to change that. The album is both intimately acoustic and expansively orchestral, with songs reflecting on love and memory. Recorded in part at The Bomb Shelter studio in East Nashville, standout tracks like “My Love Mine All Mine” and “I’m Your Man” exhibit Mitski’s versatility and remind us why she is one of the most prolific songwriters of our time. The Land Is Inhospitable may not crack the pop-culture sphere, but it is Mitski’s best work to date.

HANNAH CRON

SIX ONE TRÏBE, RESET FOR THE REJECTS (TRÏBE OVER EVERYTHING)

You might say Music City hip-hop collective

ANOTHER LOOK

The Scene’s music writers recommend recent releases from Six One Trïbe, Mitski, Thelma and the Sleaze and more

BY HANNAH CRON, BRITTNEY M c KENNA, SEAN L. MALONEY, DARYL SANDERS AND STEPHEN TRAGESER

Six One Trïbe has been firing on all cylinders this year, with tons of releases from individual members — stretching the metaphor, their engine has a lot of cylinders — and many shows, including visits to SXSW and Bonnaroo. Even with all that in the works, the Trïbe has released their second album as a unit. The mic gets passed often throughout Reset for the Rejects, and there’s a kaleidoscopic array of styles tailored to each song, but they’ve taken great care to let every MC shine when it’s their turn.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

ALLISON RUSSELL, THE RETURNER (FANTASY)

Allison Russell’s 2021 solo debut album Inside Child is a tough act to follow. That LP notched Russell a slew of awards and nominations the following year, including three Grammy nods and an Americana Music Honors and Awards Album of the Year win. If the pressure was on as Russell crafted its follow-up The Returner, you certainly can’t tell by listening. The Returner is loose and buoyant, expanding upon the thoughtful folk-rock of its predecessor with elements of funk and vintage pop. Highlights include the warm and liberated title track, as well as single “Stay Right Here,” a groovy rocker with Donna Summer vibes.

BRITTNEY McKENNA

THELMA AND THE SLEAZE, HOLEY WATER (DRYERBABY)

On her third LP, Thelma and the Sleaze prime mover Lauren “L.G.” Gilbert makes her most

mature album yet. And by “mature,” we mean “adult,” and by “adult,” we don’t mean she’s paying her bills and making it to work on time. Holey Water gets lusty and lascivious as Gilbert expands her rock ’n’ roll palette, invoking glammy atmospheres and prog-rock ambitions. TATS’ most accomplished songwriting yet underscores the hip-thrusting, ass-rocking swagger that comes from more than a decade of grinding it out in the dark corners and dives of the rock underground.

SEAN L. MALONEY

JESS NOLAN, ’93 (JESS NOLAN/RIGHTEOUS BABE)

Top-notch multi-instrumentalist Jess Nolan’s new solo LP ’93 trains a spotlight on her keyboards and gentle voice. She’s grounded in her own groove, but you might notice some commonalities with Joni Mitchell or Natalie Prass; the R&B-inspired rhythms scan as gentle too, but they’re sneakily kinetic. You can say something similar about her lyrics. In standout “Sweet Like a Peach,” also released as a single, Nolan meditates on love at first sight, and the lilting refrain of “You could be anyone / Can we fall in love with anyone? / I wanna know” invites you to consider that question from many angles at once.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

THE HEARTSLEEVES, SO FAR, SO WHAT (FLIMSYRECORDS)

After a 15-year hiatus, former Shadow 15 frontman Scott Feinstein returns with The Heartsleeves, a loose collection of musicians

that includes bassists Preach Rutherford and Matt Swanson and drummers Brad Pemberton and Jonathan Bright. The group’s debut EP So Far, So What, which Feinstein co-produced with Bright, features five infectious, hardhitting tracks that land somewhere between punk-influenced hard rock and power pop. Feinstein intended So Far, So What to be a preview of more music to come, and he shines throughout, singing lead and playing all the guitar parts on three of his own songs and two covers. The group’s ballsy interpretations of The Icicle Works’ “Understanding Jane” and Olivelawn’s “Hate” surpass the original recordings. DARYL

SANDERS

S-WRAP AND RASHAD THA POET, A BREAK FROM THE TRAP (BE ECLTC)

If you’ve listened to T.I. in the past 20 years, you know drug-trade hotspots are “the trap,” and the trap contains multitudes. However, there are lots of ways to get trapped and be trapped, by external circumstances and by what’s going on inside you. Either sidestepping or finding your way out of all of these traps is the main thread of the new spoken-word collaboration from S-Wrap and Rashad tha Poet. It’s the third in an ongoing series of releases marked by insightful and uplifting verses and fantastic psych-funk music that’s integral to the poems. Any time more of our spoken-word poets make records like these, I’m here for it.

▼

STEPHEN TRAGESER

BRIGHT

10.13 COREY SMITH WITH SPECIAL GUEST JEB GIPSON

10.14 HALLOWEEN DRAG BRUNCH

10.14 SUZANNE VEGA - AN INTIMATE EVENING OF SONGS AND STORIES

10.14 LAVENDER ROOTS: CELEBRATING QUEER COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY

10.15 BILLY JOEL & 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 GUEST BUDDY

10.19 FACE VALUE: A TRIBUTE TO PHIL COLLINS

10.20 BLKBOK

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

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Friendship Commanders reckon with the past on Mass

BY ADDIE MOORE

OCTOBER 29, 2023

A fall harvest celebration on the patio. Enjoy an upscale coursed dinner featuring unreleased and in-progress wines, chef-curated cuisine and live music.

IN THE WAKE of her 2022 singer-songwriter album Conversations With My Other Voice, Grammy-winning singer-guitarist Buick Audra found loose thematic ends that needed tying up. She was also still coping with the 2020 death of Marc Orleans (Sunburned Hand of the Man, Spore, Enos Slaughter), who was a friend early in her career. To sort out the cathartic truths, she turned to Friendship Commanders, her heavyrock duo with drummer Jerry Roe, and made Mass, their new LP out Friday.

“I don’t think I chose,” Audra says when asked about her message’s medium. “I think the songs presented themselves with certain riffs and musical sensibilities, and I knew it was Friendship Commanders from the outset. The first couple of songs I wrote for the record — there’s a song called ‘A Retraction’ toward the end of the record, and then ‘Fail,’ which is about my friend Marc Orleans who died. Those were both Boston stories, so sort of I knew it was going that way, and I knew those were Friendship Commanders songs because they were so noisy and loud-leaning.”

Audra’s gotten this personal with Friendship Commanders lyrics since at least the 2020 EP Hold on to Yourself, which she calls “a body of work about being an adult survivor of childhood abuse.” This time around, she tells a warts-andall story about a turbulent season of her life she spent in Massachusetts.

“After the first few songs, I realized that I was writing about a time and place,” says Audra. “That was inspired by my friend Marc’s suicide. … He was an old Boston friend who had long since also left Boston and lived in New York. When he died, I was like, ‘There’s more to this experience that I need to talk about.’ But I never thought I would tell this story, because it’s not the most flattering story.”

“It wasn’t intended to be a conceptual work,” adds Roe. “It just ended up that way. We realized it was all connected eventually.”

With Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Gits, Black Sabbath and the entire pantheon of sludge and doom metal pioneers as their guides, Friendship Commanders tell the interconnected

tales in “Move,” “High Sun,” “Distortion,” “Blue” and other songs with the ferocity and volume of Southern stoner-rock gods Jucifer and the attention to lyrical detail of an Americana wordsmith. Beyond having a compelling backstory for fans of Orleans, “Fail” serves as the ideal entry point to Mass — and the whole Friendship Commanders catalog, for that matter — due to the unholy marriage of its grimy instrumentation and its inviting vocal melodies.

“I think Marc would’ve liked it because it’s not a piano ballad that pretends life is perfect,” Audra says of “Fail.” It’s a noise-rock song for a noise-rock guitarist.”

The album concludes with “Dissonance,” a nearly five-minute recitation that sums up each overarching theme. In line with the nine songs that precede it, the poem’s words emote a swirl of emotional unease and hard-learned elation that’s unrelentingly dire yet far from defeatist. Audra wrote the verses in the van on the way to Nashville from Salem, Mass., where instrumental tracks for the rest of the album were co-produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou. She recorded “Dissonance” back home in one take.

“Jerry had never read it or heard it before I recorded it, and then I said, ‘What do you think?’” explains Audra. “He was freaked out initially. He thought it was long. We both thought it was a big risk to end a metal record with a spoken-word piece, but it also seemed to fit and end the body of work, so it’s there.” ▼

Mass out Friday, Sept. 29, via Trimming Shield Records

PHOTO: ANNA HAAS

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

Sunday, October 8

CONVERSATION AND PERFORMANCE

Prine Time Chicago

3:00 pm · FORD THEATER

GUITAR LESSONS

with former Musicians Institute and Austin Guitar School instructor MARK BISH

Jazz, Rock, Blues, Country, Fusion, Funk, Flamenco, etc. Technique, theory, songwriting. Programs available. 40 years exp. 512-619-3209 markbishmusic@gmail.com

Saturday, October 14

SONGWRITER SESSION

Kostas

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, October 14

CONVERSATION

Chris Hillman and Bernie Leadon

2:30 pm · FORD THEATER

Sunday, October 15

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Vickie Vaughn

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, October 21

HATCH SHOW PRINT

Block Party

10:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 3:30 pm

HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY

Saturday, October 21

SONGWRITER SESSION

Kim McLean

NOON · FORD THEATER

WITNESS HISTORY

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FULL CALENDAR

AIN’T THAT AMERICANA

BY P.J. KINZER, EDD HURT AND RON WYNN

ON ARRIVING at The Vinyl Lounge for Thursday night’s AmericanaFest showcase featuring queer artists, it was notable that the venue — across Fourth Avenue South from the fairgrounds and Wedgewood-Houston — was far away from the bigger festivities. The space was nice, and the sound was warm but crisp. Especially considering that several shows throughout the fest are billed specifically as amplifying queer perspectives, it felt odd that this show was so far off the beaten path from the rest of the fest, and that there was no real indication that the performers were members of the LGBTQ community. Gay musicians write insightful songs about lots of things in addition to ones about being gay, and certainly shouldn’t have to hold up a sign about their identity; still, suffice it to say the vibe was off a bit.

Alone onstage with his guitar, Willi Carlisle gave the crowd a real sense of what he’s about — and not just musically. He’s a charming storyteller, and every word that came out of his mouth, spoken or sung, was weighted with an undeniable earnestness. He ended his set with a church-camp-type call-and-response song about accepting others; maybe not the material you’d expect when a budding Americana artist shows up at youth group with an acoustic guitar.

Nick Shoulders took the stage next at 9 p.m., playing the final night of his tour. He plays the kind of country music that you might hear at your grandmother’s house, or if you were a frequent listener to WSM in the 1980s and ’90s. His timeless, mellow croon came with a lot of world-weary lyrics. A friend — who is a big fan of Shoulders — once described him as the kind of guy who sings like Hank Williams while wearing a Cannibal Corpse T-shirt.

Mya Byrne’s 2022 single “Autumn Sun,” a standout from her 2023 LP Rhinestone Tomboy, was the inaugural release from Kill Rock Stars Nashville, the new imprint of the famed Pacific Northwest indie label. Those of us who spent a lot of our time listening to Universal Order of Armageddon and Team Dresch associate KRS with lo-fi recordings of incredibly noisy, obtuse punk acts. Byrne is not that. Her soulful Tricia-Yearwood-esque voice pairs with her immaculate guitar work and a nailed-down rhythm section. Byrne’s flavor of ’70s bluesinformed country feels at times like music you hear in movies about over-the-road truck drivers — think Jerry Reed or Johnny Paycheck — paired occasionally with Jay Farrar-esque melodies. Adeem the Artist, who you might recognize from the cover of the Scene’s AmericanaFest preview, was perhaps the closest artist to mainstream country — or at least mainstream country in an ideal world — on the bill. Adeem described themselves onstage as a “nonbinary,

pansexual country musician,” and their voice and melodies hit in that prime Prine zone: a sweet spot that will always go over well with anybody who likes good songs. The Knoxville tunesmith took a few well-deserved shots at Marsha Blackburn, Bill Lee, white liberals who drive gentrification and even AmericanaFest itself for not promoting musicians from marginalized communities enough. The biggest surprise of the set was the closer, a solo acoustic cover of “Uptown Funk” that stayed pretty true to the original.

Arriving amid the festivities at The Blue Room Friday night, it seemed unlikely David Nance and Mowed Sound would reference the late Gram Parsons or Robbie Robertson; it turned out to be partly true, at least. Nance, who is from Nebraska, did pay tribute to Nashville resident Melanie Safka by soundchecking with a fragment of her 1970 song “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” Nance’s tunes are both carefully conceived and spacious, and they come dressed in licks that allude to blues, soul and rock ’n’ roll. Nance would begin a song with an inside-out guitar lick that James Schroeder would echo, often in harmonies that reminded me of The Allman Brothers, Television and maybe even Robbie Robertson’s biting guitar work with The Band. The songs — Nance says the band is working on a new album that’s tentatively set for release in early 2024 — overran themselves, but every tune had hooks, creative tension and plenty of kinetic energy.

If Nance & Co. skewed blues, William Tyler and the Impossible Truth pulled off the trick of integrating krautrock rhythms into instrumentals that recall the glory days of the late-1960s Nashville band Area Code 615. Here, Tyler’s group included drummer Brian Kotzur, bassist Jack Lawrence, pedal-steel player Luke Schneider and keyboardist Jo Schornikow. They turned “Area Code 601,” a song that appears on their new live album Secret Stratosphere, into something that might give Area Code 615 member and legendary Nashville session cat Charlie McCoy pause for a second. But the song — the performance was augmented by guitarist Yasmin Williams, who played psychedelic-folk licks throughout — fits into the tradition of Nashville instrumental records McCoy pioneered, as Tyler & Co. know. As the set wound down, Tyler said, “There is no way in hell we are Americana, but we snuck in.” Maybe he’s right,

but the music spoke for itself.

At its best, Americana offers a home for artists whose music for whatever reason doesn’t neatly fit into other tightly defined formats. That asset was notably on display Saturday night at 3rd and Lindsley as this year’s AmericanaFest concluded in dynamic fashion with strong sets from two acts who clearly deserve more mainstream exposure.

Both Amythyst Kiah and Leon Timbo can be classified in the simplest manner as singersongwriters, but that hardly comes close to describing either their appeal or approach in full. Kiah’s strong, evocative voice and material are one part drenched in roots, country and old-time strains, but equally fueled by the sonic edge of rock and the storytelling flavor of the blues.

When Kiah belted out the defiant theme of her signature tune “Black Myself,” it was impossible not to be moved by its authoritative flair and declarative power. Her set also included a superb solo number she performed on banjo, and she wrapped things doing a spiritual piece with a chilling authority that personified seeking and achieving salvation through song, even if only for the moment.

Timbo seamlessly combines so many idiomatic elements in his music it’s hard to cite them all. He is the son of ministers, and a gospel edge cuts through every tune. But he obviously loves the folk-soul hybrid popularized by Bill

Withers, and the Timbo family band blazed through emphatic covers of “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t tell me,” the affable Timbo said often throughout his energetic set. He also did a poignant original, the titular song of his 2021 LP Lovers and Fools, which he dedicated to his parents. He wrapped his set with a powerhouse cover of electric blues legend Freddie King’s “Going Down.”

Among other things that deserve criticism in Americana, it’s easy for artists across the genre to fall into a pattern of sameness. This is clearly not the case, by any means, for Kiah or Timbo. ▼

PHOTO: STEVE CROSS

PHOTO: H.N. JAMES

PHOTO: PAIGE KEITH

TYLER, THE CREATOR: WILLIAM TYLER AND THE IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH

PRECIOUS STONE: AMYTHYST KIAH

BYRNIN’ FOR YOU: MYA BYRNE

DEMONSTRATIONS

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JUST AHEAD OF its 40th anniversary, Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense is returning to theaters. Restored in 4K, the iconic 1984 Talking Heads concert film opens this week at the Belcourt as well as select AMC and Regal locations. To celebrate the occasion, we rounded up an esteemed assortment of critics, musicians, podcasters and media experts to give us their takes on Demme’s masterwork, viewed by many as the greatest concert film of all time.

We’ll lead off with late, great Scene editor and film critic Jim Ridley, who was a fervent fan of Stop Making Sense

JIM

RIDLEY, CRITIC/ICON/SOUL OF THE CITY

The first concert I ever saw was the Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues tour at Municipal Auditorium in 1983; it made me a concertgoer for life, but I’m not sure I got as much out of it live as I did reliving it through Jonathan Demme’s peerless performance film, Stop Making Sense. There’s no dialogue or framing device — the conceptual arc of the show removed any need for that nonsense — but in some ways it’s the perfect expression of Demme’s career-long fascination with the building of communities and with performing troupes as families (and vice versa).

The director’s love of people and performers radiates from the film, and he caught the band at its joyous peak, from frontman David Byrne’s mesmerizing solo entrance to “Psycho Killer” to his big-suit romp through “Swamp” to a chill-raising “Once in a Lifetime.” And the shared spotlight on Heads Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (whose side project Tom Tom Club gets a sizable sidebar), as well as auxiliary members Bernie Worrell, Steven Scales, Alex Weir and Lynn Mabry, makes this a kind of anti-Last Waltz — a whole greater than the sum of its parts … and if you feel like dancing, we’ll allow it.

DAVE WHITE, AUTHOR/PODCASTER/CHEF

You already know Stop Making Sense is perfect. Therefore, a memory: The only screenings in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas, were midnights at the town mall’s multiplex, precluding a pre-film treat of Orange Julius (mall hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.). And though I’d already seen Big Boys at a punk club and Amy Grant at a bowling alley, it still felt like my first live show.

T. MINTON, HISTORIAN/SOCIOLOGIST/MUSICIAN

Tina Weymouth’s style is the defining temporal outline. Her rhythms: compact, syncopated. Her melodies: structured, uncluttered, vivid. Her fashions: quintessential, enduring. Those gray coveralls alone are as trance-inducing as a targeted Wildfang ad. Where do I purchase? And

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

Newly restored in 4K, Talking Heads’ iconic Stop Making Sense returns to theaters

COMPILED BY JASON SHAWHAN

JASON SHAWHAN, MEDIA PROPHET/DJ/ PERFORMANCE ARTIST

I miss Jonathan Demme. His was an egalitarian heart and a perceptive, constructivist eye. The way this performance builds, both musically and structurally, stays with me. The beatbox-via-boom-box opening. The way Ednah Holt and Lynn Mabry’s vocals are the glue that, on “Slippery People,” snaps everything into place. The gut-punch majesty of “What a Day That Was.” Not even what Diane Keaton did for beige in Annie Hall compares to what Tina Weymouth, Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt do for slate in this movie.

BOB ROBERTS, NASHVILLE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL/ NASHVILLE RHINESTONE/LOCAL THEATER HISTORIAN

if that spider-leg dance hasn’t inspired an ethnochoreological dissertation, it’s time.

Stop Making Sense

PG, 88 minutes

MICHAEL JAY,

SONGWRITER/PRODUCER/JUROR-OFALL-TRADES

Stop Making Sense is Jonathan Demme’s best film next to The Silence of the Lambs. And that’s coming from someone who normally doesn’t love concert films. I find that it’s difficult to capture on film the excitement and energy of a live performance. Being there as an audience member, you occupy the same general space as the performers, and each is feeding off the other’s physical presence of being there. It’s hard to replicate that experience in a movie theater. But in the case of Stop Making Sense, Demme found a way to capture Byrne’s performance art in a way that’s very cinematic. No other music film looks, feels or sounds like it. The fact that it was released in the early part of the music-video era suggests that the visual style of the film had an enormous influence on the music videos of that time. It’s a groundbreaking, landmark achievement that I never tire of watching.

CRAIG

D. LINDSEY, CRITIC/HISTORIAN/CURMUDGEON

I remember walking in a few minutes late to a press screening of Stop Making Sense, which was getting a 15th anniversary re-release at the time. I entered the theater right when David Byrne was stumbling around an empty stage during his lone performance of “Psycho Killer.” I immediately assessed that this was gonna be an experience. It still is.

CRAIG MACNEIL, PODCASTER/NIGHTLIFE IMPRESARIO/EDITOR

When I was 5, my mom took me to see the Rolling Stones concert film Let’s Spend the Night

Opening Thursday, Sept. 28, at the Belcourt and Regal and AMC locations

Together per my request. Age 8, I failed to convince my brother to take me to see This Is Spinal Tap. Somehow I managed to find out about any and every music film. By then I was already a fan of Talking Heads, who I knew from “Burning Down the House,” and my brother worked at a fabulous old-school video store — they had everything. I asked for Stop Making Sense and was immediately obsessed. I can’t count how many times I played that tape, or how often my brother brought it home for me. I was already subscribed to Rolling Stone, and Talking Heads were now my favorite band. I couldn’t wait for Little Creatures (the album) and True Stories (the album and the film). Of course, I was crushed when the band split. But it wasn’t just about the band. Stop Making Sense’s entire look, feel and presentation were unlike any concert movie I’d ever seen. The Zeppelin film sucked, AC/DC’s was pretty good … but this was a FILM. So I became a Heads fan, a lifelong Demme fan and a first-week renter of Something Wild. Because of that revelation of a film, I might have been the only 12- to 14-year-old who was thrilled to read that Ray Liotta would star in Goodfellas. Maybe. Possibly all the kids were gassed up. We can’t really check their Twitter history though, and I couldn’t really share these delights with anyone at school. But Talking Heads and Jonathan Demme helped to make my private universe — and thus my childhood — full of things I could look forward to.

Just as concept albums in the ’60s changed the idea of what a record could do and be, Stop Making Sense showed that a concert doc didn’t have to follow the traditional formula. So many of its predecessors hewed to the idea that a concert on screen had to be broken up with interviews in order to be compelling, in order to tell a story. Demme and Talking Heads instead showed that the stage performance itself could drive a narrative, even if only in subtle ways. From the slow additions of each piece of the musical ensemble to the integration of props, costumes and projections as part of the performance rather than mere window dressing, Stop Making Sense helped make a cinematic leap between concert documentary and stage musical into a new concept that has rarely, if ever, been equaled since in energy, talent and style.

D. PATRICK RODGERS, EDITOR/DRUMMER/CRITIC

The first time I watched Stop Making Sense, I recall thinking to myself, “How is it possible that the guy who directed this also made Something Wild and The Silence of the Lambs?” Indeed he did, and all within the same sevenyear span — along with Married to the Mob and Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia Jonathan Demme contained multitudes, and was quite possibly the only director capable of adequately capturing an experience as outsized and monumental as a Talking Heads performance at the height of their power.

TYLER GLASER, GRIMEY’S/BASEBALL HISTORIAN/ MUPPET OF A MAN

Every time I watch Stop Making Sense, the film forces me to rethink not just the performance of music in general, but the recording of performed music. The entire experience has aged perfectly, and each time I revisit the film I think I’m more and more engulfed in the performance. It is truly one of the greatest captured performances of live music. ▼

ACROSS

1 Blown away

5 Black Widow’s former org.

8 Off-roaders, for short

12 Style of René Lalique’s glasswork

13 Fair-hiring inits.

14 Campaign to increase Election Day participation

16 Unidentified, informally

17 Key worker?

20 –

22 When one might show one’s age, informally

23 Tribute of a sort

24 House of reps?

25 Seven-___ (worst hand in Texas hold ’em)

26 Alternative to paper or plastic

29 Shapeshifts

30 Figure in a house listing

31 Exactamundo

34 Temporary, controlled power shutdown … or a hint to reading four of this puzzle’s answers

40 Jimmy Carter’s Secret Service code name

41 News stand?

42 Pale in comparison?

46 Liqueur in some coffee cocktails, familiarly

48 Foil, e.g.

49 Very quick point

51 Green standard

52 Org. opposed to “speciesism”

53 Activities that relieve psychological stress

56 Rugged dirt track racers

58 Extremely, informally

60 –

61 A-number-one

62 In ___ (completely)

63 Certain sodas, for short

64 Spot that’s hardly spotless

65 Annual multimedia festival, informally

DOWN

1 Poet laureate Limón

2 Suddenly fell through, as a plan

3 Green booking

4 Fait accompli

5 French military cap

6 Flipping out

7 Like suspicious eyes

8 Openly proclaim

9 One in a onesie

10 Twitch streamer with a digital avatar, say

11 Parody

15 –

18 Awards show recognition, informally

19 Bartender’s stock

21 Something that’s designed to be buggy?

25 “Je pense, ___ je suis”: Descartes

26 Blacken

27 Spanish gold

28 Doubleday who didn’t really invent baseball

29 2016 title role for Auli‘i Cravalho

32 Pioneer in color TV broadcasting

33 See the world

35 Named, in brief

36 Caffeine-containing ingredients once used in soft drinks

37 Theater section for Statler and Waldorf, on “The Muppet Show”

38 About-face

39 Gridiron stats

42 Nile reptiles

43 Carried away by the tide

44 Drag race conveyance

45 Poker call

47 Event for a unicorn, perhaps, in brief

49 ___ Theatres

50 They might be checked at a restaurant

53 GPS figs.

54 Game with a rhyming name

55 –

57 Having just dropped

59 Crew directive

PUZZLE BY ROBIN YU

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NOTICE OF SALE UNDER MECHANIC’S AND ARTISAN’S LIEN

Cumberland International Trucks, Inc. (“Secured Party”), pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 66-14-103, 66-19-101, and pursuant to a Notice of Claim of Mechanic’s/Artisan’s Lien dated January 17, 2023, as amended hereby, holds a lien for repairs against a certain 2009 International 4000

VIN: 1HTMMAAL39H098074

owned by Oviedo Construction

LLC or Robert Leo Harrison, which Secured Party improved by providing various service, labor, and parts.

Pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann.

§ 66-14-104, notice is hereby given that Secured Party, pursuant to applicable law, will sell the Vehicle described above by Public Sale to be conducted as follows:

Date of Sale: October 6, 2023

Time of Sale: 1:00 p.m. CST

Place of Sale: Exo Legal PLLC

818 18th Avenue South, Tenth Floor

Nashville, Tennessee 37203

(or other place designated in the Notice of Sale)

Agent for Creditor: Exo Legal PLLC

The Public Sale will be conducted by Exo Legal PLLC, pursuant to a separate notice provided to Invoice Debtor (and any other interested party). For information, contact David Anthony, Exo Legal PLLC, at (615) 869-0634.

As to all or any part of the Vehicle, the right is reserved to: (i) sell part or all of the Vehicle and/or delay, continue, adjourn, cancel or postpone the sale of any part of the Vehicle; 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.

Secured Party shall sell, grant, convey, transfer, and deliver unto any successful purchaser all of the right, title, and interest in and to the Vehicle which Secured Party has a right to sell as a Secured Party and no further or otherwise. The Vehicle will be sold “as is”, “where is”, and “with all faults”, without

any representations or warranties, expressed or implied and subject to any prior liens or encumbrances, if any. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Secured Party has not made and will not make any representations or warranties regarding the Vehicle, the condition of the Vehicle, warranty of title or marketability of title and the conveyance shall be with all defects and without any warranties, expressed or implied, including warranties of merchantability, condition, or of fitness for a general or particular purpose.

David M. Anthony, Exo Legal PLLC

818 18th Avenue South, Tenth Floor

Nashville, TN 37203

Telephone: (615) 869-0634

NSC: 9/21, 9/28/23

NOTICE OF SALE UNDER MECHANIC’S AND ARTISAN’S LIEN

Cumberland International Trucks, Inc. (“Secured Party”), pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 66-14-103, 66-19-101, and pursuant to a Notice of Claim of Mechanic’s/Artisan’s Lien dated March 1, 2023, as amended hereby, holds a lien for repairs against a certain 2015 International 4000 VIN:

3HAMMAAL1FL585991 owned by FAM Logistics Service, LLC, which Secured Party improved by providing various service, labor, and parts.

Pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-14-104, notice is hereby given that Secured Party, pursuant to applicable law, will sell the Vehicle described above by Public Sale to be conducted as follows:

Date of Sale: October 6, 2023

Time of Sale: 1:00 p.m. CST

Place of Sale: Exo Legal PLLC

818 18th Avenue South, Tenth Floor

Nashville, Tennessee 37203

(or other place designated in the Notice of Sale)

Agent for Creditor: Exo Legal PLLC

The Public Sale will be conducted by Exo Legal PLLC, pursuant to a separate notice provided to Invoice Debtor (and any other interested party). For information, contact David Anthony, Exo Legal PLLC, at (615) 869-0634.

As to all or any part of the Vehicle, the right is reserved to: (i) sell part or all of the Vehicle and/or delay, continue, adjourn, cancel or postpone the sale of any part of the Vehicle; 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.

Secured Party shall sell, grant, convey, transfer, and deliver unto any successful purchaser all of the right, title, and interest in and to the Vehicle which Secured Party has a right to sell as a Secured Party and no further or otherwise. The Vehicle will be sold “as is”, “where is”, and “with all faults”, without any representations or warranties, expressed or implied and subject to any prior liens or encumbrances, if any. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Secured Party has not made and will not make any representations or warranties regarding the Vehicle, the condition of the Vehicle, warranty of title or marketability of title and the conveyance shall be with all defects and without any warranties, expressed or

implied, including warranties of merchantability, condition, or of fitness for a general or particular purpose.

David M. Anthony, Exo Legal PLLC

818 18th Avenue South, Tenth Floor

Nashville, TN

37203

Telephone: (615) 869-0634

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