NATIVE | SEPTEMBER 2017 |NASHVILLE, TN

SEPTEMBER I SAW THE

2017 SIGN

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- REAL IS RARE THESE DAYS -

AVAILABLE NOW

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CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2017

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THE GOODS 19 Beer from Here 20 Cocktail of the Month 24 Master Platers 77 You Oughta Know 81 Animal of the Month

FEATURES 28 Liz Cooper & the Stampede 38 Any Old Iron 48 Chef Chris Anderson 58 Artist Spotlight: I Saw The Sign 68 Jung Youth

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COFFEE BREAKFAST LUNCH OPEN DAILY 7AM-4PM 700 FATHERLAND ST. 615.770.7097 SKYBLUECOFFEE.COM E S TA B L I S H E D 2 0 1 0

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BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS - MERCY LOUNGE !!! AND ALGIERS - MERCY LOUNGE CIVILIAN w/ DEREK WEBB & MORE - THE HIGH WATT RAPTURE: THE ULTIMATE BLONDIE EXPERIENCE + HYNDESIGHT: THE PRETENDERS EXPERIENCE - MERCY LOUNGE

THE SKATALITES w/ SOUL RADICS AND THE WILLIES - MERCY LOUNGE FAT TONY w/ F L A C O - THE HIGH WATT JONATHAN TYLER - MERCY LOUNGE BIG THIEF w/ JON KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD - CANNERY BALLROOM MANDOLIN ORANGE - MERCY LOUNGE YACHT ROCK REVUE - CANNERY BALLROOM STRAND OF OAKS - THE HIGH WATT MAX FROST w/ NAWAS - THE HIGH WATT GLOSSARY 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW - MERCY LOUNGE THE COURTNEYS w/ BUTTHOLE - THE HIGH WATT COU VIOLENTS & MONICA MARTIN w/ MYZICA RON POPE w/ AGES & AGES - CANNERY BALLROOM AGAINST ME! w/ BLEACHED AND THE DIRTY NIL - CANNERY BALLROOM TORRES - THE HIGH WATT # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E

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president, founder:

publisher, founder:

ANGELIQUE PITTMAN JON PITTMAN

creative director:

MACKENZIE MOORE

editor in chief:

CHARLIE HICKERSON DARCIE CLEMEN

art director:

COURTNEY SPENCER

operations manager:

JOE CLEMONS

copy editor:

community

representative: production:

KELSEY FERGUSON

GUSTI ESCALANTE

writers:

photographers:

HILLI LEVIN CHARLIE HICKERSON JONAH ELLER-ISAACS HENRY PILE COOPER BREEDEN ANGELINA MELODY DANIELLE ATKINS DYLAN REYES DANIEL CHANEY JONATHON KINGSBURY JESS WILLIAMS

interns:

MORGAN JONES YASMIN MURPHY ZOE KELLER AMBER NASH

founding team:

founder, brand director:

MACKENZIE MOORE JOSHUA SIRCHIO TAYLOR RABOIN DAVE PITTMAN

founder:

CAYLA MACKEY

for all inquiries:

CLEAN, COHESIVE PRODUCT P H OTO S QUICK TURNAROUND

HELLO@NATIVE.IS

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LUNCH SPECIALS

Have your event catered with Nashville's best Puerto Rican food.

Call the number below for details!

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BOOKER’S BRAMBLE

by Ben Clemons of No. 308 photo by Angeli n a Me l ody

When I first moved to Nashville, I had a mulberry tree in the backyard. In late summer/early fall, the berries would fall from the tree, ripe and delicious. Pies are great, but let’s face it, drinks are better. This cocktail, named after my pup Booker, is a nod to Dick Bradsell’s Bramble, a mid-80s classic that combined berries, citrus, and spirit for a lovely warm-weather sipper.

My recipe takes on a tiki twist (shocker?) by making a mix that allows the flavors to mingle a little longer, not unlike a sauce or soup. Sidenote: don’t throw away the solids from the mix. They’re great on toast, ice cream, or whatever else you’d like. Enjoy!

THE GOODS 1 1/2 oz Four Roses Bourbon 1 1/2 oz Booker’s Mix* 1/2 oz lemon juice FShake all ingredients and serve in your favorite tall glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a mint sprig.

*Booker’s

Mix:

4 cups fr esh o 1 can lyc r frozen blackb hee (w erries 2 cups w ith liquid) a te r 2c 1/2 tsp g ups sugar round c innamo n

Cook al l ingred ients to sugar is geth dissolve d. Transf er until the and blen er to a b d till pu lender ré e for 20 m d. Steep inutes o the puré ver low heat. Str e well and ain allow to cool.

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A BARBERSHOP FOR MEN & WOMEN OF ALL AGES WA L K I N A N Y D AY O F T H E W E E K F O R A Q U A L I T Y C U T O R S T Y L E

$15 BUZZ | $24 STYLE A BARBERSHOP FOR MEN & WOMEN OF ALL AGES

WALK IN ANY DAY OF THE WEEK FOR A QUALITY CUT, COLOR, OR STYLE F R A N K L I N - E . N A S H V I L L E - S Y LVA N PA R K - T H E G U L C H W W W. S C O U T S BA R B E R S H O P. C O M

E A S T N A S H V I L L E - S Y LVA N PA R K

W W W . S C O U T S B A R B E R S H O P. C O M

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REVOLUTIONIZING THE MALE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

NOW OPEN IN THE GULCH 1008 DIVISION ST.

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WWW.RUCKLEANDRYE.COM

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MASTER PLATERS

CHICKEN FRIED CHICKEN S A L S A

V E R D E &

M A S H E D

C H O R I Z O

P O TAT O E S

G R A V Y

B Y C H E F B R I A N R I G G E N B AC H O F T H E M O C K I N G B I R D

PHO TO S BY DAN IELLE AT K IN S

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THE GOODS

DIRECTIONS

INGREDIENTS FOR CHICKEN:

METHOD FOR CHICKEN:

4 cups buttermilk

FPlace the buttermilk in a large bowl and add as many dashes of hot sauce as you’d like (this is the chicken marinade). Place the chicken in the buttermilk and cover the bowl. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, up to overnight.

vinegar-based hot sauce, to taste 16 boneless, skinless chicken thighs 2 cups all-purpose flour 3 eggs, lightly beaten salt and pepper neutral oil for frying INGREDIENTS FOR POTATOES: 5 russet potatoes, peeled and quartered 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup heavy cream 8 oz salsa verde INGREDIENTS FOR GRAVY: 10 oz Mexican chorizo 3 tbsp all-purpose flour 3 tbsp butter, room temperature 4 cups milk

FHeat the oil in a large pot to 350 F. Remove the chicken from the marinade and set it in a bowl. Set up two bowls, one with the flour and one with the eggs, and season both with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour, then the eggs, then once again in the flour, shaking off any excess. Fry the chicken in batches until cooked through and golden brown, about 8 minutes per batch. Place the fried chicken on a wire rack and tent with foil while you cook the rest of the chicken.

METHOD FOR POTATOES: FBoil the potatoes until soft. Drain and allow to cool slightly. Add the potatoes to a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the butter, cream, and salsa verde. Mix the potatoes until light and fluffy, about 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

METHOD FOR GRAVY: FHeat a saucepan over mediumhigh heat. Add the chorizo and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 5 minutes. Drain off any excess fat. Combine the flour and butter in a small bowl, then add the mixture to the chorizo and cook until golden, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat and whisk in the milk. Bring the gravy to a gentle simmer and cook until thickened and slightly reduced, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Keep warm.

PLATING: Place the mashed potatoes on a plate, top with two pieces of chicken, and spoon the gravy over the top. Serve immediately.

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have coffee, will travel.

@thedosetruck

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AHEAD OF HER UPCOMING AMERICANAFEST PERFORMANCE, LIZ COOPER TALKS ABOUT TRADING A DRIVER FOR A FENDER MUSTANG

BY HILLI LEVIN PHOTOS BY DYLAN REYES

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Her golf record throughout high school was so WHEN LIZ COOPER WAS VISITING her family home in Baltimore for Christmas last year, she made impressive that it landed her a college scholarship, a New Year’s resolution: Be as creative as possible and all signs pointed toward a professional career for the next year—whether it’s painting, drawing, on the greenway. But “as it got more and more serimaking music, or any other medium. Whereas most ous, it wasn’t something that fulfilled me,” she says. of us would have fallen off the wagon well before “Everything in my life was pointing in the opposite Valentine’s Day, Cooper shows no signs of faltering. direction—this isn’t right, this isn’t what you should “As soon as I came back [to Nashville], I just started do. As I got angrier and angrier and more confused, hanging out at the house with Okey Dokey, Rayland I started writing more songs. It was more of a chalBaxter, and The Weeks. All these people are over lenge to me than golf. It’s more fun to be challenged there all the time and are constantly being creative. than to do something that’s easy. That’s not life. It This is a great spot for me to be right now. We’ve all shouldn’t be easy; it’s not easy.”

So without much of a concrete plan, the optimistic just been writing together,” she says with a smile.

Her determination seems to be paying off, consid- and determined Cooper made the move to Nashville ering she’s just wrapped up the recording process for in 2012. “I just ended up moving down here, and the Liz Cooper & the Stampede’s first full-length album, people I lived with were fantastic. There was a psythe psych-rock-influenced Window Flowers, at the chic medium, a massage therapist, and a life coach, and we lived in Lily Tomlin’s old house in Green Hills historic Welcome to 1979 Studios.

When I meet up with Cooper after her photo shoot, . . . I think it was definitely haunted.”

Soon she recruited Ky Baker and Grant Prettyman she’s unwaveringly warm and friendly, and it’s clear that she’s just generally pretty stoked to talk about to make up the powerhouse rhythm section of The playing music. “This spring, as the flowers are bloom- Stampede. “When we first started playing music toing, our Window Flowers will be blossoming as well,” gether, Ky would play as loud as he could, so that’s she jokes. The twenty-six-year-old, who recently why I started playing electric guitar,” Cooper jokes. celebrated her birthday, says her songwriting for her “We started playing in my basement together, and it most ambitious project to date was influenced by up- just fit. We all just worked together in a cool way. We heaval—by straying from a clear life path and coming had no intention of being where we are now. We just love to play music.” into her own musically in her early twenties.

In the five years she’s been here, she’s found that Cooper’s earliest music memories consist of running around backstage while her father played drums the city, and especially the local DIY community, is in small bands around the thirteen towns they lived definitely the right fit for her free-spirited approach in over the course of her childhood. Later, he intro- to music. “It’s always nice when you have a supduced her to her most prominent musical touch- portive, close-knit friend group. The community in stone—the sounds of the hippie movement that Nashville right now is crazy. I feel like I absorb all the spanned the ’60s and ’70s, most notably The Grateful time and learn from other people. It’s so much fun Dead. For anyone who’s been in the crowd at one of and everybody is uplifting. It’s cool because it can be The Stampede’s live shows, this should come as no competitive, but toward yourself. People put the fire surprise: the band can easily carry songs to the eight- under you.”

Each time I bring up Cooper’s music with friends minute mark through extended jams that never feel around town, I almost always get the same reaction: a tired or forced.

But long before Cooper picked up a guitar, she was knowing nod and a reverent remark about her guitar what some would consider a golf prodigy. “I just had playing. And I’ll admit, in a landscape where the skills a natural swing and hand-eye coordination, which is of female guitar players are still underrated, this alwhy I think I can play guitar. I started playing when I ways makes me smile. When asked about her considwas seven years old. I grew up working in the country erable talent, she demurs, saying, “I don’t know what clubs: in the pro shop, the restaurants, the grounds I’m doing. People always ask about my guitar playing, crews. I’ve raked hundreds of sand traps,” she says. how I do it, but I don’t know! I follow my ear and “That was my main thing that I did, that was what I I pay attention to patterns of where my fingers are.”

Cooper’s rasp-edged voice paired with her straightwanted to be when I grew up.”

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“IT’S MORE FUN TO BE CHALLENGED THAN TO DO SOMETHING THAT’S EASY. THAT’S NOT LIFE. IT SHOULDN’T BE EASY; IT’S NOT EASY.” # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E

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forward, personal lyrics lend a raw quality to her songs. In a previous statement, Baker described her songwriting as “darkly lit and reclusive,” which seems like a fitting description of 2014’s “Monsters,” but her more recent material has a warm and spacey current running throughout, especially when Prettyman jumps in to harmonize. “I won’t let you slip through the cracks in my mind,” she earnestly reassures in the reverb-soaked “Kaleidoscope Eyes,” a line that touches on her self-professed tendency to get lost in her own daydreams. At their live shows, it’s mesmerizing to experience how lush and expansive these tracks are with just three people on stage, especially on the menacingly bouncy “Fondly & Forever” (which brings to mind Grizzly Bear’s infectious “Two Weeks”), or the churning, hard-hitting groove of “Dalai Lama.”

As far as influences go, she cites the hippie movement that her freewheeling parents introduced her to, which leads to an endearingly hippie-influenced answer: “The ’60s, ’70s. Meeting people.

My surroundings. Traveling. Jazz. Bossa nova. Random music that I’ll hear when I’m driving through random places in Colorado where there’s only one station, and it’s really strange and I’m stuck with it. Everything influences me.”

Although Cooper draws from a wide array of influences, she still manages to be an artist that is difficult to pin down— her refreshing blend of psych-rock and folk keeps her from neatly fitting into a well-tread category. Regardless of what you’d call her sound, people like it. She’s recently landed gigs at Austin City Limits, Audiotree Music Festival, and this month’s AmericanaFest.

But festival headlines aren’t what Cooper and her bandmates are ultimately after, she says. “I love music because of the way it makes me feel and the way that it makes other people feel. It makes people happy and it helps people. It’s helped me. That’s my little contribution: to help someone. That’s what I like to do.”

Liz Cooper & the Stampede play AmericanaFest on Saturday, September 16.

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HOW ANY OLD IRON’S ANDREW CLANCEY WENT FROM WORKING IN A SCRAPYARD TO OUTFITTING BEYONCÉ

BY CHARLIE HICKERSON | PHOTOS BY DANIEL CHANEY | MODELS: LYDIA TOUCHTON, SOFIE ROVENSTINE, AND DILLON ARNOLD OF AMAX TALENT

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ON THE OPENING TRACK OF OASIS’ often (and rightfully) maligned third album, Be Here Now, Liam Gallagher—over some slippery wah-wah guitars from his brother Noel—snarls, “Coming in a mess / going out in style . . . d’you know what I mean?”

While sonically it’s not Oasis’ finest moment, the lyric summed up the Manchester band’s mythos better than anything since 1994’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” For better or worse, the Gallaghers were a sneering, defiant embodiment of the poor-boys-done-good narrative that’s pervaded popular music since there was popular music. They grew up in a council home, survived all sorts of trauma, and worked bluecollar jobs before becoming the biggest stars in England. As Noel stated in a 1997 interview with Q Magazine: “I fucking love that line, ‘Coming in a mess, going out in style.’ We were a bunch of scruffs from Manchester, and we’re going out in a Rolls Royce.”

I can’t help but think of it as I talk with Andrew Clancey, the designer behind Any Old Iron, in the brand’s flagship Shelby Avenue boutique. Maybe Gallagher’s line is on my mind because Clancey grew up just outside York, England, about seventy miles northeast of the Gallaghers. Maybe it’s because we’ve enjoyed a steady Brit-Pop breakfast all morning, listening to everything from Blur to The Stone Roses to (naturally) Oasis. Or maybe it’s because Clancey says, “D’you know what I mean?” about every two minutes in a thick northern accent that makes him sound like an estranged member of The Smiths.

Whatever the reason, I’m certain of one thing: Clancey does know what Noel means.

Before he opened the original (and now-shuddered) Any Old Iron boutique in New York, which Clancey claims was the first British-designer-

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only vintage shop in America; before to do, Clancey entered a brief breakhe moved to Nashville and started dancing phase (he would practice on designing AOI’s signature sequined a tarp during lunch at the scrapyard) blazers and jumpsuits; and before Be- and even became a semi-pro street yoncé, Miranda Lambert, and Aubrey skater (he won seventh place in the Plaza started wearing said blazers and European Skateboarding Championjumpsuits, Clancey worked in his fam- ships). At twenty-six—in a move that was naturally difficult for his parents ily’s scrapyard.

“I left school at sixteen, went straight to accept—Clancey, the last male in into a scrapyard—straight into work- his family, moved to Leeds to “get ining,” he remembers. “The business volved in the clubbing scene.”

Translation: he dyed his hair pink started in 1872, so it was kind of expected. My grandma was in it, my dad, and started working the door at a gay his two brothers, two uncles . . . It was club called SpeedQueen. In a story that really hard work, but the only expres- sounds like an outtake from Freaks and sion, the only way of getting out of it, Geeks, Clancey remembers spraying was probably the music scene in York. his hair black before going to a “posh” There was always bands, there was Christmas dinner in York with his famalways different people touring into ily, only to get exposed by the rain: “I got out of the car, and it started raining, York.”

The forty-nine-year-old has fond— and the black just ran down my face. I and enviable—teenage memories of had black lines down my face. I had to seeing The Clash and UK Subs come go to the toilet and wash my face. [My through town. And though he admits dad] was kind of humored by it, d’you that the first record he ever purchased know what I mean?”

SpeedQueen led to organizing local was Sister Sledge’s We Are Family, it was punk that initially offered Clancey comedy events like The Leeds Comedy Festival, but the entertainment indusa glimpse of life beyond the scrapyard.

“Punk was really the beginning of try proved to be . . . well, a little much. my kind of identity,” he says. “I mean “I did [comedy] to get out of nightclubat sixteen, I was too young to go [to bing, just to try and get away from the shows]. You’d just sneak in. You used clubs, because the hedonism was ridicto drink six pints of Screwdriver, throw ulous. It was like these DJs and people up outside, and then go home and going out, you’d go out and you would think it was a good night. D’you know be up for two days and stuff,” he says, before starting to laugh. “It turns out what I mean?”

Though the punkier elements of the comedians are worse than the DJs. Clancey’s style remain (AOI offers a We were up for three days!”

While Clancey was living out a scene handful of T-shirts that serve as cheeky homages to the Sex Pistols), his im- from 24 Hour Party People, his younger mersion in the punk scene was pretty sister, Julia, was making a name for short-lived. “Music genres in England herself in the styling world (she’s now change so fast,” he explains. “It was a prominent LA-based designer who’s punk, and then there was a local village shown at London Fashion Week and disco scene, then it was New Roman- appeared in Vogue and ELLE). After tic, and then there was mod and ska . . . landing a Coke ad in Australia, Julia You would kind of go through all these got gigs with bands like Catatonia, Stechanges, especially as a kid—you’re reophonics, and Steps. Though he was still working the club scene in Leeds, not sure exactly what you want to do.”

While figuring out what he wanted Clancey came down to London to help

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her style a video with one of the actors from the never-ending UK soap Coronation Street. The shoot was “crappy,” but Clancey found something that stuck: free stuff. He got 800 quid—that’s a little over $1,000 USD—worth of clothing from the shoot. “Just for doing a bit of steaming and putting a few safety pins on things, embellishing a few things,” he says, still kind of incredulously.

Following that first shoot with Julia, Clancey took styling odd jobs in London before moving to Ibiza, where he ran clubs and continued to style. While it was a far cry from the designing he does today, it beat break-dancing during his lunch break. “It wasn’t like I had a proper career,” Clancey explains. “I had four or five different jobs, but it was a hell of a lot easier than driving a lorry in a scrapyard and being a forklift truck instructor.”

In his late thirties, Clancey “got serious about styling”: he moved to London, got engaged, and followed his now ex-fiancée to New York, where he hoped to make it in the fashion industry (and get a work visa).

In the city, he met Christopher Melton, an arts entrepreneur who told him, “There’s no British-only brand boutique in America. It’s never happened. So let’s just do it.”

The original Any Old Iron boutique opened on the Lower East Side in 2010 and offered vintage pieces from UK mainstays like Sir Tom Baker, Fred Perry, Bolongaro Trevor, A Child of the Jago (the brainchild of Joseph Corré, son of Vivienne Westwood and Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren), and Vivienne Westwood (at the time, AOI was America’s only Westwood carrier).

A note about the name: “Any old iron?” is what English scrapyard workers yelled from the back of their carts as they collected metal. This obviously works well with Clancey’s family history, but there are other levels to the name too. “Any Old Iron” was a British music hall song first made famous by Henry Champion in 1911. In nearly intelligible cockney slang, Champion tells the story of a guy who does his best to look dandy, but his pocket watch and chain leave a little to be desired. As a result, everyone from a group of kids to the mayor of London roasts him by asking, “Any old iron?” (Think of it as a turn-of-the-century version of the “What are those?” meme). Oh, and “any old iron hoof” can also mean “poof” (a pejorative for gays in the UK) in cockney rhyming slang.

Various connotations aside, Clancey’s Any Old

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Iron boutique was a niche attraction for post-WWII Anglophiles, and Clancey, in his mod suits and mismatched plaid, became something of a character around the LES. He sold pieces to Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber; he was one of Time Out’s “Most Stylish New Yorkers” in 2013; The New York Times wrote that AOI—and by extension, Clancey—was “a fixture on the local party scene.” Even his Boston Terrier, Monkey, was a star around the neighborhood.

“Such a melting pot. It was just like being in another London,” Clancey says of his time in New York. “We were doing the more flamboyant, drag-queen, kind of clubby sort of thing. We wasn’t doing the douchey uptown sort of stuff. It was all Brooklyn kind of warehouse parties. It was definitely a fun time, but it nearly killed me.”

He’s not kidding. After years of working—and partying—six days a week, he went to the ER one day for what he thought was serious indigestion. It turned out to be “a proper heart attack.”

“I was killing it—having a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, d’you know what I mean?” he says, shaking his head. “Writing checks my body wouldn’t cash, all that rubbish.

But it was such a minor one that it was like it was just a scare . . . That was a bit of a wake-up call, you know?”

A month after the heart attack, Melton and Clancey decided to uproot AOI to “somewhere that is still cool, still a big city, that isn’t as crazy.” New Orleans and Austin were on the shortlist, but Nashville, with its (ever-decreasing) countryside and storied hospitality, appealed to Clancey’s York sensibilities.

“The North of England is like the South of the States,” Clancey explains. “People are kind of more neighborly, nicer . . . The sense of humor is the same— we kind of take the piss out of each other a little bit.

It’s definitely not as uptight.”

At the encouragement of The Trunk’s Abby Franklin and Christiev Carothers (she’s a stylist who’s married to the “Big” half of Big & Rich), Clancey and Melton visited Nashville. Six months of renovations and rezoning red tape later, Any Old Iron opened in the former S. W. Simpkins Grocery building. I use the term renovations loosely: the space, which Clancey shares and lives in with his girlfriend, Opium Vintage founder Laura Citron, looks largely the same from the outside. The zoning restrictions did, however, limit AOI to only four business days a week.

The time off gave Clancey some ideas. Inspired by everyone from Yohji Yamamoto to Westwood, he

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New name, same great people and services!

We are thrilled to announce that we are merging with our sister skincare experts at Ona Belle Meade and changing our name to Ona Skincare East Nashville. We look forward to the year ahead and continuing to serve your skincare needs!

East Nashville:

1013 Fatherland St.

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Belle Meade:

6592 Highway 100 Suite 1

began to design his own line. It started small, he explains, with just one jacket: “I found the sequins that I wanted in Nashville, actually. It was in Textile Fabrics I found the flip-sequin fabric, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if this can be made,’ ya know?”

With a little help from a production team—Clancey “owns up” to not spending sleepless nights in front of a sewing machine—AOI’s first original collection was born, just in time for 2016’s Nashville Fashion Week. And then he made six more collections, which he showed in St. Louis, Charleston, Palm Springs, and South Walton.

“I’m a bit obsessive,” Clancey says. “I’m like, I’ve got to make, I’ve got to get it done, I’ve got to kind of make up for lost time. Flipping hell, I’m getting up to near fifty. I want to retire on a beach by the time I’m sixty, at least sixty-five, so I’ve got to get my shit together.”

Right now, getting his shit together involves releasing yet another collection in mid-October, shows in Vegas and Miami, and a couple of to-be-announced celebrity collaborations. But more than anything, Clancey’s got his bedazzled eyes set on bigger manufacturing to satisfy the increasing demand for AOI. “I’m just kind of getting us out there into many different places,” he says. “If you want to be a national brand, then you have to travel. And then if you want to be a global brand, then you have to travel even more.”

In other words, Beyoncé wearing AOI’s $5,000 Any Old Rhinestone Jacket (now renamed the Any Old Beyoncé Jacket) last year was only the beginning. Like an evangelical Johnny Rotten, Clancey hopes to spread his gospel to everyone, so that you, too, may be able to release your inner punk.

“Everything I make, I want you to walk in the room and feel like you’re a rockstar,” he says. “[I want you] to feel like you’ve just walked onstage, and everyone’s turned round looking at you, you know what I mean? That’s kind of how I feel about clothing . . . It’s about being individual and having the balls to wear something a little unusual.”

Any Old Iron is open Thursday through Saturday 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday through Wednesday by appointment only.

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science of the south M I C H E L I N - S TA R R E D CHEF CHRIS

ANDERSON BLENDS

SOUTHERN CLASSICS WITH HIGH-TECH COOKING, AND HE’S COME TO NASHVILLE TO SHARE HIS REMARKABLE CULINARY VISION

BY JONAH ELLER-ISAACS | PHOTOS BY DANIELLE ATKINS

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THE LAMB IS RAW. Thinly sliced.

The purple potatoes are thinner. So are the tomatoes. Here and there, atop the lamb, are black dots. Fermented black garlic I’m told, with the additive xanthan helping maintain the dots’ firm margins. Alongside a single black dot on each piece of lamb are two or three red-orange translucent pearls: currants, after something called “spherification.”

The process involves blending the fruit with strange-sounding, sciencey ingredients like sodium alginate and giving it a calcium bath, which triggers chemical reactions that bind the mixture into caviar-like beads.

Chef Chris Anderson’s expert hand assembles the pieces just so, using tweezers to place feathery microgreens, one by one, among the angled cuts of pink, finely striated flesh. The layers and folds of this lamb carpaccio are sitting on a square block of Himalayan pink salt. Served with the transition between summer and fall in mind, the ensemble recalls fallen leaves resting on stone.

I take it all in and gather my first taste. There’s so much all at once.

Smoky, umami richness. Fresh, bright, sour tang. The crunch of a perfectly fried wafer of indigo potato. Gentle pops as the currant pearls burst. An effervescent, dusty undercurrent of

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salt. Even the tiniest bites boom with flavors. The dish is a work of art. And it’s only the first course.

Welcome to the wildly creative, award-winning cuisine of Chef Chris Anderson. One of the newest additions to the local fine dining scene, Anderson moved to Nashville and into his executive chef position at the Hutton Hotel not even three months ago. The hotel is in the midst of a major renovation, and that includes an entirely new restaurant built from the ground up, according to Anderson’s vision.

Our shared table is too short. The six-foot-four chef stretches his legs out from underneath the table, and in a syrupy North Carolina drawl states, “I want to show this city what we can do. I wanna rip it apart and rebuild it. I want to make sure that we do very well here, and that we show what good cuisine really can be . . .

Showing people a new kind of food.”

Anderson left the South to pursue his culinary career, and after stops in France, Chicago, and California, he’s returned to his homeland with the ultimate prize: a Michelin star.

Michelin guides are better known in Europe, where the difference between one, two, or three stars (or— gasp—no star at all) can be a matter of culinary life and death. “It’s prob-

ably the highest accolade you can get,” Anderson explains, with awe and humility. “I’ve always had tons of respect for it . . . For a cook, that’s like the end-all and be-all. That’s like taking home an Academy Award. It essentially signs, seals, and delivers you as somebody that’s the top of the top.”

Anderson earned his star cooking at Moto, a now-shuttered Chicago restaurant once at the forefront of the molecular gastronomy movement, sometimes known as modernist cuisine. Chefs like Anderson’s mentor, the late Homaro Cantu, Wylie Dufresne (of wd~50) and Ferran Adrià (of elBulli) used specialized equipment and a chem lab of unusual ingredients to create recipes designed to delight and surprise: edible paper, savory balloons, deep-fried liquids. The possibilities were only limited by imagination.

This futuristic cooking makes up a critical part of Anderson’s kitchen repertoire, but the most advanced technology is only as good as the ingredients involved. Hydrocolloid additives notwithstanding, the chef’s shopping list is remarkable in its simplicity. Over the course of his experience at Chicago restaurants Alinea, L20, and Moto, Anderson noticed a trend: Why are we not doing anything

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and make it art.”

American? he asked himself.

To demonstrate the practical application It’s clear the chef ’s passion runs as deep as his Southern roots. He raises his voice. of his food philosophy, Anderson recalls a “I had an epiphany: I love my culture. I was recent tasting menu. It started with the idea like, ‘Why are we not using country hams of a Russian caviar service, but then he took instead of Ibérico hams? Why aren’t we it down South. “Instead of doing Russian using buttermilks instead of creams? Why caviar like beluga with vodka, I did North aren’t we using the things from us? Why am Carolina osetra [sturgeon roe] with moonI not using Carolina rice? I’m using sushi shine! It’s like, this is what we do. This is rice.’” Anderson begins pounding the table. what we taste. This is what’s embodying our “You know, I don’t understand. What makes heart and soul . . . I think it’s really cool that our products—” Pound. “Not.” Pound. I’m able to come down here, being a native “Good.” Pound. “Enough.” Pound. “To serve from the South, to be able to showcase evin fine dining?” By the end, he’s practically erything I’ve learned and to bring a new light to what we already know.” yelling.

Distant construction sounds from the I want to shout back, “I don’t know!”— but I think the question is rhetorical. It’s Hutton’s renovation have buzzed and hamalso a good one. Middle Tennessee has mered and clanged throughout our converone of the greatest concentrations of agri- sation. Chef Anderson is recapping a recent cultural diversity in the country, if not the appearance on Nashville Today where he world. As our city has grown, so has its ap- made a hot crab dish, blending the soft-shell petite for high-quality meats, dairy, and pro- crabs he grew up eating in coastal North duce, and Nashville’s proximity to so many Carolina with hot chicken–style spices—to farms has kept it at the forefront of the “meld me and Nashville,” he explains. He’s farm-to-table movement. Chefs like Ander- just wrapping up his story when suddenly son can trust that local ingredients will be the construction is no longer distant. A top-notch, and diners have come to expect high-decibel screech echoes through the the same. A customer base with a more dis- walls, and the two of us jump. When the cerning palate presents a challenge, as the ear-shattering whine finally stops, we share chef lays out. “If I cook something that’s a nervous laugh and both admit we’d exwith country ham and rice, it better be per- pected the walls to come crumbling down fect. ’Cause you cook it in a culture where around us. A few short questions later, the they eat that stuff, they know what it should room explodes with sound yet again, and it’s clear that our conversation has reached a taste like. They know how it should be.”

I ask Anderson how he exceeds expecta- natural stopping point.

I return after a few days, meeting the tions for his clientele when presenting the same kind of food their mommas cooked for chef in the Hutton’s lobby, which smells of them. “You have to go for the artistic side of fine incense and money. I follow Anderson things,” he tells me. “You can’t just slap it on down a maintenance staircase into the hoa plate and send it out. [That] doesn’t mean tel’s basement and sprawling service kitchen. that it’s not delicious still. You can have red Signs bearing corporate platitudes adorn the beans and rice—hate to say this, but it might walls: “Estoy Listo! I Am Ready!” Anderson look like a big poop pile on a plate!” Ander- confirms with a chuckle that they belonged son laughs. “But! It’s absolutely delicious. I to the previous owner and won’t be sticking had to figure out how to take that food and around. His new restaurant won’t open for that culture and pump all the techniques a few months—“We’re still coming up with and knowledge I’ve learned from all these the new name,” he tells me—but he’s generother chefs into my culture, into my food, ously agreed to prepare a few sample dishes.

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“I WANT TO SHOW THIS CITY WHAT WE CAN DO. I WANNA RIP IT APART AND REBUILD IT.”

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My tiny table for one is boxed in by racks overflowing with platters, glassware, plates: the many tools of the restaurant trade. Once the food arrives, I couldn’t care less for creature comforts, or lack thereof. It’s all about this food.

We start with the lamb on the salt block plate. Anderson follows it up with rabbit prepared three ways. There’s a tenderloin, no bigger than a fig, rolled in leek ash. Next, a rabbit bacon, minced and accompanied by a roasted green onion.

“Definitely get the bacon with the onion,” Anderson advises. “It’s gonna be kinda salty. The onion’s gonna cut some of that with the charred flavor.” The final piece is a leg, cooked sous vide and stuffed with a sausage made from leftover slivers and finely ground bones. Anderson points out that adding the sausage helps him use the entire animal; he’s also made a stock and jus from the carcass.

Finally, he completes the meal with venison, also sous vide and finished with a brief sear. The meat is resting on what appears to be dirt. And it is, sort of. The chef calls it mushroom dirt: he takes cremini mushrooms, roasts them thoroughly, dehydrates the blackened fungi, then partially rehydrates them. The result is a dark, deep brown crumbly pile that closely resembles soil in both look and feel.

Alongside the venison are hollowed-out pearl onions filled with more caviar-like beads, this time made of aged sherry vinegar. A few dabs of mushroom purée and the plate is done. It’s another gorgeous creation from Anderson, a combination of the simple—a perfectly prepared cut of protein with mushrooms and onions— and the complex chemistry of his pearls and dirt.

As I’m putting the dishes aside, Anderson ends our time together, telling me, “The chef has to be perfect for the food to be perfect.” Without a full kitchen, without a support staff, Chris Anderson has given me a magical meal, already close to perfect. I can’t imagine the amount of culinary perfection that’s going to spring forth once the chef has his restaurant.

In a couple of short months, Nashville’s eaters will be able to see—and taste—for themselves.

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MUSICIANS CORNER'S 2017 SEASON FEATURED AMAZING PERFORMANCES FROM LANGHORNE SLIM, JOHN PAUL WHITE, SON VOLT, RAYLAND BAXTER, THE WEEKS, AND MANY MORE. THANKS TO ALL WHO JOINED US FOR ANOTHER WONDERFUL YEAR OF FREE MUSIC IN CENTENNIAL PARK. 56 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////

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VIEW INFORMATION FOR FUTURE EVENTS:

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A R T I S T S P O T L I G H T:

I SAW THE SIGN

BY MEGHAN WOOD | PHOTOS BY JONATHON KINGSBURY

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I STARTED PAINTING SIGNS WHEN I WAS A KID. My older sister and I were raised by our mom, and the three of us used to spend summers traveling to music festivals and street fairs up and down the East Coast.

While my mom was busy organizing these events, my sister and I were left to run amuck like dirty rascals. One year she helped us scrap together a little food truck to keep us busy. As with any business, we needed a sign. So I found a scrap sheet of plywood behind a dumpster, a few cans of house paint someone had lying around, and a guy who was trusting enough to let a thirteen-year-old girl use his jigsaw. I went

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to town carving out a bootleg version of the old theater marquees I’d always been fascinated by as a kid, even going so far as to paint fake little bulb lights inside each of the letters.

Looking back, it really wasn’t bad for a first attempt. In fact, it was good enough to get me work painting signs for other vendors, and by the time I was seventeen, I was being hired to paint signs for the festivals themselves.

As a kid, I didn’t really think that much of sign painting. It was just a skill I had scrapped together out of necessity, and upon graduating from high school, I set out to find my real career. But after a few years of traveling and trying on different hats, I eventually came to realize that I had found my calling years ago.

At that time, I had never met a sign painter before. My skills had been learned in a bubble, and if I was going to pursue this as a profession, I wanted to do it right. No more dumpster plywood and crusty old house paint. So at twenty-one, I started taking sign painting seriously, and I managed to find an old sign painter who was willing to teach me the traditional techniques of the craft.

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This was no easy feat, I might add.

Sign painting used to be the standard.

You wanted a sign, you hired a person to paint your design or logo. But just as so many crafts have suffered from the onslaught of technologies capable of producing a faster and cheaper substitute, sign painting was all but wiped off the map during the 1980s. So finding a guy who was still working in the field was kind of a miracle.

Once I’d learned the basics from my mentor, I made the move to Nashville. I spent a couple of years painting during the day and waitressing at night, working up a name for myself and honing my skills.

And then one day I got a call from Teresa, owner of Mas Tacos. She wanted a sign painted on the ground outside her shop that would help direct people in line. Meeting Teresa was a big turning point for me. I had spent so much time practicing sign painting—and I was getting pretty good—but I was absolute crap at navigating the business side of things. She was instrumental in showing me the ropes. She taught me the importance of valuing myself and my work, as well as the importance of sticking to

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“WE WORK IN A COMPLETELY MALEDOMINATED INDUSTRY, ONE THAT MOST PEOPLE DON’T EVEN KNOW EXISTS ANYMORE.”

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my word and running a tight ship.

That “Stand Here” sign will forever be one of my favorites.

After Mas Tacos I started getting more work than I could handle, and eventually I quit waitressing to start sign painting full time. That first year and a half of running a business was absolutely insane. Looking back on that time now makes my head spin.

But then I met Stinky, my little sign-painting angel. Stinky helped me turn a ragtag basement operation into a fully functioning signpainting company with a resume that boasts the largest existing sign in Nashville.

I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be able to do what I do. I was twenty-four when I started I Saw The Sign, with no college degree and zero business experience. I run my business alongside a twenty-threeyear-old badass babe who dropped out of art school to take a risk on a company that was being run out of my living room at the time. We work in a completely male-dominated industry, one that most people don’t even know exists anymore.

For instance, when I tell people I’m a sign painter, more often than not people have no idea what I’m talking about. It takes people a minute to re-conceive of the notion that people still make things with their hands. When I talk more about what I do, I watch this nostalgic smile creep over people’s faces, and more often than not they lean in excitedly wanting to hear more, as if craving a familiar story from a long time ago.

We are not the fastest or the cheapest option. What we do takes time and requires that people value quality above convenience.

And yet, we have more work than we know what to do with. Honestly, that gives me hope.

—Meghan Wood, I Saw The Sign founder

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EVER G N U J RAPPER

JUNG YOUTH

DISCUSSES EMO, BROKEN LEGS, A N D W H AT I T

MEANS TO BE TRUE

BY HENRY PILE | PHOTOS BY JESS WILLIAMS

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“THE KEY IS TO BE BRUCE LEE. YOU HAVE TO BE played parties and cover shows on Bardstown Road in Louisville. For a high school kid, playing in bars made LIKE WATER.” Justin Donahue, who performs under the name Jung for good stories at school, but Donahue was getting Youth, talks through his freestyle method. He’s sitting tired of singing other people’s songs.

As the band was winding down, he started getting on a red sofa, reclined a bit. He uncrosses his legs and into freestyle rap. “My buddy Basil, a skateboarding leans forward with a bright white smile. “Don’t think graffiti artist, hooked me up with Fruity Loops, and we too much.” His eyes get wide. “It’s like speaking in were making beats.” Donahue felt like he could create tongues.” He pauses for a moment. He laughs at his something more interesting than what he was hearing own seriousness. from his own band and in pop music. But he was only Donahue is five foot seven with deep red hair. He’s at the beginning of his venture into hip-hop. all smiles. He talks with both hands. When standing, He enrolled at the University of Kentucky in Lexinghe bobs and weaves like a boxer. His eyes move around ton, where he worked toward dual degrees in Integratthe room in an attempt to connect with everyone. He’s ed Strategic Communications and Spanish.

He joined a charming and quick-witted. fraternity and freestyled at parties (mostly to impress Donahue grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. His family women), but he didn’t take music seriously.

“I needed was deeply religious. From as early as he can recall, he to be responsible,” he explains.

“I was planning on a was singing in the choir, sitting in a pew, or listening to career in marketing, but I was still working on poetry, religious music in the grade school car pool. He went to Friday fish frys. His fingers were crossed for a win at stream-of-consciousness writing, and freestyling.”

By his sophomore year, Donahue had earned the opcakewalk fundraisers. “I wanted to be a priest,” Donaportunity to study abroad. He transferred to the Unihue pauses, “until I got into hip-hop.” versity of Valencia in Spain with the goal of completing The change happened over time. Donahue was a his Spanish degree.

“I didn’t know anyone in Spain,” rock ‘n’ roll sinner, morally corrupted by the Internet he said.

“On the way there, I had a layover in Philaand MTV first. He started out on Britney Spears and delphia.

I saw a guy reading a book about Spain at the NSYNC, then he discovered rock ‘n’ roll with Jimi international gate.”

Donahue introduced himself to Hendrix. Songwriting appeared through James Taylor.

Robbie Link.

“Turned out, he was from Louisville and I He loved the creative friction between JAY-Z and Nas. knew his mom from church,” Donahue shakes his head.

“But country was my jam,” Donahue laughs. “John An“He and I became best friends.” derson’s ‘Seminole Wind’ was my number-one jam.”

In Spain, Link encouraged Donahue’s love of hipLouisville’s local music scene leaned toward hardhop.

On the thirty-minute walks from the bar to their core and alternative music. Donahue recalls seeing ska apartments, they would freestyle. Link would call out bands at the nearby Baptist church and metal at the leto groups of women, “Hey ladies, check this out!” and gion hall—he even watched someone make a molotov Donahue would rap. “He’d gas me up and I’d go,” Dococktail during a Chevelle set at a makeshift outdoor nahue says. festival.

Returning to the States, Donahue took an internship With these influences, Donahue’s singing turned in New York City. He reconnected with Link and they from the Catholic church choir to his own emo band, shared an apartment with Link’s brother. During the The Issues. “We were talking about the issues of the forty-five-minute train rides to and from work, Doworld,” Donahue says, admitting the earnestness of nahue wrote raps.

He continued going to parties and the music might have been religiously motivated. “We rapped over the music. were a high school, politically motivated, emo band.”

Back at college for his senior year, his life revolved Donahue filled notebooks with poetry but didn’t write around music more than ever. Stacks of notebooks the lyrics for their original songs. filled with lyrics and rhymes filled his room. A friend The Issues, who became Micawber (named for the gifted him a Macbook with Garageband and a mandate character Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield) to “Take music seriously.” Donahue rose to the occa-

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sion. Nearly every day, he would prop the laptop on a shelf and lean over the microphone, freestyling to Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak instrumental tracks. Those raps into the laptop became his first mixtape.

In 2011, he opened for Kool Keith at a club in Lexington—it was his first show as a rapper, and his first under the moniker 4D. “‘D’ is the fourth letter of the alphabet and the first letter of my last name,” he explains. “I also like numerology, and the fourth dimension is about time. I wanted my music to stand the test of time.”

But that nagging feeling of responsibility pulled hard.

Shouldn’t he have a career? Shouldn’t he reap the benefits of a four-year degree?

Shouldn’t he do the right thing?

Donahue got another internship, this time at a marketing agency in Lexington.

One of the clients owned several McDonald’s franchises. “He hired me to work for him directly,” Donahue explains. A lucky break, but something wasn’t right.

“He was shady. He was up to some questionable activity,” Donahue says, leaving out the details. But he stuck it out for nearly a year. One day, his employer offered to invest in his music career. The offer felt wrong. “I knew I didn’t want to be indebted to anyone,” Donahue says with intention. “And I knew then that all I wanted to do was music. So I quit.”

At the invitation of his friend Tom Melchior, who was convinced Donahue would find his place in Music City, Donahue visited Nashville in 2011. During his two-day visit, he met future Cherub guitarist and keyboardist Jordan “Nephew” Bartlett, who became his producer on future projects, and Classic Williams, who battled him in a freestyle rap for more than an hour. He also met beatmaker Aaron “Danny Melonz” Howard and future Cherub drummer Nick Curtis. The visit was enough to convince Donahue to make the move.

He and Melchior got an apartment on Hayes Street, across from Exit/In. Donahue was broke and didn’t go out, but he was writing furiously. Looking back, he recalls, “Before I moved to Spain, I had a dream about Spain. Before I moved to New York, I had a dream about New York. Before I moved to Nashville, I had a dream about my exact apartment. If I have a vision, I feel like I need to pursue it.

There’s a reason this is in my head.”

Behind his apartment was The End. There, he saw his first Nashville rap show with OpenMic, now Mike Floss.

He started working on projects with Curtis and Bartlett and shed 4D for a new title: Jung Youth. The name, he explains, comes from a college connection. “Back at UK, a friend and I would drive in his car and freestyle. We called ourselves ‘Young Youth.’ I wanted to honor my past but not take the whole name. I was also really into dream analysis.

So I took the name ‘Jung Youth’ from Carl Jung.” JUNG is also an acronym for Justice Under New Gods. “People worship new gods like the Kardashians and the Internet. I want to help people see through the facade,” he pauses and recalls his old high school emo band. “Maybe my music is still politically motivated.”

Two years after moving to Nashville, Donahue performed at Mercy Lounge as part of 8 Off 8th. He joined the Red Bull music program and opened for Mobb Deep at Exit/In. He also opened for The Cool Kids at Basement East. At that show, he took a risk that affected the trajectory of his music career.

“During my set, I saw an opening in the crowd off to the side. So I ran across the stage and jumped.” Donahue misjudged his jump. He hit the floor awkwardly and got tangled in some red velvet ropes that were behind the crowd. His face went ghostly white as he rebounded and sat on the edge of the stage. With the beat still going, he ad-libbed the line, “I think I broke my fucking leg / I probably should go back to bed.”

Truth is, he broke his fibula, but he hobbled back onstage and finished his set.

“A few weeks after I broke my leg, I had a recording session with Tommee Profitt, but I was gonna cancel. I was still in pain,” Donahue admits. “I hadn’t even driven since I broke my leg.” Regardless, he decided to go.

He and Profitt agreed to make it a short session. Donahue had the word king rolling around his head, and Profitt built up an ominous half-note bass track. High-pitched strings balanced the bottom end, and a driving drum track gave the music a freight-train-on-the-loose feel. “I was sitting on a stool with my leg propped up on another stool,” Donahue remembers. “And I just cranked out rhymes.” He shakes his head. “It’s ironic that I was recording a song with the line ‘So you better start running,’

“IF I HAVE A VISION, I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO PURSUE IT. THERE’S A REASON THIS IS IN MY HEAD.”

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MEN. WOMEN. HOME. GIFT.

and I couldn’t even walk.”

“Only One King” was written and recorded in just over two hours. Shortly after the track was fully produced, Donahue’s publicist presented it to some outlets for licensing. Almost immediately, the National Football League picked up the track. On the same day the deal was inked, “Only One King” premiered at the NFL draft. The track will be featured on promos for this upcoming season of Thursday Night Football. “‘Only One King’ is unique,” Donahue says. “It makes perfect sense given the situation. After I broke my leg, I stopped giving so many fucks. I went hard for a great show and broke my leg and then kept going. It’s proof that I want this.”

There’s more proof coming. Donahue has a concept album called Ambrosia coming in October, a deluxe edition of his album Stay Chill in November, and another full-length album after that. He’s prolific because he’s in love with his work. He’s in love with the raw honesty in rap. “If I can tell you’re telling the truth, then I’m a fan,” he says.

“I know what guys like Classic Williams have gone through, and I know he’s not telling a lie. Petty doesn’t bullshit.

Neither do STAN or Gee Slab,” Donahue says, celebrating his local peers.“In rap, people are telling their story, their truth. At the end of the day, if you’re not telling the truth, I don’t want to be around you. With the limited time that I have, I only want to be around people who tell the truth.”

For Donahue, the truth is more than stage lights or promo spots for the NFL. It’s something larger—something that helps people connect and find something more. “I can’t stand to see people get rich and just party,” he says. “These people ignore the things that are wrong with the world and don’t choose to make the world better. They may be safe in their bubble, but I live in the real world, and I can see a lot of people looking stressed out. I don’t think this is a dream. I think this is the truth.” He pauses and adds, “As Dead Prez said, ‘It’s bigger than hip-hop.’”

Jung Youth’s latest album, Ambrosia, will be available on October 6.

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YOU OUGHTA KNOW: KATIE SCHECTER

R

CHECTE KATIE S

sit info vi For more r.com te ec ch katies aby @schecib

If you’re a NATIVE reader or Dino’s-goer, you may be familiar with Katie Schecter: she appeared as a model in our Little Octopus feature back in June, and she bartends at the venerable Eastside watering hole. She’s also a musician, but this isn’t a Gisele Bündchen butchering The Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night” situation (that happened, listen at your own peril). Schecter’s the real deal: she actually played and toured for years in her native NYC before relocating here.

Her self-titled debut EP—produced by Adam Landry (Deer Tick, Vanessa Carlton)— mixes Mazzy Star–adjacent grooves and ambience with flourishes of trippy, desert-y psych-rock, courtesy of Cage the Elephant’s Nick Bockrath. On the whole, the record wouldn’t sound out of place as the score for a film set in Arizona, and it’s perfect listening if you’re still holding on to those last days of summer. Check out the album now, and read her answers to some Wizard of Oz–themed questions above.

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B A R & R E S TA U R A N T C O M I N G S O O N T O E A S T N A S H V I L L E

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ANIMAL OF THE MONTH

Written by Cooper Breeden*

The

Sew

I’ve had a lot of outdoor cats throughout my life. When it came to hunting, some were more successful than others, but no matter the skill level, one thing was constant: we could always expect our cats to leave us a dead shrew on our doorstep. Looking back, I now wonder why that was.

Are shrews bad at hiding, really dumb, or are there just so many of them that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel? I don’t know why the shrews were a favorite of our cats, but I can tell you a bit more about this little rodent.

So what is a shrew? Imagine a mouse with a pointier nose and smaller, beadier eyes. If you really want to get close, you can count their toes—shrews have five on each foot whereas most mice have four (but shrews have a reputation of being vicious, so I would actually advise against checking out their toes).

Here in Tennessee, we have nine shrew species, but they are all part of the Soricidae family. Though shrews live in a variety of habitats, many species prefer moist areas.

These may include floodplains, streambanks, marshes, bogs, and moist woods with plenty of leaf litter, moss, and old logs. The three most common species live in a wider variety of habitats and not just the wetter areas. Among these are the northern short-tailed shrew (the most common mammal in North America), which can be found in the eastern half of Tennessee.

The shrew is one of the smallest mammals on earth. In fact, the American pygmy shrew, another species that’s

native to Tennessee, is the smallest mammal in North America. But it’s one of the biggest eaters. Smaller animals have a larger surface area to volume ratio than larg animals, which is significant because it means that larger they cannot retain heat as efficiently and need a higher metabolism. For shrews and other small mammals, this translates to eating more food, relative to their weight, more frequently than a larger animal would. Shrews have to eat every few hours and may eat the equivalent of their body weight (or even more) in a day. As for what they eat, it is varied but generally consists of insects, arachnids, worms, and even seeds and small mammals.

If you were not familiar with a shrew prior to this article, you may recognize the term from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, where the protagonist of the story attempts to court the ill-tempered Katherina.

Shrew as a term to describe an ill-tempered woman came from the superstition that shrews could cause pain or sickness if they came in contact with an animal. While this is just folklore, one genus of shrews has a toxin in its saliva that it uses to kill its prey. But fear not, their venom is not potent enough to harm humans. As a matter of fact, there are accounts of shrews dying from fright. That brings me back to my childhood cats: maybe they caught the shrew so easily because it’s more of a scaredy cat than my kitties ever were.

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