DECEMBER 2016 THE SHADOWBOXERS
VITALITY VALUABLE VIRTUOUS VICTORIOUS VIBRANT VERTICITY
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Moto The Ivy Room
customized private dining experiences for groups up to 70
Kayne Prime The Union Room
Virago The Lotus Room
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MAKING SPIRITS
BRIGHT
ALL-NATURAL COCKTAIL MIXERS
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Come check out our 106" projector screen along with 10 other TVs--No need to leave your HOUSE to watch the games!
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SILVERADO’S FEATURING COUNTRY MUSIC ICON & SILVERADO RECORDS RECORDING ARTIST
JOE DIFFIE “I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS”
also featuring ZACK DYER “SNOW DAY”
plus MELISSA MICKELSON “THE CHRISTMAS SONG”
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TABLE OF CONTENTS DECEMBER 2016
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THE GOODS 19 Beer from Here 22 Cocktail of the Month 26 Master Platers 89 You Oughta Know 93 Animal of the Month
FEATURES
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30 Literary Spotlight: Tristen Gaspadarek 40 Skull’s Rainbow Room 50 Nate Bargatze 62 The Shadowboxers 74 Don VanCleave
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president, founder:
publisher, founder:
ANGELIQUE PITTMAN JON PITTMAN
creative director:
MACKENZIE MOORE
managing editor:
CHARLIE HICKERSON DARCIE CLEMEN
art director:
COURTNEY SPENCER
community relations manager:
JOE CLEMONS
editor:
community representatives:
production:
POLLY RADFORD KELSEY FERGUSON
GUSTI ESCALANTE
film supervisor:
writers: photographers:
CASEY FULLER LUKE DICK ITORO UDOKO CHRIS PARTON CHARLIE HICKERSON COOPER BREEDEN JEN McDONALD DANIELLE ATKINS REBECCA ADLER DYLAN REYES AUSTIN LORD LAURA E. PARTAIN
interns:
CARLY BLAINE PAULA RAMIREZ
founding team: founder, brand director:
MACKENZIE MOORE JOSHUA SIRCHIO TAYLOR RABOIN DAVE PITTMAN
founder:
CAYLA MACKEY
for all inquiries:
HELLO@NATIVE.IS
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Leave the Details to Us - Private Events for Up to 75
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LOCAL EYECARE. INDEPENDENT EYEWEAR.
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THE GOODS 1 1/2 oz Appleton Estate Reserve 12-Year Rum 1/2 oz Campari 1/2 oz Kronan Swedish Punsch 2 dashes Angostura bitters
F Stir all ingredients and pour into freshly iced rocks glass (I like to use large sphere ice). F Garnish with a grapefruit zest.
BIG SUR by Ben Clemons of No. 308 photo by j e n m c don a l d
I don’t need to tell you these are perilous times. This year has been tough, and well folks, it’s going to get tougher. This holiday season let’s try harder than ever to put our differences aside, love a little harder, dream a little bigger. Here’s my dream: Kerouac made me fall in love with Big Sur. I dream of motorcycle rides on winding cliff roads overlooking the ocean. A small house where I hide from humanity, grow a garden, and write my American novel. This drink is what I use to call on that dream from time to time, especially in this dark holiday season. In the words of another asshole writer: “Find what you love and let it kill you.” Happy holidays, family. Let’s keep it together.
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##NNATATIVE H VIVILLE IVENNAS ASH LLE
"BEFORE CHRIS STAPLETON THERE WERE THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS"
- R O L L I N G S T O N E C O U N T RY 2 0 1 6
RESPECT THE UNEXPECTED. VISIT PLOWBOYRECORDS.COM FOR NEW RELEASES
OUR ARTISTS: BLACKFOOT GYPSIES • BOBBY BARE • PAUL BURCH • BUZZ CASON • CHEETAH CHROME • CHUCK MEAD • THE FAUNTLEROYS • THE GHOST WOLVES • JD WILKES & THE DIRTDAUBERS • JIM ED BROWN • THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS
Riverside Villiage 14 0 0 M c G avo ck P i ke
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SCOUT'S
IN THE GULCH OPEN IN
DECEMBER!
hair: @jamieskyguy lens: @willvastine
A SALON FOR MEN & WOMEN OF ALL AGES
A BARBERSHOP FOR MEN & WOMEN OF ALL AGES
WALK IN ANY DAY OF THE WEEK FOR A QUALITY CUT, COLOR, OR STYLE
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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MASTER PLATERS
C ANDIED NUTS & OATMEAL
WITH SOUS CHEF CAMPBELL CRAIG OF PRIMA PHO TOS BY DAN IELLE AT KIN S 28 / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////// //////
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THE GOODS FOR THE CANDIED NUTS: 1 1/3 cup dark brown sugar 2 2/3 cup white sugar 2 tbsp & 1 tsp kosher salt 1/2 tsp smoked hot paprika 1/2 tsp dried chili 1 tbsp & 1 tsp cinnamon 4 egg whites, room temperature 4 tbsp water 4 lbs walnut or pecan halves or whole peeled hazelnuts FOR THE OATMEAL: 4 cups rolled oats 1 cup brown sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 vanilla bean scraped 8 cups hot water 1/4 cup maple syrup 1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup cream
DIRECTIONS METHOD FOR THE CANDIED NUTS: F Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. F Mix sugars, salt, paprika, chili, and cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps; set aside. F Beat the egg whites and water until frothy but not stiff. F Add the walnuts and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle the nuts with the sugar mixture and toss until evenly coated. F Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. F Remove from the oven and separate nuts as they cool. F When completely cool, pour the nuts into a bowl, breaking up any that stick together. METHOD FOR THE OATMEAL: F Combine all ingredients in a saucepot and cook until thick, stirring occasionally. F Garnish with candied nuts and enjoy! * This recipe makes enough for a crowd, so spread the holiday cheer by sharing it with friends and family.
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P O E M S
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I N T R O
B Y
T R I S T E N
I L L U S T R AT I O N S
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A N D
G A S PA D A R E K M O O R E
I f e a r t a l k i n g a b o u t p o l i t i c s w i t h m y f a m i l y. M a n y a f a m i l y g a t h e r i n g h a s e n d e d i n a p a re n t p l e a d i n g w i t h t e a r s f o r a c h a n g e o f s u b j e c t . I know what friends to speak with about politics. When I am hanging a ro u n d t o w n , I o f t e n h e a r, “ I d o n ’t m e a n t o b e a l l p o l i t i c a l , b u t . . . ” a n d I n o d w i t h c o n s e n t , “ I t ’s o k a y. I ’ m f ro m t h e N o r t h . ” J u s t k i d d i n g . I t ’s a n A m e r i c a n t h i n g — w e w a n t t o c u l t u r a l l y m u z z l e b u m m e r re a l i t y s o w e c a n p a r t y o n ! J u s t f i x a t e o n h y p e r p o s i t i v i t y, a p r i v i l e g e o f t h e n a i v e a n d w e a l t h y, i n a s t a t e o f d e n i a l . H e re w e a re : a p re s i d e n t i a l e l e c t i o n h a s p u l l e d t h e o s t r i c h ’s h e a d o u t o f t h e s a n d . H e y b i rd y, s t a y u p ! Yo u h e a r m e ? I t ’s a f o re v e r b a t t l e . I ’ m n o t t a l k i n g a b o u t b l a m i n g p e o p l e o r f i g h t i n g w i t h i n t e r n e t t ro l l s . I ’ m t a l k i n g a b o u t e d u c a t i o n a n d a d v o c a c y. I m a y b e d a r k , b u t I ’ m n o t c y n i c a l . T h e re ’s a l w a y s a s t r a t e g y f o r c h a n g e . But how can we subdue our enemy nonviolently? “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the re s u l t o f a h u n d re d b a t t l e s . I f y o u k n o w y o u r s e l f b u t n o t t h e e n e m y, f o r e v e r y v i c t o r y g a i n e d y o u w i l l a l s o s u ff e r a d e f e a t . I f y o u k n o w neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — S u n T z u , T h e A r t o f Wa r A f t e r t h i s e l e c t i o n , a t l e a s t w e k n o w w h o w e a re ; t h e re ’s n o m o re p re t e n d i n g . B u t , d o w e k n o w t h e e n e m y ? H e y b i rd y, l o o k t o t h e p o e t s . T h e y h a v e t h e a n s w e r s . Yo u r p a i n i s n o t n e w. I n f a c t , i t ’s v e r y o l d a n d i t ’s d u l l e d . D u l l e n o u g h t o g i v e y o u t h e l u x u r y o f f o r g e t t i n g i t . — Tr i s t e n *The following pieces are from Gaspadarek’s debut poetry collection, Saturnine, out now via Cosmic Thug Press.
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I AM THE SHERIFF Ragged from boredom The town crier touts Badges of an empty shell And the memorized jewels of her crown Made by the heat and pressure Of a pain so confused Searching for a mirror To reflect emotional images This messenger of gossip Knows no allegiance Craves only an outcry As she feeds on the grievance of strangers So I shot the messenger Always racing to report Her handpicked truth She meticulously sorts Cos I was tired of hearing Such sensational words Too bad she had to die for only telling me what she heard
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PLASTIC LAND Impressions of culture pave paradise Cut off our roots Seal off all breathing for clean boots We all nod back complicit with the notion that TV is dreaming and bathtubs are oceans Gunshots are thunder Light posts, the trees Landfills the hills And fans, the breeze Yes, Pillows are clouds And plastic is sand Overpasses are mountains And carpet is grass Models are poets Walt Whitman has found his brand pulling the weeds from wallpaper flowers as Botticelli's Kleenex soaks the tears of God’s shower And seeds of contentment are an antidepressant dulling your infinite sorrow
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NAKED POWER there’s a vine growing in the garden he is latching across the bed curling his arms around the neck of a mighty tower Her highness by the sun a sunflower She thought nothing of it confident in her own power a victor in the light lowering her leaves at night deep in summer’s sleep while the ivy entwines he maneuvers when no one is wiser the sunflower was alright with it stronger by the vine’s embrace sturdier than before that’s what love is for trust and symbiotic taste but when the farmer came along he saw only a weed strangling his beloved And with a motive to protect his seed He removed the vine with swift extracting speed as the hand of god can be And with his violent intervention He ripped his beloved sunflower from the ground unintentionally
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BIG TITS MARY Mom burned her bra and sent me to college But who am I kidding with all of this knowledge? Nobody likes a bossy baby. I am free to be: silent perfection a lean body of your affection an avant garde sex object feminine wiles that trick and after all of this, They’ll still call her big tits Mary because talkative girls are fucking scary
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TRISTEN GASPADAREK: For more info on Tristen Gaspadarek, visit native.is 38 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////
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Music City
W W W . M U S I C C I T Y O P T I C A L . C O M
25 MUSIC SQUARE EAST
(615) 750-5943
SKIN IS MONEY skin is money value justifies violence as if it’s some kind of excuse the final answer always is two arms angled outward saying:
CE M M E RP H Y O C A E TOGR PHO EASY
MADE
whatever, passion feels a transaction the heart wants hard numbers beauty is the bottom line primal bonds are now calculated by the meat grinder of statistical emotions nonchalantly defending cruelty with intellectual macro thrift as if rationality operates void of love
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FIRST
CLASS
FREE
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O N E N I G H T W I T H H A Z E L J O N E S
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ON THE HUNT FOR THE HISTORY OF SKULL’S
RAINBOW ROOM— AND NASHVILL E BURLESQ UE— WITH MADAM
HAZEL JONES
B Y
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D I C K
H & M
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P H O T O S
B Y
L A U R A
B Y
R E B E C C A
A D L E R
G O D W I N
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MEETING SOMEONE FOR THE FIRST TIME in a crowded place without ever having met them is some kind of psychological telltale. I’m no Carl Jung, but I can generalize pretty well. There are the control freaks. You might get a series of texts from them like: “I’m in the corner under the picture of Charro . . . I’m at the bar in a ridiculous hat . . . I’m about to walk in the main entrance right now.” Then there are the more carefree types who decide to rely on instinct. The latter is way more fun. I’m secretly hoping that one day I’ll agree to meeting a stranger in a bar, and when I get there, it will be that serendipitous day when one hundred other people will also be waiting for carefree strangers. For now, I’m just sitting in a taco joint, waiting to meet Hazel Jones, a burlesque dancer from the newly reopened Skull’s Rainbow Room in Printer’s Alley. My first email from Jones read: “I can show you around the alley, we could chat in my boudoir, or if you like, we could go on an adventure. If you like to talk and shop or talk and ride, we could hit the vintage shops or cruise in a classic car for our chitchat. Let me know what you prefer. XO, Hazel Jones.” Few first meetings offer that kind of intrigue. Yes to all of the above. Dwight Yoakam is playing on the shittyawesome speakers at Mas Tacos. I’ve just finished a Mexican Coke when the door swings open. Her personality seems to slip in the door a minute or two before her springy red curls. Dressed in a mohair crop top and Jackie-O shades, she’s barely in the cantina when she spots me and hollers across the room: “You ready?” Clearly she’s one of the carefree types. I hop in the passenger seat of a gigantic truck, and we head toward downtown. She picks right up into conversation, like we’ve known each other for years. Me: “What are you doing with this big truck? You got horses outside of town?” Jones: “It’s mine. I’ve been living in an Airstream trailer for a year. We got it in Phoenix last year, and we took it to Venice Beach and up to Oregon. We just moved out of the trailer and into an apartment across the street from Skull’s. I’m there all the time, and it’s easier for me to do that. Plus, she’s an old girl. 1972. It’s gonna be a cold winter, and she’s needs a bit of insulation.”
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Even though I’ve just devoured a couple carne molidas, Jones talks me into a cheeseburger at Robert’s Western World. After all, she’s in the business of indulgence. She seems to know everyone there. I grab a beer and she whisks me up to the tip-top of the building to meet the management there, telling me about her Robert’s tenure: “This was my first job when I came to Nashville. I asked around, and everyone said this was the coolest bar. Believe it or not, a bartending job at Robert’s is hard to get. When I turned in my resume, I wrote a little note to the owner on there: ‘Hey Jesse, long time no see.’ When the office manager called me about the resume, she asked how I knew Jesse. I just said, ‘We’re both friends of Fred.’ When I showed up, Jesse was there and totally took the bluff and acted as if we knew each other. I got the job and eventually confessed after we’d known each other a year or so.” The burgers come out, and Jones tells me about growing up seven and a half miles west of Remote, Oregon, in a primarily blue-collar logging culture. She began her singing career by replying to an ad in the classifieds. “I found these old men that had a blues band in their basement across the river in Vancouver, Washington. I was like seventeen, eighteen years old and I show up at their basement and they’re like, ‘What is this girl doing?’ So I started in blues, because that’s what was available.” Jones’ foray into burlesque was equally ballsy. “I found burlesque through Dita Von Teese and was mesmerized. I was going to college, and I heard Sinferno was hiring—they were the hottest burlesque cabaret in Portland, and they were holding tryouts in front of an audience. I just decided I was going to do it. I knew I’d be good at it. So, I watched a bunch of burlesque performers on YouTube and then went to the the S&M shop, Spartacus, and bought my first pasties. Sinferno held their tryouts at Dante’s club after the last act at 2 a.m. I was underage at the time and told them I was a burlesque performer from out of town. After their last act at 2 a.m., they brought me up. I was really nervous—it took a couple of whiskies to kill the fear. In front of a rowdy bunch, I sang ‘Minnie the Moocher’ and took my clothes off for the first time, and the crowd went wild. They said, ‘You’re hired every week from now on.’”
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“THE CREATIVE USE OF FEMALE SEXUALITY IS A POWERFUL TOOL.”
While on Airstream sabbatical with her new the buildout were aimed at respecting the husband, she got a call from Skull’s co-owner, Phil legacy and history of Skull’s. Many of the Martin. Phil knew Jones from her days singing and features of the club have been preserved— playing in his other Printer’s Alley club, Bourbon the stage and the bar are in roughly the Street Blues and Boogie Bar. “I had built a sub- same spots, the thick stone wall in the stantial following with my soul band at Bourbon back. Hazel Jones’ footsteps on stage are Street—when I played there it was packed and in roughly the same place as one of her stayed packed. Phil had heard that I used to do idols, a notorious and illustrious dancer of the burlesque in Portland, so after he opened Skull’s, ’70s, Heaven Lee. “Do you have anything on Heaven Lee?” she he called me to come work there and create a real, live-music burlesque scene. By the time I got back asks the librarian. Jones comes up empty-handed. to Nashville, he already had a bunch of really great I eventually find several articles on her. My favordancers. He wanted it to become even more of a ite is from 1974. Lee gets invited to an interview show, a throwback to the ’40s and ’50s with live with sports broadcaster Randy Smith during the music, not just an iPod, and he knew I could lead a MTSU basketball game. Being the savvy PR expert, band. So I came in July to head it up. I’m really fas- she agrees. During halftime, Smith calls her down cinated with the history of the whole place.” With to the middle of the court. All of the coaches and a burger and a root beer down, Jones asks, “The announcers scatter, not wanting to associate with her in public. Lee begins her interview by saylibrary is right around the corner. Wanna go?” ing, “Oh, Randy, so nice to be here with you and “Duh.” At the library, Jones walks straight to the refer- so many of my MTSU friends,” then proceeds to ence desk and asks for the file they’ve assembled name all of the men who had just gotten up and on Printer’s Alley. We settle into a study table left. Of course the not-so-subtle hint was that she overlooking Church Street and begin thumbing already knew these men from the club and was through the yellowed articles, popping our heads calling them out for giving her the cold shoulder. Lee rode a horse naked through Nashville in up now and again when we find something good— a quote, pictures of old dancers, the obituary of 1970 to protest pollution—then a bike in 1979 the original owner. We’re much louder than we (with clothes on and heels, but still) during the should be, but it seems like we can get away with fuel shortage. Even beyond her talent and appeal, Lee seemed to have a penchant and knack for pubit today. David “Skull” Schulman opened Skull’s in 1948. licity. I ask Jones what she likes so much about During his nearly half-century tenure there and Heaven Lee: “I admire her business savvy and at other Printer’s Alley clubs he owned, Skull be- ability to rustle up publicity. She was politically came known as a colorful character and “Mayor ahead of her time, and I believe, a true artist. It’s of Printer’s Alley.” Skull’s became host to a broad not just rebellion that excites me. It’s the creative swath of entertainers—many of which went on to use of female sexuality. It is a powerful tool, and I become huge stars. Andy Griffith, Tim McGraw, find it fascinating when certain women are able to and Waylon Jennings all played Skull’s early on harness what is often a burden and use it to create in their careers. “The alley will always be here, art, gain financial independence, or enact political I expect . . . and I’ll be here with it,” Schulman change.” We check in our folder of newspaper clippings is quoted as saying. Those days of Skull’s came abruptly to an end when the eighty-year-old was and walk down to Skull’s. I’ve never seen burfound with his throat slit in January 1998, the vic- lesque gals putting on makeup, except in Moulin Rouge. There are walls of clothing and notes for tim of murder and robbery. The place remained boarded up until Phil Mar- costume changes. Notes on a sewing machine for tin and David Wileman put it all back together and things that need stitching. Jones’ curls are all tame reopened for business about a year ago. After con- now and shaped into a lovely bouffant for country siderable mechanical overhauls, the aesthetics of night. Something about talking in a makeup room
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MADAM HAZEL JONES: For more info on Madam Hazel Jones and Skull’s, visit native.is
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# N AT IVE N ASH VI LLE Vintage car provided by Jesse Lee Jones | Green pantsuit provided by Thomy Owens
humanizes everything—seeing the eyelashes and the paint go on is a peculiar break of the fourth wall. I shuffle out to the club in time for my food—filet and potatoes and green beans. The place is dark, woody, and nostalgic, a stark contrast to the more sleek and industrial-chic farm-to-table joints on every other corner. Don’t get me wrong, I love farro, but something about the basics seems fresh. It’s the best filet I’ve had in Nashville to date. And then, as if I’ve been in a Tarantino film all day, Jones consummates the evening with country classics for her gals, saving her nakedness for last. I’ll spare those juicy details because I don’t want to sound like a creep. That said, I definitely recommend the filet and the details. In this day and age, there are a million ways to make art, then reach out and connect that art with strangers, friends, and old aunts who just want you to accept their invitation to Candy Crush. You can make a record in your bedroom that sounds like magic. You can make beautiful movies right on your phone. But when everyone has the capability, there’s even more static to cut through if you want to make a tiny place in the world for what you do. We are constantly being courted by some form of entertainment. In a sense, Jones has to cut through Netflix to fill Skull’s. She also has to cut through the competition of the umpteen hundred clubs on Lower Broadway. Lord knows it takes a special kind of charisma to be more compelling than Netflix and Lower Broad. Carrying the torch of Heaven Lee and Skull’s means finding a fresh and new way to cut through the static of the city. After an afternoon and a night with Jones, I know there’s something there—the kind of something that makes you want to ride shotgun in a big truck with a beautiful lady, grab a cheeseburger over Hank Williams, and ransack a library’s old periodicals before ending up in a boudoir with halfnaked women. And it’s that something that’ll keep people coming back to Skull’s night after night.
2 0 0 0 2 1 S T AV E S NASHVILLE, TN 615-385-3334
5 1 1 1 M A RY L A N D WAY B R E N T WO O D , T N 615-373-0030 # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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WILL WORK FOR LAUGHS
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AN INTERVIEW W I T H N AT E
B A R G AT Z E ,
THE NASHVILLE COMEDIAN T H AT M A R C MARON AND JIM GAFFIGAN THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT
BY ITORO UDOKO | PHOTOS BY DYLAN REYES
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NATE BARGATZE JUST RETURNED FROM SEVENTEEN DAYS ON THE ROAD, and the bags under his eyes fit the description of someone who’s logged a lot of frequent flyer miles. He landed last night, and this time he’s back in Nashville for a full week before hitting the road again. I ask him how long the next run will be and when he thinks he’ll get another break. He spends several seconds attempting to recall his schedule offhand before abruptly giving up. “Who knows,” he concludes. “It doesn’t really stop.” Nonstop is a good way to describe Nate Bargatze’s daily life these days. But how did it all start? How does someone make the leap from regular dude to having a one-hour special on Comedy Central and performing on Conan and Fallon? Well, like virtually everything in life, everyone’s journey is different. And Bargatze’s could have been pulled straight from the pages of a comedy nerd’s wildest fantasies. How did you get into comedy initially? I started in Chicago—moved with a friend of mine. We were living here . . . I worked at Mount Juliet West Wilson Utility, reading water meters. I was just doing whatever kind of job, and then my buddy wanted to
go to Second City in Chicago. So I was twenty-three and kind of just was like, “Alright,” and then basically moved to Chicago. Got started there, then New York, L.A., and you know, back here. Was it on a whim or was it something you considered growing up? I think a little bit, but I don’t think [the desire was] crazy. I don’t think I woke up and I was watching comedians and being like, “I wanna be those guys.” But my dad’s a magician, so just growing up he’d be funny and stuff. I think when I look back now, there were definitely signs that I wanted to do it. How long were you in Chicago? I was there for two years. The people that were there when I was there—Hannibal Buress, Pete Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, TJ Miller—those were kind of the famous guys [in the Chicago stand-up scene at the time]. We were all brand new. Were you doing stand-up in clubs yet? Yeah. I took a class, this comedy college, with some guy. He was fine. The classes, people always think . . . It’s not like you go to a class and you learn how to be funny, but it’s good to be around people that are start-
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ing out. It’s not as daunting as just going to an open mic. Was it a class where people were trying to get serious about it? So some people, yes . . . Some guys went to those classes to start doing comedy, some people do it just because they want to be able to speak in front of people—like at their office. Or they do it just to be like, “Oh, I want to go see what it’s like,” and they may not have the desire to try to go for it. Because it’s hard, it’s hard to really commit. And I think pretty much for anything that you do, you have to be pretty obsessed with it.
Then Pete Holmes was the one who got me barking at the Boston Comedy Club—in New York, they used to have a club called that. And we would stand outside and hand out flyers and be like, “Hey, we have a great comedy show tonight, come on in,” or whatever. So I would do that every single night, and I worked for FedEx when I first started. Some nights I would hand out flyers, and I would just stay awake because I had to be awake at five in the morning. Then I would work until 10 a.m.—I was throwing boxes off of trucks— and then after 10 a.m., I would go home and sleep and have to be back out at that club at 7 p.m. I would do that every night, just to go on stage for five minutes. But it’s what you had to do . . . You’re trying to get up in front of real people instead of just doing open mics in front of other comedians.
“YOU’RE TRYING TO GET UP IN FRONT OF REAL PEOPLE INSTEAD OF JUST DOING OPEN MICS IN FRONT OF OTHER COMEDIANS.”
How did you get so obsessed with it? Because once I got in it, I just fell in love with it . . . Every day I was seeing comics that no one would ever know, and they were so good. It’s pretty crazy, you just get in this world . . . The more I was in it, the more that I would see people that were so good, so good. And you just want to be that good. So then you’re like kind of always chasing that.
Right. It’s like Nashville—you’re just playing in a room full of musicians, so it’s not an actual audience. Exactly. So, yeah, and just seeing all these guys—that’s where I saw [Bill] Burr and Patrice [O’Neal] and Chapelle. I mean, I’ve watched Chapelle come in [and perform] for five people. I mean, he would come in all the time.
So you went to New York after a couple of years in Chicago? Yeah, in 2004. I wanted to move to New York to keep pursuing stand-up, and my other buddy was still in Chicago. I thought he was maybe going to be moving back [to Nashville], so I left with a guy Wasn’t he big before? I met there, a comic, and then I moved to Yeah, but this was at the end of the show . . . I remember he would come in, and he’d New York.
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still have makeup on from skits. We would sit there and sometimes there would be eight people there, and he would go up in front of those eight people. Then we would go outside and be like, “Hey, Chapelle’s on stage!” And then before you know it, one hundred people [were inside]. And I mean it was that easy too—anybody that would walk by, you’d be like, “Dave Chappelle’s on stage!” I’d watch him and everybody that was going through there . . . You’re seeing years of experience and years of just—it’s just unbelievable. You really got to watch. And it’s really important to watch comics, because you need to sit there and learn and see them handle those situations where there are five people. I performed for one guy once at that club— like he didn’t want to leave. Everybody at the club kind of left, and it was just him. We were like, “Do you want to go home?” And he said, “No, I’m fine.” I was like, “I know [you’re fine], but we don’t want to go on.” But he was a nice dude—he was a good laugher—so that helps. So once you got to New York, you kind of got to the next level. Oh yeah, you just start getting good. You would do five minutes in front of a different crowd every night, so I just kind of got good at learning to do that . . . It was a mix of that and doing comedy every day for a few years. And in New York, you can get a lot better a lot faster. It’s
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NATE BARGATZE: For more info on Nate Bargatze, visit native.is
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like dog years there, because here—if you lived in Nashville at the time—you could have gone on once a week or something . . . There, the most I did was seven shows in one night. I mean [sometimes] I would go on twenty times a week, so you’re just getting that much better that much faster. It’s just a lot easier to get good. It was about 2008, I think, that’s when [the next level] started. That’s when I got my first TV thing [CMT Comedy Stage]. I taped it in 2007—I don’t know, 2007 or 2008—and I taped here for CMT at the Belcourt Theatre. So it was pretty interesting that my first TV thing got to be here in Nashville. It was cool, my family came, my friends came, you know? I got that, and then in 2008 I got Conan and Montreal Just for Laughs; I did Live in Gotham for Comedy Central. It’s not like you [go on TV], then you’re famous . . . but at least you have TV credits, and now you can start getting into clubs. You can start going on the road a little bit and make a little money, and at least you feel like you’re moving forward. There seems to be more of a local circuit here now that maybe didn’t exist a while back. There are also more national comics coming here on the road, which they never used to do before. Moving [back] here was a big thing, because it’s hard. A lot of people live in New York and L.A., so to move back home was kind of like, “Oh, can you even do that?” And I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure out if you can. But it seems to be working. I was worried that if I moved back, people would think I had quit comedy. Like, you know, “Oh, he moved back to Nashville, he’s done!” And no one thought that at all, so now I just tell everybody I live in Nashville . . . I think with my accent, people know I’m from here. I think it makes them happier that I live here. They want to buy allin. They’re like, “If I’m buying this guy from Nashville, I want him to be living there.”
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AFTER THREE YEARS OF STUDY UNDER JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, THE SHADOWBOXERS ARE READY TO MAKE YOU RETHINK CONTEMPORARY POP
B Y C H R I S PA R T O N | P H O T O S B Y A U S T I N L O R D
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WITH MICHAEL JACKSON’S BAD ing track from JT’s The 20/20 Experience) blaring in the background, five lovable ended up in his inbox. He was impressed goofballs in maroon suits gather in a with the band’s interpretation and, recogporcelain-white room for a group photo, nizing some untapped potential, reached moving in close so their heads almost out to suggest a partnership. Now they’re signed to his artist develtouch in a ridiculously tight V formation. “Let’s do this one absolutely stone cold,” opment label, Villa 40, studying as his says the photographer. The band com- soul-pop proteges. And on December 14, plies, fighting hard the urge to giggle as they’ll show Nashville what three years of apprenticeship can do. they cuddle up for the camera lens. Guided by their superstar mentor and A flash goes off a few times and they hold the pose, letting the moment linger spurred on by the attention he has projust a beat too long, then break and howl vided, The Shadowboxers’ debut album in laughter as “Man in the Mirror” hits its isn’t even expected until sometime in 2017, but already they’ve released two stride. “Hopefully it doesn’t look how it felt,” dance-tastic singles and established a says Scott Schwartz, one of the group’s reputation for pure-fun performances. The most recent offering, “Build the Beat,” three main singers. These are The Shadowboxers, a classic has nearly two million streams on Spotify, pop-loving quintet of Atlanta transplants and this winter, they’ll headline some of who are still relatively new to the world of their biggest shows yet on the EastWest photo shoots. In fact, up until a few years Tour: five shows in coast-to-coast halls ago they were just another band of bud- like The Basement East and Los Angeles’ dies struggling to make their mark—albeit Troubadour. Back when the three principal memwith a better sense of harmony than most. Along with Schwartz, the group in- bers met as acappella-loving choral stucludes founding members and fellow dents at Atlanta’s Emory University, none singer-songwriters Matt Lipkins and of this seemed even remotely possible. “When we first started writing, there Adam Hoffman on keyboards and guitar, plus a rock-solid rhythm section com- was a lot of overlap in what we were into, prised of Carlos Enamorado on bass and but there were also a lot of differences,” says Hoffman, settling in with the band Cole McSween on drums. They’re anything but an ordinary band around a conference table after the shoot. now, though, having been taken under the “Our sound has only come together in the wing of one of the world’s biggest super- past couple of years.” “Whenever we play a show, we hear stars—Justin Timberlake. Back in late 2013, Timberlake discov- somebody say, ‘Wow, I never hear anyered the band after their YouTube cover thing like that on the radio,’” Schwartz version of “Pusher Love Girl” (the open- adds. “That’s a compliment but it’s also
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THE SHADOWBOXERS: For more info on The Shadowboxers, visit native.is
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really easy for us, because we’re just doing what we naturally do.” What The Shadowboxers naturally do is blend high-energy R&B, soul, funk, and pop with the effortless vocal harmonies of groups like Simon & Garfunkel and The Beatles, and it’s true that there aren’t many traditional, five-piece bands in pop music anymore—which may be what Timberlake found fascinating. “That’s always been our inspiration, from Crosby, Stills & Nash to the Bee Gees or Hall & Oates, that kind of sound. And then on the soul side, it’s D’Angelo, Prince, and that stuff,” says Schwartz. “The first thing that really bonded us was the fact that we put our voices together and liked the way it sounded, so we think of that as its own lead singer.” So far the guys have been known as live-show specialists, pumping out epic and unique covers of pop and funk classics. They selfproduced one album of originals in Atlanta but found it hard to gain traction outside their local scene. Running out of options, they decided to start a YouTube cover series— a move that would change their lives forever. “We had finished up an album cycle, if you can call it that,” Lipkins begins to explain, before being interrupted by his pals. “It was a small cycle,” says Schwartz. “A unicycle!” Hoffman adds, sending a wave of belly laughs around the table. “We were just trying to figure out a way to reach people,” Lipkins continues, getting back on track. “So we started doing this cover series, and we would alternate month to month with an old-school cover and a newschool cover. The 20/20 Experience had just come out, and we were all really excited about ‘Pusher Love Girl,’ so we recorded it. “It was so weird because it was just another day for us,” he goes on. “I was wearing a handlebar mustache—
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it was Movember—and I had just broken up with my girlfriend so I didn’t care, and Carlos is super hungover in the video.” “We had one mic set up in the room and we would just lay the songs down live,” says Schwartz. “It was just, ‘Let’s do what we do with songs we love.’ So we did a Paul Simon song and then one by Haim. Then we did a Stevie Wonder song, there was no rhyme or reason to it, and all of a sudden [Timberlake] just found [the cover of ‘Pusher Love Girl’]. We still don’t know how, and he tweeted it out with a nice message.” While Timberlake’s original version is an eight-minute opus full of digital effects, The Shadowboxers went for a straightforward, do-it-yourself approach, building up tightly woven three-part harmonies and exposing the core the song. One camera, one take, one career-changing moment. JT’s tweet to the band read, “Every once in a while, you come across something. This is GREAT, fellas. Took it and made it your own. I’m humbled.” And a week later, he called to make a more direct connection—apologizing because it was a Sunday, no less. “He was like, ‘I want to help you guys any way I can. I’ve gained all this knowledge throughout my career, and I want to give back and help you guys avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made,’” Hoffman recounts. So what does it look like when Justin Timberlake backs your play? “Our relationship with him is amazing and it’s pretty much purely creative,” says Hoffman. “Ever since we met him he was just like, ‘Write, write, write and demo ‘em.’
So that’s what we’ve been doing for almost three years: write a song, demo it and send it to him, then he sends back feedback and we tweak it. We have like ninety demos at this point.” With those demos in hand and their songwriting dialed in (Timberlake has encouraged them to imagine each one like a hit that already exists, so as not to overthink things), the band and their hit-making guru entered Los Angeles’ legendary EastWest Studios in August— another unbelievable turn of events. With Timberlake calling the shots, they began working in the room where The Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds and finished up in the space where Frank Sinatra sang “New York, New York” and “My Way.” The guys have at least one more wave of high-stakes studio work to do, but their mentor has made the transition from talented cover band to pop-stars-on-the-rise a smooth one. “His vision in the studio is incredible,” says Hoffman. “Just getting to see him work and the way he operates in a studio is like magic.” “It’s really like nothing else,” Lipkins adds. “He’s got this energy. He’s like, hyper-focused while simultaneously being so spacey. He just hears what it could be and then you can watch him process—he’ll just pace for a minute, and then it comes to him. And the great thing is it’s not contrived at all. He’s basically sitting there saying to himself, What would I like? How could I make this song better?” “There’s no hesitation and there’s no right or wrong,” says Hoffman. “And it’s not about relevance, it’s just about what serves the song the best, which is so refresh-
“IT’S NOT ABOUT RELEVANCE, IT’S JUST ABOUT WHAT SERVES THE SONG THE BEST.”
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ing in today’s world, especially the pop world.” That confidence has had a hugely positive effect on the young band, but so has the amount of creative freedom they’ve been given. Timberlake pops in and out during recording sessions, but for the most part they’re trusted to find their own way. “I think the way he discovered us was an indication of what we experienced in the studio,” Hoffman explains. “He liked us performing a song around one mic, just doing what we do with no bullshit.” “He made it clear in the beginning, which was a big point for all of us, ‘Don’t join me on this ride because I am who I am. I think we should do this because it would be a great creative match,’” says Lipkins. The two singles released this year were actually not produced by JT, but they are a solid representation of what’s to come. “Build the Beat,” a propulsive ’80s pop delight filled with Brat-Pack synth and MJ swagger, was cowritten by the band’s three singers, while “Woman Through the Wall” feels more dangerous and sensual, cowritten with Kopecky’s Gabe Simon and highlighted by the hook “She’s got seventeen pairs of Jimmy Choos / And another two on the way.” Both are chock-full of breathless dance-floor energy. “They’re similar [to the new music] because even though they’re modern, they’ve kind of got a throwback vibe, which you also get from the stuff we recorded in L.A.,” says Lipkins. ”I think we’re gonna be moving in a direction where you’ll see how the ’70s and ’80s are a direct influence, but also more contemporary influences as well.” “It’s less about a vibe and more about putting some chords and a melody together that make you excited,” Schwartz says. “That’s where the energy comes from, and we don’t write songs anymore that don’t melodically give us excitement to sing. We just want to make the song as catchy at ev-
ery point as we can.” For now, the group is focused mostly on quick tempos and hip-shaking grooves, although as a true soul and R&B band, there are lots of fresh new ballads they’d love to play during the upcoming EastWest Tour. But that will have to wait. “Right now, the show has just been an energy fest,” says Schwartz. “We added choreography, we’re wearing fancy suits, we’re just trying to turn it into an experience all across the board so people leave saying, ‘That’s a show I had a great time at, and I want to come back.’” That sentiment is sure to make their teacher proud. But in fact, The Shadowboxers have already had the desired effect on Nashville fans, even without much in the way of original music. Last year the band hosted a sold-out five-night residency at The Basement East, bringing out big-name guests like Chris Stapleton, Maren Morris, Reba McEntire, and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman for cover-happy theme nights, showing the breadth of their sound and just how much respect they’ve earned so early in their career. When they come back to the venue on December 14, it will be a triumphant return—but with new tunes and the wisdom gained from Timberlake’s training, it’s sure to be a Shadowboxers show like this city has never seen before. Luckily, Timberlake University is not one based on oppressive conformity. They’ve lost none of their sunny irreverence. “We did a bunch of shows there, but they all had themes,” Lipkins explains about the upcoming gig. “We’re excited to just play a regular frickin’ show where we do our thing. No gimmicks, just The Shadowboxers.” Then there’s a pause, with the familiar feel of a punchline hanging in the air. “Actually, there will still be gimmicks,” he says, cueing another round of belly laughs and talk of flaming keytars.
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B Y CHA RL I E HI CK E RSO N | PO R TR AI T B Y LAUR A E . PAR TAI N
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RECORD STORE D AY C O F O U N D E R DON VANCLEAVE ON SOUTHERN LIFE, THE MUSIC I N D U S T R Y, A N D HIS RYMER G A L L E R Y E X H I B I T, SOUTHERNACANA
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“I DIDN’T REALLY HAVE A PLAN FOR MY PHOTOGRAPHY, and I didn’t know that it interested anyone but me,” Don VanCleave tells me from his deck, looking out into the expansive South Nashville woods that are his backyard. As he shows me around, he speaks of “heroes” like William Eggleston, Danny Clinch, and Jim Marshall with reverence; I see books of photography and assorted photography gear littered around; and there are prints—some his own, some his aforementioned heroes’—on practically every available wall space. I finally ask why, after almost forty-five years of shooting, he’s just now showing his photos to the public. “It wasn’t [a] big attempt to hide what I was doing. It’s just I was busy having a career, and this was my hobby.” Busy is an understatement. After growing up in Macon, Georgia, watching legends like the Allman Brothers perform, VanCleave went on to open Magic Platter CD in Birmingham with his wife in 1988. In its fourteen years, the store achieved legendary status itself, winning the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ Small Retailer of the Year award twice and bringing acts like The Smashing Pumpkins and No Doubt to Birmingham for in-store signings. During this time, VanCleave, along with a group of other indie record store owners, started the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. Founded in 1995, CIMS worked—and still works—with labels across the country to get indie stores the same buying power and promotional/marketing opportunities as industry mass merchants (like Best Buy and Walmart). VanCleave served as president until 2008, just a year after he cofounded Record Store Day. He’d go on to become the COO of L.A. management company The Artists Organization, where he worked with acts like Lenny Kravitz and Soundgarden (among many, many others) for six years. Today, VanCleave splits his time between managing Moon Taxi and working with local YouTube channel Made in Network. Through it all, he’s had a camera (or two) around his neck. And now—thanks in part to a little push from Moon Taxi and local artist Herb Williams—
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his personal photos are on display for the first time ever as Southernacana, now showing at The Rymer Gallery through December 31. INTERVIEW: Explain the term Southernacana. Southernacana is just a word I made up that kind of describes a little bit about what I’m passionate about. One of my big hobbies is to jump in the car, super before sunrise sometimes, and just head out into rural South. Just see what’s out there and shoot pictures of things that I find interesting. Sometimes I come back and have shot two frames, and sometimes I’ve shot six rolls of film and some digital too. I’m mainly a film guy. That’s what it’s about. Just capturing my eye on the deep South. Everything from music and culture to just side of the road crap that we drive by all the time that’s decaying and has a certain patina and look to it that’s very familiar to all of us, but it’s junk, basically. It’s just what I see when I ride around the South. I’ll shoot things like dilapidated houses, rusting cars, any license plate with a Confederate flag on it, any Confederate flag I see—just got banks of that. In my show, I’ve got an entire hall of shots I took of the Ku Klux Klan in Selma in 1979. Then I’ve got musicians from the South that I’ve shot. Cracks in a red clay road—that’s been a really popular shot over the weekend, just a giant picture of a baked red clay road. Deer heads on a wall at a restaurant, which I thought was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen . . . An image of Dolly Parton’s mannequin. That’s the South—that’s what it really is to me. You’ve really seen it all, growing up in what was arguably the most formidable, crazy time in Southern history. Well I was . . . Golly, I can’t remember which grade it was. It might have been third. [It] was the year the schools integrated, and then I was of the first wave of integrated middle and high school. Our graduating class of ’76 was one of the first groups of kids that had gone through integrated education. So, I got to see it from a lot of different angles that my parents didn’t get to see the South from. And
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then kids afterward had no appreciation for kind of what went on in there. That kind of really formed me . . . And at the same time all that was going on, there was this music explosion all over the place and all around me. Just because we were from the deep South, we weren’t immune to pop culture and what was going on. All that kind of mixed together for me. How do you show the aspects of the South that you love while also capturing the region’s violent history? I kind of try to show [both] together. The Klan shots in particular, Herb [Williams] and I really debated whether they go up or not, because we didn’t want people to take them the wrong way. We’re certainly not endorsing or glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, right? I was like twenty and I went to Selma where my parents had moved, and I heard that the Klan was downtown recruiting. Not a rally, but a recruitment. I’m like, “Oh, there’s going to be trouble. I’m going to take my camera down there and shoot pictures.” It wasn’t like I was an agitator or protestor. I just wanted to be a fly on the wall, because that’s what I was into at the time with my camera, just trying to be invisible. This gave me a chance. I went down there and it was five or six dirtball rednecks on the corners, handing out a newspaper in their robes and talking to people. I asked if I could take a picture. [They said], “Yeah, sure. I don’t care.” I think I said it was for a class project or something. And what got me
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the whole time I was shooting was when I really realized how many black people there were in downtown Selma—because it’s a majority black town—that were walking around on a Saturday afternoon shopping, totally ignoring these guys . . . In that, there’s hope, because that was fourteen years after Martin Luther King walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, right? My point of the whole thing was—this was fourteen years after Bloody Sunday and all that—and these people didn’t fear anymore. Fourteen years before, these guys would’ve had everybody scattering. Here, it’s like they didn’t matter. Nobody cared. There was no interaction. There was no tension. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was some guy that was handing out leaflets, and everybody was ignoring him except for some other rural white people coming in. It was very unimpressive as a situation. That really struck me. I ended up being able to hang out with probably eight or nine African American students at my gallery opening the other night . . . [I said,] “I shot these. Let me tell you about it,” and I told them the whole story. They asked a lot of questions. They thought [the story and photos] were really poignant too. I was asking them if they could ignore, and they were like, “Yeah, probably now after seeing this” . . . Given the current political climate, too, it was kind of me putting [the photos] out there, going, “Let’s not forget all the bullshit stuff that’s gone on in our region.”
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What is it about your influences’ images that makes you have a visceral, emotional reaction? A lot of times it’s the fact that they got access. The more posed the portrait . . . I don’t know, those are kind of boring. Most of my stuff is like grabs. They’re real quick . . . There’s a Kings of Leon shot of those guys, like second show in. That was the only picture I took of them the whole time they were visiting me to talk about what they wanted to do. I just snapped a picture in my office. That’s what that is. [In] the Lenny Kravitz picture [from the exhibit], he’s in the bathroom getting ready to go on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and I’m like, “Let’s shoot a picture,” and he’s always game for that. I took a camera in there and popped off two frames on a little disposable film camera, and that’s that one. The My Morning Jacket shot, they’re staring at the photographer shooting their record. I shot from the side. They ended up using mine in the Okonokos record and not the one by that guy they hired. It seems like you’re really all about the moment, then. Yes, the candid. I’m a street photographer by nature. I carry a rangefinder around New York and I will shoot anything, anybody. As long as I’m a fly on the wall and I’m not being obnoxious. I like that grab and run, man. I don’t like these long photo shoots with people where you’re tweaking the light. I’m not that guy. I’m not a studio-light-pose-with-multiple-assistants kind of photographer. There’s obviously a gigantic place for people that do that, it’s just not what I’m interested in. I’m interested in forgetting I have a camera around my neck [as] I’m going about my day and seeing something and saying , “Oh, I’ve got a camera around my neck.” I think Danny [Clinch] shoots that way a lot. He does the big pose stuff, but his candids . . . This is a Danny Clinch right here [motions to a photo of Tom Waits]. I mean, one day maybe I’ll get a shot like that . . . That’s what keeps me coming back. Everybody tells me my shots are good and all that, but I don’t have that yet. My goal is to get that. Is there a similarity between catching a picture at that moment and maybe catching an artist that you’re working with at a key moment in their life? Do those two have a relationship? Oh, man, kind of. Catching that artist and believing, that’s such a timing thing, right? There’s a few times in my life where I was around artists really early, where I came home to my wife and went, “They’re going to be huge.” Like who? John Mayer would stay at my house—couldn’t get anybody to pay attention to him. We would put him on the radio in Birmingham, and I would sell his CDs at my record store. I sold his first thousand Room for Squares at [Magic Platter]. It’s one of those things where, I just knew he had the talent. No testament on whether he would end up making great music or not, but I knew that he had a good sense of the connection he was gonna make with fans . . . There’ve been a lot of other bands. I was really on Coldplay. Radiohead, we were a huge influence on [their sales] with the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and kind of breaking OK Computer. You know, there’s been these incidents where we just knew it was the best thing ever, and we kind of led the way. As a music industry veteran, you’re in a very coveted position where you can look back like that. What advice do you give to people who want to be in your shoes? I’m just telling kids to get really proactive. If you’re at a dead end where you’re at an internship and no one knows your name and you’re going to get coffee and taking out the trash, I say, “You know, maybe that’s freshman, first-quarter thing, but don’t ever do that again. Get a job.” If you find an internship you really like, tell them you want to come back # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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for free after the internship’s over and just come in after school and help out and worm your way into being so valuable they hire you. Belmont and MTSU are both incredible schools, and some really smart people go there. Some people are wealthy, some people are dirt poor. I don’t find that there’s a big difference in their desire. There’s nothing better than learning from your own mistakes, you know? Because I’ve always been an entrepreneur and running my own thing. It’s never scared me to lose something because I always know I can go find something else and do something else . . . You don’t know shit, you don’t walk [into a job] acting like you do, and learn. Learn, learn, learn. Absorb, absorb. Go out and see shows, meet people, network, know everybody in town. That’s how you get gigs. Going back to Southernacana—what do you want them to take away from the gallery? What sort of conversations do you want it to inspire? You know, the same ones they’re having straight to my face, which is, “Wow, this is really cool, great work,” “I love your pictures,” “I hate your pictures,” “What is this all about?” “What does this mean?” It was kind of funny because one of the pictures I’ve got there, I was walking on the bridge out there at Natchez Trace, and was gonna be a goofball and shoot a moving car from on top of the bridge. I was gonna shoot straight down, that was my big vision for walking way out on that bridge [laughs] . . . I was walking down that bridge, and there, right on the rail was “So long world” written, and I just [makes clicking motion] and kept walking. [At the gallery opening] people would say, “Did you write that on there?” I said, “No, I wouldn’t even think to write that on there” . . . I’m not staging shots—it’s just not what I do. But I thought that was kind of interesting that they would wonder that. I would have people sit [at the gallery] and stare at it for a long time . . . People were standing there talking about that, about how horrible it must be to be standing there, you know, contemplating suicide. [Asking], “Is it a jumper bridge?” The conversation around some of these pictures has just been great . . . I was getting asked a lot of questions by people, you know, dragging me over to a picture like, “Tell me what this is. What is this? Why did you shoot this?” That was really gratifying . . . Hopefully they’re pictures that cause conversation and enlighten people. [Hopefully] people find some things humorous or they walk away from it feeling like they’ve seen some art, you know?
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S H O P N O W A T W W W. S W I T T E R S C O F F E E . C O M
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Supergroups are hit or miss. For every Blind Faith or Derek and the Dominos, there’s a Zwan or Asia. Sometimes, it’s just too much of a good thing (well, maybe not in Zwan’s case— they were pretty doomed from the start). Fortunately, psychedelic garage act The Minks is a very rare instance in which a supergroup is super. The lineup includes former Static Trees front people Nikki Barber and Dylan Whitlow and no-bullshit rocker/Nashville hair god Ron Gallo. Add that to a cast of other rotating local talent, and you’ve got a garage rock outfit raw enough to give the city’s finest basement dwellers a run for their money. Read Barber’s thoughts on candy, hell, and mixed CDs above, and check out The Minks’ new video for “Sweet Talk” at native.is. # # NAT NAT II V V ENAS ENAS HV HV II LL LL EE
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