APRIL 2017 BIG SURR
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THE POWER OF TURNING.
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PUERTO RICAN AND LATIN CUISINE
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HAPPY HOUR MONDAY - FRIDAY 3PM - 6PM
Located across from Cannery Row 818 Palmer Place - (615) 401-9316 - salsarestaurantnashville.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS APRIL 2017
48
24 68
28 38 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 Casey McBride 38 Big Surr 48 Slim & Husky’s 58 Frances and the Foundation 68 Peter Cooper
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REVOLUTIONIZING THE MALE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
OPENING SOON IN THE GULCH WWW.RUCKLEANDRYE.COM
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BLACKFOOT GYPSIES
ALBUM RELEASE SHOW AT LITTLE HARPETH BREWERY APRIL 14TH - 8PM
PLOWBOY RECORDS 5TH ANNIVERSARY APRIL 12TH - 8PM - $5 - 3RD & LINDSLEY WITH
THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS + BOBBY BARE + BLACKFOOT GYPSIES + ERIC HEATHERLY + PAUL BURCH + SYLVAIN SYLVAIN OF THE NEW YORK DOLLS & MORE!
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 # 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
managing editor:
CHARLIE HICKERSON DARCIE CLEMEN
art director:
COURTNEY SPENCER
community relations manager:
JOE CLEMONS
copy editor:
community representatives:
production:
POLLY RADFORD KELSEY FERGUSON
GUSTI ESCALANTE
writers: photographers:
HILLI LEVIN JONAH ELLER-ISAACS LUKE WIGET CHARLIE HICKERSON COOPER BREEDEN ANGELINA MELODY DANIELLE ATKINS SARAH B. GILLIAM DYLAN REYES EMILY DORIO REBECCA ADLER CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
marketing interns:
CAMILLE FAULKNER LAUREL SORENSON
founding team: founder, brand director:
DAVE PITTMAN
founder:
CAYLA MACKEY
for all inquiries:
MACKENZIE MOORE JOSHUA SIRCHIO TAYLOR RABOIN
HELLO@NATIVE.IS
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7 0 0 1 2 T H AV E S O U T H - P R I M A N A S H V I L L E . C O M - 6 1 5 . 8 7 3 . 4 2 3 2
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JOJO
FRIDAY, APRIL 7 CANNERY BALLROOM
THE DECEMBERISTS WITH JULIEN BAKER
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 THE RYMAN AUDITORIUM
R.LUM.R
WITH BIYO & MOKITA THURSDAY, APRIL 13 MERCY LOUNGE
SAM OUTLAW
WITH DORI FREEMAN FRIDAY, APRIL 14 MERCY LOUNGE
THE WEEKS
WITH THE LONELY BISCUITS SATURDAY, APRIL 22 CANNERY BALLROOM
TODRICK HALL TUESDAY, APRIL 25 MARATHON MUSIC WORKS
SUSTO
WITH BECCA MANCARI FRIDAY, APRIL 28 THE HIGH WATT
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THE GOODS 1 1/2 oz Havana Club 3-Year Rum (light rum will work) 1 oz almond milk syrup* 1/2 oz fresh lime juice FShake ingredients, fine strain into a coupe glass, and garnish with a lime wheel. For a delicious variation, try adding 1/3 fresh banana and 2 dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut Bitters and blend with 1/2 cup of ice until smooth.
VEDADO DAIQUIRI by Ben Clemons of No. 308 photo by Ange l in a Me l ody
Last year, I was fortunate enough to take a trip to Cuba with a couple of my close friends. While there we enjoyed the most perfect daiquiris known to (hu)man. Months later, enjoying drinks in the kitchen of my house with my girlfriend, we discovered the closest thing to fresh-pressed sugarcane juice— almond milk syrup. We cranked out batch after batch and the rest is history. It must be noted that half portions of one daiquiri, known as a snaquiri, is the ultimate bread-breaking ritual while drinking. No matter what paths your lives may have taken, you can meet at the snaquiri and move forward together. Cheers!
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*Almond pmilk syrequual parts
Combine d almond unsweetene gar and milk and su e sugar cook until thved. is dissol
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MASTER PLATERS
K ICKBACK C HICKEN BY BRANDON FROHNE O F H O L L E R & DA S H PHO TOS BY DAN IELLE AT KIN S
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THE GOODS
DIRECTIONS
FOR THE CHICKEN:
METHOD FOR THE CHICKEN:
oil for frying (refer to fryer directions for amount)
F Preheat the fryer to 350 degrees. F Place the chicken in a mixing bowl and soak with the buttermilk. Allow the chicken to marinate for 30 minutes. F In a separate bowl add the seasoned flour dredge. Remove the chicken from the buttermilk and toss into the seasoned flour, coating each side. F Place the chicken into the fryer. Fry for 5 minutes or until golden brown and cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees. Remove from the fryer. F Place onto a biscuit and top with pepper jelly, goat cheese, and scallions. Serve immediately.
1 (3–4 oz) antibiotic-free chicken breast 1/4 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup seasoned flour dredge* 1 fresh baked biscuit 1 oz pepper jelly 1 oz crumbled goat cheese 1/4 oz chopped scallions *FOR THE FLOUR DREDGE: 2 cups flour 2 tbsp kosher salt 1 tbsp paprika 2 tbsp garlic powder
METHOD FOR THE FLOUR DREDGE:
2 tbsp ground oregano
F Whisk all ingredients together. Makes roughly 2 2/3 cups of dredge.
1 tbsp ground mustard 1 tbsp dried oregano 1 tbsp onion powder
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CHRIS SHIFLETT w/ SAM PALLADIO & BRIAN WHELAN - THE HIGH WATT THE JAYHAWKS - MERCY LOUNGE R.LUM.R - MERCY LOUNGE SAM OUTLAW w/ DORI FREEMAN - MERCY LOUNGE DANIELLA MASON w/ EZA & JESSIE EARLY - THE HIGH WATT ANDREW McMAHON IN THE WILDERNESS - CANNERY BALLROOM M ATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ w/ INDIANOLA - THE HIGH WATT PONCÉ w/ THE SOUL SHAKERS, SWEETTALKER & J. MARCO - THE HIGH WATT THE WEEKS w/ THE LONELY BISCUITS - CANNERY BALLROOM THE WILD REEDS & BLANK RANGE - THE HIGH WATT NILES ROOKER w/ CREATURE COMFORT & THE PRESSURE KIDS - MERCY LOUNGE CHARLY BLISS - THE HIGH WATT PAUL McDONALD w/ KELSEY KOPECKY & REPUBLICAN HAIR - MERCY LOUNGE GENERATIONALS - MERCY LOUNGE GENER H U R R AY F O R T H E R I F F R A F F w / R O N G A L L O & B E C C A M A N C A R I - M E R C Y L O U N G E
SINKANE w/ ERIC SLICK (OF DR. DOG) - THE HIGH WATT THE WIND + THE WAVE - THE HIGH WATT THE MOUNTAIN GOATS - CANNERY BALLROOM # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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A RT I S T
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S P O T L I G H T:
CASE Y
M CBRIDE
P H O T O S
B Y
S A R A H
B .
G I L L I A M
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DEAR READERS, Until recently, I never would have considered myself an artist. Creating has always been my haven. It’s the one place I feel safe from judgment, confusion, rejection, and heartbreak. Experiencing the loss of my grandfather and my mom’s recent cancer diagnosis left me speechless. This lack of knowing what to say has led me to sharing my art, the scariest part of which was sharing my first piece publicly. Through this process, I have found that showing transparenc y, in both good and hard times, is the brave thing to do. Let us strive to be transparent with each other in hopes that it will lead to something truly beautiful.
S i n c e r e l y, Casey “Pickle” McBride mynameispickle.com | 404-759-0889
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“MILLIONS OF HANDS HAVE TOUCHED THEM ALREADY— JUST THE HISTORY OF THEM, IT’S ALREADY THERE.”
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Riverside # N AT IVE N ASH VI LLEVilliage - 1400 McGavock Pike - dosenashville.com
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ASH # N AT IVE N AS H VI LLE
THE
INSIDE OUT
BLISSED-
WORLD
SURR,
OF
BIG
NASHVILLE’S PREMIERE
(LANDLOCKED)
SURF
ROCKERS B Y
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L E V I N
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R E Y E S
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IT FEELS FITTING THAT instead of meeting up in some coffee shop, Helen Van, the founder and songwriter of Big Surr, invites me over for a cookout. Although it’s early March, it feels like an early summer day—the kind of day that beckons you to roll the windows down, crank the stereo, and take the longer drive home. It’s exactly the kind of sunny, maybe-everything-doesn’t-suck-afterall day that the bright, surf-influenced opening riffs of Big Surr’s new album, In Business, instantly transports you to. Even though all of the bandmembers are from landlocked states, these melodies are straight from the West Coast: tropical-sweet along with a surprisingly strong punch. Van first formed Big Surr in 2010 while she was an undergrad at Belmont University. During those years with the original lineup—which included members that have since moved on to join Diarrhea Planet and Mitski—the band produced an EP titled Miss You Most and a Baked + Bruised seven-inch on Jake and Jamin Orrall’s beloved local label, Infinity Cat. But after two years of playing around town at now-defunct DIY venues like Glenn Danzig’s House and The Other Basement (back when the DIY music scene was just starting to become the subject of glowing write-ups from national publications), Van
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moved back to her native Ohio for grad school, and then on to San Francisco, just a few hours from her band’s namesake beaches. Although she continued playing music and writing in her new locales, her years living outside of Music City were vital to her decision to take Big Surr more seriously. “I ended up going to Ohio State, which was where I finally realized that our music was good. Here, everyone thinks they’re great, but half of the people are just stoned all of the time. When I moved away, I realized . . . our music was kind of different. I regretted not trying harder, so eventually I decided to come back and record an album,” she says. “I think it’s been exciting to come back and really want to do it whereas at first it was just for fun. This time it’s more intentional.” In 2015, she rebuilt a new lineup of talented players who share her unabashed love of sunny pop, including guitarists Josh Halper (Western Medication) and Asher Horton (Fox Fun), bassist Danny Herrmann (No Regrets Coyote), and drummer Cam Sarrett (D. Watusi). They all clicked almost instantly and soon began the recording process for their first full-length album, In Business, at Andrija Tokic’s famed East Nashville recording studio, The Bomb Shelter. “We recorded the whole album live. We did twelve songs in two and a half, three days,” Halper notes. “We were a first-take band. First take was always good, second take, not so much. Which is unusual,” Van adds. Definitely unusual, but it’s a testament to the serious musicianship behind their fuzzed-out, lo-fi sound, and to how tight-knit Big Surr is in every way. “Some of the songs I wrote in college, and I wish I had written more back then because I had more free time. One song from grad school is on the album, ‘Taller.’ When I came back to Nashville, I was unemployed for my first few months here, so I had plenty of time to write. I wrote pretty much the rest of the songs, and I sent my bad demos to the band
and they helped clean it up a lot,” Van says. Going around the circle, Galaxie 500, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Beach Fossils, and Camera Obscura are all noted as influences, but Halper is quick to point out some more straightforward pop, notably a few Avril Lavigne-esque moments that jump out on In Business. “I got an electric guitar in seventh grade and immediately learned ‘Complicated’!” Van says with a laugh. Considering most of the members are natives or have lived in Nashville off and on since the mid2000s, they have a keen understanding of the city’s music scene as a whole and have experienced some key changes. “A lot of the scene that everybody’s been involved with has been made up of a large group of people growing up together. People are getting older, a lot of things are changing, ” Halper explains. The influx of young musicians over the past five years has also led to a feeling of oversaturation. The rest of the bandmembers agree, explaining that while this creative community is thriving, it’s harder than ever to hear every new rock band and get a decent grasp on what’s going on. Attending shows is a much different experience these days: a few years ago, it was common to recognize each and every single face in the room, but it’s now about fifty-fifty. Sarrett jokes that the strangers still seem familiar though, “like bizarro versions of your friends.” But instead of being bitter about the rapid changes, they’re all refreshingly supportive and optimistic about new music happening around town. “If you’re open-minded, it’ll pay off,” Horton assures me. In a scene that many have criticized for being male dominated, Van’s creative control and vision as a front woman are welcomed. Although very reserved on the subject of her songwriting (“I just mumble words until something sticks,” she claims), she deserves credit for her down-to-earth writing style. Every track on In Business is incredibly relatable, from the frustrations of modern dating to the blissed-out feeling of new love. Halper and
“IF YOU’RE OPENMINDED, IT’LL PAY OFF.”
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AN UPSCALE dive bar
HAPPYHOUREVERYDAY3-7PM $6Wine+$3domestics+$4well
Horton’s bouncy guitar harmonies, Herrmann and Sarrett’s crisp rhythms, and Van’s whistleable hooks give Big Surr a distinctly youthful, hopeful feeling. In Business is such a well-crafted confection, it could almost make you forget about the extreme social unrest that has characterized 2017 so far—almost. “We haven’t jammed on a new song since then, so it’s yet to be seen what that’s going to look like in a Big Surr context,” says Sarrett. “I am worried about youth. There’s talk about defunding arts programs and I think it’s really important that it doesn’t happen,” Halper explains. “Playing music . . . there’s just a better reason to do it now,” Horton adds. Big Surr’s main creative challenge, like pretty much any post-collegiate band, stems from half its members’ demanding day jobs. It might weigh most heavily on Van, a digital behavior analyst at Vanderbilt Medical Center doing strategic marketing. Translation? She’s got some serious business knowledge and an unapologetic love of advertising. “This is totally the marketer in me, but I just want to license these songs for advertising for brands we like. It would be cool to combine music and my field,” she says. “We’re one of the most businessy bands. I’ve thought about getting into jingle writing.” As for what’s next, Van admits her job keeps her too busy to commit to a full tour (plus she prefers sleeping in her own bed over floors and knowing when she can take a shower), but there are plenty of Nashville shows and maybe even a few weekend runs on the horizon. “I have a bunch of songs drafted. I’m picturing an EP that we would record later this year if I get enough songs done,” she adds. When I ask about her hopes for this record, she smiles and points to her business training: “I was taught in advertising to set expectations low and overachieve them. I think it’s more fun to do that in life.” In Business is available to download and stream now.
@centennial_nash @centennial5115
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THREE TENNESSEE S TAT E R O O M M AT E S ARE BEHIND THE NEW NORTH NASHVILLE PIZZERIA SLIM & HUSKY’S. THE PIES ARE TOP-NOTCH, BUT T H AT ’ S J U S T T H E BEGINNING
B Y
J O N A H
E L L E R - I S A A C S
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D O R I O
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PIZZA IS MAGIC. Pizza is beloved by all ages: your-own pizzas and salads. That side also inadults, children, teenagers both human and cludes cinnamon rolls, which sound like a great mutant ninja turtle. The humble pie is some- way to follow up a slice, but one of the guys on how greater than the sum of its traditionally the prep line says they’re not serving them yet. simple parts, the triforce of bread, cheese, and I make a sad face. “It sucks to be you,” he says sauce. Even the most seemingly incompatible with a conspiratorial smile. I’ll live, somehow. I ingredients (ham and pineapple, anchovies and take a seat at one of the communal tables. Gray is the first to take a moment away from anything) can exist in harmonious deliciousness. Just as shredded mozzarella binds top- servicing the queue and talk with me. I offer him pings to crust, pizza is a food that brings people some of the pizza I’ve ordered, a split featuring together. There’s a reason the word pizza is so two house specials. One side is “The Smokin’ Herb”—a unique concoction that starts with often followed by party. Slim & Husky’s Pizza Beeria is the newest a base of white sauce (a.k.a. “The White Sauce addition to the surprisingly robust list of piz- Is Slammin”) and finishes with spinach, mushza options in Nashville. Situated on a bend in rooms, and smoked salmon. The other side is Buchanan Street, long the commercial heart of “P.R.E.A.M.,” with the same white sauce, spinthis stretch of North Nashville, Slim & Husky’s ach, and mushrooms, plus pepperoni and Italhas only been open since mid-March, but co- ian sausage. It’s a massive flavor bomb piled owners Clint Gray, Derrick Moore, and Eman- onto a husky-sized crust. Slim & Husky’s pies uel Reed have already mastered both the pizza are long ovals, not circles, but at sixteen inches wide, there’s still plenty to share. Good thing: and the party. It’s 3 p.m. on a Thursday. Well past lunch, not Clint Gray looks hungry. Gray, Moore, and Reed were roommates at yet happy hour. Still, the line at Slim & Husky’s stretches back and forth across a space barely Tennessee State, and they’ve been inseparable big enough to hold these forty hungry people ever since, as friends and as entrepreneurs. waiting for a pie. And they’re all in front of Gray and Moore are former football players, me. But it’s a friendly scene and I don’t mind formidable from a young age. “We did the bigthe wait. Everyone seems to know each other kids sports. We were the bruisers,” Gray exalready. Lots of hugs, handshakes, fist bumps. plains, laughing heartily. “Our moms used to “Hey, didn’t your mom used to run that restau- have to shop for us in the husky section as kids. rant on 19th?” “Ahh! What’s up, baby?!” A solid So that means elastic jeans, not as many opmix of rap hits from the ’90s has folks murmur- tions for cool clothes.” But Reed is significantly ing classic hooks from LL Cool J, Warren G, smaller than his buddies. “That’s where Slim & 2Pac. Customers fill the time and limited space Husky’s comes from: one skinny friend and two between each other with kinda-sorta-dancing: big dudes.” It’s a joke between friends, but before all the a bobbing head, shoulders shrugged left then pizza, the trio’s first business took advantage right, a pair of hips swaying gently. The line moves steadily, but just slowly of their size. A few years out of college, Moore enough that I have a chance to carefully study was working as an air traffic controller in Sagithe menu. The two sections keep up the hip- naw, Michigan, but grew homesick. When he hop theme. The You Can Get With This section returned to Nashville, the three friends started features Slim & Husky’s signature pizzas. You talking about ways to make money and work toCan Get With That lays out the choices for build- gether. The two husky kids might not have had
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“A LOT OF THE RECORD COMES FROM ME JUST ASKING MYSELF WHY .”
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“THIS IS A FOOD DESERT RIGHT NOW . . . WE WANTED TO TIE BACK INTO AN AREA THAT WAS HISTORICALLY BLACK AND WOULD CONTINUE TO HAVE A BLACK BUSINESS THAT ALSO APPEALS TO EVERYBODY.”
cool clothes when they were young, but their size put them in great demand later in life. “Us being football players, we were always moving people for free,” Gray recalls, and their payment was “just chicken and beer back then.” Chicken and beer were fine and good for some college kids, but consumables don’t pay the bills—so they went legit and started their own moving company. Between bites of pizza, Gray tells me, “We wanted to be different. At the time, Nashville was becoming a more green city. We’ve always been community focused, all three of us being natives of Nashville. So we decided to put a sustainable focus to what our moving company represented. We called it Green Truck Moving Company. Our idea was we would recycle our customers’ boxes, we’d run our trucks on biodiesel, and then we would take a little portion of the proceeds and we would plant a couple trees for every move that we did.” To get the company going, each of the three friends invested $1,000. “Back then, that was everything we had,” Gray remembers. Green Truck’s thoughtfully considered mission reflected the values and needs of Nashvillians so accurately that in just a few years, the company found considerable success. “We expanded from working out of Derrick’s mom’s house,” Gray explains, “[and] we ended up becoming pretty much the largest local moving company here.” Six weeks before opening Slim & Husky’s, they sold Green Truck to a local family in order to focus more intently on a host of new projects, all under the umbrella of their concept company, SOON, short for “Something Out Of Nothing.” I’m not exactly clear what Gray means by “concept company,” so he goes into greater detail. SOON, he tells me, gives the group the freedom and space to establish their business philosophy. Green Truck proved the idea’s effectiveness, and Slim & Husky’s instant success isn’t a coincidence. Gray gives me some background into the thinking behind, as they call it, their “pizza beeria”: “We really feel like there’s a gap in the hospitality industry that caters to everybody. You don’t walk in a lot of places and see fifty-fifty in regards to minority versus majority. You just don’t see that. It excludes minorities from experiencing the restaurant boom in Nashville.” Moore takes a break from working the busy prep line and joins us as Gray continues: “I’m a foodie, so I go to all these places. But there’s a whole culture of people who aren’t experiencing it because it’s not catered to them. Our goal, the SOON concept, is to basically get rid of that divide and open up concepts that are fun and taste-
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ful and for anybody. That’s our goal. That’s what Slim & Husky’s represents.” Moore, it turns out, is hungry too, so a slice or two of my pie goes to him. I don’t mind. Though I’m not as slim as I used to be, I’m definitely not a husky, and a fully loaded Husky is too much for one slim man. Besides, my notes are getting greasy. Moore dives into our conversation. “SOON,” he interjects, “is just one of those things where we can get all of our ideas out, the fun stuff we have in our heads that we feel like Nashville needs. And it’s all community based.” Reed is running errands, so I won’t get to meet him today, but now that I have at least two of the trio, I want to hear more about their team. Moore chimes in: “It’s a unique combination, a unique blend we have of personalities and characteristics. Clint’s the dude that has all these wild ideas, and we gotta bring him back down to earth sometimes.” At this, Gray laughs, but Moore goes on. “I’m operations, Clint is sales and marketing, and EJ [Reed] is finance . . . As far as working together, we have a great chemistry. We’re friends. Brothers, from the jump. You always think about, What would I be doing if I wasn’t with my bros? or, Could I do this without ‘em? The answer is always no.” The SOON team talks consistently about their efforts being community based, and I ask what that means to them. Gray explains that, in part, it’s their decision to put down roots in North Nashville, historically the center of the city’s African-American population. All three have deep family history in the neighborhood, and they all feel a responsibility to care for the area and its residents. Gray points out: “You know, we could’ve gone to midtown, could’ve gone anywhere, but we wanted to come to North Nashville because we all have ties here, and it just means more. This is a food desert right now . . . We wanted to tie back into an area that was historically black and would continue to have a black business that also appeals to everybody.” The nonstop crowds have made it clear that it most certainly does appeal to everybody. Gray tallies up the mayhem. “The last three days, we’ve sold almost three thousand pizzas out of fifteen hundred square
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feet . . . I’m like, ‘I’m gonna wake up here in a minute. That was just a dream, right?’” A few days before my conversations with Gray and Moore, my wife and I showed up for Slim & Husky’s opening night. The line was snaking around itself, no one willing to crack the door on a chilly night in early spring. The playlist pulsed loud and the crowd was rowdy, like a dance club had a baby with a pizzeria. A small bar featuring a dozen taps of local craft beers was swamped. We ended up in line next to Fallon Wilson, whom we’d seen speak a few days prior as part of an International Women’s Day event at Oz Arts Nashville. Though we’d never met, we became fast friends in line, and Wilson and a friend joined us for dinner. We barely knew each other, but we ended up eating family style, sharing slices back and forth. After the meal, I asked Wilson for her take on the pizza: “It was totally not like anything [I’ve] ever consumed, because the sauces felt homemade, and also different at the same time. I know you cannot taste different! But it felt different!” More than the pies, though, what impressed Wilson was the vibe of the place. “What I love about this pizzeria, slash pub, slash, like, midnight club, trendy hipster [spot], is that it really is situated in a changing neighborhood. But when you walk into this place, it feels as if it’s been always a part of the neighborhood. I think they’ve really been intentional about making sure that this represents the community, even as the community changes.” Clint Gray, Derrick Moore, and Emanuel Reed have created a space that fits perfectly into their old North Nashville neighborhood. It’s a small space, but it’s enough for now. With just fifteen hundred square feet, they’ve made something out of nothing. As Gray puts it, “It’s just pizza, man. You know what I’m saying? . . . We’re just selling pizza. And everybody can enjoy pizza.”
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THE CITY THAT LISTENS MUSICIANS CORNER TURNS THE SPOTLIGHT ON THE FINEST ARTISTS RESIDING AND MAKING MUSIC IN MUSIC CITY
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Z E N & T H E A R T O F A G G R E S S I O N SAMANTHA FRANCES OF FRANCES AND THE F O U N D AT I O N DISCUSSES S O B R I E T Y, LOSS, AND HER BAND’S NEW LP
BY LUKE WIGET | PHOTOS BY REBECCA ADLER
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A COP CAR SPEEDS IN WITH ITS LIGHTS STROBING and stops a few spaces from where I’m sitting in the passenger’s seat of my car, transcribing an interview with Samantha Frances, the fiery, free-talking front woman of the rock ‘n’ roll band Frances and the Foundation. The cop’s high beams glare in so all I see is a shadow coming through the red, white, and blue lights. I have time to stash an open beer in the backseat and grab an Altoid before I have to open the door and explain myself. I’m half in, half out of the car with my computer open to the transcript of my hour-plus conversation with Frances about her band’s forthcoming full-length record, Nothing is Perfect, Everything is Fine. We discuss the album and making music and a life in a gentrified city, Frances’ tenure singing backup vocals for Margo Price, sobriety and songwriting, ’90s music, and what it means to put work out now that Trump is president. At 20:15, discussing “Bohemian Paradise,” one of the singles from the album: “It’s specifically about East Nashville. But if you go to any major city in the country right now, there’s something like that happening. People can identify with it just as much in Muncie, Indiana, as they can in Nashville . . . But I’m also making fun of myself because I moved here with a band and a boyfriend—and from a big city.” At 32:28, about her sobriety: “I don’t mind talking about anything.” At 36:40, on Nashville and making it: “I know a lot of people who’ve left town, or what happens is people stay but just stop playing music or they become part of the music business but they’re not artists anymore . . . I’m very lucky to have friends make it, including Margo [Price] and Brittany [Howard] from Alabama Shakes. Those people did what they came to
do, although Brittany moved here after . . . The other side of that, I know people just as talented who own a business now or got married and they work an insurance job. And why it works out for one person and doesn’t for the next, I couldn’t tell you . . . I think part of it is just not quitting. I’m hoping that’s part of it, anyway, because I haven’t.” At 39:53, in reference to the current commander in chief: “His presidency certainly affects me on multiple levels. He represents all the things that sort of hold women down.” “What the hell are you doing here?” the cop asks me in the parking lot. “Didn’t you see the sign?” “I’m trying to get some work done. I’m sorry,” I say. All I have gotten down at this point, aside from coffee, half a beer, and some of the transcription, are some stray lines about the way Frances talks: direct, like a tattooer or a touring musician—she’s got this natural, honed style and looks you straight in the face with striking green eyes, smiles and means it, sips her tea. She’s a sober bartender who does what she has to do to continue making music, who tried other jobs after she quit drinking but nothing worked quite like bartending. “I have to be okay with this because this is the best possible job I can have to go along with what I’m trying to do with my life.” It’s Sunday night, well past dark in the parking lot at the Cornelia Fort Airpark, and the cop is pissed. He tells me, “They all say it won’t happen again.” And he can’t understand why I’m on the passenger’s side, and didn’t I see the sign that reads Closed Dusk to Dawn? Because of the steering wheel. And no, I lie, I didn’t see any signs. I have a newborn. I’m trying to get some work done. I point to the laptop and Zoom recorder and he demands my ID.
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*** Frances, who cofounded the band with a longtime friend in 2011, has fronted a few different lineups over the years. The current trio consists of Frances on bass and lead vocals, with Nathan Zumwalt on guitar and Wes Cramer behind the drums. This iteration drives at a more syncopated, riff-driven sound that Frances seems to have had in mind since the start. “It’s become less pop, more rock—more progressive kind of—more aggressive rock,” she says. “It has a lot to do with drummers, but also me having more of the control. Before it was more evenly dispersed between me and my guitar player.” The way she explains it, aggression is as much an aesthetic as a reaction. “It’s a response to a lot of things,” Frances says of her directness. “It’s a response to being told you’re too old to do something. It’s a response to being a woman in a fairly male-dominated genre and business and town and world, and blah, blah, blah. That’s a small piece of it, but I don’t like to linger on that. It’s a response to all of it. And, it’s just what I like.” *** In her late teens Frances lost her parents to cancer and found herself in Seattle living with her older brother. He had received custody of their younger sister after their parents passed away. “I was eighteen and it was an option. I was like, Hell yeah, I’m out of here.” So she moved from Colorado Springs to Seattle in 2002, where, rather than attending college, as she had imagined she would, she dove into music. “It’s kind of always been there. It’s kind of in our blood. It’s a very Jew-y thing,” she says and laughs. “We had a kiln and a pottery wheel in our garage, and we were always doing arts and crafts growing up.” Those crafts at home grew into children’s choir, musical theater, bands, and backup singing for Margo Price among others. With each project Frances was trying to find something that fit. “What I really wanted to do was write my own songs, talk about my own stuff,” she says. “I was pissed off . . . My parents both had cancer when I was young, so I grew up really fast, and my dad was an alcoholic . . . I had a dysfunctional childhood, I’ll just put it that way. My parents were very loving but fucked up. And they died young partially because of the way that they lived, which was another reason that I got sober, because I didn’t want to go down that same path.” Eventually she was priced out of Seattle, and she moved to Nashville in 2006 with a band and a boyfriend and set up shop in East Nashville. Neither the
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band nor the boyfriend lasted long, less than a year in both cases. It was likely the culmination of breaking up, coming to terms with losing her parents, and going out to socialize with industry people that led to some of her more problematic drinking. “I was drinking before I moved here, but it really advanced fast when I moved to Nashville,” Frances says. She explains how in addition to the environment, drinking eventually accompanied her songwriting process. “I wrote one really great song when I’d had two cups of wine and a couple hits of weed, and I was like, Oh, if I can just get back to that same magical spot again then I’ll write the best song ever. But it happened once. After that, every time I was going to try to write a song, I was always looking for that magical spot, and most of the time I would go way past it and wouldn’t finish the song. That’s why I sang backup for people for so long, because I couldn’t get anything of my own stuff together . . . I was at a very low level of functioning. Plus, I was unhappy and really hated myself more than anything. It was just time. I just knew.” *** Maybe it’s my own search for that magic spot that draws me back to the airpark until this piece is finished. Each time with an Americano and tall can of beer. I sit shotgun and listen to Nothing is Perfect, Everything is Fine and watch people pour out of their cars in those last moments of sunlight to lap the park on bikes, rollerblades, on foot. “Everyone has that [magic spot]. I’ve never met an artist who didn’t chase after that,” Frances says. “But that’s life, to some extent. You’re always chasing that one awesome time, wishing it could be like that again. Is your memory of it as real as what you’ve turned it into in your mind? No.” One of the warmer nights I get out of the car to snap a picture of a Cornelia Fort quote engraved on a plaque at the entrance. “I am grateful that my one talent, flying, was useful to my country,” said the first female pilot to die on active duty in American history. A few hipster families park and flood by me, pushing strollers out toward the Cumberland before the sun sets. It’s the kind of scene that you imagine inspired songs like “Bohemian Paradise.” These people probably live in the “plastic houses” Frances rails against. But we’re all part of the problem here, as Frances herself acknowledges. Eventually there’s just nowhere for people to be, to make art, because, as she says, “people get pushed out as things get revamped.” Everything about Frances, from her howling songs to
“IT’S A RESPONSE TO BEING TOLD YOU’RE TOO OLD TO DO SOMETHING. IT’S A RESPONSE TO BEING A WOMAN IN A FAIRLY MALEDOMINATED GENRE AND BUSINESS AND TOWN AND WORLD.”
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her quick and ready honesty, suggests that we don’t have time to not mean what we say. There’s no more room for or interest in indie rock irony. “I don’t necessarily want to become Rage Against the Machine or a super political band,” she says about making art during the current administration. “Sometimes I think I’m just saying, Are you seeing this? Are you seeing what’s happening?” Sometimes it seems like when you devote yourself to making something you run the risk of not making something of yourself. With Frances that isn’t true. There’s no discernable distance between her and her art, as both have grown in tandem. Now wiser and with a steady clarity that often seems to accompany sobriety, she has her message and her method, she has her sound, and she is useful. “I try to be especially supportive of younger women who are in Nashville, and if they’re interested in advice about [making music], I’ve been here a long time and have made a bunch of mistakes . . . I want to create a community of people who support each other as much as I can.” I stay at the airpark until just shy of dark listening to the record, reading back over Frances’ thoughts. On rock ‘n’ roll and aggression today: “People need a way to release their frustration, so I think aggressive music is especially important right now. And for me, I want it to be aggressive but not necessarily angry or negative. Because I’m not really that angry or negative. I’m a lot less angry than I used to be, and I try hard to be positive. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be frustrated and show that. To me, it’s almost like showing women you can be frustrated, but you don’t have to be an asshole . . . It doesn’t have to manifest in an I’mright-you’re-wrong way. We’re in this together. This is fucked up, but what can we do to solve it in an aggressively positive way?” Nothing is Perfect, Everything is Fine will be out June 2, with a release show June 1 at The 5 Spot.
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MUSICIAN, J O U R N A L I S T, A N D COUNTRY MUSIC H A L L O F FA M E EDITOR PETER COOPER EXPLORES THE LEGENDS AND MYTHS BEHIND COUNTRY MUSIC IN HIS NEW BOOK
B Y C H A R L I E H I C K E R S O N | P H O T O S B Y C H R I S T O P H E R M O R L E Y | I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y J U L I E S O L A
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a riding lawn mower to the liquor store—told in a new “SOMEHOW JOHNNY CASH IS DEAD.” context. You’ll also find a humanizing interview with a In those five words, Peter Cooper, writing for The young Taylor Swift, a surreal story about Lee Ann WomTennessean’s 2003 obituary for Johnny Cash, encapsuack threatening to kick Cooper in the balls, and a heartlated how every country fan, and perhaps every music breaking look into the tragi-comic life of Jimmy Martin. fan, felt that September. “Somehow” this elemental But more notably, you’ll find stories and people that force—this symbol of pain, tragedy, and triumph that have (wrongly) fallen through the cracks of history. would surely outlast the rest of us—was really gone. It There’s enigmatic cult figure “Cowboy” Jack Clemwas like the wind had suddenly decided to stop blowent—a producer/songwriter that worked with Sam Philing or the grass had turned blue. The Man in Black had lips, helped make “Historic RCA Studio B” historic, and faded to black, and Peter Cooper was right there with recorded everyone from Waylon to Bono in his home us, mourning. studio off Belmont Boulevard. There’s Station Inn But Cooper has always been “right there.” And he’s matriarch Ann Soyars, who arguably discovered Chris always known exactly what to say and when to say it. Stapleton and Dierks Bentley. There’s Lloyd Green, the For roughly fifteen years, Cooper was a music col“Sandy Koufax of steel guitar,” who turned down a tourumnist for The Tennessean. During his time with the ing position in Paul McCartney’s Wings. paper, he wrote about (and in many instances, became They’re all remembered with dignity, sincerity, huclose friends with) George Jones, Merle Haggard, Earl mor, and heartfelt conviction—with writing that’s tight Scruggs, Garth Brooks, and many, many more. In 2013, and clean and erudite and all those other words writers he left The Tennessean for the Country Music Hall of use to describe good writing. As perennial rock critic Fame, where he now serves as museum editor. Peter Guralnick says in the foreword: “[Cooper] offers As a musician, songwriter, Grammy-nominated probrilliant, and funny, portrayals of their magnificent ecducer, and performer, Cooper has worked with everycentricities without ever showing a hint of condescenone from Emmylou Harris to Ricky Skaggs to Todd sion—and without ever failing to suggest the depths of Snider, the latter of whom Cooper met when he interperception, insight, and regret that may well lie underviewed him for a Tennessean article. Cooper went on neath.” to play bass for Snider, a gig that led to tracking with The following are Cooper’s edited ruminations, anLoretta Lynn (on the Lynn/Snider collaboration, “Don’t ecdotes, and general thoughts from the afternoon we Tempt Me”) and appearing on Letterman and Leno. spent at the Omni Bongo Java, next door to his office at With encouragement from Snider, Cooper released the Hall of Fame. They’re great, but if you want the real his first album in 2007, and he’s followed it with a steady deal, I suggest picking up a copy of Johnny’s Cash and output of critically acclaimed releases since. Here’s Charley’s Pride. You won’t be disappointed. what Kris Kristofferson said about those releases: “His songs are the work of an original, creative imagination, ON “COWBOY” JACK CLEMENT: alive with humor and heartbreak and irony and intelCowboy, for so many reasons, exemplifies Nashville, ligence, with truth and beauty in the details. Deep stuff. the best of Nashville, to me. I wish everyone who puts And they get better every time you listen.” a bid down on a house here could be able to meet him Country-folk god endorsements aside, at the end of and understand. Or would have been able to meet him the day, Cooper is a storyteller. And he’s perhaps never and get a sense of that guy. I start the book with, “Well told better stories than in his new book, Johnny’s Cash we should probably start with the Cowboy. He’s the one and Charley’s Pride: Lasting Legends and Untold Advenyou should have met.” And I genuinely think that. It’s tures in Country Music. not that people need to memorize his resume or know Like most things that are good, it’s hard to classify what hit songs he wrote or something. It’s the essence the book: it’s a memoir; it’s an encyclopedic record of of the dude that I’m trying to sprinkle around. the Old Testament-esque origins of country music; it’s [The essence was] unfettered, whimsical, creative a behind-the-scenes look at legends struggling with insanity, underscored by the notion that if we’re not mortality and legacy. In it, you’ll find now-classic Amerhaving fun, we’re really screwing up. When Cowboy enicana myths—like the time Kristofferson landed a helitered a room—at least up to a certain point in the vodka copter on Johnny Cash’s lawn, or George Jones drove
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bottle—the room got happier, and people felt better about themselves and better about the things they were doing. A clown prince is still a royal. You should have met him. He was just a delight. So much great stuff got done because of him and the way he wanted to work. He decided that maybe a studio is the worst place in the world to make music, so he turned his house into a studio. That was the model for everything that all of us are doing these days. That was taking back the creative reins—let’s do it at the house. Then he decided to paint the stairwell up to the second story studio and have it be blue sky and clouds. It really felt like you were ascending when you were there at his home on Belmont Boulevard. If you took a guitar and its case up those stairs, you felt like you were moving on up to some place holy— because you were. ON THE LINE BETWEEN CATHARSIS AND SELF-DESTRUCTION IN SONGWRITING: I think that songwriting is different things for different songwriters. And I think that sometimes it is self-destructive, and I think sometimes it is soul sustaining. There are people who write their way into problems and people who write their way out of them. I think when you are songwriting at the level of the kinds of people that we’re talking about, you’re playing blackjack at the high stakes table. It’s not an easy thing, and it’s not something to be taken lightly—that these people open themselves up on a level that’s uncommon, even among parents and children or marriage partners. They are opening themselves up to complete strangers. For some of them the way that strangers deal with that is of no consequence, and for others, it just grinds at them. I think empathy is the necessary element and that some people acquire empathy for damaged people by damaging themselves . . . But, I also think that there are people who have a Hank Williams complex and work on destroying themselves in the name of creativity.
That doesn’t enable their creativity at all. I think of one of my favorites—that’s why I didn’t write much about him in the book. Townes Van Zandt is an incredible songwriter but spent the last ten years of his life not creating very much because he was an addict. You can fool yourself into thinking you’re Hank Williams, but Hank Williams also died at age twenty-nine. Who knows what great work he would have done.
doing business at three in the morning over a pinball gambling machine at JJ’s Market. That kind of thing just can’t be done today. Everything is worldwide as soon as it happens. We’ve got email verification, and cellphone records, and Taylor Swift can’t go for a walk in the park without everybody knowing it. So, that probably produces a different kind of popular recording artist, because you can’t make the reckless mistakes in private. And making big reckless mistakes was part of the artistic process at one time. That said, music should be fun. One big point of the book is Cowboy Jack’s notion of, “Remember we’re in the fun business, if we’re not having fun, we’re not doing our jobs.” It should be a joyful thing and in some corners it certainly is. There’s not a lot of great reasons to do it if it’s not joyful, and if it doesn’t provide for some kind of relief. The business model is [lousy] at this point. There’s every indication that the choice to make music for a living is going to provide for some measure of heartache and hardship.
ON CRITICISM IN WRITING: I think there are ways to write critically about art and about politics that aren’t snarky. I just think sometimes that it’s the cheap way out, and it’s not a great way to make a point. Putting something down is not a way to further your agenda . . . [It’s] like the people yelling at each other on the Sunday talk shows from polar opposite points of view: they never convince each other of anything. They’re just yelling and maybe someone gets a gotcha in there, but minds aren’t changing there. I think that people do that with music sometimes too . . . There were several times I remember coming up with ON THE INTERSECTION OF HUMOR something really snarky and funny and AND TRAGEDY IN COUNTRY MUSIC: chastising. To the point that I laughed as I typed it. Inevitably, those are the sen- I don’t know how to define it, but I know tences that I would regret when they got often its appeal is kind of like a really into print and I stared at them. Anything good episode of M.A.S.H. . . . It’s humor written out of meanness is not going to that just sets you up for an emotional sucker punch. When you laugh, you’re help. I don’t root for music in the same way opened up. The best at this is John that I root for sports teams anymore— Prine—you’re chuckling so you’re open I’m glad I don’t. I can spend time spend- to what’s coming next, and then he says, ing my allotment of hate on Duke bas- “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all ketball or something and not on some the money goes / and Jesus Christ died song that doesn’t strike my fancy. Every for nothing, I suppose.” That’s tough to moment I’m spending on paying atten- ignore. tion to something that doesn’t strike my ON THE FUTURE fancy is a moment that I’m not spending OF COUNTRY MUSIC: finding something that does. Well, we’ll strum a G chord and find out. ON “FUN” IN THE See where it goes [laughs]. The infinite MUSIC INDUSTRY: possibilities of the thing are mind-blowI think when the music business isn’t ing to me. Where I’ve taken it lately is as fun as it used to be, it’s probably our making an album, writing an album with fault. With that said, lack of privacy is a Thomm Jutz and Country Music Hall of bitch. In the ’70s, Waylon Jennings was Fame member Mac Wiseman, about the
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scope of Mac’s life and his experience [going] from an impoverished child in rural Virginia to world-traveling Hall of Fame musician. Sitting with him and having him tell his stories, and writing those down and making sure that they rhyme at some point—that’s nothing I could ever have predicted that I would be doing. Mac picked up a guitar, started recording in 1946, and was in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, and Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and helped invent bluegrass. Music brought him to Nashville. Because of this WSM Radio tower that’s here. They can pump out fifty thousand watts of power and take a local musician and make him a national musician. In some ways, this book isn’t about Nashville, but I do want people to come away from it with an understanding of why this town is what it is. And who these insane geniuses who populate this town are, and were, and will be. It’s incredible to live here. ON MEETING YOUR HEROES: Some people feel like musicians are pulling some kind of trick on them. [They say], “You wouldn’t want to meet so-andso because you’d really be disappointed.” With songwriters, that’s stuff that you cannot fake. You can’t fake Kristofferson’s intelligence and empathy and humanity and inherent goodness. He would not be able to write those songs if he did not possess those qualities. You can be a total dick and a really good defensive end, but I don’t think you can do it with songs. At least I haven’t come across it. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t met jerk songwriters, but invariably they’ve been people whose songs didn’t move me much. The club that I’m writing about is one that lets me come in on visitor’s day and peer in the window, shake hands every now and then, but I’m not a member. These are people who changed things . . . All these people had their lives changed by music before they went and changed music. They all ran to it, you know? They saw the fire and decided not to flee. Johnny’s Cash and Charley’s Pride: Lasting Legends and Untold Adventures in Country Music is available April 25 via Spring House Press.
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East Nashville:
1013# NFatherland St. AT IVE N ASH VI LLE
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Belle Meade:
6592 Highway 100 Suite 1
YOU OUGHTA KNOW: PAUL MCDONALD
PAUL MC DONALD For more info on Paul Mc Donald, visit thepaulm cdonald. com or follow @ThePaul McDonald
After the cameras are turned off and the VH1 contracts are terminated, life can get a little grim for reality TV stars. Some fade into involuntary obscurity (Heidi and Spencer, #TeamSpeidi), some go broke (The Situation), and some, bizarrely enough, become neo-Nazis (Tila Tequila). Who knew fifteen minutes could have such an adverse effect? Fortunately this isn’t the case with Paul McDonald, who placed eighth on American Idol in 2011. But that probably has something to do with the fact that he was, you know, actually talented in the first place. Pre-Idol, McDonald recorded and toured extensively with his first band, The Grand Magnolias. They played Bonnaroo and Hangout and even opened for the likes
of Zac Brown and Sara Bareilles. Now, after an American Idol tour, a slew of TV appearances, and sporadic collaborations with various local artists, McDonald is back with his first solo LP. Partially recorded at Sound Emporium Studios—the famous Belmont Boulevard spot founded by “Cowboy” Jack Clement— Modern Hearts sees McDonald moving away from the piano-laden ballads that defined his Idol-era sound. Instead, he uses his Rod Stewart-esque rasp to sing sprawling Southern soul-pop anthems. Listen to his new single, “Call on Me,” on Lightning 100, see him at Mercy Lounge with past NATIVE features Kelsey Kopecky and Republican Hair on April 29, and read about his love of Willy Wonka above. NAT II VV ENAS ENAS HV HV II LL LL EE ## NAT
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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 # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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GET A DANCER’S BODY WITH NO DANCE EXPERIENCE CARDIO BARRE NASHVILLE
1512 8TH AVE SOUTH | 615.730.7676
MORNINGS JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT EASIER!
w w w. c a rd i o b a r re . c o m
ANIMAL OF THE MONTH
Written by Cooper Breeden*
! P E PE
Spring PPper I hate Bradford pears and I think their flowers stink like hell. Nonetheless, something about that foul smell gets me excited. I can find no better explanation for it than the association of the smell with some of the more titillating heralds of spring: the rejuvenation of winter’s drab palette by the yellows of the daffodils and the pinks of the magnolias, the slowly but surely growing gap between da dawn and dusk, and of course, the mating calls of that chipper amphibian, the spring peeper. The spring peeper is in the treefrog family, though you might not expect that from where you hear it peeping. In the spring, these frogs make their way to small bodies of water to breed. These can include anything from roadside ditches to flooded fields to small streams. Typically you would expect to encounter the spring peeper in early spring once the temperatures remain consistently above fr freezing. Like their name insinuates, you’ll know the peeper by its high-pitched peep, which you’ll probably hear long before you see the frog (if you see one at all). Additionally, you will usually hear a large group of them rather than just one individual, so all the peeps meld into a slightly shrill but calming chorus of nature. The peeps of this frog actually come from the male, perched on vegetation above the surface of the water, trying to woo a lady with his song. Once the matchmaking is complete, the female will lay up to one thousand eggs, and then the peepers will spend the rest of the year in nearby woodlands and forests. The spring peeper gets its scientific name, Pseudacris crucifer, from the dark lines on its back that form an X (or
cross, hence crucifer). They are small frogs, at most an inch and a half long, and range in color from tan to brown to olive. As a member of the treefrog family (Hylidae), the spring peeper has adhesive pads on its toes that give it its climbing abilities. However, as with some of the other members of the treefrog family, the spring peepers do not spend their time high in the treetops as you might expect fr from their name. Spring peepers may actually be found in burrows, under logs and bark, and even in caves. The negative impact of man’s exploits is a common theme for animals that live all or part of their life in the water. For amphibians around the world, this is compounded by the global spread of a fungal disease called chytridiomycosis (chytrid, for short). Fortunately, neither man’s impact on water quality nor chytrid seem to have affected our spring peepers. From a conservation standpoint, these frogs are in a good place. Their populations are still going strong despite the hurdles we leave in their way. In general, spring peepers are widespread throughout the eastern United States and can be found throughout most of Tennessee. However, they are mostly absent from a small area of Middle Tennessee. This area, or ecoregion, is known as the Inner Nashville Basin and encompasses most of Wilson and Rutherford Counties and smaller parts of a few surrounding counties. Fortuna nately for us Nashvillians, the majority of Davidson County lies outside the Inner Nashville Basin ecoregion boundary, which means we’ll be serenaded by the peeper’s mating song on our early spring strolls.
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WE ARE
CAR PEOPLE
OF COOL SPRINGS # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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