The East Nashvillian 11.3 May|June 2021

May | June 2021 Vol. XI Issue 3

Trist en!

She’s a DIY maven & her new record, Aquatic Flowers, kicks ass.

Free Particles & Community Mechanics

Drkmttr emits the Nashville Free Store

Rough & Rocky

Jon Byrd’s Me & Paul is a gem born in a barroom

A Star in the East

Twenty years of “keeping it local” in Five Points

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18TH annual 2021

five Points, East Nashville, TN

August 13 & 14 hale Gallery dW an

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theeastnashvillian.com Founder & Publisher Lisa McCauley

Creative Director

Chuck Allen

Layout & Design

Benjamin Rumble

Editor-in-Chief

Photo Editing

Chuck Allen

Travis Commeau

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CONGRATULATIONS TO JAY C ATAL AN O FOR HIS PROM OT ION TO WO OD SHOP MAN AGER.

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Features Particles & Community 16 Free Mechanics

Drkmttr emits the Nashville Free Store

By Randy Fox

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A Star in the East

Twenty years of “keeping it local” in Five Points

By Randy Fox

44 Rough and Rocky

Cover Story

22 Why Tristen?

She’s a DIY maven & her new record, Aquatic Flowers, kicks ass.

That’s why.

By Andrew Leahey

Jon Byrd’s Me and Paul is a gem born in a barroom

By Randy Fox

Commentary Editor’s Letter

On the Cover Tristen

By Chuck Allen

Photograph by Danielle Holbert

13 Precedented?

14 Searching For Normal Astute Observations

By James “Hags” Haggerty

48 God, Grant Me the Serenity ...

East Of Normal

By Tommy Womack

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Editor’s

Letter

Precedented?

L

et’s be honest; were it not for Google, YouTube, social media, and the former president-whowould-be-king, by mid-summer our country would be looking at a vaccination rate in adults 18 and older of around 90 percent.

At the moment we’re hovering around 50 percent, and about 40 percent of Republicans remain “vaccine hesitant.”

This, even though the ex-president and his family got their jabs in January — before it became available to the general public. With the efficacy of the vaccines exceeding expectations, if 90 percent of us were vaxxed we truly would see a return to “precedented times” by late summer.

Instead, the far-right death cult insists on keeping its constituents tied up in knots of confusion and ignorance while prolonging the nation’s agony.

Their cynical mendacity is beyond breathtaking (literally).

Meanwhile, the lick-spittle members of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” — ably abetted by their colleagues in State Houses and Governors’ Mansions across the country — are leap-frogging over one another in a contest of performative outrage. This alternate reality is amplified

by a media ecosystem financially dependent on keeping its audience enthralled and engaged. But should the far-right base ever shake off the spell and realize they’ve been played, there will be hell to pay.

Until such a day, the rest of us (the majority of us) will have to make things work however we can, which includes navigating a return to normalcy — whatever that means.

In spite of the aforementioned conundrum, the vast majority of our community has shown great courage.

Business owners have acted with vigilance even as they’ve faced extreme financial duress. The East Side is, at least, one pocket of humanity acting with humanity.

So what does a return to normal even look like? It seems evident that it means different things to different people and will be very uneven in its expression.

Maybe it will be when Canada allows leisure travelers to return. As it stands now, Trudeau has nixed the idea until the Fall. Maybe it will be going on the Cayamo Cruise (you’d best have proof of vaccination). Or traveling to Australia (note: they don’t want us just yet).

Or maybe it will be as simple as going to Dee’s or The Five Spot or The

Basement East without being required (or feeling the need) to wear a mask.

One of the many current outrages amongst the outraged is the idea that one day a “vaccine passport” will be required for certain activities. To this I would ask, “But what about ‘freedom’?

Shouldn’t businesses be ‘free’ to decide whether or not they can require a vaccine card?” You can bet your ass Delta, American, and United are pondering this very question. It will probably boil down to “money talks, bullshit walks” when it comes to international travel and proof of vaccination. DeSantis can say all he wants, but if Miami International Airport says, “Yo, Gov, the only way we can return to flights into the UK is for passengers to have proof of vaccination,” he won’t have a choice but to cave.

The ramifications of returning to normal are global in scope because we are, still, in the throes of a global pandemic. Locally, things might start resembling “precedented’ times again.

But as demonstrated by the pandemic, the fate of humanity is forever bound together. If we wish to ever again use the idea of American Exceptionalism as our calling card, perhaps we should lead by demonstrating we care for someone other than ourselves.

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Astute Observations

by James “Hags” Haggerty

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IN SEARCH OF NORMAL ack to normal? What?! I can scarcely remember what normal is. I don’t even know what year this is. Was last summer normal or was that the summer before? 2019?

When was that again? Whew! I’m just a ray of sunshine these days.

I think I have Stockholm syndrome. Isolation, insomnia, and paranoia have become the devils I know. When I first put on the mask, I felt like a dog with a cone of shame. I couldn’t wait to take it off. It felt foreign, uncomfortable, and annoying but now I’m afraid to remove it. I find it comforting. It makes me feel safe. In canine terms, it is my thunder shirt. It is my crate in the storm.

Am I in the twilight zone or what? Is it really safe to take off our masks now? I’m inoculated. The CDC says it’s cool. Science says it’s cool. Fonzie says, “cool.” I am not convinced. Is this a trick? I feel like Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone.

You know the episode. He’s the last man on Earth.

He loves to read and there are so many books! In a cruel twist of fate, his eyeglasses are shattered and he can’t see past the nose on his face. It’s an imperfect analogy, I know. What I’m getting at is that feeling of having the rug pulled out from under oneself. One minute, life is normal, going along from day to day, the illusions of routine and security firmly (delicately) in place and in the blink of an eye, a year-long bad trip, hiding in the dark, shooting bleach through a spray bottle at microbial boogeymen with murderous intent.

I’m like Charlie Brown at Christmastime: “I feel depressed. I know I should be happy, but I’m not.”

Maybe I’m just not ready. I really want to be ready.

This should feel like Christmas but instead, I feel like I did at junior high school dances: awkward, uncomfortable, and nervous, pretending like I know what I’m doing and wishing I was at home listening to Van Halen’s Fair Warning on my Walkman.

I’m like the kid at the pool who hasn’t conquered

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the high dive yet. I’m yearning to take the Nestea plunge. I want to feel that cool water all over my body and swim in it but I’m scared. The CDC is the tipsy uncle who pushes me in, shrieking and flopping only to emerge laughing and excited to do it again. Fauci is the kindly lifeguard; “That’s how you learn, kid!”

Have you heard the one about the firing squad?

The first time’s always the hardest … .

I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike. I’m looking forward to a trip to the grocery store being a pleasurable experience where I take my time picking my produce and not as a commando mission behind enemy lines where I am constantly checking my six, as it were.

I’m going to do it. I will re-enter. I will socialize.

I will enjoy it. Sometimes I won’t. I will play gigs.

I will go to friends‘ gigs. I will go to parties. I’ll white-knuckle it until my grip eventually relaxes.

Sometimes I will stay at home and listen to Van Halen, loudly. Maybe I’ll burn my mask in the street in some sort of misguided statement.

The truth is I really don’t know what getting back to normal means. The pandemic provided a break from the hamster wheel and plenty of time for reflection between meltdowns. In many ways, I don’t want to get back to normal. I want a better normal. A normal without weekly mass shootings and permit-less carry laws. I want a normal that recognizes the truth about racism, institutional or overt, and seeks to eradicate it.

Furthermore, I would like an end to overhopped beer in the new normal and $3 Miller’s Lite in every tavern. I would like pedal taverns and mobile hot tubs to go the way of the dodo. Let’s add bro-country and snap track country to the list of don’ts in the new normal as well. A man can dream, can he not?

I joke when I’m nervous. This is a jangly time.

The words “acceptable risk” have become commonplace. That’s a concept I haven’t wrapped my head around yet but I am trying.

I’m looking forward to seeing you, friends and neighbors. I’ll be the kid at the back pretending he knows what he’s doing, faux-casually dipping his toe in the shallow end.

Hags is a bass player and regular contributor to The East Nashvillian.

Like most sane folks, he’s antsy about the return to ‘precedented’ times . But he might give you a hug — provided you’re vaxxed.

May | June 2021 theeastnashvillian.com

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Free Particles & Community Mechanics Drkmttr emits the Nashville Free Store

W

hen the gravity and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became evident in the early weeks of March 2020, Drkmttr Collective, the locus of Nashville’s all-ages DIY music scene, faced the same challenges as every other music venue. The small, Dickerson Pike space found itself with a slate of canceled shows and an uncertain future as Drkmttr staff member Meade Forsythe recalls.

“When [the pandemic] started there was some hope of at least returning to shows in the fall,” Forsythe says. “But it became apparent pretty quickly it would last much longer when bands started canceling tours.” →

By Randy Fox

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As a collective, however, Drkmttr wasn’t your usual music club. Conceived as a shared community space to nurture music, art, and activism, Drkmttr’s staff quickly shifted their focus to that crucial third aspect, as Drkmttr staff member Chappy Hull explains. “[Molly McCarthy and Bassam Habib] brought the idea to use the space for a free store,” Hull says, “It’s not a new idea, it’s been implemented in other places and Drkmttr providing a space for community mutual aid efforts is something we were already doing.”

Since late July, the Nashville Free Store has operated on Saturdays, offering essential products, including canned goods, dairy products, fresh produce, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and more, as well as ready-to-eat meals from their Dickerson Road neighbor, Shugga High Bakery & Cafe. Everything is free of charge, no questions asked.

Stocked and staffed each week by a rotating crew of approximately 60 volunteers, the Free Store fills its shelves through cash donations, which are used to purchase store inventory, as well as direct product donations from a variety of partnerships with local businesses and non-profits.

“There are a lot of organizations in town that donate to us weekly because we’re building on the work they’re already doing,” Forsythe says.

“When we approached them with our plans for the Free Store, they were immediately all about it and were helping us figure it out. We don’t have [tax-exempt 501(c)3 status] because we’re not a charity; we’re a mutual aid effort.”

While cynics might predict freely offering

goods would quickly lead to individuals taking advantage of the system, that has not been the case. “We’re not watching them when they shop, and it’s not our place to tell them what or how much they can use,” Hull says. “In the beginning, a few people came in and loaded up on things like it would never happen again, but two or three months later, the same people were only getting what they needed for →

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a week, because they knew it would be here next week.”

“We’ve found if there’s a solid influx of goods, people self-regulate,” Forsythe adds.

“It’s impressive and heartening.”

While cash donations to the Free Store are earmarked for purchasing inventory, Drkmttr has managed to pay the rent and keep the lights on through Patreon memberships, merchandise sales, and working with an understanding and supportive landlord, along with a handful of livestreamed shows. With hope on the horizon for the return of live music, the staff at Drkmttr plan a continued emphasis on the Free Store and other mutual aid efforts, including a newly renovated classroom area for community events and meetings.

general — having a place they can go to that doesn’t serve liquor and their parents can feel safe about dropping them off. Growing up in Nashville’s DIY scene, I went to some real shitholes for shows that were very dangerous, but it was still amazing, and it made me who I am. It was such an important part of all my friends’ lives too, but if we had a place that was safe, it would have been a lot better.”

Just as the May/June issue went to press, The Nashville Free Store announced they were moving to a new space as Drkmttr transitions back to live shows. The Nashville Free Store will be open each Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the basement level of 1213 Dickerson Pike starting June 4. Product donations may be dropped off at the new location on Fridays. Consult the Nashville Free Store’s Instagram @thenashvillefreestore for updates, specific product needs, and donation drop-off hours. To support Drkmttr, visit their Patreon at patreon.com/DrkmttrCollective and for updates, follow them on Instagram @drkmttrcollective.

“It may get more challenging as live music returns, but the Free Store is independent of Drkmttr,” Forsythe says. “It could be somewhere else, or a pop-up outside in the summertime, maybe even something that operates out of a storage unit. There are a lot of options going forward. We’re just trying to be ready to adapt to what the community needs.”

Whatever the future of the Free Store and Drkmttr, Hull says their continuing mission is a vital one for Nashville. “The main thing about Drkmttr that is often overlooked is that we are the only secular all-ages music space in Nashville. I think that is a really important thing for LGBTQ youth, and young kids in May | June 2021 theeastnashvillian.com

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why

Tristen?

She’s a DIY maven & her new record, Aquatic Flowers, kicks ass.

That’s why.

Story by Andrew Leahey Photography by Danielle Holbert

May | June 2021 theeastnashvillian.com

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m

onths before the rest of the world shut itself indoors to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic, Tristen Gaspadarek found herself at home in Madison, practicing her own form of isolation.

She’d recently given birth to her first child — a son, Julian, now a two-year-old toddler — and was already staring down the barrel of another due date: the deadline for her fourth album, Aquatic Flowers.

Her previous record, Sneaker Waves, released in 2017, was full of glittering pop songs that made room for Laurel Canyon jangle, Brill Building bounce, and garage rock grit. Now it was time for something new — something that not only built upon the sound she’d spent the past decade constructing but nodded to the life-changing experience of becoming a mom too.

Making good use of the home studio that occupies the ground floor of the 1960s brick bungalow she shares with her husband, co-producer, and longtime collaborator Buddy Hughen, Tristen finished Aquatic Flowers during brief moments of calm. It was a stop-and-go effort.

“We began recording when Julian was in my belly,” she remembers.

“He was in a breech position, so his head was up against my lungs, and I couldn’t catch my breath as fast.” Songs like “Say Goodnight” were tracked during the final stretch of her third trimester, lending a breathless urgency to an album whose characters grapple with love, loathing, and life’s ever-present obstacles. Meanwhile, the track “Julian” — a lilting lullaby for her son cowritten with Pebe Sebert, punctuated by twinkling piano and weightless refrains that drift skyward — was written on the other side of her pregnancy, while her infant slept in her arms.

Ushering a new life and a new record into the world at the same time was not for the faint of heart. Luckily, Tristen and Buddy had spent the past decade refining their creative approach, which minimized the pair’s time in the studio. After recruiting Jeremy Ferguson to produce Tristen’s career-launching debut, Charlatans at the Garden Gate, and tapping synth-pop legend Stephen Hague to mix 2013’s Caves, they began keeping things in-house — literally — with Sneaker Waves. Aquatic Waves found them refining Sneaker Waves’ made-athome approach even further. Surrounded by house plants, analog gear, and the familiar comforts of home, they recorded one song at a time in the Madison bungalow, often within a day or two of the song’s creation. Working as co-producers and multi-instrumentalists, they only needed to reach out to a small number of friends — bassist Linwood Regensburg, formerly of Those Darlins; drummer Andy Spore, from the electro-glam act How I Became the Bomb; Nashville staple James Haggerty, known to friends (and readers of this magazine) as “Hags”; and Ryan Brewer, a veteran of Ben Kweller’s and Robyn Hitchcock’s touring bands — to beef up the rhythm tracks. The process kept things smooth and efficient, a must for sleep-deprived parents. →

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“

The reality is, most people have other hustles. You can technically survive by playing music in the middle tiers, but you can’t be a homeowner. You can’t find stability. That’s why I sell vintage. There’s nothing wrong with having another job.

Tristen Gaspadarek

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“We’ve made four records together,” says Tristen, who met Buddy not long after moving to town in 2007. “The process has been figured out. We have a different attitude about simplifying our arrangements these days, because you’ve got to be able to play these things live. The songs on Aquatic Flowers were based around Buddy and I playing instruments at the same time. We’d build a track around that, and we would finish each song entirely before moving on to something new.”

“We used to have arguments about the songs, a long time ago,” she adds. “Buddy went to Berklee, so he has a certain toolkit and a certain kind training that makes him someone I need. But he also used to say, ‘You can’t play that chord and sing that note at the same time,’ and I’d say, ‘Yes I can, because it sounds weird and good.’ I don’t have that kind of training, so I’m just relying on instincts. It’s a good partnership. We work well together.”

Aquatic Flowers may have been created indoors, but the album still brings a blast of floral color to the greyscale days of COVID-19. Due for a June 4 release, it’s full of classic, left-of-center pop songs for the modern world, rooted in brainy lyrics — including deep dives into human analysis, psychology, and Greek mythology — that don’t give a damn about the mainstream. Tristen isn’t chasing somebody else’s idea of a hit album. Instead, she’s following her own muse, chasing it from the Merseybeat melodies of “I Need Your Love” — which unfolds like a one-woman girl group single — to the woozy, ’70s-influenced psychedelia of “Die 4 Love.” If that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d hear from a Nashville artist … well, that’s sort of the point.

“I wouldn’t be the best songwriter to work with if you wanted to write a pop hit, because I’d probably be trying to write a song about mall walkers or something,” Tristen says. “I don’t sound like anything, and I don’t really fit anywhere, but I don’t know how to be any other way. I just make my records at home, using a process that works for me, and then I do my best to get people to hear those records. I’ve never given much thought to the things I’d need to do in order to be commercially viable.”

With self-deprecating humor, she adds, “I have a joke I’ve been using a lot lately. It goes, ‘Having a baby didn’t ruin my career. I already did that myself.’”

A

ll jokes aside, this isn’t what a ruined career looks like. Tristen is a member of Nashville’s millennial old guard, having graduated from the hectic hustle of the late-aughts — back when she cut her teeth at venues like The 5 Spot and Mercy Lounge, often playing every gig that was offered to her — and become the sort of local luminary whose hometown shows are major events. Four years ago, she brought balloons, a professional audio crew, and an oversized crowd to the American Legion for Sneaker Waves’ release party, which she dubbed “Tristen the Night Away.” She’ll throw a similar event in support of Aquatic Flowers, adapting to the times by presenting an all-star livestream, “Tristen the Night Away 2,” on June 11 at The 5 Spot.

The musical guest list is stacked, including names like Jenny Lewis, Vanessa Carlton, Robyn Hitchcock, the Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon, Deer Tick’s John McCauley, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Lillie →

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musiccityroots.com

Mae. Comedian Chris Crofton will reprise his role as the evening’s emcee.

For Tristen, whose full-band performance of Aquatic Flowers will mark the livestream’s main event, “Tristen the Night Away 2” represents a return to the collaborative projects that filled her pre-pandemic years. When Jenny Lewis released The Voyager in 2014, the former Rilo Kiley frontwoman tapped Tristen to play keyboards and electric guitar in her touring band. It was a vote of confidence from an indie rock queen, and the experience sharpened Tristen’s abilities as an instrumentalist.

“I loved being in that band,” she gushes, thinking back to the international tour that brought the group across America, Australia, Japan, and Canada. “I was exercising another part of my brain, singing threepart harmonies, and learning keyboard parts written

by Beck and Benmont Tench. Even something as simple as building a keyboard rig to get those sounds was a challenge, but in a really good way. I’m always up for a challenge.”

Another challenge arrived after Tristen returned home. She’d become friends with Vanessa Carlton, the piano-playing songwriter who’d dominated American airwaves with the pop hit “A Thousand Miles” before moving into Tristen’s neighborhood in January 2015 and was asked to co-write material for Carlton’s newest project. The two worked together during a series of three-hour sessions, creating the songs that would eventually fill Carlton’s 2020 release, Love Is an Art. Like the Jenny Lewis gig, the opportunity whittled Tristen’s skills to a sharper point, teaching her to summon the muse within the confines of a schedule that wasn’t her own. That skill would come in handy later once Julian arrived.

I don’t sound like anything, and I don’t really fit anywhere, but I don’t know how to be any other way.

”

“I was used to the casual co-writes where you get together and goof off for three or four hours, and it’s like speed dating,” Tristen admits. “You’ll go have a beer or something, and everything is chill. But I’d get together with Vanessa, and she’d be like bam bam bam, and we’d finish a third of a song before I knew it. She was so fast. I didn’t understand why, but now that I’m a mother, I absolutely get it. The babysitter was there, her daughter was taking a nap, and she had this pocket of time where she could hustle and get something done.”

When it comes to Tristen’s extracurricular work outside of her solo records, though, nothing tops Anaconda Vintage, the clothing collective that she co-founded with her sister in June 2018. Smartly situated behind Grimey’s on Trinity Lane, the shop includes five employees and twice as many vendors.

Tristen credits Fond Object, the now-demolished record store that occupied a corner of Riverside Village for six years, with inspiring the store’s ethos. →

Aquatic Flowers

Tristen’s latest album arrives June 4 via Momma Bird Recording Co. She will celebrate its release with the livestream “Tristen the Night Away 2” from The 5 Spot on June 11 at 8 p.m.

CDT. The album and tickets for the livestream are available at tristen.com.

Celebrate with us!

It took grit, determination and flexibility but we made it!

We want to thank all of our amazing students, parents, teachers, staff and community partners for their support during this unusual school year. We love and appreciate our East Nashville community.

Learn more about our magnet schools at www.mnps.org/steammagnet

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theeastnashvillian.com May | June 2021

“It’s a very socialist model where we all work one day a week, we all contribute, and we all make what we sell,” she says proudly.

“I sold vintage clothes at Fond Object for years before they closed. My sister was selling online, and we decided to open a store and create a launchpad for other self-starters. We’ve had three of our vendors open up their own shops in Nashville. I wish show business was like that too. This isn’t about competing with anybody else. Instead, it’s about taking care of someone today, because you know that they’re gonna do the same for you tomorrow.”

Tristen has never been worried about hiding her side hustles. She’s a self-financed musician, and working another job is just part of the gig. “A lot of people are ashamed to admit the reality of their situation,” she says. “They’re like, ‘My van is breaking down and I have three roommates just to be able to afford the rent here, but I have to portray this image of success as an artist.’ If more middle-class musicians would speak up about it, it would become more acceptable. The reality is, most people have other hustles. You can technically survive by playing music in the middle tiers, but you can’t be a homeowner. You can’t find stability. That’s why I sell vintage. There’s nothing wrong with having another job. Anybody who doesn’t is probably subsidized by someone else.”

Tristen certainly isn’t taking subsidies.

A former waitress, she still makes her living as a server, dishing up ’80s concert raglans to her Anaconda customers, high-minded pop/rock to her audiences, and unreleased poems to her Patreon supporters. It’s a working-class living.

Nowhere is that DIY spirit more evident than on albums like Aquatic Flowers, which finds Tristen pulling triple-duty as an artist, co-producer, and studio owner. She’s making records her own way, without exhausting her budget or ceding control to an outside producer who may not understand her vision. These days, she can control every aspect of the creative process itself.

“There used to be a lag between the amount of songs I was writing and the amount of songs I was able to record,” she explains. “A large part of that was a financial barrier. I’m not a trust fund kid. No one funneled money into my career. When I started making music in Nashville, I was waiting tables at 12 South Taproom and touring in my Honda Civic. My first record, Charlatans At The Garden Gate, only happened because [Battle Tapes Recording engineer] Jeremy Ferguson said, ‘This is great; I’m going to record it for free.’ I got people paid in the end, but not nearly enough. It was never enough.”

Things changed as Tristen began taking an

active role in her own recordings. “That barrier came down during the course of my creative life, because recording technology became so accessible,” she continues. “I bought an Apogee Duet in 2010 and used it to make demos, and I kept learning from there. It feels amazing to close the gap between writing songs and making records. I’m in a place where I can write a song upstairs, then go downstairs and make a track. The creative process has become pretty self-contained, and we can do everything from here. I’m never moving.”

Back home in Madison, Tristen heads outside to tend to her garden. She’s spent the past year turning the backyard into a food-production powerhouse. Kale, lettuce, radishes, peas, cucumbers, basil, and cilantro have started to pop from the soil, in search of sunlight and a drink of water. Like Aquatic Flowers, they’re emblematic of the good things that can come from the housebound challenges of the recent past. Tristen rolls up her sleeves, grabs a watering can, and gets to work.

Anaconda Vintage

Open every day 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit them online at anacondavintage.com and follow them on social media @anacondavintage.

1062 E. Trinity Lane #101 (in the building directly behind Grimey’s) +1 (615) 864-8635

It’s springtime in Tennessee, and for Tristen, life is in full bloom.

LOCAL EYECARE. INDEPENDENT EYEWEAR.

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A Star in the East

By Randy Fox

Twenty years of “keeping it local” in Five Points

Photos courtesy Turnip Truck; previous page courtesy Margot McCormack

(Left) The original Turnip Truck location at the southwest corner of Woodland and 10th Street. (Below) Turnip Truck founder John Dyke inspecting the produce at the original location. (Previous page) Margot Cafe & Bar under construction in the spring of 2001.

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In

the early months of 2001, Bob Bernstein, John Dyke, and Margot McCormack were all building their respective businesses in the Five Points neighborhood of East Nashville. While a coffee shop, a natural foods grocery, and an upscale bistro might now seem like a natural fit for the location, it was a different story 20 years ago when the star-shaped intersection of Woodland Street, North 11th Street, and Clearview Avenue had a nefarious reputation.

“I used to hear people say, ‘Oh, you live on the other side of the river?’ like it was a place they would never visit,” John Dyke recalls. “But from day one when I moved to Nashville, I was driving around Edgefield and I saw a house with a for rent sign and I fell in love with it. I soon fell in love with my neighbors too.”

Bob Bernstein had a similar experience with the negative hype never quite equaling reality. “People would say they would never go to East Nashville — it’s dangerous, and all that stuff. We had an occasional bad moment, but we never had anything really dangerous happen.”

McCormack grew up on the “correct” side of the river, but she knew there was more to the East Side than its notoriety. “I had played softball at Shelby Park in high school, so I was very familiar with the area,” she says.

“I knew East Nashville and I wasn’t afraid of it, but my mother was like, ‘Oh my God, are you out of your mind?’”

Bongo East, The Turnip Truck, and Margot were not the only new businesses to blossom in Five Points near the start of the 21st century, but they were three vital components that helped throw a long-simmering neighborhood revival into high gear, transforming a disreputable intersection into the hub of a vital and resurgent neighborhood.

A century ago, Five Points was one of the most important crossroads in Nashville. In 1889, it became the switching point for major streetcar line extensions to the north and east, transforming a residential neighborhood into a vibrant commercial hub. By the 1920s, Five Points

was home to a variety of shops, markets, restaurants, and a state-of-the-art movie theater.

For the next four decades, Five Points continued as a locus of commerce, but by the late 1960s, urban blight — largely a result of the new interstate — began taking a toll. Empty storefronts, aging houses, and street crime became persistent problems for the area. Through the next three decades, some businesses and residents stood fast in the neighborhood despite its problems, while others faded away. By the 1990s, calls to revitalize the area increased as a growing number of new residents were attracted to the vintage architecture and low real estate prices of the East Side.

A turning point came on April 16, 1998, when an F3 tornado tore through downtown Nashville, crossed the river, and continued its path of destruction down Woodland and through East Nashville. Close to 300 homes, as well as many businesses, were damaged or destroyed.

“The tornado really spurred investment,” Bongo East owner, Bob Bernstein recalls. “People who wanted →

‘Oh, you live on the other side of the river?’ Like it was a place they would never visit.

John Dyke

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to move moved out. Other people fixed up their houses with insurance money. People came over to help and saw that East Nashville was really cool and had a lot of opportunity. In the long run, it provided an economic boom. It’s one of the reasons we started looking at the neighborhood.”

Bernstein had already found success with Bongo Java on Belmont Boulevard, which opened in 1993.

Three years later came Fido in Hillsboro Village.

When he began looking at spaces in Five Points, specifically a former antique shop and undercover police command post at 107 S. 11th St., he wasn’t thinking in terms of a retail operation.

“I’d like to say I was brilliant and knew the place was going to explode, but we really just got lucky,” Bernstein says. “We built Bongo East as a roasting company. We had a counter to serve drinks, but we thought it would be for events and training. We didn’t feel East Nashville was ready for a coffee house, but we were proved wrong. People would come in and ask if they could get a coffee. Whoever was roasting would stop what they were doing and fix it. We weren’t even charging people in the early days. It was just a neighborly service.”

The roasting operation and “accidental” coffee house opened in October 2000, but expanded to officially include retail service by January 2001, as Bernstein recalls. “We added somebody full time just to work the coffee bar, and then we needed more food because people were coming in and they wanted to sit. It just kept growing.”

By the time Bongo East had officially opened to the public, Margot McCormack was already hard at work on building what would become Margot Cafe & Bar, her dream restaurant around the corner at 1017 Woodland. A Nashville resident since the age of two, McCormack grew up in the West Meade neighborhood and pursued her culinary career in New York City.

After several years working at restaurants in the East Village, she returned to her hometown with the dream of establishing her own restaurant in an urban setting,

bridging the divide between casual and fine dining.

Securing a job at a popular Green Hills restaurant, McCormack began her search for the perfect location.

“I knew I didn’t want to be in a strip mall in Green Hills or Belle Meade,” she says. “I definitely wanted that urban feel like in New York. Friends of mine were living on the East Side, and they said I had to come over and check it out.” In November 2000, McCormack’s search brought her to a two-story brick building in Five Points that had previously housed a market, restaurants, and an asbestos removal contractor. It was love at first sight.

“I saw the building and signed a 13-year lease straight off the bat,” McCormack says. “That’s crazy, but that’s how confident, or naive, I was about what I was doing. East Nashville appealed to me on a number of levels. It was urban, I could afford it, and we got a great deal from [landlord March Egerton] and he really helped us with the build-out. It was just what I wanted.”

Bernstein and McCormack were not the only newcomers to Five Points. Bret and Meg MacFadyen →

“

I’d like to say I was brilliant and knew the place was going to explode, but we really just got lucky.

Bob Bernstein

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theeastnashvillian.com 10th Anniversary Issue

Photos by Chuck Allen

(Above) The old “graffiti” artwork in the men’s restroom at Bongo East. (Right) The globe that once orbited the roasting station remains in orbit over game tables.

Photos this & opposite pages courtesy Margot McCormack

(This page) 1017 Woodland undergoing extensive renovations for Margot Cafe and Bar in the spring of 2001. (Opposite page) Margot McCormack in front of her dream under construction.

had opened their Art & Invention studio at 1106 Woodland just a few months earlier. And at the same time McCormack was signing her lease, Shirley’s — the rough and tumble neighborhood bar just across the street — was undergoing a transformation into one of Nashville’s scrappiest and hippest music venues, the Slow Bar. Under the management of co-owner Mike “Grimey” Grimes, the Slow Bar would only enjoy a three-year run, but it was the start of a live music empire, eventually encompassing OG Basement and The Basement East — just two blocks away (and over a decade later) on Woodland.

Meanwhile, a block away from Margot, East Nashville’s first natural foods grocery store, The Turnip Truck, was also under construction. Shortly after moving to East Nashville in 1991, medical sales executive John Dyke became fascinated by natural foods. “I was doing all my shopping at Sunshine Grocery on Belmont,” Dyke says. “I kept running into my neighbors [from the East Side]. I really loved the concept, and I thought East Nashville deserved a store like this.”

That thought slowly evolved into Dyke’s vision for The Turnip Truck, a local, neighborhood market that would specialize in natural foods. After several years of research, Dyke was ready for a major career change. He found what he thought would be a perfect location in a former auto body shop at 970 Woodland St. in a building originally built as an H.G. Hill grocery store. “It had ample parking, was on a corner, and we were going to source local food just like H.G. Hill did in the 1930s,” Dyke says. “I explained that to [the Hill family who still owned the property] and they loved the idea.” →

“

They would stop, get out of their car, and ask what we were doing. Then they would be like, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Margot McCormack

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Dyke signed a lease in November 2000 within days of McCormack signing her lease; soon both were racing to open their respective businesses. They found help and encouragement from their fellow newbies and long-time Five Points anchor, Cumberland Hardware.

“I always felt I was in good company,” McCormack says. “There was a camaraderie.

It was all a do-it-yourself-er thing.”

Goodwill also flowed from the residents of the neighborhood. The arrival of new and different businesses was a cause for celebration for many East Siders accustomed to crossing the river for anything beyond fast food and “Kroger-ing.”

“People would drive by as we were working and honk and holler because they were so excited,” McCormack says. “They would stop, get out of their car, and ask what we were doing. Then they would be like, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I realized early on, even before we opened, it wasn’t just about me anymore. I had a responsibility to this community to get my shit together and do a good job because they were counting on it.”

Dyke felt the same obligation to the community. “When we opened, I would tell customers this is the neighborhood store. You need to tell me how you want to see it, because I really, honestly did not know how to run a store. Every day was a learning experience.”

For McCormack, the wave of appreciation crested when Margot opened its doors on June 5, 2001. “It was mainly people from the neighborhood that night,” McCormack says.

“One gentleman stood up, started clapping, and we got a standing ovation.”

Dyke’s moment of absolute surety came a little later, about two-and-a-half years after The Turnip Truck opened. On January 16, 2003, a winter storm dumped seven inches of snow on the city and paralyzed traffic.

“This was right at the time when people were stealing copper to sell for recycling,” Dyke says. “The night before the snowstorm, someone ripped out all the external copper from our refrigeration and freezer compressors. I had absolutely no money at the time, and it was going to cost $20,000 to replace the compressors. To keep things as fresh as possible we turned the heat off, wrapped up in our winter clothes and left the front doors open. We got the word out that we had no refrigeration, marked everything 25% off, and people in the neighborhood got their snow boots and winter jackets on and walked to the store and bought every single thing we had. That was when I knew I was in the right place.”

The last two decades have brought dramatic changes to Five Points as the surrounding neighborhood transformed from property pariahs to real estate boom town stars. Changes have also come to Margot and

Bongo East as their focus and menus have shifted to meet the times and the influx of tourists that now fill Five Points on weekends. In 2015, The Turnip Truck moved to a new and greatly expanded location at 701 Woodland St. Despite concerns that the East Side’s unique identity might be buried by a tsunami of money and developers, the key that remade Five Points, focusing on the local, is what can preserve it for the future.

“We’ve been rooted in East Nashville since 2001 and local is still our main aspect,” Dyke says. “For us, local means keeping the money in the community, helping other small businesses, and thinking about our neighbors.”

“There’s no definite date when Five Points became what it is today,” Bernstein says, “It just kept happening. [Bongo East is] not a bright shiny place and we don’t pretend to be or want to be. We want it to feel like we’ve been here forever and that’s what we are.”

Architecture | Custom Design | Historic Renovation 6I5.76I.9902 nineI2architects.com May | June 2021 theeastnashvillian.com

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Paul Neihaus & Jon Byrd on stage in producer Joe McMahan’s back yard

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Rough Rocky

&

Jon Byrd’s Me and Paul is a gem born in a barroom

by Randy Fox photography by Chuck Allen

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J

on Byrd’s new EP, Me and Paul, borrows its name from the 1971 Willie Nelson song of the same title — a saga of nights spent in honky-tonks and making music with a good friend. It’s a story that Byrd and his collaborator, pedal steel guitarist Paul Niehaus, have also lived, although differing in one important aspect. While Willie’s “Me and Paul” story focused on the “rough and rocky traveling” of life on the road, Jon’s Me and Paul is the result of playing in one location, interrupted by a rough and rocky year without a live audience.

As an acclaimed country guitarist and singer-songwriter with four previous albums to his credit, Byrd has crossed paths with Niehaus several times over the last 20 years. Niehaus, a founding member of the avant-garde country music collective Lambchop, has built a career as a highly in-demand sideman working with many rock and Americana acts including Calexico, Iris DeMent, Iron and Wine, and the late Justin Townes Earle.

Byrd and Niehaus’ musical partnership began when Niehaus began sitting in on Byrd’s frequent local club gigs over the last few years. “The thing I love about playing with Paul is that he’s not a hot licks Nashville country steel player,” Byrd says. “I’ve got friends that can do that — Pete Finney, Eddie Lang — and they’re brilliant at it, but I love Paul’s approach. He plays with all these various folk and rock singers and nobody calls him to play honkytonk stuff. I like the idea of someone coming at country steel playing from a little bit different angle and a little bit different background.”

By early 2018, Byrd and Niehaus’ musical partnership was solid, and they plotted out a weekly residency at The Family Wash, just weeks before the East Nashville club suddenly closed for good.

“I’m good at closing bars,” Byrd says with a laugh.

“After The Wash closed [Daniel Walker of Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge] said come on over and pick it up on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. The first show we did at Dee’s we had a rhythm section, but when I played my gut-string guitar with Paul’s pedal steel, it got covered up.”

Dropping the rhythm section, Byrd and Niehaus began refining their partnership, creating a truly unique sound around the interplay between Byrd’s vocals and Spanish guitar fingerpicking and Niehaus’ expressive steel guitar “voice.” A collaboration that hearkens back to the late 1940s recordings of Eddy Arnold and “Little” Roy Wiggins, while incorporating seven subsequent decades of great country honky-tonk traditions.

“The people that came to see us immediately got it,” Byrd says. “They appreciated my finger picking and Paul’s style combined with a good melody and a sad song.”

After two years of Tuesday nights, Byrd planned a special thank you gift for their loyal fans, a fivesong EP they planned to record with producer Joe McMahan in his East Nashville studio. “I felt like I owed it to Paul and our friends who come see us over and over again and don’t get tired of us,” Byrd says, “but I also wanted to capture this thing Paul and I created. We had time booked to record in March 2020, but we canceled it when the pandemic hit. It was too scary and too weird and we did not go back to the studio until November. We lost eight months.”

Me and Paul is an impressive effort featuring five songs that highlight Byrd and Niehaus’ distinctive duet style. The collection includes a country love ballad (the Byrd-Kevin Gordon co-write “I’ll Be Her Only One”); a hillbilly saga of violence and friendship (“Junior and Lloyd,” a song written by Atlanta songwriter and Byrd’s best friend, James Kelly); a tale of heartbreak (the Byrd and Shannon Wright original, “Why Must You Think of Leaving”); and two classic cover tunes (the Louvin Brothers’ “Cash on the Barrelhead” and J. J. Cale’s “Don’t Go to Strangers”).

“We could have picked from more than 50 different songs,” Byrd says,” but I wanted to pick five songs that would capture a certain feeling. We weren’t trying to recreate the live feeling of playing at Dee’s, but we were trying to tap into what made our playing together special. I never know what Paul can and will do. I’m still figuring out his abilities and aesthetics, and that’s a wonderful thing.”

With the release of the EP and hope on the horizon for a return to some form of “normalcy,” Byrd is cautious about the risk but also eager to return to the setting that inspired Me and Paul. An experience that cannot be duplicated in a livestream performance.

“That’s the thing about playing into the back hole of the internet,” Byrd says. “I love that some people have been productive during the last year, but I like playing [to a live audience]. That’s what moves me and inspires me and I haven’t done that in 14 months.”

“I don’t mind clanking bottles, billiard balls cracking on tables, and people laughing,” he continues. “I’ve never been a ‘shush’ guy. I don’t think about how people should be quiet and listen, I just think it sounds like people having a good time, and I have a good time playing with Paul, and that’s what we do.”

Jon Byrd & Paul Neihaus mark their return to the stage Wednesdays in June at Dee’s Country Cocktail Bar

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Paul Neihaus

Jon Byrd’s EP ME & PAUL drops July 16 and will be available to stream at theeastnashvillian.com

Jon Byrd

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EAST OF NOR MAL

by Tommy Womack Tommy Womack is a musician & writer and a regular contributor to The East Nashvillian.

Tune in to “Tommy Womack’s Happiness Hour” Monday mornings from 9-10 on WXNA 101.5FM.

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GOD, GRANT ME THE SERENITY …

I’m

close to my nine-year anniversary of not drinking. July 18th is the magic date.

I went to rehab nine years ago, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. I was on my path to a new and better life, and very enthusiastic about it. And once I graduated, it was on to the next hurdle — and what a hurdle: Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

I went to my first AA meeting 29 years ago and for me, it had always been a hurdle, not some gilded doors opening to shine a bright light on me. I have almost three decades of spiritual scars on my shins from not clearing those hurdles. Every time I spoke in a meeting I was mortified that I’d said the wrong thing, given away my ignorance, put my hypocrisy on display, and now had everybody in the room contemptuous of me.

Before I go any further, let me say that if you think you’re an alcoholic — or if ten loved ones shanghai you in a room where they read tearful letters to you and everybody winds up in a unison chorus of “you’re killing yourself you bastard!” — by all means, seek out AA. Or NA (Narcotics Anonymous). Whatever applies. You have nothing to lose and your whole life to gain. It does work. And you absolutely owe it to yourself to give it a shot, and when you do, give it your absolute best shot. I did. And the Twelve Steps do actually work. They’re brilliant, and those steps are part of what have made the last nine years of my life so happy.

When I say I gave it my best shot, might I qualify that by saying “best as I was constitutionally able.” There is a preamble they read every meeting. I’ll paraphrase: “Some people don’t get it. They seem to have been born that way.” Ding!

You see, there are — roundly — three types of people at AA meetings: newcomers, who come in all shapes and sizes and personalities; nice old-timers who will speak to you and want to help you; and old-timers who won’t give you the time of day and regard you as some intruder snooping in on their own private meeting.

There was an AA meeting I attended faithfully for eight years, and one day out front, I held the door open for one of the latter types of old-timers. He knew me, he’d responded to my shares before, and did I get a good morning or a thank you from him? Nada. Zip. I got jack shit for love from that son of a bitch. That sort of →

marketplace Misty Waters Petak M.S., CFP ®, CLU® Financial Advisor (615) 479-6415 mistypetak.nm.com

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EAST OF NORMAL (CONT.)

thing gets to you when you’re showing up somewhere looking for a helping hand. And if you’re one of those assholes, I want you to take a good look at yourself. I’m not the only sick person you’ve blown off.

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Last July, I attended my last meeting. It was a “point and shoot,” meaning that someone shares and points to another person to share who points to the next and so on.

One of the first shares was a frightened and

freaking-out young lady who had eight days off the bottle. Then I got pointed at. I said, “My name’s Tommy and I’m an alcoholic.”

(Chorus: Hey Tommy.) “Eight days is fantastic, and anyone should be proud. I’ve got coming up on eight years and that’s nothing compared to eight days.” I pointed to the next mouth who pointed to the next and this fella groused, “…I don’ givvufuk ‘bout no gott-dam years! Fuck anybody and their years! This ain’t about no years!” I just sat there and took it in, and then I thought…

“You know what? I’m done. After three decades of AA meetings, this is the straw that breaks the proverbial Camel-smoker’s back.” In the middle of the meeting, I walked out. Wanting a drink. I’d never been thirsty before, not once. And here I was for the first time wanting a drink … LEAVING AN AA MEETING! I rose out of my seat and left in the middle of the meeting, and haven’t been back.

While my nearly nine-year streak of non-drinking has been perfect, other aspects of my recovery haven’t been. A horrendous car crash in 2015 rekindled my affection for pain pills, and that took years before I got up the gumption to ask my doctor not to prescribe them anymore. I blew gigs on those little suckers as bad as I’d ever blown gigs drunk. And then in 2017, I was stricken with bladder cancer, which helped reintroduce cannabis back into my life. I have one of those vape pens now, and I’m more afraid of it than anything. I approach it furtively when I’m desperate to feel creative. The first thirty minutes of the buzz consists of being terrified of dying homeless, then I get to the good “communing with the muse” part, which lasts 45 minutes more or less, and then I need a nap. Not cost-effective.

I used to reason that this was necessary because there are songs inside THC, and there are, but I learned and retained enough from rehab to know there are also songs in coleslaw, and mud, and barns; you just might have to look a little harder to find them.

So, like I said, if you think you have a problem, go to a meeting. Absolutely check it out. It’s saved thousands and maybe millions of lives, and — despite what I say — has helped save mine too. I just can’t be in a room with cliquish fossils anymore, no matter how sweet everybody else is. I don’t go in a church basement room and “share” anymore. So, I guess that’s why I’m telling you all this crap now.

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