Nashville Scene 11-11-21

CITY LIMITS: TENNESSEE’S EXECUTION CHAMBER IS SET TO REOPEN

NOVEMBER 11–17, 2021 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 40 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

MUSIC: LOCAL PUNK HEROES HANS CONDOR RETURN

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THE

LAST DAYS OF HERMITAGE CAFE Now closed after more than three decades in business, the downtown diner was a bastion of a bygone Nashville

BY JENNIFER JUSTUS

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NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

7

30

As the Pandemic Recedes, Tennessee’s Execution Chamber Is Set to Reopen.......7

Tweet Relief

CITY LIMITS

VODKA YONIC

The state’s Supreme Court has set execution dates for two men next year

How tweeting about Metro government happenings has helped me manage my social anxiety

BY STEVEN HALE

BY NICOLE WILLIAMS

‘Legacy Investment’ ...................................7 State leaders want to hear from parents on how to fund public schools

BY KESLEY BEYELER

Puncher’s Chance ......................................8 Nashville SC wraps its second season without a single loss at home

31

BOOKS

Eyes on the Prize

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: Safety Net Keeps It Together on ‘Be With You’ Transgender Vandy Employee Sues Over Alleged Workplace Discrimination

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

Talking with Colson Whitehead about Harlem Shuffle ahead of his Nashville Public Library appearances

Pith in the Wind .........................................8

BY ERICA CICCARONE

Goo Goo Shop Reopens Downtown as a Candy Wonderland

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

33

State A.G. Slatery Joins Suit Over Federal COVID-19 Mandates

10

COVER STORY

The Last Days of Hermitage Cafe Now closed after more than three decades in business, the downtown diner was a bastion of a bygone Nashville

BY JENNIFER JUSTUS

17

CRITICS’ PICKS

MUSIC

Three Days of the Condor ....................... 33

Silver Lining ............................................. 34 Two decades down the road, Dualtone Records keeps trucking

BY EDD HURT

With a Twist ............................................. 34 Anderson East is ready to dive back in

BY LORIE LIEBIG

27

38

Taking the W ........................................... 27

Mass Destruction

The Spin ................................................... 36 The Scene’s live-review column checks out Dashboard Confessional at the Ryman

BY STEVEN HALE

FILM

With two notable restaurant openings in the new W Hotel, chef Andrew Carmellini is making an impact

Mass is heavy, but catharsis awaits

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Found-footage horror, low-fi shock and upsetting suspense, now available to stream

Cheap Eats .............................................. 29 Don’t skip the burger at Bryan Lee Weaver’s East Nashville Tex-Mex restaurant

BY KELSEY BEYELER

Photo by Eric England

BY LANCE CONZETT

Allison Russell, Fisk Jubilee Singers, Ragtime, Chris Walters, Mike Floss, Mark Fredson Album Release Show, Futurephilia panel discussion, Lilly Hiatt & Lydia Loveless, Stacey Abrams and more

FOOD AND DRINK

ON THE COVER:

Punk heroes Hans Condor release their debut album, 15 years in the making

BY CORY WOODROOF

Primal Stream 70

BY JASON SHAWHAN

41

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42

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FROM BILL FREEMAN TARGETED BY GOP LEGISLATORS, NASHVILLE DA GLENN FUNK SHOWS STEADFASTNESS In August 2014, Glenn Funk was elected Davidson County’s 36th district attorney general. He is just the third person to hold the office since 1966. He has done a pretty good job in the seven years since that election, and has earned a reputation for fairness.

The DA’s office under Funk’s leadership has grown more diverse — the percentage of prosecutors of color has grown from 3 percent to 28 percent. His office focuses on prosecuting domestic violence and other violent crimes.

But Nashville’s DA has found himself at odds with Tennessee’s Republican-led legislature.

Funk has said that Nashvillians “really want a commonsense approach to the criminal justice system that keeps us safe and does not incarcerate folks without good reason.” And that makes sense. Why would we want to spend time and valuable resources incarcerating people for minor offenses when putting away more violent criminals preserves the safety of our city — and our tax dollars to boot? According to Funk, by reducing the rate of incarceration for petty crimes, taxpayers in Nashville are saving more than $45 million a year.

Astounding!

Further, in maintaining prosecution of domestic violence offenses as a top priority — along with the improvement of support services for victims — Funk and his team have found more success in bringing convictions. This, coupled with intervention services, saves lives and improves the quality of life for our city’s families.

I think Glenn Funk has made Nashville a safer place. One of his many accomplishments was in 2016, when he worked with then-Mayor Megan Barry and Judge Casey Moreland to set up the Human Trafficking Intervention Court, the first court of its kind. In 2014, the TBI estimated that there were more than 100 reported cases of minors being trafficked for sex in Nashville — and a much higher number of adult victims were reportedly trafficked that same year.

During his career in Nashville, Funk has held positions as an assistant district attorney, a special prosecutor, a public defender and a private-practice attorney.

Even so, some have little fondness for his commonsense approach and are unhappy that he can exercise his discretion in prosecution — an independence granted by our state’s constitution.

Recently, Funk has come under fire because some state legislators are unhappy with his public blanket statements about not enforcing laws that would “promote hate.” In the statement in question, Funk was referring to the state law requiring businesses that are open to the public to post notice if they let transgender people use the restrooms matching their gender.

And now conservative legislators want prosecutors to go after schools with mask mandates.

In the wee hours of Oct. 30, the General Assembly passed legislation that would give power to the state attorney general to request courts appoint district attorney

GLENN FUNK pro tems (i.e., temporary replacements) for any DA who refuses to enforce certain laws — like, for instance, prosecuting a business owner for failing to post a sign regarding transgender bathroom use, or incarcerating teachers or school board members for enforcing mask mandates.

Nashville deals with a lot of crime, most of it misdemeanors. It’s a matter of resources, and thus priorities have to be weighed. Ultimately, it’s the DA’s discretion on what’s enforced. Funk recently told NewsChannel 5 that approximately 60,000 warrants are sworn out by the Metro Nashville Police Department every year — he says 6,000 of those are major felonies, and he estimates that 3,500 to 4,000 are violent crimes.

Some Republican legislators have concerns over a law that seeks to unseat district attorneys who don’t enforce laws the way lawmakers feel is appropriate.

Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) has noted that the state already has the means to remove district attorneys general. Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) has noted that the measure would put unelected lawyers in place of duly elected district attorneys.

I think Funk is right to use common sense in determining where his office puts its efforts. Otherwise, we’d have a raft of people in jail for neglecting to put signs on their bathroom doors while violent criminal offenders walk the streets. I agree with District Attorney Funk that prosecutors need to use the “levers of power” to provide “a check and balance on overreaching” by other branches of government.

Bill Freeman

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editor Jack Silverman Staff Writers Kelsey Beyeler, Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, Kathryn Rickmeyer, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Marcus K. Dowling, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Events and Marketing Director Olivia Britton Marketing and Promotions Manager Robin Fomusa Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Managers William Shutes, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Jada Goggins, Caroline Poole, Alissa Wetzel Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

©2021, Nashville Scene.

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Phone: 615-244-7989.

The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com.

Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $150 per year for 52 issues.

Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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CITY LIMITS

AS THE PANDEMIC RECEDES, TENNESSEE’S EXECUTION CHAMBER IS SET TO REOPEN

The state’s Supreme Court has set execution dates for two men next year

T

BY STEVEN HALE he Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled the end of the state’s death penalty hiatus last week when it set two execution dates for 2022.

Both men, Oscar Smith and Harold Nichols, saw their previous dates called off last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the virus has apparently receded enough to allow for the execution chamber to reopen. The court has scheduled Smith to be executed on April 21, followed by Nichols on June 9.

The state carried out a streak of executions starting in August 2018, putting seven men — Billy Ray Irick, Ed Zagorski, David Miller, Don Johnson, Stephen West, Lee Hall and Nick Sutton — to death in a little more than 18 months. Four more men, including Smith and Nichols, were set to be executed in 2020 before the governor and the state Supreme Court intervened, citing the risks associated with gathering for an execution during a pandemic. If Smith is executed on April 21, it will have been more than two years since the state last killed a death row prisoner.

Smith was sentenced to death in Nashville for the 1989 murders of his estranged wife

‘LEGACY INVESTMENT’ State leaders want to hear from parents on how to fund public schools

BY KESLEY BEYELER

T

here’s been a lot of talk about funding public education in Tennessee lately. The buzz comes after Gov. Bill Lee and education commissioner Penny Schwinn announced a public review period in October that’s supposed to result in a new and improved public education funding formula.

This revamp comes as a 6-year-old lawsuit is set to go before a three-judge panel in February.

(Republicans in the state legislature designed the new panels earlier this year as a way to dilute the power of Nashville’s Chancery Court, which traditionally ruled on lawsuits against the state and was set to handle this case.) School systems across the state — including those in Davidson and Shelby counties, along with 87 smaller districts — will argue that Tennessee does not adequately fund public education. The last time a case like this arose, it resulted in the current Basic Education Program funding formula, which has funded schools since its inception in 1992, though it has seen different iterations. Even still, Tennessee ranks among the bottom 10 states in per-pupil funding.

HAROLD NICHOLS (LEFT) AND OSCAR SMITH

Judy Smith and her two sons, Chad and Jason Burnett. He has always maintained his innocence. In a Dec. 30, 2019, court filing, his attorneys raise a number of issues with his case, from improper jury bias to mishandling of evidence by police. Smith was convicted and sentenced to death, they say, “based on an impossible prosecution theory that conflicts with the physical evidence.”

In a statement released after the court set his new execution date, one of Smith’s attorneys, Amy Harwell, emphasized that he also has a pending legal challenge regarding critical evidence in the case.

“Oscar Smith must not be executed before a fair hearing on his claim that the fingerprint evidence in his case was not accurate or reliable,” Harwell said. “The fingerprint examiner has been shown to have made multiple errors about print identification in this case, including failing to identify his own fingerprint. On July 1, 2021, Mr. Smith filed litigation under Tennessee’s new fingerprint post-conviction act, the first day the law allowed him to file. This litigation is currently pending in Davidson County Criminal Court. It is senseless and shocking to schedule Mr. Smith’s execution while meritorious claims challenging the re-

liability of his conviction and sentence and the controversial three drug protocol are pending and have not been heard.”

She also noted Oklahoma’s recent botched execution of John Grant using the same three-drug lethal injection protocol that Tennessee uses. Witnesses said Grant convulsed and vomited before he died last month.

A spokesperson for Gov. Bill Lee did not respond to a request for comment.

Because he was convicted before Tennessee adopted lethal injection as its primary execution method, Smith will be allowed to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. Five of the seven men executed in Tennessee’s recent killing spree chose the electric chair over the state’s lethal injection cocktail, which medical experts have said can lead to a prolonged torturous experience before death.

Nichols will also get that choice. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1990 for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Karen Pulley two years earlier. Nichols was 18 when, according to court documents, he broke into Pulley’s Chattanooga home, raped her, and beat her over the head with a board.

One of her roommates found her alive, but she died the next day. After police determined that Nichols was a primary suspect in several other area rapes, they arrested him.

He confessed to them all.

Like many men on death row, Nichols suffered physical and sexual abuse as a child.

The abuse was so severe, according to court documents, that he was taken from his family and placed in an orphanage by the leaders of the church his family attended.

Now that the Supreme Court has started scheduling executions, these two will almost certainly be followed by more soon enough. The Tennessee Attorney General’s office has requests pending for a number of execution dates. Beyond the two other men whose executions were called off during the pandemic — Byron Black and Pervis Payne, the latter of whom is awaiting a hearing on his competency to be executed — the Tennessee Attorney General’s office has also sought execution dates for several other condemned people. Among them is Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

The review process for a new formula is a multifaceted system that starts with a three-month public participation period. The Tennessee Department of Education has already hosted six town halls throughout the state to hear from community members, and the department is encouraging citizens to send additional comments via email. According to Schwinn, those comments will be sorted by impartial paralegals who will organize and distribute them to various topic-focused subcommittees. There are 18 subcommittees that will focus on individualized matters, ranging from English language learners to fiscal responsibility. Those subcommittees will field comments, use them to prioritize funding needs, and then make related recommendations to a steering committee — made up of Lee, two of his cabinet appointees and nine Republican members of the state legislature — who will then use subcommittee recommendations to suggest policy, which will be hashed out in the coming legislative session in January.

Katie Cour, president and CEO of the Nashville Public Education Foundation, is on the Education Foundations Subcommittee. While she is “cautiously optimistic” about the coming process, she “would have liked to see a bit more diversity of perspectives across the subcommittees.”

“I was disappointed that the governor did not name any Democrats to the funding review steering committee,” Cour says. “I think there is an enormous opportunity to work across party lines to accomplish something for our students, and I would have liked to see more intention to bipartisanship.”

Schwinn notes that this public education fund-

ing conversation is separate from both the state’s impending education funding lawsuit and Gov. Lee’s voucher initiative. The latter, which has been put on hold by two different courts, would enable families to use public education funds to supplement private school tuition.

Former Metro Nashville Public Schools board member Will Pinkston, however, doesn’t buy it. “To suggest that you can have a meaningful conversation about education funding on the heels of passing an unconstitutional voucher program is ridiculous,” he tells the Scene. “Until the politicians in this state are ready to commit to public education … and set aside these privatization schemes, [they’re] never going to get anything accomplished in terms of education improvement. It’s just not possible.”

As for the lawsuit’s role in all this, Pinkston says “the litigation is forcing the conversation to happen, which is what we all intended to happen.” Pinkston participated in early conversations that led to the lawsuit.

As complicated as it is by history, politics and jargon, the conversation about how Tennessee funds its public schools can be difficult to unpack. But citizens don’t have to be experts to engage in the process. The state is asking Tennesseans to speak on what needs to be funded, and parents who send their kids to schools every day are capable of recognizing those needs.

For those who want to learn more, there are resources. The Education Trust in Tennessee has a free webinar series called “Dollars and Sense” that is dedicated to education funding. Nashville’s District

8 school board member Gini Pupo-Walker — who is also the state director of the Education Trust in Tennessee, a nonprofit that advocates for equity in education — tells the Scene “this is a once-ina-multi-decade opportunity to really reimagine how we fund education, how we actually equip our schools, our teachers [and] our students to be successful.”

The Nashville Public Education Foundation also has information about school funding. Cour says the best thing that parents can do is write to their legislators in the state House and Senate. The NPEF has a template that folks can use, but Cour says it’s better to make it personal. “[Legislators] will listen when you write about a personal experience that you’ve had in our schools and what you want to be different going forward,” says Cour. “You don’t have to know all the details of the BEP. You don’t have to know about what the funding formula needs to look like to advocate for more funding and better use of those dollars … in addition to going to the town halls and speaking up.”

TDOE has information and sign-up forms for those who want to learn and stay updated on the public education process. Comments can be sent to to tnedu.funding@tn.gov.

“I think it’s something that is a legacy for all of us to share,” says Schwinn, “because it’s going to mean our kids are better off in the future. And I’m very, very grateful to be a very small part of what I hope will be a big legacy investment for us as a state and setting our education system up to thrive.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PHOTO COURTESY OF NASHVILLE SC

CITY LIMITS

FROM LEFT: C.J. SAPONG, RANDALL LEAL AND HANY MUKHTAR

SPORTS

PUNCHER’S CHANCE

Nashville SC wraps its second season without a single loss at home

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

A

s enjoyable as Nashville SC has been to watch this season, this team just doesn’t do things the easy way.

Thirty-eight seconds into Sunday’s game against the New York Red Bulls — a Decision Day contest that would determine Nashville’s playoff seeding — calamity struck in the form of a bleach-blond Brazilian named Fábio. After NSC turned the ball over in midfield, de-

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: Following the CDC’s approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 through 11, Metro began offering the shot for kids at its drive-thru clinics and special pop-up vaccination sites at the county’s schools. Meanwhile, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, along with the attorneys general of Ohio and Kentucky, is suing the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate for federal contractors. The mandate, which requires federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated by Jan. 4,

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fender Eric Miller, an unexpected participant who has watched most of the season from the bench, was caught out of position as New York’s forward banged home an early goal.

The season’s biggest crowd at Nissan Stadium had barely settled in, and the home side was already losing 1-0 — to, frankly, an inferior team. It’s been a pattern for the last part of the season: an early goal to Orlando last weekend; three to Cincinnati the game before; a first-half penalty against Philly.

Coach Gary Smith has been asked about it enough by reporters that he starts his postgame remarks now with comments on the way the team plays from behind.

“The opening minute of course will be key to how we move forward,” Smith says.

“Conceding an early goal to what we can effectively class as one of our postseason challengers now, it leaves you in an extremely difficult place to try to recover.”

Smith actually began the game with a concession to Nashville’s early problems, starting three center backs in defense to try to batten things down. Unfortunately, one of those starters was not Dave Romney, the

team’s iron man who until Sunday played every minute of NSC’s first two seasons.

After limping around on a sore Achilles in practice last week, Romney was given the day off in favor of Miller.

But as worrying as Nashville SC’s starts have been, there’s a certain resilience to the team that belies the fact that they’re only finishing season No. 2 in Major League Soccer. Goals that were so hard to come by last year have come in bunches. Journeyman forward C.J. Sapong has played so well this season — bagging 12 goals and four assists — that two different designated players (Aké Loba and Jhonder Cádiz) can’t push him out of the starting lineup.

And Hany Mukhtar has transformed from a slight midfielder who was pushed off the ball consistently last season into a legitimate MVP candidate and a freeflowing attacker. His 16 goals and 10 assists lead the team, so it was little surprise that when he lined up just outside the penalty box for a free kick in the 37th minute of Sunday’s game, the entire crowd rose in anticipation. Somehow the German interna-

has been decried by conservative Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn. In a press release, Slatery said, “Unless we intervene, federal contractors in Tennessee will be forced to make sense of the mandate’s many inconsistencies that require their entire workforce be vaccinated or face potential blacklisting and loss of future federal contracts.”

And in other COVID-related spats, more than half the Metro Council signed on to an open letter to Mayor John Cooper urging the city to find ways to circumvent or fight state laws passed by the General Assembly in the most recent special session. The council is first seeking an understanding of what exactly the laws do — there is a concern that it gives the sole authority to close schools, issue workplace mandates or even issue pandemic-related executive orders of any kind to the governor’s office, essentially stripping local governments of the primary tools used for the past 18 months to fight the pandemic. …

The Metro Council voted to again defer a rezoning ordinance that would allow the sale of a mobile home community on Dickerson Pike. Tenants of that community and their advocates see the vote as an opportunity to secure more time to negotiate with the developer purchasing the land. Key Real Estate, the developer, is planning a mixed-use project on the site. … Real estate developer AJ Capital Partners, whose summer purchase of the property home to live music club Exit/In caused many residents to worry about the future of the venue, has applied for a historic landmark overlay at the site — a Metro designation that would make it more difficult to make changes to the structure. Under the proposed overlay, any external alterations to the building or its signage would need to meet National Park Service guidelines. … Contributor Betsy Phillips and other local history buffs are concerned that a new arboretum at the Adventure Science Center

tional split two defenders in a wall to beat the goalkeeper from an impossible angle and tie the game at 1-1. “[Daniel] Lovitz asked me, ‘What do you want?’ and for me it was clear to hit the target and try to score,” Mukhtar says. “I know it was a tight angle, but I’ve practiced a lot in training, and yeah, when you get the chance — unfortunately this year we haven’t gotten too many free kicks — but when I have a good possibility to score on a free kick, I’ll take the chance.”

This seems to be the pattern with Nashville SC: Take a punch, then start throwing them back. Sometimes it’s midfielder Randall Leal slaloming past defenders, and other times it’s defender (and sometime U.S. national team captain) Walker Zimmerman storming through the midfield like Thor on the hunt for Thanos. If the league’s naysayers accused Nashville of being too defensive or boring last season, this year they’ve had to turn elsewhere to level cheap criticism.

Fifteen different players have scored for Smith’s side, and any look at advanced metrics shows Nashville is among the more attractive teams in the league.

A win on Sunday would have vaulted the boys in gold into second place in the Eastern Conference playoffs, but third place still garners them a home game in two weeks against Orlando. If they win, the path to an MLS Cup would likely go through Philly and then New England — the New England Revolution is the league’s best team, but one that failed to score against Nashville in two tries this year.

And that’s the funny hope that Nashville has right now: New England might be more feared; Atlanta might have a better recent history; NYCFC might have the best player in the league (Valentín Castellanos); Colorado might be hotter. But does anyone really want to play Nashville? In 17 games at Nissan this season, Nashville SC never lost. It’s a resilience that will serve them well in the next phase.

Over the course of a single-elimination playoff bracket, the “best” team doesn’t always win. (Just ask Seattle about last season’s final.) Sometimes it’s the teams that will scrap and hang around — you know, like the team Smith and GM Mike Jacobs have built over the past two years.

Nashville has a puncher’s chance. Now we get to see if they can take it.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

may have eliminated any prospect of learning more about the Bass Street neighborhood that once ringed Saint Cloud Hill near Fort Negley. It was Nashville’s largest Reconstruction Era Black neighborhood. Phillips also notes that for the museum to become the facility it deserves to be, perhaps it’s time to move out of Fort Negley’s shadow altogether. … The Nashville Predators, in the most obvious move possible, announced Pekka Rinne’s No. 35 will be retired in February. … A transgender woman filed suit in September against Vanderbilt University alleging she faced “continuous” and “egregious” discrimination from co-workers and superiors at the university. The allegations are detailed in a thorough story by the school’s student newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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11/8/21 4:09 PM

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Nerio (active late 13th–early 14th centuries). Cutting from a choirbook (antiphonary): Easter Scenes: The Three Maries at the Tomb with the Angel of the Resurrection, and The Resurrected Christ Appearing NOVEMBER – NOVEMBER nashvillescene.com to the Three Maries (initial A), ca. 1315. Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment, 9 3/8 x 9 3/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New|York, Rogers11Fund, 12.56.117, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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LAST DAYS OF HERMITAGE CAFE PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

Now closed after more than three decades in business, the downtown diner was a bastion of a bygone Nashville

BY JENNIFER JUSTUS

LONGTIME NASHVILLIAN Daniel Lonow first visited Hermitage Cafe as a teenager with his dad, who played gigs at Wolfy’s — now Rippy’s — on Lower Broadway. Later, when he lived in various locations in the downtown area, Lonow went to the cafe three to five times a week. Like many of us, sometimes he’d visit the restaurant known for its omelets, French toast, patty melts and plates of biscuits and gravy in the wee hours between last call and sunrise. But on one fateful New Year’s Eve while a couple dozen folks waited for a table in the parking lot of the packed diner, he had a momentary lapse in judgment: He crossed an invisible diner-etiquette force field by offering the cook $20 to bump his order ahead of others in line.

The cook obliged, but the server that night, a beloved veteran of the place who regulars called “Mama,” was not having it. “She literally never forgave me for that,” Lonow says. “She was disappointed that I had manipulated the system.”

That’s because according to “the system” at Hermitage Cafe, no one could buy their way to the front of the line. From city workers to firefighters, ravers, revelers, musicians, EMTs and bar backs, nobody ranked higher than anybody else, and everyone waited their turn.

“I think the cafe was one of those places where your class or your money or worth meant nothing to us,” says Sherri Taylor Callahan, daughter of the cafe’s late founders.

“You were treated by how you treated others.”

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BY THE TIME you read this, Hermitage Cafe as we’ve known it will have been closed for more than a week. As Callahan notes, the landlord has sold the building, which for many years was a bastion of a bygone Nashville. For better or worse, that Nashville has largely been displaced or 86’d altogether — many of these shuttered establishments perhaps beloved less for their food than for the feeling they gave patrons.

Shields and Patricia Taylor opened the cafe a little more than three decades ago, and it became like purgatory with coffee — a liminal spot between the party and home, or between home and work for the daywalkers. Though hours changed over the years (especially after Metro General Hospital moved from its location across the street near where the Ryman Lofts currently stand), the cafe operated most famously in the graveyard shift through lunch the following day — 10 p.m. until 1:30 p.m. For many, it served as a place for rest or restoration.

“You went to see everyone and make sure you could walk that extra block home,” says Booth Calder, a regular who lives nearby.

“Put on some Merle Haggard,” she says of the legendary jukebox that used to spin 45s, “and two-step home with the street sweepers.”

Linda “Cissy” Siegrist worked at Hermitage Cafe with her mom Linda “Mama” Caldwell. They worked at the restaurant for 25 years apiece, with their tenures overlapping some in the middle — they served 15 years or so together on nights. “I loved working with my mom side by side,” Cissy says. Of the motley crew that traipsed in each evening, the mother and daughter had their favorites.

“All the bartenders and bar backs would treat her like a queen,” Cissy says of her mom. After closing down their own

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establishments, they came in for a bite and sometimes serenaded Mama with Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” “That made me feel so good inside,” Cissy says.

And when a night shift would get rough?

“They were your bouncer. They bused tables, served coffee, pitched in.” In turn, the Lindas and the rest of the Hermitage Cafe crew cared for their people — “as long as they behaved.”

Chark Kinsolving, former co-owner of Cannery Ballroom and its sister venues and current co-owner of Madison’s East Side Bowl, was a regular from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. He remembers Mama feeding him when he was broke. “I mean, completely broke,” he reiterates. “I actually traded Greg [a cook at the time] some kinda old 12-string acoustic guitar that had just been converted to six strings. Someone had stole his guitar, so I gave him that guitar and traded it out for a couple weeks’ worth of breakfast.”

The staff had a particularly shepherding eye for newcomers and lonely folks, like a 16-year-old who plays at Tootsie’s and visited the diner with his dad. In a demonstration of the cafe’s trademark tough love, Cissy promised his father to look after the teen or “kick his ass” if he got out of line. During the restaurant’s last week of service, Kim Allen — who came in as a partner at Hermitage Cafe seven years ago — received a message from a man she made feel at home after he’d packed up his guitars and moved to Nashville on a whim the day after Thanksgiving a couple years back. “You have fed me when I didn’t have money,” he wrote, “let me in before you were open (and stay after you closed), you even loaned me money when I was in a tough spot.”

Cissy remembers a homeless man named Darryl who Mama treated to breakfast with her tip money on occasion. He’d also sometimes sweep the floors for cash. After

BUT MAYBE THIS IS WHAT HOSPITALITY LOOKS LIKE IN ITS PUREST FORM — WHEN FOLKS ARE SO DEDICATED TO TAKING CARE OF ONE ANOTHER THAT THE LINE BETWEEN GUEST AND HOST BEGINS TO BLUR. an attempted robbery when someone held a knife to Mama’s throat, Cissy says, Darryl slept in the parking lot for more than a week to keep guard.

As I was reporting this story, I started to get the feeling we could fill an entire issue with anecdotes about this kind of reciprocal generosity. Hermitage Cafe, its employees and we patrons may all have been imperfect, a little worn down at times.

But maybe this is what hospitality looks like in its purest form — when folks are so dedicated to taking care of one another that the line between guest and host begins to blur. Sometimes grace is delivered scrambled or over-easy with a clank on the counter from a hard plastic plate.

Of course, there were limits to the staff’s patience with customers. If her mother caught you driving up drunk, Cissy says, “She would cuss you out and take your keys.” She’d demand you sleep it off a while before ordering.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HERMITAGE CAFE

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

LINDA “CISSY” SIEGRIST

SHIELDS AND PATRICIA TAYLOR Kinsolving recalls the time a man discharged himself from the hospital for breakfast. “He’d torn the IV out of his arm,” he says. “He was in his gown with his ass hanging out. He’s bleeding out of his arm and bleeding out of his face. Linda’s like, ‘You gotta get out of here.’ ” There was also the night someone ran their vehicle into the building. I ask Kinsolving if he was there when it happened. “Yeah, it wasn’t my table,” he says nonchalantly, though that reminds him about the bullet

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holes in one of the windows and the booth beside it. He and his friends call that one the “Bullet Hole Booth,” fittingly.

Even with all that character, Kinsolving calls the place a safe haven. “I have this great, big, warm collective good memory that I can’t really describe,” he says. After he opened Mercy Lounge a mile to the west in 2003, he sent bands to the cafe for late dinner. “At that point in time, ‘the Herm’ was the only place to go unless you got on the interstate and found Waffle House.

So we’d always send bands over there. …

When I was running the Cannery, I took the Drive-By Truckers to the Herm one night.” Patterson Hood had a fried bologna sandwich, he says.

There is of course a long list of names of musicians who visited for photo shoots (Dolly Parton, Mindy Smith and Allison Moorer among them), videos (Jack White, Rascal Flatts) and release parties. It wasn’t uncommon to spot other celebrities there too, like legendary late Titans quarterback Steve McNair, who lived nearby.

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But the staff wasn’t just fond of the night owls. Customers who came in at sunrise were favorites too. Hermitage Cafe owner Callahan was partial to a man she called Mr. Horace, who worked at the lunch counter in the Greyhound bus station and later elsewhere in food service. He told her stories about the civil rights movement.

Callahan’s family moved to Nashville from Chicago when she was 12 years old.

Both her parents worked in diners their entire lives — she tells the Scene that her father Shields stood on a milk crate to flip burgers as a young boy, and her mother Patricia worked in her parents’ Chicago diner The Ducky Wucky. They opened the Hermitage Cafe space in 1990 after its brief tenure as a Vietnamese restaurant. (Before that, since 1954, it had been a Burger Boy.) “He put in the counters and everything by hand,” Callahan says of her father, who has since died. Her mother passed away seven years ago last month. Both Callahan and her late brother worked at the restaurant on and off as well.

STANLEY PEACHER

AS NASHVILLIANS are all too aware, things change, eras end, people pass away and businesses close. In 2014, Mama left the diner following a cancer diagnosis, and she died in December of last year. Other beloved employees have moved on — like Doug, who folks called “Frenchie” because of his chef’s hat. Others, meanwhile, stayed until the bitter end — including Tina, who cooked at the restaurant for two decades, as well as Kim Allen and her partner Richard.

The couple plans to open a food truck called Cussin’ and Cookin’ With Oswall (Richard’s nickname) as well as a souvenir truck in the parking lot next to The Batter’s Box nearby.

After Hermitage Cafe’s final service, Kim stood out front letting folks know they’d run out of food. It seemed somehow appropriate that the diner closed one shift earlier than expected. Cissy wasn’t planning on being there anyway. “I had to get away because it was so sad,” she later tells the Scene by phone. “That’s pretty much basically my life, my family. That’s the only thing I had left of my mom.”

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

KIM ALLEN, SELLING SHIRTS TO SOME PATRONS

But even as Kim cleaned up and took decorations off the wall, a regular named Stanley Peacher stopped by. A customer for 21 years who works nights for Metro Water, he had an off-menu item named for him — “The Stanley,” eggs with chicken, bacon and veggies. Where will he go now? “The only other place I know is, like, Wendy’s,” he says.

Others also stopped by to pay their respects, including Emily Goncalves and Jennifer Tat, who moved to Nashville to attend Vanderbilt University just a few years ago. They’d read about the diner and wanted to visit for a “first, last time.”

Goncalves, after all, recognized the tenuous nature of a mom-and-pop establishment in a place like Nashville. She was a fan of J&J’s Market, which closed three years ago and was later bulldozed. “It’s a piece of history that’s closing,” Tat adds.

But just shy of 11 p.m. on Halloween — a time of night that used to feel so early at this place — it was just too late.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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B E FA M I LY. BE FOREVER.

Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present EXHIBIT NOW OPEN

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CRITICS’ PICKS W E E K L Y

R O U N D U P

O F

T H I N G S

T O

D O

[SHADOW SELF]

MIWA MATREYEK’S INFINITELY YOURS AND MYTH & INFRASTRUCTURE

MUSIC

AMY STUMPFL [STATE OF AMERICANA]

ALLISON RUSSELL

Recorded quickly at Nashville studio Sound Emporium in 2019, Allison Russell’s Outside Child might sum up the state of Americana music in 2021. In an era when the ultimate boomer music — that’s Americana, in case you don’t remember — has undergone a certain crisis of identity that definitely runs parallel to the convolutions of a divided polity in the post-Trump moment, records like Outside Child suggest a way out. Russell, who is 39 and grew up in Montreal, wrote Outside Child about her struggles as a sometimes homeless teenager in that city. The album addresses sexual abuse and queer identity, but it’s never heavy-handed. Although it was cut in Nashville, you won’t hear any overt references to country music, but Russell’s compositions draw from rock-folk-pop practices that are at least as old as those Joni Mitchell used in the 1970s. You’ll also hear some excellent takes on soul music from that same era — specifically the sound of producer Willie Mitchell, who produced Ann Peebles and Al Green. Outside Child is extraordinary, and its integrity makes it one possible solution to Americana’s stagnation, which has to do with its overreliance on outdated modes of so-called roots music and its fundamental misunderstanding of the value of pop music itself. Russell has her pretensions, just like Joni Mitchell, but what she has to say about self-determination makes them almost irrelevant. 8 p.m. in the Blue Room at Third Man Records, 623 Seventh Ave. S. EDD HURT

MIWA MATREYEK’S INFINITELY YOURS AND MYTH & INFRASTRUCTURE PHOTO: GAYLE LAIRD

NOV. 11-13 OZ Arts

[JUBILEE, BEAUTIFULLY]

FISK JUBILEE SINGERS

Even by the lofty standards of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, this has been a remarkable year. The group is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a performing and touring ensemble. The LP Celebrating Fisk (The 150th Anniversary Album) won a Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album, and a superb

film — Walk Together Children: The 150th Anniversary of the Fisk Jubilee Singers — aired on WNPT-Channel 8. But the anniversary highlights haven’t ended. Several of Music City’s finest performers across multiple idioms will be joining the Fisk Jubilee Singers in a gala event Thursday at an ideal location — the Ryman. The incredible guest roster includes Jason Eskridge,

Ruby Amanfu, Natalie Hemby, Brassville, Rissi Palmer, Kyla Jade, Tommy Sims, Starlito, Curt Chambers and Dr. Bobby Jones.

Marcia Dyson, the founder of the Women’s Global Institute, will serve as emcee. It’s a magnificent way to conclude an incredibly productive period for the legendary Fisk Jubilee Singers. 7:30 p.m. at the Ryman, 116 Fifth Ave. N. RON WYNN

PHOTO: BILL STEBER AND PAT CASEY

There’s something quite fanciful about multimedia performance artist Miwa Matreyek’s work. But beyond all the colorful visuals and evocative sound, the L.A.-based Matreyek is taking on some pretty weighty issues — often exploring themes of humanity and its complicated relationship to the environment. An innovative animator, designer and performer, Matreyek creates live performances in which she steps into multilayered, kaleidoscopic projections and interacts with them as a shadow silhouette.

Beginning Thursday, you can check out Matreyek’s Infinitely Yours and Myth & Infrastructure at OZ Arts. Featuring an original score performed live by composer and musician Morgan Sorne, Infinitely Yours arrives at OZ following its acclaimed 2020 premiere at Sundance Film Festival New Frontier. This new work is paired with Myth & Infrastructure, which follows the artist as she “traverses oceanscapes, cityscapes and domestic spaces to conjure dreamlike scenes with light and shadow.” Nov. 11-13 at OZ Arts, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle

MUSIC

THEATER

THURSDAY / 11.11

FISK JUBILEE SINGERS

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CRITICS’ PICKS

uses on “Cheap Seat.” In the end, what’s most impressive about American Siren is Robinson’s sense of discovery: She makes standard themes of sin, redemption and piety seem fresh. It’ll be interesting to see how far Robinson ventures into the messy mainstream of country on her next record.

8 p.m. at The High Watt, 1 Cannery Row

MUSIC

EDD HURT

[ON THE WHEELS OF A DREAM]

RAGTIME

Nashville Repertory Theatre is back, kicking off its 37th season — and a much-anticipated return to live, in-person performance — with the Tony Award winner Ragtime. Based on the sweeping novel by E.L. Doctorow and featuring a book by Terrence McNally, this hit musical weaves together three distinctly American stories in turn-of-the-century New York — including a wealthy white couple, a determined Jewish immigrant and a daring Black ragtime musician. The beautiful score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens boasts memorable songs such as “New Music,” “Sarah Brown Eyes,” “Wheels of a Dream” and “Back to Before.” Micah-Shane Brewer directs a huge cast, including a number of notable Rep debuts along with familiar faces such as Megan Murphy Chambers, Garris Wimmer, Galen Fott, Bakari King, Matthew Carlton and Nancy Allen. Presented in the Polk Theater, the play features a creative team that includes musical director Dave Ragland and choreographer Tosha Marie. Nov. 11-14 at TPAC’s Polk Theater, 505 Deaderick St. AMY STUMPFL

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FRIDAY / 11.12 MUSIC

THEATER

RAGTIME

[SIREN SONGS]

EMILY SCOTT ROBINSON

There’s nothing fancy about the spare, folkish music on Emily Scott Robinson’s new album American Siren, and her songs make a virtue of the kind of simplicity that you don’t often find on mainstream country albums. In fact, Robinson — a North Carolina native who lives in Colorado — isn’t exactly a mainstream country artist, but American Siren embodies one aspect of country music in a very confused era. Signed to the prestigious label Oh Boy Records, Robinson sings like she grew up listening to mainstream folk music and country music, so you hear echoes of Joni Mitchell and Patty Griffin in her phrasing.

Robinson floats up to her high notes, and she doesn’t take star turns or belt her lyrics to the rafters. American Siren often sounds homemade, as on the piano accompaniment for “Let ’Em Burn,” which sounds like it was recorded in her living room. Still, it’s a crafty, surprising record, and the eccentric guitar obbligato that runs throughout “Old Gods” is just as effective as the simulation of a standard country band that Robinson

[TWIN DYNAMO]

CHRIS WALTERS

Chris Walters is a first-rate vocalist and an excellent pianist, but he also has a keen interest in films. On Friday, he’ll accompany his invigorating musical performances with his own equally inspiring animated films. Walters’ joint proficiency in music and cinema has been displayed in many settings since his move to Nashville from New York at the end of the ’80s. He’s been featured in Jeff Coffin’s Mu’tet and the Peter Mayer Group, and even performed with the Nashville Symphony. Walters will be leading an ensemble that features cellist Emily Rodgers, bassist Zeb Briskovich, drummer Jordan Perlson, Chris Lowry on viola and Eli Bishop on violin. This will be unusual, challenging music — paired with equally distinctive films. 7 p.m. at The Jazz Cave, 1012 Buchanan St. RON WYNN

MUSIC

CHRIS WALTERS [BOSS FLOSS]

MIKE FLOSS W/JOSH BLACK, $AVVY & DJ TRUESTAR

As Nashville hip-hop has built momentum over the past couple years, one of its strongest voices has been relatively quiet.

Mike Floss built up a phenomenal catalog throughout the late Aughts and 2010s, using the name Openmic before he took up the moniker Mike Floss in 2015. That included two phenomenal full-lengths, 2015’s Don’t Blame the Youth and 2017’s Tennessee Daydreams. Though he’s continued to make music that’s both a joy to listen to and a way to communicate vital messages — including his 2020 single “DTP” and a 2021 EP called God’s Leather — it’s been about quality over quantity. Though he’s stayed in touch with the local scene, he’s been hanging back a little, spending significant time in Atlanta to help build his business and his brand. Now, he’s reestablishing himself here in Music City, making new music and planning new moves, and the next phase starts with Friday’s show at Exit/In. Comedian Josh Black, rising hip-hop and R&B ace $avvy and DJ TrueStar will all be there to support, and you’re in for a treat if you’re in the house as well. 8 p.m. at Exit/In, 2208 Elliston Place STEPHEN TRAGESER

EMILY SCOTT ROBINSON

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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livestream tickets also available

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HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF // APR 20 W/ ANJIMILE

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Bre kennedy w/val hoyt & stephen sanchez Kolby Cooper ft. palmer anthony Kolby Cooper ft. corey kent sold out!

MisterWives w/frances forever after midtown w/dylan marlowe Chloe Moriondo w/kid sistr & sydney rose John Mark McMillan w/the gray havens

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& antoine bradford hayes carll w/caroline spence andy frasco & the u.n. w/nick gerlach's cult conference

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soul vibes: the songs of earth, wind, and fire post animal & ron gallo w/why bonnie Powerslave: an iron maiden tribute

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bendigo fletcher w/cece coakley & abby hamilton guilty pleasures starbenders, olivia jean, & gyasi pi'erre bourne giovannie & the hired guns & dylan wheeler

dec 1 dec 2 Dec 3 Dec 4 Dec 5 dec 7 dec 8 dec 9 dec 10 Dec 12 Dec 14 Dec 16 dec 18 Dec 19 dec 20 dec 28 dec 29 dec 30 jan 7

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armor for sleep w/never loved Julian Lage POUYA w/jasiah, kxllswxtch & lu baby sold out! katie pruitt w/ Tré burt dopapod jd mcpherson w/joel paterson rare hare maddie poppe live emo band karaoke live emo band karaoke the shadowboxers

[ROCKFORD FILES]

DINOSAUR JR. W/RYLEY WALKER

Dinosaur Jr.’s latest flannel-flyer Sweep It Into Space breaks zero new ground, but ticks all the necessary boxes. Hooks?

Check. Riffs? Check. Solos? Check. Why fix what ain’t broken, right? Opening for the lo-fi legends is Rockford, Ill.-raised Ryley Walker, who started his career a decade ago, his American primitive solo-guitar songcraft full of prowess and personality.

But where peers like New York’s Steve Gunn and former Nashvillian William Tyler zigged, the young songsmith zagged, trying a Van Morrison-like vocal effect on 2015’s Primrose Green, embracing Windy City post-rock’s jazziness and negative space on the following year’s Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, then pulling a two-fer in 2018 with the mercurial, inward-gazing Deafman Glance and the Dave Matthews covers album Lillywhite Sessions, which seemed puzzling in theory but worked better than anyone anticipated. Walker was thriving. Or at least that’s what his wildly entertaining Twitter account — which is, in my mind, tied with Jason Isbell for most essential funny-musician follow — had you believing. But in a 2020 interview on Crash & Ride — Athens, Ga., musician Patrick Ferguson’s podcast about musicians and mental health — Walker revealed that while touring Deafman solo, he nearly checked out for good. Now in recovery, Walker put out a stellar new set of originals this spring, and more recently, a collab with Louisville/ Chicago great David Grubbs (Squirrel

Bait, Gastr del Sol), titled A Tap on the Shoulder. The music is lovely, of course.

But even better is simply seeing Walker on the other side after knowing what he’s been through. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a super-jam encore of Walker’s Mascisesque take on Matthews’ “Diggin’ a Ditch.”

8 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

SATURDAY / 11.13 MUSIC

BENDIGO FLETCHER // NOV 26

MUSIC

RYLEY WALKER, OPENING FOR DINOSAUR JR.

[NIGHT MOVES]

MARK FREDSON ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

During the course of Nashville singer and songwriter Mark Fredson’s “Drag Me Away” — a track from his new full-length Nothing but Night — Fredson gets popped for a DUI while listening to Steely Dan’s 1977 track “Deacon Blues.” His mother bails him out, and Fredson decides to keep on living the high life, courtesy of his credit cards. Nothing but Night rides on a bank of semi-cheesy keyboard sounds, with the former frontman of classic rock band The Lonely H singing in a sensitive voice, complete with vibrato. On the evidence of Nothing but Night, Fredson aspires to ’70s-style schlock-pop, complete with confessional lyrics that come across funny. Fredson’s music lands like a modern Nashville version of, say, singer and songwriter Bergen White’s Music City-recorded 1975 album Finale — Fredson does a lot with a limited palette.

I also like the album’s “Late Night (Don’t

MARK FREDSON

THE COLD STARES // NOV 19

TOTH // NOV 15

W/ BRANDON CARSWELL

W/ LOVE MONTAGE

UPCOMING SHOWS Nov 13 Nov 13 Nov 14 nov 15 nov 17 nov 17 nov 18

the wooks w/troubadour blue Izzy heltai w/grumpy (7 PM) Wheelwright (Formerly jared & the mill) w/nat bergman (9 PM) dylan hartigan w/katie ruvane, maggie rose, them vibes, & more! (7 PM)

wheelwright w/kitty coen & beau turrentine (9pm) nicholas jamerson & grayson jenkins toth w/love montage tristan bushman & evan bartels (7 PM) lynagh, matt koziol, and allie dunn (9PM) lenox hills, daphne's couch, and jordan dean

nov 19 nov 19 nov 20 nov 20 nov 22 Dec 1 dec 1

the cold stares w/brandon carswell (7 PM) THe deltaz & kristina murray (9 PM) eric bolander w/joseph bradshaw (7 PM) the smokeshows, vera bloom, and badculture (9 PM) the country westerns, waltzer, and blunt bangs peal charles w/the medium josh waters (7 PM) jack evan johnson w/ justin and the cosmics

Dec 2 Dec 5

haiva ru jeremy pinnell w/ Wade sapp & todd day wait

nov 21

& long tall shorty (chelsea lovitt) (9 PM)

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NOVEMBER 23

OPETH/MASTODON

WITH SPECIAL GUEST ZEAL & ARDOR

KENNY G with the

NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

enrico lopez-yañez, conductor

DECEMBER 15

LIVE AT THE OPRY HOUSE

CHICAGO

This Weekend • November 12 & 13

JANUARY 9

LIVE AT THE OPRY HOUSE

FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS

with the Nashville Symphony

FEBRUARY 4

November 30 & December 1

BLACK PUMAS

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM FEBRUARY 6

THE BEACH BOYS

WITH THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

December 3 to 5

MARCH 14 & 15

STRINGS ON PARADE WITH JUN IWASAKI

KHRUANGBIN

November 18 to 20

WITH NUBYA GARCIA ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

Music City CHRISTMAS

with the Nashville Symphony December 16 to 19

2021 Symphony Ball Celebrates

75 Years of Harmony with Itzhak Perlman

December 11

A Very Dave Barnes Christmas presented without orchestra

December 20

MARCH 19

MINISTRY

WITH MELVINS AND CORROSION OF CONFORMITY ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM

CONCERT PARTNER

WITH SUPPORT FROM

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NashvilleSymphony.org 615.687.6400 Tickets@NashvilleSymphony.org #NashvilleSymphony nashvillescene.com | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CRITICS’ PICKS INDIGO DE SOUZA Winner: Readers’ poll

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 1:00PM - 3:00PM

SIGNING with GARY SLAUGHTER at PARNASSUS WW II POWs in America and Abroad 7:00PM

PARNASSUS SUBSCRIPTION BOX CLUBS NOVEMBER SELECTIONS:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON

on FACEBOOK LIVE with ANDREA BLACKMAN Entertaining Race 10:00AM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13

NPL LITERARY AWARD PUBLIC LECTURE with COLSON WHITEHEAD at MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL 1:00PM

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16

KEN FOLLETT on ZOOM Never 4:00PM

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17

ANNE BYRN 6:30PM

THURDAY, NOVEMBER 18

PARNASSUS HOLIDAY SPECIAL: VIRTUAL EDITION on ZOOM

2:00PM - 3:00PM

at PARNASSUS So We Meet Again & Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous

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PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/FIRSTEDITION-CLUBS @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21

SIGNING with SUZANNE PARK

FUTUREPHILIA PANEL DISCUSSION

The third installment of the Nashville Scene’s Adult Contemporary group exhibition series opened on Nov. 4, and Main Street Gallery will host a panel discussion with the show’s Tennessee artists this Saturday. Futurephilia’s sexy sci-fi themes are explored in a multimedia display that includes paintings, drawings, photographs, collage and sculptural works from 13 artists curated by the Scene’s own arts editor Laura Hutson Hunter. She will moderate Saturday’s gallery chat with exhibition artists Sam Dunson, Benjy Russell and David Onri Anderson — it should be a rich conversation about some thought-provoking and forward-looking work. The talk is free to attend. Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test will be required for entry. 11 a.m. at Main Street Gallery, 625 Main St. JOE NOLAN

MUSIC

on FACEBOOK LIVE

in conversation with MARY HANCE at PARNASSUS A New Take on Cake

[LOOKING FORWARD]

SUNDAY / 11.14

10 SONGS TO CELEBRATE 10 YEARS with EMILY ARROW 6:30PM

3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 Nashville, TN 37215 (615) 953-2243 Shop online at parnassusbooks.net

[FROM ASHEVILLE RISES]

INDIGO DE SOUZA W/ALLIE

From Bright Eyes to Hop Along and beyond, Omaha’s Saddle Creek Records has, since its 1993 inception, counted on unconventional vocalists to hook listeners in with their songcraft. To that end, Asheville, N.C.’s Indigo de Souza’s 2021 LP Real Pain follows in Conor Oberst’s and Frances Quinlan’s footsteps. But the album — de Souza’s second — also shows the 24-year-old’s fearlessness at reveling in sonic extremes, from high-drama, heart-on-sleeve pop to moody, cinematic rock, even harsh noise.

The centerpiece, “Real Pain,” features a multi-tracked outro of voices screaming nightmarishly into the void, which led me to pull over the first time I heard it on the radio — partially because it freaked me out, but also so I wouldn’t forget the name of the

artist. Mononymous bedroom-pop up-andcomer Allie opens. 8 p.m. at Mercy Lounge, 1 Cannery Row CHARLIE ZAILLIAN MUSIC

Judge Me),” which finds Fredson rhyming “find the good stuff” with “run my tab up.”

Nothing but Night is bedroom pop that wants to climb out a window and drive to the nearest liquor store, and there are times when Fredson sounds appropriately tuckered out by the entire experience. Saturday’s album release show also features classic rockers Teddy and the Rough Riders, as well as pop singer Paul Nelson. 9 p.m. at The 5 Spot, 1006 Forrest Ave. EDD HURT

[HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE]

LILLY HIATT & LYDIA LOVELESS

Two of the finest songwriters whose music draws from both country and rock have teamed up as they’ve returned to the touring world. Now Lilly Hiatt and Lydia Loveless bring their traveling doubleheader here to Hiatt’s home turf. Loveless is finally getting the chance to perform songs from her 2020 LP Daughter, a collection whose melodies and grooves are often as sweet as their lyrics are bitter. Songs like “Daughter” and “Wringer” look at relationships that fall apart despite best efforts, leaving a whole array of scars in the process. In October, Hiatt released Lately, an album distilled from the profoundly disquieting solitude of COVID-19 lockdown. She used the time to get perspective on previous hurts, reflect on not being alone in feeling alone and try, broadly, to put the past and present in context. Sunday, you’ve got a chance to check out the results for yourself — the show will be broadcast on Lightning 100’s Nashville Sunday Night program, but such personal records will be even more rewarding in person. 8 p.m. at 3rd and Lindsley, 818 Third Ave. S. STEPHEN TRAGESER MUSIC

FREE PARKING!

ART

To Order Call 615-321-8889

[OUTSTANDING IN HIS FIELD]

MAGNETIC FIELDS W/CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON

Twenty-two years after his triple-disc triumph 69 Love Songs, Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt continues to hold it down in Manhattan, crafting pithy songs about the city and its characters sung in a flat affect that belies the material’s often very adult subject matter. Quickies, released in spring 2020, adds 28 new entries to the Fields songbook. As suggested by its title, the album’s songs are all less than two-anda-half minutes long. Check out Merritt’s interview with Canadian music journo Vish Khanna on Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast for a song-by-song dissection of the album, offering new insights into the prolific 56-year-old’s songwriting process.

California-raised troubadour Christian Lee Hutson opens. 8 p.m. at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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11/8/21 2:11 PM

DOWNTOWN

Saturday, November 13

Saturday, December 4

BLUEGRASS AND BEYOND

Kenny and Amanda Smith 11:00 am

•

FORD THEATER

Saturday, November 13 BLUEGRASS AND BEYOND

SONGWRITER SESSION

Bill Anderson’s Co-Writers

Erin Enderlin, Buddy Cannon, and Bobby Tomberlin 11:00 am • FORD THEATER

Jim Hurst

Saturday, December 4

1:00 pm

Bill Anderson

•

INTERVIEW AND PERFORMANCE

FORD THEATER

2:00 pm

Saturday, November 13 BLUEGRASS AND BEYOND

Wil Maring and Robert Bowlin 3:00 pm

•

FORD THEATER

FAMILY PROGRAM

Nashville’s Tradition of Music and Puppetry •

FORD THEATER

CMA THEATER

Saturday, December 11

Steve Dean and Bill Whyte NOON – 12:45 pm

•

FORD THEATER

LIVE IN CONCERT

LIVE IN CONCERT

Carly Pearce •

•

Friday, December 17

Thursday, December 2

7:30 pm

LIVE IN CONCERT

Keb’ Mo’

SONGWRITER SESSION

String City 10:00 am and 11:30 am

FORD THEATER

Thursday and Saturday, December 9 and 11

7:30 pm

Friday and Saturday, November 26 and 27

•

CMA THEATER

•

SOLD OUT

Mike Farris Sings!

The Soul of Christmas 7:30 pm • CMA THEATER

Check our calendar for a full schedule of upcoming programs and events.

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Contest entries open November 10 - 24. Limit one entry per person per email. See entry form for additional details. nashvillescene.com | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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JAKE SHIMABUKURO

8:00

FRI

THE LAST BANDOLEROS

8:00

11/11

11/12 SAT

W/ KREE HARRISON, SPECIAL GUEST JASON MARTIN

6:30

8:00

BACKSTAGE NASHVILLE!

12:30

STRUNG LIKE A HORSE

8:00

8:00

8:00

8:00

11/13 DAYTIME HIT SONGWRITERS SHOW

SUN

MON

11/15 TUE

11/16

LILLY HIATT / LYDIA LOVELESS THE TIME JUMPERS

WENDELL MOBLEY, LEE THOMAS MILLER ANOTHER SMITH & SAM EXTRAVAGANZA ROBBEN FORD

AN EVENING WITH

W/ WILLIE PEARL

11/14

WILDHEART WEDNESDAYS

8:00

THE LONG PLAYERS: BRANDY CLARK W/ ALEX HALL

ASHLAND CRAFT, SWEET 7:30 TEA TRIO, & MORE: COUNTRY OUTDOOR PRESENTS

8:00

11/17 THU

11/18

TS! FRI TWO SE 11/19

THE ROLLING STONES ‘TATTOO YOU’ 8:00

WED

SAT

11/20

T! SUN SOLD OU 11/21

THE TIME JUMPERS

MON

11/22

FEATURED

11/14

11/19

LILLY HIATT & LYDIA LOVELESS

11/28

11/20 ROBBEN FORD

12/23 JEREMY LISTER JAZZY CHRISTMAS

PONCÉ

THE LONG PLAYERS : THE ROLLING STONES ‘TATTOO YOU’

12/31 GUILTY PLEASURES : NEW YEAR’S EVE!

COMING SOON 11-26 THE EAGLEMANIACS : THE MUSIC OF DON HENLEY AND THE EAGLES 11-27 RESURRECTION : A JOURNEY TRIBUTE 11-30 BARRY ZITO, TOLAN SHAW, KILEY DEAN : SEED INDIA BENEFIT 12-1 THE RECEPTION : JOE ROBINSON & FRIENDS

12-2 STEF, JON CARYL, & ABE PARKER : 12-9 A BLUE HOLIDAY FEAT. GREG BARNHILL, SHELLY FAIRCHILD, TUNED INTO 3RD GREG BIECK WITH THE ALL-STAR 12-3 & 4TIM AKERS’ SMOKING SECTION HOLIDAY BAND 12-5 DAVID SHAW W/ THE RIES 12-11 BETH HART SOLD OUT! BROTHERS 12-7 MIKE ZITO W/ HURRICANE RUTH 12-14 BENEFIT FOR THE BEAT OF LIFE 12-8 SIXWIRE CHRISTMAS SHOW FEAT. JEFFREY STEELE, BRIDGETTE TATUM, DAMIEN HORNE & MORE

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MONDAY / 11.15 [OH, DEER]

DEER TICK W/DELTA SPIRIT

As the 2000s turned to the 2010s, the whimsy and melody of indie-popsters like The Shins began to take a backseat to folkier, more strait-laced sounds. Nashvillevia-Providence, R.I., combo Deer Tick emerged right on time to catch this wave, with Nirvana super-fan frontman John McCauley’s subtly acerbic songcraft providing an edge that the Fleet Foxes and Bon Ivers of the world lacked. In 2017 — a lifetime later in band years — the foursome, seeking a hard reset, took a trip to Ardent Studios in Memphis. The sessions yielded the companion LPs Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, a lovingly recorded reconciliation of Deer Tick’s folk and rock ’n’ roll sides and a perfect starting point for new listeners. This is their first local show post-pandemic. West Coasters Delta Spirit — whose frontman Matt Vasquez formed the supergroup Middle Brother with McCauley — will open. 8 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

TUESDAY / 11.16 [FAIR FIGHT]

A CONVERSATION WITH STACEY ABRAMS

“To take power is to use the best of what resides in us for sketching a vision for the future,” writes Stacey Abrams in her book Lead From the Outside. Hearing this line from pretty much any other politician would elicit quite an eye-roll from yours truly, but Abrams’ history of integrity as a lawmaker and grassroots organizer has made me and many others trust what she says. After serving in the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams became the first Black woman to be a major party’s gubernatorial nominee. She narrowly lost that race to an ever-trifling opponent who’s fond of unconstitutional meddling with voter rights, but it served to dedicate Abrams even more in the cause of voting rights and fair elections. She launched Fair Fight Action, which advocates for election reform to fight voter suppression. We saw the impact of her work

— and that of other grassroots organizers in Georgia — when the state went blue one year ago and cast out Trump to the ninth circle of hell. Abrams is an inspirational figure who knows how to engage an audience, and her conversation with country star Trisha Yearwood is not one to miss. 7:30 p.m. at TPAC’s Jackson Hall, 505 Deaderick St. ERICA CICCARONE

MUSIC

THIS WEEK THU

ALIAS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

[DOUBLE TROUBLE]

SWEEPING PROMISES W/SAFETY NET & TOTAL WIFE

Sweeping Promises’ 2020 debut Hunger for a Way Out rocketed the Arkansasand-New England-raised and now Lone Star State-residing two-piece from total obscurity to indie-pop darlings as quickly and decisively as anyone since Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart in 2008 or Welsh combo Joanna Gruesome in 2013.

(And with not nearly as embarrassing of a band name, to boot!) Sweeping Promises swept (pun intended) garage-rock and tweepunk heads’ 2020 year-end lists with the lo-fi but high-quality LP, released on Richmond, Va.’s Feel It imprint. Some even flew out from the coasts to hear “Out Again,” “Falling Forward” and Hunger’s eight other murkily recorded but undeniably catchy collisions of guitars, synths and drums in the flesh at September’s Gonerfest 18 in Memphis in September. Openers Safety Net and Total Wife took home Best Post-Punks and Best Indie-Rock Album honors, respectively, in the Scene’s 2021 Best of Nashville issue. 8 p.m. in the Blue Room at Third Man Records, 623 Sixth Ave S. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

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[A CELEBRATION OF CHAMBER WORKS]

ALIAS Chamber Ensemble starts its 20th season on Sunday, with a Second Presbyterian Church performance that includes a focus on cellist Nicholas Gold, with works by: Jessie Montgomery (“Voodoo Dolls” for string quartet, a piece influenced

by African drumming patterns and lyrical chant motives — all of which highlight elements of improvisation within the ensemble); Astor Piazzolla (“Oblivion” for solo cello and piano quintet, arranged by Phillip Keveren — one of Nashville’s most soughtafter arrangers/composers); Franz Schubert (“Cello Quintet”); and Dmitri Shostakovich (“Praeludium” for two cellos and piano).

All proceeds will go to fund the ALIAS in the Community program, which brings chamber music to local students and adults through a wide range of innovative programs and partnerships. To learn more, visit aliasmusic.org. 5 p.m. at Second Presbyterian Church, 3511 Belmont Blvd. AMY STUMPFL

POLITICS

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CRITICS’ PICKS

[TECHNI-COLOR]

CHECK OUT THE COLORBLIND VIEWFINDER AT RADNOR LAKE STATE PARK

This time of year temperatures drop, chlorophyll production in trees declines, and voila! Green leaves turn to a palette of yellow, red, orange and gold in Tennessee woods and on roadsides. Those who experience red-green color deficiency (aka colorblindness) might not get to see the full magnificence of this act of nature. Generally, those who experience colorblindness see about 10 percent of the colors that those with full color vision take in. So Tennessee Tourism has been installing special Enchroma lenses in viewfinders across the state. The latest one — No. 13 — went up at Radnor Lake State Park in October. Radnor is the sixth state park with one of these inclusive viewfinders. Not only is it the first one in Middle Tennessee, it is the first that is ADA accessible. Looking through the viewfinder enables many of those previously hidden colors to be visible. Now that it has been installed, it will be up all year, so consider trying it for sunrises, sunsets (the park is open 20 minutes after sunset) and wildflower color action all year, not just for the current fall foliage. To find the viewfinder in the park, head to the Otter Creek overlook from the east side of the park (near Franklin Road). MARGARET LITTMAN

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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11/8/21 2:11 PM

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Dennis Quaid Live

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11.23

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Chris Knight

Soul Food Poetry Cafe Black Friday Edition feat . Neci, Dichotomy, and S-Wrap & Rashad thaPoet!

11.14 11.15

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STREET CORNER SYMPHONY CHRISTMAS SHOW

12.7

MIKE PHILLIPS IN THE LOUNGE

12.8

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JON MCLAUGHLIN

12.13

JONATHA BROOKE

12.14

GABE DIXON

12.15

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DENNIS QUAID LIVE LOW TICKET ALERT

11.18

THE KINGS OF QUEEN (QUEEN TRIBUTE)

11.19

ERIC ROBERSON SOLD OUT

11.20

THE HEATHER MCDONALD EXPERIENCE: STAND UP COMEDY AND JUICY SCOOP SOLD OUT

11.21

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NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

­ ­ ­

FOOD AND DRINK

TAKING THE W

With two notable restaurant openings in the new W Hotel, chef Andrew Carmellini is making an impact

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

E

ANDREW CARMELLINI

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

ver since the announcement that chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten will bring a new restaurant named Drusie & Darr to the Hermitage Hotel, people have been bandying about the term “Michelin-starred chef” — so a point of clarification is in order. Chefs aren’t actually given Michelin stars; restaurants are. Even if a chef leaves the restaurant, the stars stay with the establishment until the next rating by the persnickety French dining guide.

That isn’t to say having a chef who has run a restaurant that has earned this vaunted recognition from Michelin’s anonymous socalled inspectors isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal, and in fact, there are three new and impending hotel restaurants in Nashville featuring these sorts of chefs at the helm.

One is courtesy of Jean-Georges, but two are part of NYC-based chef Andrew Carmellini’s empire of more than a dozen restaurants.

Carmellini has already opened The Dutch at the W Hotel in the Gulch, and his second spot, Carne Mare, is set to begin welcoming guests Nov. 12. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Carmellini worked in kitchens across Europe and in New York City, including several Michelinstarred establishments. As the opening chef de cuisine at Café Boulud under the guidance of legendary chef Daniel Boulud, Carmellini was at the helm when that restaurant earned its own star, and the James Beard Foundation named him Best New Chef and Best Chef: New York City for his achievements in the kitchen. This is to say, he’s kind of a big deal.

So what brought a chef of his status to Nashville to open outposts of his casual neighborhood hang The Dutch and upscale Italian ristorante Carne Mare? Well, it’s no surprise that money was a part of it — the developers behind the W invited him to set up shop in Music City about six years ago. But that wasn’t his first inkling that he might want to come to town.

“Before I opened the first Dutch in New York, I went on a monthlong American food road trip,” Carmellini tells the Scene. “I grew up in Ohio, and love the regionalism of American food. We randomly ended up in Nashville one night and assumed we could just roll in without any hotel reservations. It turns out there was a Sprinsgteen concert in town that night, so we ended up at a hotel out by the airport. I thought, ‘Wow, this town’s really got something going on!’ Rolf and Daughters had just opened, and I realized that I wanted to be a part of this scene.”

Carmellini is also a musician (“I had to decide whether I was going to cooking school or Berklee,” he says) and has a $100,000 studio in his house where he

nashvillescene.com | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FOOD AND DRINK

records hip-hop and rock. That makes Nashville a natural destination. “A lot has changed here in Nashville over the past 12 years since I first visited. There are so many more hotels in the luxury segment, and there’s so much great food here already.

I’m taking a humble approach to entering the market.”

Although The Dutch is indeed attached to the W lobby, Carmellini doesn’t view it as a hotel restaurant, per se. “I want it to be a neighborhood restaurant first, with a clientele mix of hotel guests, neighborhood residents and people from across the city.”

With The Dutch, Carmellini has indeed created a welcoming vibe, with a large fireplace as the centerpiece for the main dining room, lots of warm wood and a plethora of ferns hanging over the bar that make the vibe reminiscent of a mid-’90s Nashville watering hole/pickup bar. The menu is filled with comfort-food items that Carmellini describes as falling into three “overlapping rings.”

The first is what he calls Classic Americana, like a quintessential double cheeseburger made with locally sourced beef from Bear Creek Farm. In the second ring is New American Food made using seasonal and local ingredients whenever possible. Think grilled hanger steak with

28

GRILLED PORK CHOP an accompaniment of kimchi fried rice.

Carmellini sneaks international influences into lots of his dishes, inspired by his own global travel and the contributions of talented international staff members who have worked in his many kitchens. “It’s not ‘fusion food,’ ” he explains. “I call it ‘melting pot soul food’ because it represents what people cook at home all over the world.”

This brings us to his third ring, which he calls New American Soul Food. “It’s what your grandma cooked and my grandma cooked, but with my own touches,” says Carmellini. His ancestors immigrated from the Friuli region of Italy to Miami in the 1930s, and the history of Italian food also inspires his menu choices. “Italy is also extremely regional,” he says, “with the influence of centuries of various conquerors. Its history combines into what we call ‘Italian food,’ but there’s so much variety across the country.”

While Carmellini does prefer to use local and seasonal ingredients whenever possible, he’s not fantatical about it. “Local is important, but flavor is most important,” he says. “You have to make sure you have the right sources.” He spent a lot of time choosing vendors while his restaurants were under construction, but he admits that sometimes a commitment to sourcing

locally and organically can be like shouting into the wind.

“When [pioneering farm-to-table chef] Alice Waters buys a couple cases of organic vegetables from a farm, it doesn’t mean shit!” says Carmellini. “People don’t realize that Costco is the largest purveyor of organic foods in the world. When McDonald’s starts ordering organic, that’s what will move the needle. Chefs can really lead the change in purchasing habits.”

As Carne Mare readies for opening, Carmellini is confident that he can manage both restaurants from afar with quarterly visits to Nashville. His second restaurant will be quite distinct from The Dutch. He describes the experience this way: “It’s a dark, sexy Italian chophouse with a hightouch, elevated-service attitude with lots of tableside presentations. The menu won’t change nearly as often, but it will be a special-occasion restaurant for a nice night out.” It will also have a much higher check average than meals at The Dutch.

Carmellini can excel at his many different styles of restaurant because of his strict dedication to three constituencies. “You can’t forget it’s a very human business. I run my restaurants with three different groups in mind. Number one is the customer, two are my employees and third are our

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

GRIPPER’S CARROT CAKE

purveyors. You have to take care of all three to have a successful operation.”

It sounds like Andrew Carmellini will fit in just fine with the Nashville restaurant scene.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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FOOD AND DRINK

/,0,7(' (',7,21

,3!, " 0, Whiskey

infused with REAL cinnamon, nutmeg and clove

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

8 8 8

"$9

Good stuff, $10 or less Redheaded Stranger — Green Chili Cheeseburger — $6 Don’t skip the burger at Bryan Lee Weaver’s East Nashville Tex-Mex restaurant

O

ne of the great things about the menu at Bryan Lee Weaver’s East Nashville Tex-Mex restaurant Redheaded Stranger is that everything is $10 or under, so everything here qualifies as cheap eats.

The bad news: It’s all so damn good it’s hard to choose.

But in March of last year, acclaimed Bastion chef Josh Habiger told the Scene that the burger at Redheaded Stranger “is the best in Nashville,” so why not start there?

The Green Chili Cheeseburger ($6) consists of Hatch chiles, American REDHEADED STRANGER cheese, Gifford’s bacon and ranch, all stacked atop a Bear Creek Farm 305 ARRINGTON ST. beef patty and smushed between two halves of a potato roll. You can REDHEADEDSTRANGERTACOS.COM make it a double for $10. The quality of the meat provides a wonderful flavor in and of itself — the patty was medium rare and bacon was crispy, but not too crispy. The peppers add a necessary brightness and touch of acidity to offset the savory meat components, and the ranch and cheese round out the flavors well — though you’d be remiss not to add one of the restaurant’s house hot sauces. I prefer the Dreamweaver sauce, made from fermented habaneros.

The burger is arguably incomplete without a side of spiced tater tots ($4). The tots are cooked to crispy perfection, dusted with a seasoning the menu describes as New Mexico chili salt and served with buttermilk ranch, though the house Dr. Pepper hot sauce is also worth trying. By the end of my meal I was absolutely stuffed, wishing I’d purchased a marg to wash it all down with. KELSEY BEYELER

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VODKA YONIC

TWEET RELIEF

How tweeting about Metro government happenings has helped me manage my social anxiety

Vodka Yonic

BY NICOLE WILLIAMS Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

I Celebrate the life of Phila Rawlings Hach by honoring those people and organizations continuing her legacy of using food and cooking virtuously

The Nation United Celebrates a person, group, or organization using food to bring people together to discuss issues related to justice, equity, and inclusion.

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’ve struggled with social interactions for as long as I can remember. Before I was able to put a name to my experience — social anxiety — I would replay small gaffes in my mind on an endless loop; agonize over what to wear to social gatherings; wait until the third or fourth date to tell a guy I had two cats. I once swore off potlucks for several years after being ribbed by my co-workers for bringing my absolute favorite Thanksgiving dish, canned cranberry sauce, to the company party. When I finally got up the courage to make my next foray into potlucking, my crockpot was on the fritz, and by the time I made it to the party, everyone had already finished eating. I got out of there as quickly as I could, escaping to go sob — literally sob, like, “Should this woman be driving?” level waterworks — in my car. Maybe Thanksgiving just isn’t my holiday.

In spring of last year, when everything was locked down and we all had to stay in our homes to “flatten the curve,” I stumbled onto the Metro Nashville Network YouTube channel. Up to that point, I had essentially paid no attention to local politics. I had only voted in one local election, and I only knew one Metro councilmember (not even my Metro councilmember). So MNN — which covers such fascinating meetings as the Metro Stormwater Management Committee — was not a natural draw for me. But once I started digging in, it didn’t take long for me to get hooked. While everything happening around me felt so overwhelming and out of my control, these random local government meetings were … manageable. The lowstakes drama felt soothing, like something I could get my arms around. And the amount of content available is more than any one person could ever consume (though I am trying). They’ve got recordings of Metro Council meetings going back to 2010; you can watch people quibble over fence heights at Board of Zoning Appeals meetings as far back as early 2012; and you can get carried away in the epic, years-long War of the Horse-Drawn Carriages that’s played out at the Transportation Licensing Commission.

Because most of my friends are normal, sane human beings who choose to spend their free time not watching archived Metro Planning Commission meetings, I had trouble finding an outlet for my commentary on the various petty spats and power plays that had me so enthralled. Even my parents, who usually at least pretend to

IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO LEARN HOW CATHARTIC IT IS TO BLOCK SOMEONE WHO’S MADE IT THEIR MISSION TO SHIT ON EVERYTHING YOU LIKE. be interested in my latest obsessions, had trouble feigning attentiveness when I tried to explain the joy I get every time I see Councilmember Bob Mendes dunk on his colleague Steve Glover.

I needed some way to comment on this newfound passion. Enter Twitter dot com, which I had only joined the year prior to the pandemic and hadn’t really figured out. I set about deciding on a handle to replace the algorithmically determined default, which is difficult when you’re basically the last person on earth to join Twitter. After some time, I settled on a suitable moniker, one that describes me well and somehow hadn’t been snatched up. I started live-tweeting Metro Council meetings and ranting about whatever local political failure was pissing me off that day, and to my great surprise, people seemed to like what I had to say. So I kept watching MNN, and I kept tweeting, and I’ve grown a small but mighty following of mostly wonderful people who want our city to succeed, even if we don’t always agree on the best way to get there.

Nashville Twitter has laid the foundation for real-life friendships with beautiful people who care about the same things I do — which is great, because I get to bypass that whole awkward what-should-we-talkabout situation. The semi-anonymity allows me to express myself without feeling as exposed as I would IRL. And I’ve even gained the confidence to shut people down.

It took me a while to learn how cathartic it is to block someone who’s made it their mission to shit on everything you like. But I got there, and that’s been big for me too.

Is my social anxiety cured? No. I think it’s something I’ll have to manage for the rest of my life. But thanks to Twitter and a lifetime supply of Metro meetings in the queue, my social life feels about as full as it ever has.

And I’d call that a win.

Note: This is not a paid ad for Twitter. But if they want to pay me, they know where to find me.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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BOOKS

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Talking with Colson Whitehead about Harlem Shuffle ahead of his Nashville Public Library appearances

BY ERICA CICCARONE

A

round this time each year, the Nashville Public Library announces its Nashville Reads title, an annual citywide read intended to broaden Nashville’s literary horizons and open up a foPATRONS PARTY 6:30 P.M. FRIDAY, NOV. 12, AT THE NASHVILLE PUBLIC rum for discussion. This year, LIBRARY DOWNTOWN the bibliophiles WHITEHEAD WILL DELIVER are ambitiously A PUBLIC LECTURE 10 A.M. honoring auSATURDAY, NOV. 13, AT MARTIN thor Colson LUTHER KING JR. HIGH SCHOOL NPLF.ORG/GALA/PUBLICLECTURE Whitehead for all of his work.

Whitehead is among four authors in history to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, which he did in 2016 and 2017. Both of the winning books are exceptional works about weighty historical topics — The Underground Railroad follows an enslaved woman who escapes and flees north, and The Nickel Boys is based on a real-life Florida school for boys, where physical and sexual abuse occurred for decades without intervention.

His new novel is something else entirely. A crime caper, Harlem Shuffle is set in 1950s-’60s Harlem, where a square but relatable furniture salesman named Ray Carney fences stolen goods to create a better life for his family. Harlem Shuffle is a page-turner with a plot that keeps you guessing, and Whitehead’s expertly researched setting provides a backdrop for Carney’s meditations on class, power and morality.

Whitehead is headed to town for the Nashville Public Library Foundation’s Literary Gala, and he’ll deliver a public lecture at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 13, at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School. The Scene spoke to Whitehead by phone about Harlem Shuffle, his alt-weekly roots and more.

You were an alt-weekly guy when you were starting out at The Village Voice. Did that work impact your development as a writer? A huge development. The great thing about being at The Village Voice is that it was a writer’s paper.

Once you’d have your foot in the door, you’d get hit up by the music editor or the book editor to get an assignment. That assignment leads to other stuff if it works out well.

Growing up, I most admired people who wrote about books one week and movies the next week and music — being one of those pop-culture gurus, and so it was a delightful time. In terms of work, if you’re handing in your copy, working with this editor, that editor, you become less precious. You learn to

self-edit before you hand it in so you’re not embarrassed. If you have to get paid so you can keep your lights on and get food going, then you learn how to sit down for four, five, six hours and be your own boss. Definitely that discipline I’ve used since — no one cares if you write or not. You have to care.

You have to learn the tools of discipline and sitting at the desk.

What drew you to the crime caper form to write Harlem Shuffle? Heist movies, whether it’s Ocean’s 11 or Rififi ... Asphalt Jungle, The Killing. And I was thinking, “Oh, how much fun they had thinking up those stories. Can I do that?” So I just gave myself permission to do a form that I really enjoy but from my own individual angle.

Do the plot and mechanics of that and maneuvering come along with the character development, or do you have an idea of the thematic stuff first?

You know, both. I want to do a heist. OK. When? Where? Who’s gonna do it? I picked New York, I have a place.

1964. I thought that would be a good background. Then Carney starts to take shape. You know, in thinking about fences, I discovered that a lot of them have businesses where they do legit stuff in the front and all the illicit stuff is going on in the back, and that kind of speaks to a divided nature. That’s a good psychological template for Carney. One decision leads to another and you have to follow up on it. You have a character and a family and an outlook, and things start coming together.

Have you found that Southern audiences are distinct in any way? I did travel much for work to the South for Underground Railroad, and I was delighted that part of the South embraced the story. I’ve never read in Alabama or Mississippi, but definitely North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia were very welcoming, and I’ve had multiple trips down there. We all have to reckon with the past, and I’m glad that some parts of the South are open to it even if other parts are not.

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Have you felt a lightness with Harlem Shuffle, compared to The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad? It’s very different in tone. I usually switch back [and forth] between a book that’s more serious and a book that has more humor. So doing Nickel Boys and Underground back to back was a different rhythm for me. Obviously this doesn’t grapple with American history in the same way. It’s a crime story; there’s more room for play and for humor. So immediately when I started writing it, it was a very different book with a very different tone, and it was nice to be able to make some weird jokes again.

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MUSIC

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR Punk heroes Hans Condor release their debut album, 15 years in the making

BY LANCE CONZETT

O

n a warm evening in early May, the parking-lot stage outside Soft Junk was buzzing with a combination of trepidation and crackling, anxious excitement.

For the majority BREAKING AND ENTERING of punks and OUT TUESDAY, NOV. 16, VIA black-clad rock DIAL BACK SOUND; PLAYING ’n’ rollers milling NOV. 12 AT THE COBRA outside the East Nashville art space, this was their first sight of live music since the world shut down 14 months prior. In loose huddles sprawled across Howdywood (as the outdoor area is sometimes called, after a nearby sign), everyone seemed to be asking the same thing: “Is this really happening?”

But it wasn’t just the prospect of seeing dudes shred on guitars for the first time in a hot minute that had tough guys on the verge of shedding tears. Something even more unlikely than the seeming end of a global pandemic was happening onstage: Hans Condor, a legendary presence in Nashville punk, was back.

“That show was special,” singer-guitarist Charles Kaster tells the Scene, looking back a few months later during a sit-down at the band’s practice space in Madison.

“Everybody started coming forward, like, ‘Is this OK? Is this OK? I think it’s OK!’ Next thing I know, there’s a beer can flying somewhere and we’re like ‘Yeah! This is it, we’re back!’ ” For more than a decade, Hans Condor raged across Middle Tennessee with legendary live shows, where Kaster routinely spit in the face of danger by jumping off of whatever he could climb onto — an amp, the lip of the stage, the house that was in the backyard of Fond Object — often handing off his guitar first for safekeeping.

Meanwhile, bassist Erik Holcombe and a succession of drummers including localrock champion Ryan Sweeney thrashed in uncut rock ’n’ roll ecstasy. The band has gone on hiatus two times since the Aughts, and some fans might have expected them to slip away quietly.

In person, they’re as loud as ever. And on Breaking and Entering, out Tuesday via Dial Back Records, their notorious live show has at long last been captured on recorded media. Tracked during two sessions in 2016, the LP functions like a primal scream, with songs like “Rock n Roll Animal” and “All Messed Up on Death Metal and Shit” bursting with the same energy that you’d be anticipating if you were on the way to see them do a late-night set at Foobar (the East Nashville spot you know now as The Cobra) in 2014.

The first half was recorded at what was then called Grand Victor Sound — aka the

historic and once-imperiled RCA Studio A on Music Row, which was at the time being leased by Ben Folds — thanks to a shoe company, of all things. Converse picked the Condor as one of five local acts to record at the hallowed studio for free as part of a promotional effort called Rubber Tracks. In true Hans Condor fashion, the band showed up late, half-drunk, with a mess of battered gear that would have had Chet Atkins spinning in his grave.

“If you like what we do, this is what you get,” Kaster recalls thinking. “You get three dudes cranking their amps up to maximum volume and going for it every song. That’s it. We’re not going to change for the studio. I think the big studio appreciated that.”

The second half was recorded a short time later in a more ramshackle style befitting the band’s chaotic energy.

Crammed together in The Shed, the oneroom home studio of Kaster’s friend Eliott Virula, the trio ripped as hard and as loud as they possibly could. It was so loud that Sweeney, who was playing drums at the

time, could barely hear himself.

“It was like guerilla-warfare recording,” Virula jokes. “We think it’s lame when you record piece by piece. I used to record like that because that’s the only way I knew how to record. And then, when [Hans Condor] started playing, it really showed me that recording like that could be fun. …

It was that session — I had no idea what I was doing but it worked out. Everything I recorded from there on out was live.”

Despite being tracked at total opposite ends of the studio spectrum, both sides of Breaking and Entering feel like the same snarling, caged animal. Kaster, Holcombe and Sweeney crash through these 12 songs, using the raw power of the full band live in the studio to wrestle the visceral energy of their live shows into a record that sounds like a collection of long-lost Goner Records deep cuts.

Though the album was ready, Hans Condor was not in a good position to release it. Sweeney left the band mid-tour in September 2016, with Virula pinch hitting on drums to carry them through the rest of the run. Later, Kaster moved to Iowa.

And then, in 2018, Holcombe — who had long been one of Nashville’s underground heroes from his time in heavy bands like Snakeskin Machinegun and Asschapel — took his own life.

It seemed like the Hans Condor story was going to end in tragedy. But in 2020, Kaster reconnected with Erik’s brother Roger Holcombe. Roger played drums in the original incarnation of Hans Condor back in 2007, and he and Kaster started trading songs back and forth over email. They ran into the same problem the band had when they first set up at Grand Victor: They couldn’t cobble together a blistering punk

statement one instrument at a time. They had to do it live.

“When you get in the same room and you just do what you do with something recording, it’s so easy,” Roger Holcombe says. “I was trying to do it like, make a click track so [Kaster] would have references to come in on and all this. And I’m like, ‘Man, this shit isn’t working. Like, why don’t you just come down to Nashville for the weekend? And we’ll just drink some beer and play some music and record it.’ ” And so Kaster did. One weekend in December 2020, he made the trek down to Nashville and met up with Holcombe in Virula’s new incarnation of The Shed. They banged out some new songs, with Virula taking up the bass.

“I remember the exact moment that the band got back together was when I asked [Holcombe], ‘What are we going to call this new thing we’re doing?’ ” recalls Kaster. “And [he was] like, ‘Let’s just call it Hans Condor.’ ” Kaster stayed in town, and on Friday, the reconstituted trio celebrates the memory of Erik the best way they know how — by releasing the recordings they made as a band five years ago and throwing a full-on rager at The Cobra. Joining Hans Condor for their record release show are darkwave duo Dos Cobros, folk-punk outfit King Lazy Eye and, for one night only, a revival of Erik and Roger’s band Snakeskin Machinegun.

This show and Breaking and Entering aren’t a swan song — Hans Condor is here to stay, for good this time. They’ve already got a whole new record nearly in the can, due for release early next year. Watch out for flying beer cans. And if Charles hands you his guitar, know that something wild is about to happen.

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MUSIC

SILVER LINING

WITH A TWIST Anderson East is ready to dive back in

Two decades down the road, Dualtone Records keeps trucking

BY LORIE LIEBIG

D

BY EDD HURT

T

wenty years ago, when Nashville record label Dualtone Music Group opened for business, the concept of Americana music existed in a primordial state. It was the era of the AMERIKINDA AVAILABLE Coen brothers’ NOW mythological roots-music film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, rock-country bands like Whiskeytown and Old 97’s, and singer-songwriters on the order of Gillian Welch and Rodney Crowell. All these years later, the genre might define Nashville music as much as mainstream country does, and that’s partly due to the efforts of Dualtone. Of course, Americana isn’t just about Nashville, just as Dualtone’s catalog contains what you might call Americanaadjacent music. Still, Dualtone’s philosophy of record-making and music marketing has helped define a musical ethos that shows no sign of fading away.

Dualtone, which has been headquartered in Nashville since it began in 2001, has marked its two decades in the music business with a 15-track compilation that was released in August. Amerikinda features some of its best-known artists covering songs by other Dualtone artists.

One of Dualtone’s emblematic acts, the Colorado prog-pop-Americana group The Lumineers, covers “Caves,” a 2018 song by fellow Dualtone singer Gregory Alan Isakov. Meanwhile, the late, great TexasNashville songwriter Guy Clark — whose late-career recordings for the label represent some of his richest work — gets the modern Americana treatment via a cover of his “My Favorite Picture of You” by the Austin, Texas, band Wild Child.

These days, Dualtone functions as a record label, but the role of labels has changed radically in the past couple of decades. In 2018, Dualtone bought a subscription vinyl business, Magnolia Record Club, which was started by Nashville musician Drew Holcomb, a Dualtone artist. Keeping a foot in the physical record business has helped the label keep its profile high, but it also lives in the world of streaming services.

Unlike most labels that operated in the heyday of the traditional record business, Dualtone makes what are called net deals with their artists, with the label and artist splitting the net profits from their projects.

As Dualtone CEO and co-founder Scott Robinson tells the Scene via phone, using the net-deal concept is one of the ways the label strives to serve its artists.

“We felt like doing net deals was a way to have complete transparency with the artist, and have more of a partnership relationship,” Robinson says. “Because all these artists have a history of touring and being self-sufficient to some degree, I think this was a natural progression for them.”

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SCOTT ROBINSON

As Robinson says, Dualtone functions in some ways like a marketing company, signing acts who have already established a reputation through touring. Still, as label president Paul Roper explains, it’s a little more complicated than that.

“We’re trying to make the artists feel the fact that their album is more than a marketing tool,” says Roper, who joined the label in 2002. “It’s a revenue stream.

Sometimes, in the bigger systems, there’s this relationship set up where the label is the bank, and the record’s a marketing tool to sell tickets and drive everything else.”

It’s difficult to choose one act that defines Dualtone, since the label sports releases by Nashville spoken-word artist Minton Sparks, Chuck Berry and singer-songwriter Hayes Carll. The aforementioned Lumineers may have made the records that best represent the label’s aesthetic. What you hear on the band’s breakthrough self-titled 2012 album is a synthesis of early-1960s folk and light touches of prog rock. The album traffics in themes of young-adult ecstasy, with almost none of the angst or overt experimentation of earlier folk-rock bands like, say, Fairport Convention.

The success of The Lumineers makes them similar to Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers and The Civil Wars, all of whom made their mark by marrying

PAUL ROPER

the simplicity of folk-derived music with the optimism of pop. For all that, the sound of The Lumineers — like that of another popular Dualtone group, Mt. Joy — serves as a corrective to the notion that Americana continues to be nothing more than a version of old-time roots music.

For one thing, Mt. Joy has achieved the kind of success that ’70s roots-country bands like Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen never achieved. The band’s 2017 single “Silver Lining” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart.

Like any significant record label, Dualtone has served the forces of commerce while paying respect to history. For my money, it has honored history most fruitfully by releasing Chuck Berry’s 2017 album Chuck, which is the inventor of rock ’n’ roll’s final album. It sums up Berry’s music without resorting to nostalgia. Roper tells me Dualtone will issue Berry’s Live From Blueberry Hill in December. It’s composed of performances Berry gave in 2005 and 2006 at the eponymous St. Louis venue.

“Scott and I, when we put out the Chuck studio record, we got a chance to go to St. Louis and visit with his son and daughter, and Mrs. Berry,” Roper says. “It was a pinch-yourself moment when they’re opening up family archives and scrapbooks, just walking us through. It was incredible.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

ays before Anderson East kicked off his extensive Maybe We Never Die Tour in mid-October, the acclaimed singer-songwriter was busy checking off PLAYING NOV. 12-13 AT a lengthy list of toTHE RYMAN dos. Along with the technical prep work of taking a full band across the country, East was trying to navigate the mental recalibration needed to readjust to life on the road.

“Right now, it feels like trying to push-start like an old manual-transmission truck that hadn’t ran in a while,” Anderson explains in a phone interview with the Scene. “But once you get it in motion, it will probably turn over.”

The last time East performed to fans in his home base of Nashville was a co-headlining date with The Revivalists in August 2019 at Ascend Amphitheater. It was the tail end of a lengthy stint touring in support of his 2018 record Encore. Not long after, East finally felt like it was time to start his next creative chapter.

At the end of 2019, he returned to Music Row’s historic Studio A to work with longtime friend and acclaimed producer Dave Cobb, who he collaborated with on his two previous records.

The pair, along with East’s bandleader and musical director Philip Towns, opted to take a more relaxed and organic approach to the project than they had in the past.

“It had been a really carefree and simple kind of process,” East notes. “We were just kind of trying to keep it as in-house and close to the chest as possible.”

That process came to an abrupt halt in March 2020, along with the rest of what most of us think of as normal life.

“One day, I left the studio, went to a Predators game and walked home, and then that night, the tornado happened,” he says, referencing the deadly storm that hit Nashville on March 3, 2020. “And then within the next week, the whole world had kind of turned on its head.”

That short break from the studio stretched into weeks and months, leaving East with time to pen new songs and to reexamine the work already done in the studio. With additional material in tow, East finally returned to the studio in 2021 with a fresh set of ideas for the album.

“In some ways,” he says, “it was an emotional benefit to be able to have a little time and distance to really assess, with this new group of songs, how both of those things could inform the context of each other and fit together on the record.”

The result is his fifth studio album Maybe We Never Die, which features a more layered sound than his previous efforts, carefully curated with polished elements of R&B, pop and funk. From the sexy synth lines of “Madelyn” to the groovy bass lines and vocal effects in “Falling,” East blends his trademark ’60s-era soulful sound with elements that fans might not expect — he describes wanting to “have a little more fun and be a little more reckless.”

A fascination with the mystery of death and a focus on the importance of human connection were cemented as key themes within the record early on, well before COVID

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC emerged. Still, the resulting album in many ways represents the personal reflection that many of us have experienced throughout the pandemic.

“I spent a lot of time really just out camping by myself for a lot of it and just sitting around a fire, alone for weeks,” East says. “When you remove yourself from that kind of world, you start to have gratitude for comfortable couches and air conditioning. … To be able to look at each instance throughout the day through the lens of gratitude is really hard to do. But I think it’s the one thing that’s kept my mind in somewhat of a good place.”

East is now getting ready to perform two nights at the Ryman on Nov. 12 and 13, his first at the legendary venue since a 2018 tour stop, which was recorded for his Live in Tennessee album. He’s approaching his appearances gracefully.

“It’s very surreal,” he says. “When you stack the precedent and history of that space — that stage and those old church pews — I’m like, ‘They’re just letting me up here? That’s crazy.’ It’s a bigger, emotional thing.”

Although it’s clear the enormity of playing the Mother Church is far from lost on East, it seems his biggest hope is for a means of catharsis. It’s something he needs, and it’s something he feels the fans who’ve been waiting for his return to the stage need too.

“The goal for me is to get the things out of me

“TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT EACH INSTANCE THROUGHOUT THE DAY THROUGH THE LENS OF GRATITUDE IS REALLY HARD TO DO. BUT I THINK IT’S THE ONE THING THAT’S KEPT MY MIND IN SOMEWHAT OF A GOOD PLACE.”

—ANDERSON EAST

that need to be freed, be able to look at it with a little bit of grace, and find forgiveness for all of the shortcomings that you hear in yourself. And at the same, recognize that that might be the magic that somebody else looks at and appreciates.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

ANDERSON EAST

THE SPIN HEAR THE SADDEST SONGS

BY STEVEN HALE

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THE LONG WAY: DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL and the voices that have echoed through it before. Grace’s cracking set and vocals were punctuated with hilarious banter and more than a few comments about the hallowed musical ground on which she stood.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m pretty fucking nervous,” she said at one point.

Those nerves weren’t evident as she ripped through her set, which included selections from her solo catalog, like a loathe letter to her adopted hometown of a decade, “I Hate Chicago,” as well as a new song she said was inspired by a smash hit single from the K-pop band BTS. There were also a couple Against Me! favorites. Before playing one of them, the titular tune from 2002’s Reinventing Axl Rose, she hinted at a certain irony of the song and the setting, saying she had to play this song here — consider the line, “Our arenas are basements and bookstores across an underground America.”

Back then, Against Me! was playing spots just a hair more polished than a basement,

PHOTO: LANCE CONZETT

A

thought struck me like a punch to the chest upon walking into the Ryman to see Dashboard Confessional on Friday. It’s an obvious one in retrospect: The former emo teens who flocked to Dashboard frontman Chris Carrabba’s sad songs at the band’s peak are old now. Well, middle-aged, let’s say. It’s been more than 20 years since the band’s founding and almost that long since they were first selling out rooms across the country. Even if there are some youths discovering the band now, they’re bound to see it the same way we saw classic rock as youngsters. Whether it’s cool or passé, it’s something from another time, something belonging to others and maybe a little bit mysterious.

That’s not to say there wasn’t a lively energy in the Mother Church. After all, the headliners were selling T-shirts declaring “Emo Is Dead, Long Live Emo.” And I’m happy to report Carrabba’s still got it — that knack for turning the pangs of pining into an anthemic lament.

But first came Armon Jay, who performs as a solo artist in addition to his gig as guitar player for Dashboard. He played a few gentle songs on acoustic guitar, the first of which he followed up by asking the crowd, “Are you sad yet?”

Up next was Against Me! leader and folkpunk singer-songwriter Laura Jane Grace, who strode onto the Ryman stage and greeted the crowd with the first of many wisecracks: “I’m Johnny Cash.” It will never get old watching artists’ excitement about playing the Ryman, their reverence for the room

like scrappy Nashville punk hangout The Muse, which closed in 2012.

Another highlight of the set was Grace’s performance of the anthemic “True Trans Soul Rebel” from Against Me!’s 2014 release Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Informed that she had just three minutes left to play, Grace raced to tune her guitar for one last song.

“They say tuning is a European luxury, but we’re at the fucking Ryman,” she quipped to the crowd. The ovation that followed her set made it clear she was right where she belonged.

Like many of us, Dashboard Confessional had their plans altered and derailed multiple times by the COVID-19 pandemic. First, a planned 20th anniversary tour was cut short in 2020. More recently, an unplugged tour — envisioned as a reimagining of Carrabba’s pivotal MTV Unplugged performance in 2002 — was canceled except for a few dates, including Friday’s show in Nashville, where the singer took up residence a few years back.

Introducing a new song (whose title went unannounced) at the beginning of his encore, Carrabba jokingly warned the crowd he was going to play something unfamiliar before getting to “the one you came for.”

But it turns out it’s not really that easy to pin down what that was for most of the audience. If there was a song in the entire set — with the exception of two new tunes — that didn’t include Carrabba stepping back from the mic so the crowd could take over, I don’t remember it.

He started things off with a series of songs from the band’s first two albums.

They were crowd-pleasers, but then so was everything else. He played with a backing band doing mellower arrangements of some already fairly mellow songs. Joining on vocals was Abby Kelly, who would take the stage again days later as a member of her brother Ruston Kelly’s band.

In the middle of the set, before a different new song called “Here’s to Moving On,” Carrabba stopped to say that almost everyone important in his life was in the room that night, including his wife, his children, his best friend and a few doctors and nurses without whom he might not have made it to the stage. He was hospitalized after a motorcycle accident in the summer of 2020, after which doctors initially feared he’d broken his neck.

A few songs later, he led the crowd in the ultimate emo sing-along, moving through some of his biggest hits and crowd favorites: “Screaming Infidelities,” “Again I Go Unnoticed,” “Stolen” and “Vindicated.” He noted that he wished “Vindicated” had been written in time for the 2002 MTV performance.

At the very end of the night, Carrabba closed out with one more fan favorite, a song describing what he called “the best day I ever had” — “Hands Down.” Then he walked to the front of the stage holding his guitar aloft, and everyone I could see was beaming in a collective moment of joy.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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FILM

MASS

MASS DESTRUCTION

PRIMAL STREAM 70

Mass is heavy, but catharsis awaits

BY CORY WOODROOF

I

n the Bible, before his crucifixion, Jesus Christ enters the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He knows the fate that awaits him: He’ll be betrayed by one of his disciples, tortured as a political prisoner and ultimately executed MASS for disrupting PG-13, 110 MINUTES the status quo OPENING FRIDAY, NOV. 12, of the religious AT THE BELCOURT establishment.

Before culminating his ministry, Jesus prays that God will take this fate away. He prays so hard, the Bible says, that he sweats blood.

It’s one of the tensest moments in scripture, a moment of anguish and desire to avoid something unavoidable, a sacrifice on which an entire faith is built. In Mass, actor Fran Kranz’s gripping chamberpiece debut as director, he finds a similar through line with four characters who are barreling toward a moment of explosive confrontation and possible breakthrough.

Tough decisions will be made, anger will be plentiful, and permanent resolution will be necessary. Though in the garden, things never come easily or immediately.

Kranz uses a small room in a church to stage his dialogue-heavy story, placing the grieving parents of a child killed in a school shooting in a structured conversation

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with the ashamed, reserved parents of the teenager who committed the atrocity before killing himself. Kranz sucks the air out of the room and forces these four characters to purge their complicated emotions surrounding the tragic event — regret, pangs of sorrow, intense anger. The parties are forced to face the reality of their suffering in a way that could culminate in something profound — possibly with forgiveness and a path forward, albeit an imperfect one, for all involved.

Mass is a lot. Knowing that going in will help you brace for an undoubtedly tough sit — the kind of movie you will be bowled over by but won’t want to watch again anytime soon. It’s not the kind of movie that holds its feelings in; it’s brazenly expressive. For a film with an anvil of tension hanging over it, that brazenness is necessary. At times, Kranz gets a little carried away reinforcing his themes with imagery, but he never slips up when it comes to the film’s central conversation.

Each of the film’s four leads is excellent in their own way. Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs get the lion’s share of the emotional purging as the parents of the deceased child. Isaacs vacillates between anger and focus, while Plimpton is meditative and thoughtful — both actors weave a picture of two people forever

changed by the unthinkable, trying to find a way out of the darkness.

As the parents of the shooter, veteran character actors Ann Dowd and Reed Birney end up with the script’s harder material. It’s tougher to sympathize with these characters, themselves grieving parents trying to piece together where they went wrong and what was out of their control. An engrossing Birney keeps his guard up and delivers a frank performance that keeps the material on its feet, but Dowd is the most stunning of all. As she has been throughout her career, she is the master of making you feel uneasy — she tries to balance her desire to help the parents of the victim find peace with the love she still has for her son, despite the terrible things he did.

Mass is about what happens in the Garden of Gethsemane we sometimes find ourselves in, when we’re forced to confront the darkness in ourselves and in others and try to find catharsis.

Kranz’s script is unflinching and devastating. His best directorial decisions seem to be knowing when to get out of the way and let the actors envelop you with their performances.

This is a movie you’ll never forget.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Found-footage horror, low-fi shock and upsetting suspense, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

T

he funny thing about catching up with the world of what’s available for your home viewing experience is that when I last did one of these columns, it happened to be October, which meant the horror and genre titles proliferated. Granted, horror and genre films proliferate in this column all the time, for aesthetic reasons, but in this instance it’s because it was the time of the season. The world has not improved in any notable capacity, except for the owls that hang out in the trees by my house — they’re generally pretty “up” and vocal, so let’s hope their mood is something we can aspire to.

Below you can find some recommended streaming titles. As always, look back at past issues of the Scene for more recommendations.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: NEXT OF KIN ON PARAMOUNT+ Speaking as one of the people who enjoyed enough of 2015’s Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension to actually buy the 3-D Blu-ray of that title, I’ve been on the business end of shaky sequels before. The return of screenwriter Christopher Landon is a good thing (see also: his Happy Death Day duo and last year’s Freaky), as is a narrative shakeup that sidesteps a lot of the previous six Paranormal Activity films’ established mythology only to find similar

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 – NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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FILM

Adult

Contemporary

LAIR

LAIR VIA VIDEO ON DEMAND There is one great image in Lair, a low-fi shock that resonates in the mind long after the rest of the film’s terrible dialogue, inconsistent mythos and wrong narrative turns have faded. And that one rug-related moment, coupled with the short synopsis this film is being sold with (What if Airbnb but with cursed objects?), is intriguing enough to hope that someone can snag the remake rights to this and do it in a way that doesn’t make you want to throw things. In its current form, Lair is a valuable tool for teaching other filmmakers that a good idea and a killer image are sometimes not enough.

This movie has structural problems that are, to be charitable, incapacitating. The ostensible lead character, Mr. Caramore (Corey Johnson), is so viscerally unpleasant that he derails the film in the first proper scene, taking what should be a mood-

setting discussion between a man imprisoned for a double murder (The Mummy’s Oded Fehr) and his old business partner, and letting it instead unfold as a conversation between a wounded man in spiritual and existential crisis and a Colin Quinn/Lenny Clarke manqué who appears to have had all his lines punched up by the hackiest of ’80s UHF comics. This tonal conflict never really improves, particularly when we meet the family spending a weekend in the property Mr. Caramore has outfitted with shunned things.

Though the family has a lesbian mom (along with her newish girlfriend and two kids), the yelling and shoddily motivated shifts in allegiance feel just like every other family in a subpar horror film.

Representation is nice, but this feels like an empty and ultimately pointless gesture. If you care about this family, then the last reel is some sadistic bullshit — not because of the monster with the gut-ripping claws, but because of the ceaseless yelling and contemptuous things this family of four women subject each other to. The final ending (there are several, the first of which tries a temporal gambit that infuriates) seeks to make the disjointed bleat of the previous 80-something minutes into something cohesive. Instead it sets up a sequel that it seems impossible anyone would actually want. This film is a mess, and not a fun one.

KNOCKING ON SHUDDER Knocking is a taut and upsetting suspense yarn about hearing and listening and how they are not the same thing. Molly (Cecilia Milocco), fresh out of the psych ward after an unimaginable tragedy, starts a new life in an apartment where someone, or something, starts communicating with her through knocks. Sometimes cries, screams and groans.

And nobody listens to her. Because she’s mentally suspect. And because humanity is generally pretty bad at listening to women anyway. At 78 minutes, this is a brisk and deeply intense experience, though a hopefully simulated act of violence against a frog took me out of things for a while. Director Frida Kempff relies on Milocco’s face in a way that grounds the horror and frustration in the concrete, and her performance is pretty amazing. Also, this film does beaches and fire exceptionally well.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

ART BY RAFAEL SANTIAGO

signposts in an isolated religious enclave. Will there be paranormal activities? Sort of.

Next of Kin gives very good demon. That’s important, because this demon is both the link to vengeful spirit Tobi and his midwives cult from the previous entries in the series and the pivot point that incorporates a couple millennia of cosmological possibilities. More so, in the way that 3-D was Ghost Dimension’s formal innovation, this one has both the wide-angle cinemascope frame and a slow-motion function. While the latter is used sparingly, it does prove effective, particularly in a bravura sequence running through a snowstorm that looks like the raw biochemical registration of a nightmare right from the cerebral cortex. As for the ’scope framing, it works for the film — this is a documentary crew with quality cameras, and a 2.39:1 aspect ratio is a common setting on most smartphones these days. The last half-hour or so of this film hits like a 40-pound bag of birdseed, shifting its weight through particulate spreading that leaves no grip completely secure.

Getting there is its own journey. Some have called this movie a Midsommar ripoff, though that’s a bit reductive. There are certain things that are going to happen in any visit to remote religious folk with secrets and issues. Filmmaker Margot journeys into this isolated agrarian space to find her biological family, but you know she’s going to uncover so much more than that — what with the unspeakable rites and the ideologically provocative church tiles and the pit with the crank-and-harness above it where there really ought not be one.

Sound guy Dale (Dan Lippert) steals the whole film. And truthfully, when this film goes batshit in its last third, it delivers the goods. Your mileage will definitely vary, but if you need your found-footage itch scratched, this’ll do. Director William Eubank made Underwater, which dazzled back in January 2020 with a soft-butch Kristen Stewart battling chthonic beasts beneath the sea. It’s an interesting choice to amp up the six-years-dormant series, and we’ll see how that shakes out over time.

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www.rockylawfirm.com LEGALS Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 21A61

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JACQUELINE TERESA CURCIO vs.

NANCY ANN BIRD In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon NANCY ANN BIRD. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 2, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 3, 2022. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon NANCY ANN BIRD. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 2, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 3, 2022. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: November 4, 2021 Jennifer L.E. Williams Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/11,11/18,11/25, 12/2/21 Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D1139 JESSE LEE WALL vs.

OSCAR FERNANDEZ ERQUICIA In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon OSCAR FERNANDEZ ERQUICIA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 2, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 3, 2022. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: November 4, 2021 L.R. DEMARCO Attorney for Plaintiff

Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: November 4, 2021 L.R. DEMARCO Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/11,11/18,11/25, 12/2/21 Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 21A61 JACQUELINE TERESA CURCIO vs.

JAMES LEWIS TRACEY, SR In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon JAMES LEWIS TRACEY, SR. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after December 2, 2021 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on January 3, 2022. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: November 4, 2021 Jennifer L.E. Williams Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/11,11/18,11/25, 12/2/21

EMPLOYMENT Medical - $85.00/hr for consulting Physical Therapists to work in classrooms in Nashville. Prior related experience is NOT required.

Flexible, part-time, M – F day shifts.

Some remote work if desired. Call Kevin at Worldwide Travel Staffing, 866-633-3700 or email kpeters@WorldwideTravelStaffing. com

Now hiring Guitar Players at Rock’n Dough Pizza & Brewery! (Must have cooking or serving skills.)

Contact adam@rockndough.com to apply.

Star Bagel in Sylvan Park neighborhood is hiring!

FT/PT...$18-24/hour including tips! email starbagel@icloud.com

Senior Administrator Systems Windows (Multiple positions.

GEODIS Logistics, LLC, Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bachelor’s (U.S./foreign equiv) in IT or related & 5 yrs related exp in advanced infrastructure support role. Alt, will accept Master’s (U.S./foreign equiv) in IT or related & 3 yrs related exp in advanced infrastructure support role. Also reqs: exp supporting multi-location enterprise environ or 1000+ users; exp performing admin, maintenance, and troubleshooting w/ Microsoft Office 365 & SharePoint; exp w/ Windows servers, Active Directories, & VMware; knowledge of leading industry tech w/ strong knowledge of IT governance, project planning, & technological usage/alternatives available in multi-platform environ; knowledge of PowerShell or VBScript.

Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, 7101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref #: SRADM021117.

Advertise on the Backpage!

It’s like little billboards right in front of you!

Contact: classifieds@ fwpublishing .com

SERVICES

Cable Price Increase Again?

DONATE YOUR CAR TO KIDS.

EARN YOUR HS DIPLOMA TODAY For more info call 1.800.470.4723 Or visit our website: www.diplomaathome.com

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Your donation helps fund the search for missing children. Accepting Trucks, Motorcycles & RV’s , too! Fast Free Pickup – Running or Not - 24 Hour Response - Maximum Tax Donation –

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COMPUTER & IT TRAINING PROGRAM! Train ONLINE to get the skills to become a Computer & Help Desk Professional now!

Grants and Scholarships available for certain programs for qualified applicants.

Call CTI for details!

1-855-554-4616 The Mission, Program Information and Tuition is located at CareerTechnical.edu/ consumer-information.

(AAN CAN)

Welcome to Gazebo Apartments

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NSC 11/11,11/18,11/25, 12/2/21

FEATURED APARTMENT LIVING

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: November 4, 2021 Jennifer L.E. Williams Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 11/11,11/18,11/25, 12/2/21

Your Neighborhood Local attractions: · Broadway · The Nashville Zoo · The Escape Game

Best place near by to see a show: · Zanies Comedy

Neighborhood dining and drinks: · Big Machine Distillery · 12-South Tap Room · Tin Roof · Brother’s Burgers · Southside Kitchen & Pub · Eastern Peak

Best local family outing: · The Nashville Zoo

Enjoy the outdoors: · Centennial Park · Fair Park Dog Park · Radnor Lake State Park

Favorite local neighborhood bar: · Southside Kitchen and Pub

Your new home amenities: · Brand New Wellness Center & Outdoor Turf Space · 3 Sparkling Salt Water Swimming Pools · 35-Acres of Lush Green Space · Social Events & Instructor Led Fitness Classes · Off Leash Pet Park & Pet Spa · Tennis Courts · Gated Community

Call the Rental Scene property you’re interested in and mention this ad to find out about a special promotion for Scene Readers

141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 | www.Gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 42

Call 877-266-0681 (AAN CAN)

NASHVILLE SCENE | NOVEMBER 11 - NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

Southaven at Commonwealth 3090 Commonwealth Drive Spring Hill, TN 37174

The Harper 2 Beds / 2 bath 1265 sq ft $1700

The Hudson 3 Bed / 2 bath 1429 sq ft $1950

3 floor plans southavenatcommonwealth.com | 629.777.8333

British Woods 264 British Woods Drive Nashville, TN 37217 1 bed / 1 bath 725 sq ft $1084+ per month

2 bed 1.5 / 2 bath 1025 to 1150 sq ft $1227+ per month

3 bed / 2.5 bath 1650 sq ft $1670+

Rental Scene

The Jackson 1 Bed / 1 bath 958 sq ft $1400

5 floor plans

britishwoodsapartments.com | 615.205.1862

Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft $1,119 +

2 Bed / 1.5 Bath - 2 Bath 1,047 – 1,098 sq ft $1,299 +

3 Bed / 2 Bath 1201 sq ft $1,399 +

5 floor plans

gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 Sunrise Apartments 189 Wallace Rd Nashville, TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 bath 600 sq feet $950 - $1150

1 Bed / 1 bath 630 sq feet $999 - $1200

3 floor plans

sunrisenashville.com | 615.333.7733 Cumberland Retreat 411 Annex Ave Nashville, TN 37209 2 Bed /1 Bath 1008 sq ft $1329

1 Bed / 1 Bath 675 sq ft $1049 2 floor plans

cumberlandretreatapartments.com | 615.356.0257 Brighton Valley 500 BrooksBoro Terrace, Nashville, TN 37217 1 Bedroom/1 bath 800 sq feet $1360

2 Bedrooms/ 2 baths 1100 sq feet $1490

3 Bedrooms/ 2 baths 1350 sq feet $1900

To advertise your property available for lease, contact Keith Wright at 615-557-4788 or kwright@fwpublishing.com

Studio 330 sq feet $900 - $1000

3 floor plans

brightonvalley.net | 615.366.5552 nashvillescene.com | NOVEMBER 11 - NOVEMBER 17, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

43

S U H P I TC

Nashville is a diverse city, and we want a pool of freelance contributors who reflect that diversity. We’re looking for new freelancers, and we particularly want to encourage writers of color & LGBTQ writers to pitch us.

Read more at our new pitch guide: nashvillescene.com/pitchguide BOTH LOCATIONS OPEN DAILY 11-9 FOR TAKE-OUT YOUR FAVORITE MEXICAN FOOD & ‘RITA, TOO!

Happy Hour monday - Thursday 3-6 taco tuesday 3-6

2330 8th AVE. SOUTH 615-988-0404

EAST/Five Points: 972 Main St. (615) 434-6000

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MUSIC CITY

PSYCHIC BLACK FRIDAY SPECIALS tarot cards • spiritual advice Natural Intuitive

615-915-0515

284 White Bridge Rd

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Metro Parks and NDOT are conducting a survey regarding electric bike (e-bike) usage on Greenways.

Email Mike at msmith@nashvillescene.com to get started planning for a BIG 2021!

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