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APRIL 1–7, 2021 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 9 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

Orrall History Robert Ellis Orrall leaves Nashville’s art scene after one last visit in his collaborative The Kitchen BY JOE NOLAN

CITY LIMITS: POT-RELATED BILLS FACE LONG ODDS IN THE LEGISLATURE PAGE 6 ART: FIVE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FRIST’S SURVEY OF PICASSO’S FIGURATIVE WORK PAGE 22 cover_4-1-21.indd 1

3/29/21 4:28 PM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

APRIL 1, 2021

Up in Smoke ...............................................6

Life, Breath and Death

CITY LIMITS

BOOKS

Medical cannabis and decriminalization efforts face long odds in the legislature

Michael Eric Dyson’s Long Time Coming is an elegy and a call to action

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER 16

The Rains Came .........................................6 Nashville’s recent flooding highlights the vulnerability of our city’s unhoused citizens BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ AND STEVEN HALE

Diaper Activity ............................................7

22 ART

Five Easy Pieces...................................... 22

Nashville Diaper Connection meets a huge community need

Five highlights from the Frist’s extensive survey of Picasso’s figurative work

BY HANNAH HERNER

BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Pith in the Wind .........................................7

Crawl Space: April 2021......................... 23

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

Creative flags, atmospheric oil paintings and the return of in-person showings prove April’s First Saturday art events ain’t foolin’

BY JOE NOLAN

COVER STORY Orrall History

Robert Ellis Orrall leaves Nashville’s art scene after one last visit in his collaborative The Kitchen

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: Exit/In Transforms Into Pop-Up Skate Park to Benefit Independent Venues With Weekend Flooding, Nashville Takes Another Hit Daddy’s Dogs Releases Spring Beer Box Anthea Butler Speaks With Prophetic Candor in White Evangelical Racism

ON THE COVER:

Artists clockwise from top right: Jessi Zazu, Robert Ellis Orrall, Bongang, Amanda Leadman, Dyl Moss, Harry Underwood, Alison Rhea, Elizabeth Williams, Ian Bush

MUSIC

The Dolourous Return............................. 24 Dolour’s Shane Tutmarc talks about his new album Televangelist and resurrecting the pop band he ghosted a lifetime ago

BY JOE NOLAN

BY MEGAN SELING

CRITICS’ PICKS

Company Man ......................................... 24

Watch Minari and attend the Living Room Film Club, watch Woofstock at the Winery feat. Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, stream Chrome Pony’s set from The 5 Spot, check out new educational productions from Nashville Shakes, subscribe to the kweliTV streaming service, build your own streaming Paul Thomas Anderson film festival and more

Leslie Jordan hosts an old-fashioned gospel sing on Company’s Comin’ BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

Taking Control ......................................... 25 Chile-born powerhouse Catalina discusses carrying Latin traditions forward in her own way BY DIANA LEYVA

The Spin ................................................... 26

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Brandi Carlile at the Ryman and Julien Baker at Analog at Hutton Hotel

FOOD AND DRINK

Sugar Shock: Holy Cacao

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN AND MEGAN SELING

The Gulch’s Blue Stripes Urban Cacao is both the devil and the angel on your shoulder

BY MEGAN SELING

FILM

Primal Stream 48 French Exit and the Snyder Cut, now available to stream

VODKA YONIC

Escape to Escape to the Country

BY JASON SHAWHAN

On the soothing effect of British reality television

BY CHRISTY LYNCH

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

MARKETPLACE

Walk a

Mile

with J.R. Lind

With feet on the street, we discover Nashville’s own unique beat – one mile at a time

Call for take-out!

Authentic Mexican Cuisine & Bakery...Side by Side!

615-669-8144 PanaderiayPasteleriaLopez

615-865-2646 TacosyMariscosLindoMexico

917A Gallatin Pike S, Madison, TN nashvillescene.com | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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GOV. LEE’S RESPONSE TO MASS SHOOTINGS? NO PERMIT NEEDED TO CARRY A PISTOL IN TENNESSEE. We do not live in a lawless frontier, but you can’t tell that from the actions of Gov. Bill Lee or the Tennessee General Assembly. Gov. Lee is pushing legislation, which has already passed in the Senate and will have likely passed in the House by the time you read this, that would allow anyone over 21 to pack a pistol, anywhere, anytime. Senate Bill 765/House Bill 786 allows permitless carrying of handguns for anyone over age 21, and for military personnel between 18 and 20. According to police and some local officials across Tennessee, this is a bad idea. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is opposed to the legislation. TBI senior policy adviser Jimmy Musice testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that 63,000 Tennesseans are considered “mentally defective,” and that nearly 5,500 people were excluded from permits or had their permits revoked in 2020. Musice testified that the TBI has no issue with allowing people who are legally permitted to carry a firearm. “We think … the permit process allows us to actually do that by knowing if that person is lawful,” Musice said. The current permit process enables law enforcement officials to screen applicants for dangerous individuals, undocumented immigrants, felons or people with mental health issues. The Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association and the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police also oppose the bill. As reported by WZTV, law enforcement has come out against the bill in part because the permitting system helps them track a firearm if it is stolen and used in a crime. Further, the bill does not require any hands-on training on how to handle a firearm, which the current law does require. Brant Williams — the founder of gun store Frontier Firearms — said that while he supports the legislation, “It’s frightening how many [people are] coming here with a total misconception about how they can safely use a firearm, legally use a firearm in self-defense.” Unsurprisingly, there are concerns over who might own a gun, and with no training required, how an owner may use it. A recent

report from The New York Times notes the following: • Gun violence kills roughly 40,000 Americans a year. • America has a greater problem with gun violence than other countries because of our “unique gun availability.” “It’s not just that every other high-income country in the world has many fewer guns and many fewer gun deaths,” reports the Times. “It’s also that U.S. states with fewer guns — like California, Illinois, Iowa and much of the Northeast — have fewer gun deaths. And when state or local governments have restricted gun access, deaths have often declined.” • More than half of gun deaths are suicides, and about one of every 400 gun deaths results from a mass shooting. Policies like requiring licensing and background checks would likely affect both. • “Public opinion is complicated,” but “an overwhelming majority of Americans support many gun-regulation proposals — like background checks — that congressional Republicans have blocked. And, yes, the campaign donations of the National Rifle Association influence the debate.” The Times article also states that the “main reason members of Congress feel comfortable blocking gun control is that most Americans don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to change their votes because of it.” I don’t know about that. I believe Americans want safe neighborhoods, safe households, a change for the better. But “safe” depends greatly on the laws we pass. Think of the families who just lost their loved ones in mass shootings in Atlanta and Colorado. I wonder what those family members think of when they read about permitless gun carrying. Do they wonder why any state or governor would want more guns in the hands of people whose mental well-being and criminal history are unknown? Or a law that severely limits tracking a weapon’s use in a crime? Last week, Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings said: “Our state representatives are, to me, on a very scary road to pass permitless carry. I’m just very alarmed that our state legislature is poised to pass permitless carry and our governor is waving around like there’s a victory lap to be taken and I think it’s actually catastrophic.” “Catastrophic.” I agree. As reported by New Scientist and others, people who carry guns are far more likely to be shot than people who are unarmed. If this legislation is signed into law, more people will likely carry a gun — and the results could be catastrophic. This is extremely bad legislation.

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 Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, 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, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Editorial Intern Diana Leyva 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 Promotions Coordinator Caroline Poole Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Manager Jeremy Aparicio, Olivia Bellon, William Shutes, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Aya Robinson, Price Waltman 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

Copyright©2020, Nashville Scene. 210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203. 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 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 | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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Picasso. Figures features approximately 75 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures by one of the most celebrated ﬁgures in modern art. The exhibition offers an in-depth look at Pablo Picasso’s careerlong fascination with the human ﬁgure as a means of expressing a range of subjects and emotions. The Frist Art Museum is the only U.S. venue to host this incredible collection of his work. Advance timed tickets are required and can be reserved at FristArtMuseum.org/tickets.

FEBRUARY 5–MAY 2

Downtown Nashville, 919 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203 · FristArtMuseum.org · @FristArtMuseum · #TheFrist · #FristPicasso

Exhibition organized in partnership with Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Supported in part by our Frist Patrons and

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Platinum sponsor

Gold sponsors

Bronze sponsor

Hospitality sponsor

Education and community engagement supporter

Lynn, Ken, and Lauren Melkus

Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Oil on canvas. Musée National Picasso-Paris, Gift of Pablo Picasso, 1979. MP166. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée National Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau. © 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York nashvillescene.com | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE 5

1/28/21 3:26 PM

CITY LIMITS

Medical cannabis and decriminalization efforts face long odds in the legislature BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

or a group of scofflaws who regularly file bills thumbing their noses at federal law, the Tennessee General Assembly’s anti-pot crowd sure cares a lot about the federal classification

of cannabis. As usual, the legislature is considering dozens of cannabis bills this session, ranging from the establishment of a commission to study the drug’s potential medical uses all the way up to full-blown recreational legalization. The common thread: They’re mostly going nowhere. Opposed lawmakers cite, among other things, the federal designation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug, or one with no medical use. But the U.S. Department of Justice does not meddle with the 40 states and territories that already offer some form of medical marijuana, and a diverse group of Tennessee lawmakers is still trying to make the state the latest to join the group. “We know that patients are going to the illicit, recreational market to find relief,” says Rep. Bryan Terry (R-Murfreesboro), a doctor and the chair of the House Health Committee. “We are looking at ways to decriminalize patients and help them find relief.” But it hasn’t been so simple. Even small

THE RAINS CAME

Nashville’s recent flooding highlights the vulnerability of our city’s unhoused citizens BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ AND STEVEN HALE

red Richards was 64, a veteran known for a funny, wild spirit and a resilience that had gotten him through many tough years. He was also unhoused. When Saturday night’s historic rainfall turned to flash flooding, the encampment Richards had been living in with a community of people near Seven Mile Creek in South Nashville was swept away. Richards, who could often be seen in his wheelchair on a corner on Nolensville Road, was taken with it. He and a woman who had also been camping nearby were found dead Sunday morning. They are among five people who lost their lives in the weekend flooding. As of this writing, police have yet to identify the unhoused woman as they attempt to locate and notify her family. Police also identified two older Nashville men as drowning victims. Douglas Hammond, 65, was swept away by flood waters when trying to exit his stuck vehicle near Nashboro Golf Club. Garry Cole, 70, died when his vehicle was submerged near the Walmart on Nolensville Pike. The fifth victim was found in Ashland City; authorities say he was swept away by water after driving through barricades on a flooded-out road. The weekend’s seven inches of rain accounted for the second-highest amount of two-day rainfall in the city’s recorded history, topped only by the storms that

efforts at progress have been stymied. Terry and a fellow doctor, Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), carried a bill that would slightly raise THC limits for state employee drug tests. The goal was to prevent users of legal CBD products from losing their jobs if tiny amounts of THC show up in their urine tests — CBD being a legal, nonpsychoactive cannabis byproduct sold legally in Tennessee and used for therapeutic purposes. But the bill failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month. Briggs blamed the failure in part on misinformation from prosecutors, who he said should have had nothing to do with the employment-related legislation. “It was very frustrating,” Briggs says. Another bill would allow veterans with quadriplegia from injuries sustained during military service to use liquid extract cannabis. That one isn’t dead yet, but it’s been slowwalked in both the House and Senate. “At some point, Tennessee is going to have to deal with this issue,” Democratic Rep. John Mark Windle, a National Guard officer and one of the sponsors of the legislation, told the House committee. “It’s going to be sooner or later, but the public will demand it from each of you.” More aggressive attempts at loosening

caused the massive 2010 flood — which caused more than $2 billion in damage, displaced 10,000 people and claimed the lives of 11 Nashvillians. During this weather event, the Nashville Fire Department reported rescuing 130 people from Saturday night into Sunday morning. Outreach workers who serve the city’s unhoused community spent Sunday helping people sift for belongings and search for people and animals. Among the responding organizations was Open Table NashA PARK ADJACENT TO THE ENCAMPMENT ville, which formed in the wake of the WHERE TWO VICTIMS OF THE 2010 flood’s destruction, helping unWEEKEND’S FLOODS REGULARLY STAYED housed people who were displaced by the catastrophe. Among the residents of the encampment mourning “We can’t help but think today of the 2010 flood Richards’ loss was his daughter. Chunaco says she was where we saw so much displacement and vowed to also living there when the camp was flooded out. journey with our friends through the crisis,” reads a Both Open Table Nashville and People Loving Facebook post by the nonprofit on Sunday. “We’re Nashville put out calls for donations to resupply the feeling so much of that today as we drive to flooded displaced communities. camps, assess the damage, sit with our friends and “They lost everything, so basic stuff from tents, distribute supplies.” sleeping bags, blankets, clothes to more nuanced Andreos Chunaco, an outreach worker with People individualized things,” Chunaco says. “But then also Loving Nashville, says advocates tried to comfort trying to get them shelter for the night because their the people they’ve come to know as friends. He had shelters were completely gone. A lot of them were known Richards for years and had been through a lot so traumatized and retraumatized, because this has with him recently. At the beginning of the pandemic, happened in the past, that they didn’t really want to knowing that Richards was particularly vulnerable, go back to the encampment.” Chunaco went searching for him. He found his old Chunaco says outreach workers contacted the friend in a tent with flu-like symptoms and no energy Red Cross for help sheltering the former residents of to get himself out. Chunaco called 911, and parathe encampment but were told that the organization medics brought Richards to the hospital. doesn’t provide shelter to unhoused people. He also “He’s been through a lot, and for it to have been says that some recently unhoused people who had a flood is really heartbreaking, especially because I found temporary housing at a nearby hotel were disbelieve my friends deserve housing,” Chunaco says.

AFTER INITIALLY BALKING AT THE CONCEPT OF LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA, BOWLING WAS CONVERTED, SHE SAID, BY STORIES OF FAMILIES WITH SICK CHILDREN DESPERATE FOR RELIEF AND BY READING INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH ON THE DRUG. ing for relief. The genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in.” In addition to the push for medical cannabis, some members are trying to decrease punishments for possession and use of the drug, especially in small amounts. Democrats are sponsoring several decriminalization efforts, though they have largely failed to gain traction this year. Asked if the bills that are still alive have a chance of passing, House Democratic Caucus Chair Vincent Dixie was succinct. “I’m always hopeful, but being realistic, no,” he said. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

placed when the hotel also experienced flooding. “Both of these populations are people who are and were recently [homeless], and it feels like the response to them is neglect,” Chunaco says. Sherri McKinney, the regional director of communications for the Red Cross, tells the Scene that the organization did provide 50 tents, 50 duffel bags and 50 sleeping bags to unhoused people who were displaced by the flooding, but they’re not equipped to shelter people. “Red Cross has never been in the business of homeless sheltering,” McKinney says, noting that the organization works with several agencies who do serve unhoused people. “Our sole goal with the Red Cross is to make sure we provide people with what they need to get started on to recovery to get them back to their homes, and in this case their home’s a tent.” McKinney also says that displaced people were offered the option of sheltering at the Fairgrounds Nashville, but that many declined to go there because of rules that wouldn’t have allowed them to stay with their pet or spouse. Lindsey Krinks of Open Table Nashville tells the Scene that more than 30 unhoused people were looking for shelter on Sunday night, but that many had dispersed by the time Open Table and People Loving Nashville were able to work with City Road Chapel UMC in Madison to provide one. The church was able to shelter 11 people and five dogs. The rain has stopped, but threats still remain. Krinks says that with nighttime temperatures potentially dropping below freezing later this week, advocates are talking to Metro about opening an overflow shelter. PHOTO: ELIZABETH JONES

UP IN SMOKE

the state’s marijuana laws have also faced pushback. A Republican-backed medical cannabis bill failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, meaning it’s dead for the year. A small cohort of Republicans in the supermajority has joined Democrats in pushing for a medical cannabis framework in Tennessee for years, with no success. The issue has produced some of the strangest coalitions at the legislature, with right-wing members in some cases joining superminority Democrats to push for weed reform. Sen. Janice Bowling, a Baptist Republican from Tullahoma, had tears in her eyes as she urged her colleagues to back the medical cannabis bill. After initially balking at the concept of legalized medical marijuana, Bowling was converted, she said, by stories of families with sick children desperate for relief and by reading international research on the drug. Bowling also cited the potential to reduce Tennesseans’ use of addictive opioids. “Please consider what I’m asking,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ultimately voted the bill down. Bowling said a vote against the bill, which established a regulatory framework for medical cannabis, was “not only shortsighted, it’s ill-informed and it’s a danger to every one of us in the state of Tennessee.” She was joined by one perhaps-surprising committee member, conservative Republican Sen. Kerry Roberts of Springfield. “I’ve gotten to the point where I realize how many people I actually know are driving to Illinois,” Roberts said. “They’re look-

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

CITY LIMITS

DOUG ADAIR

DIAPER ACTIVITY

Nashville Diaper Connection meets a huge community need BY HANNAH HERNER

f you’re a parent who received free diapers in the past year, there’s a very good chance they came from Nashville Diaper Connection. In 2020, the organization — whose website features the slogan “No Child Wet Behind” — provided a total of 2 million diapers to local families, up from 860,000 in 2019. Close to 66,000 of those were given out in the first four days following the March 3 tornado. According to the National Diaper Bank Network, as many as one in three families reports experiencing diaper need. Diapers cost an average of $70 to $80 a month per child, nearly $1,000 a year. Nashville Diaper Connection, Nashville’s only diaper bank, provides a stock of diapers for 57 distribution partners across the city. And in 2020, the need widened. “We’ve always targeted our partner agencies in areas of high need,” says founder Doug Adair. “Specifically, we target ZIP codes and census tracts with over a 25 percent poverty rate. Well, all that got blown out last year. We had people [needing diapers] that had had good jobs and were making good money in the hotel business, or in the event business.” In order to reach more of these families, Nashville Diaper Connection jumped from supplying six to supplying 37 resource centers through Metro Nashville Public Schools, giving out diapers as part of the district’s meal distributions. Over the course of the year, the diaper banks struggled to keep their stock up at times. Adair says because of increased need, they blew through what they thought would be a four-month inventory in less than two months, beginning in March 2020. They had to scramble to find alternatives. “Diapers were like toilet paper last year,” says Adair. “People started hoarding, and it

really screwed up the supply chain.” Nashville Diaper Connection’s largest distribution partner is Legacy Mission Village, a nonprofit that serves refugees and immigrants in Nashville. In 2020, the group gave out 22,000 diapers on the first Wednesday of every month, and sometimes had people lining up as early as 4 a.m. just to get an emergency supply of 50 diapers per child. “You can imagine if you didn’t have notice, and you didn’t have a savings account, diapers get really expensive,” says Ellisha Williams, Legacy Mission Village’s director of programs. “Folks that didn’t need diapers before suddenly did need diapers. And I think food-stamp applications took at least one to two months to get approved. But even with food stamps, you can’t buy diapers. So the need was just tremendous this summer.” According to Nashville Diaper Connection reps, the only reason the group has sev-

NASHVILLE DIAPER CONNECTION VOLUNTEERS

ered a partnership is if a partner is putting up too many barriers to receiving diapers. “Our job is to put diapers on butts, right?” says Adair. “Not to create hoops for moms to jump through. One of the things that I’ve learned in the last couple of years is, the one thing that a poor mom or a struggling mom has less of than money is time. If a mama needs diapers, she gets diapers.” Families who receive support from the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — or even those who have health savings accounts through their jobs — cannot use those benefits to buy diapers. Adair recently lobbied for the passage of U.S. Senate Bill 304, the End Diaper Need Act of 2021, which would appropriate funding to support diaper distribution programs nationwide. The bill also defines diapers as “medically necessary” so that families can purchase them through health savings accounts. The bill cites the adverse health effects on children and families who don’t have the diapers they need, as well as the limited child care options available to those families. The stress of sitting too long in a wet diaper is enough to affect a baby’s development, and can even qualify as what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an Adverse Childhood Experience and a form of neglect. Most day care centers also require parents to supply diapers for their child. The goal for the diaper bank was always to hit 5 percent of the need — that is, to provide for 5 percent of low-income families with young children in Nashville. Nashville Diaper Connection estimates that it is serving 8 percent of the need now, though the need has always greatly outpaced the supply. Nashville Diaper Connection was the recipient of tornado relief funds, COVID-19 relief funds, and grants to help cover the boosted supply given out in the past year. “I don’t know what we are going to do to replace the CARES Act funding that we got,” Adair says. “We’ll come up with something, because babies are still peeing.” To learn more about Nashville Diaper Connection, or to sign up to volunteer with the organization, visit nashvillediaperconnection.org. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: How bad was 2020? So bad that its vomitus has spewed into 2021. In 13 months, Nashville has faced a devastating tornado, a stubborn and deadly pandemic, a downtown bombing, an ice storm and, most recently, the worst flooding since 2010. Saturday, March 27, was the rainiest March day in the city’s history and the fourth-rainiest overall with 5.75 inches of precipitation officially (more than 7 inches fell in total over the weekend), according to the National Weather Service. Many areas, particularly south of downtown, saw much more than that. At least five people died. Contributor Betsy Phillips writes that it’s important to help even if you’re burnt out from [waves hands] all this — even though so many of our neighbors are refusing to do even the bare minimum of wearing a mask in the Dollar General. “Do the ritual,” she writes. “Even if we’re burned out and pissed, and even if we feel betrayed by a lot of our neighbors, even if we feel like chumps for helping, help anyway. Help not because you’re feeling it, but because this is what we do in times like this. Help because one of the most important things about Nashville is that we help, and even with everything else that’s changed in the city, we don’t have to be changed into the kinds of people who don’t help.” … Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton abruptly and without explanation stripped Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) of all his committee assignments, saying that there are “certain expectations” of members, including “maintaining decorum and professionalism” and respecting “our long-standing committee process.” Though specifics weren’t given, Griffey had been involved in a testy exchange with Republican leaders and the House parliamentarian over his efforts to bring a bill that had been voted down in a subcommittee straight to the floor for a vote. … Griffey, coincidentally, was the only Republican co-sponsor of an effort to waive the state’s 4 percent sales tax on food between May and October, using Tennessee’s robust rainy-day fund to make up the difference. The House version of the bill was placed “behind the budget,” Capitol Hill jargon indicating a measure won’t be taken up until the annual spending plan is passed, essentially dooming any measure that involves money. In the Senate, the finance subcommittee shuffled the bill along with what our own Stephen Elliott describes as a “non-binding though ominous negative recommendation.” … According to contributor and MTSU associate professor of political science Dr. Sekou Franklin, the Metro Nashville Police Department is still opposed to change. “After years of protests and multiple police shootings, no serious grassroots organizer working in heavily policed communities believes that MNPD can build the kind of trust Mayor Cooper referenced in his announcement of the Policing Policy Commission,” writes Dr. Franklin. “To do so requires transparency, accountability and most importantly, the recognition that racism and toxic masculinity are in the bloodstream of MNPD’s culture.” NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL IN HIS ART SHACK STUDIO

Orrall History

PHOTO: MARK PETERSON/REDUX

Robert Ellis Orrall leaves Nashville’s art scene after one last visit in his collaborative The Kitchen BY JOE NOLAN

usic Row’s long history of commercial country hits is synonymous with many icons recognizable by just their first names — Dolly, Patsy, Johnny, Hank. But thrice-named singer, songwriter, producer, label owner and painter Robert Ellis Orrall is emblematic of the irreverent, eccentric spirit that has helped forge Nashville’s contemporary independent music scene. After coming of age in his native Massachusetts’ rock scene, Orrall signed with RCA records in 1980. He and Carlene Carter both scored their first Billboard Top 40 appearance with their 1983 duet “I Couldn’t Say No.” In the video for the song, Orrall has a shaggy haircut and wears a skinny tie, singing at a piano like a postpunk Billy Joel. Carter — the daughter of June Carter Cash and her first husband, singer Carl Smith — is country music royalty, but when her intense vocals splash into a wave of 1980s rock reverb, she’s more Pat Benatar than Patsy Cline. Orrall’s early successes blossomed into a career of searching out

the connecting points between country, rock, punk and avant-garde music. At their best, all those genres are partly characterized by their lack of artifice. The colorful domestic narratives in Orrall’s painted canvases also lack artifice. Some of them are hilarious, and the best include texts of personal ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL’S stories and observations that can make the disarmingly THE KITCHEN simple images surprisingly potent. OPENING RECEPTION “I started painting in 1998,” Orrall tells the Scene NOON-8 P.M. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, AT JULIA MARTIN GALLERY by phone. “I started seeing a therapist, and it was (444 HUMPHREYS ST.) the first time I’d done therapy, and I fell in love with it. That’s what got me into all my childhood stuff. My sixth-grade teacher said I wasn’t a good artist and never would be. I kept painting things about childhood because I was investigating childhood. I was writing my album Gravity about my childhood, and I knew I could paint those childhood stories because I was still the same artist as I was then. My sixth-grade art teacher taught me to be afraid of art. I’ve painted that scene 13 or 14 times because people really like that one.”

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Orrall painted an image of an ordinarylooking kitchen space while working in his Art Shack studio outside of Fort Houston back in 2015. Before he finished the piece, he photographed the plain painting of an empty kitchen and asked himself what other artists might put in his kitchen. Orrall had the photograph printed on canvases of various sizes and shapes, distributing them to his art-scene peers to finish in their own styles. Orrall and his collaborators — more than 30 of them — open The Kitchen at Julia Martin Gallery on Saturday, and the show’s roster reads like a wild cross-section of Nashville’s visual-art community: Richard Feaster, Brett Douglas Hunter, Harry Underwood, Bryce McCloud, Juliana Horner, Bongang, Jen Uman, gallery owner Julia Martin and more. The show is a testament to the impact that Orrall, his family and their indie record label Infinity Cat have had on the city’s visual art scene. It’s also the artist’s farewell to a place where he and his family have thrived for three decades.

AFTER HIS RUN OF ROCK RECORDS for RCA, Orrall moved to Nashville with an eye on songwriting and producing. He crafted hits for other artists, including Shenandoah’s infectious Billboard Hot Country Songs No. 1 “Next to You, Next to Me” with Chris Wright. The pair released their own selftitled album as Orrall & Wright for Giant Records in 1994. The act was nominated for Duo of the Year by the Country Music Association, but Orrall focused on developing new musical talent and working on his own chops as a painter. Flash-forward a couple decades. Orrall finishes his original painting of the kitchen by pasting a tiny reproduction of a photograph to the inside of a door and adding a portrait of himself in a flattop haircut and blue jeans, standing on a checkerboard tile floor. The image on the door is of 1970s model and actress Twiggy, her face framed by a fur collar. Orrall adds her name to the photo and paints the iconic red-and-white Life magazine logo in the upper-left corner of the image. Orrall also adds a larger text section over the cupboards and floors on the opposite side of his kitchen scene: “If I die without kissing you how will I ever know I lived?” Painting might seem like an odd pursuit in the middle of a busy music career, but at the turning of the millennium, Orrall’s creative path went decidedly indie. “I started out just wanting to be a songwriter,” says Orrall. “I was 38 when I moved to Nashville, and that was old for a country music artist or any other music artist. Later on I started painting, and then my kids started making music. I became more interested in the way they were making their music, which was bizarre and I didn’t understand it. One weekend they

were talking and said, ‘Dad let’s make a record label.’ ” Infinity Cat, the Orrall family business, thrived on both the DIY spirit of indie music making and the homespun aesthetics frequently produced by creative practices outside the mainstream. Orrall and his sons, Jake and Jamin, formed Infinity Cat Recordings in 2002, and the label eventually established itself with releases by the Orrall brothers’ band, JEFF the Brotherhood, as well as punk and indie-rock groups like Be Your Own Pet, Diarrhea Planet, Daddy Issues and others. The label pulled in a cult following, and in 2011, Billboard named Infinity Cat one of its 50 best indie labels in America. Orrall was firing on all cylinders: developing new artists for the label; cowriting songs for Lindsay Lohan (2003’s Freaky Friday opens with her performance of “Ultimate”); and having his paintings represented by the dearly departed downtown gallery, Estel. “The first person to show my art was Janice Zeitlin at Zeitgeist,” says Orrall. “Then [The Mavericks’ keyboardist] Jerry Dale McFadden put me in a bunch of shows at his gallery, TAG. I think that’s how I connected with Cynthia Bullinger at Estel. When I was in junior high school I never finished a science fair. At Estel I did a show of 12 science fair projects, and they started to have school kids come in to tour it. For me, sometimes art is a way to crack myself up.” The Kitchen features collaborations with some of the artists who were on the scene during the early years of the First Saturday Art Crawl, when Estel was helping establish downtown Nashville as a gallery destination. In his collab, Richard Feaster uses stencils and spray paint to flatten Orrall’s kitchen into a colorful geometric abstract painting. Lain York adds cut vinyl elements to his version, and his subjects make the work feel like a Colorforms playset. York adds a kid in sunglasses skateboarding on the tile kitchen’s floor, kicking up an ollie with a nose grab. There’s a cat sitting on the skater’s head while another watches the antics, perched on a small kitchen step ladder. The Kitchen also includes collaborators who made their mark in Nashville’s art scene during the time that Infinity Cat and their neighbors established a new First Saturday tradition with the Arts & Music at Wedgewood-Houston events. Anna Zeitlin’s patchwork pillow offers a fabric take on Orrall’s kitchen, reinterpreting the simple painted elements as a composition of rectangular swatches featuring various designs. Another 3-D take on Orrall’s kitchen is Brett Douglas Hunter’s wearable mask sculpture, complete with weird horns sticking out of the top, plus holes for two eyes and a mouth. The eyes are outlined in turquoise squiggles and the mouth is circled

FROM TOP: ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL, ANNA ZEITLIN, RICHARD FEASTER

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— Tanya Tucker On the breadth of her musical tastes during a 2014 interview with the Museum

Tanya Tucker's introduction to the limelight came at age thirteen, with 1972's Delta Dawn. Six years later— already a country star—Tucker released the notorious, rock-infused TNT, with new takes on songs recorded by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and others. TNT became Tucker's first Gold record, though it certainly didn't portend a split from her roots. Learn more about Tanya Tucker and other country artists who've eschewed conventions and expectations in the exhibition Outlaws & Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s, open now.

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE Visit CountryMusicHallofFame.org to buy tickets. photo:

Raeanne Rubenstein

from the raeanne rubenstein collection from the country music hall of fame and museum

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

in red and surrounded by a disturbing display of tiny white teeth. The rest of the mask is simply plastered over with Orrall’s kitchen painting. It looks like the two artists smashed their aesthetics together with no effort to make them blend. Luckily, it’s a perfect fit — Orrall and Hunter are both thoroughly irreverent creators. The result is the most compelling collaboration in the show. Another vibrant contribution is from muralist Bongang, whose interpretation swirls with the kinds of abstract shapes and bright, cheerful colors frequently seen in his street art. Also included is a collaboration with beloved Nashvillian Jessi Zazu, who offered her contribution before her death from cancer in 2017. Orrall and his wife found themselves stuck in their Florida home when the pandemic came to the States a year ago. Infection rates in the Sunshine State were spiking by spring, and the pair escaped to Orrall’s home state of Massachusetts. The quiet of quarantine life and time away from Infinity Cat’s 467 Humphreys St. headquarters put the Orralls in a pensive mood. And when Orrall and his wife found a house for sale in Manchester-by-the-Sea, they bought it. “Before the pandemic, there were a lot of things I wanted to do but didn’t feel I had time to do,” says Orrall. “COVID made those things the things I did. I finally finished an album I made with my old band from Boston back in the 1980s. But I’m 65. I wanted to slow this all down. We found this house in Massachusetts, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, where we’d lived 40 years ago when we first got married. This little house came up. We just fell in love with it. We just felt like we were home.” Infinity Cat is set to issue its final release — its 125th, a 7-inch from JEFF the Brotherhood — later this year. Soon the Orrall clan will all leave town, seeking new paths in new cities around the country. After a year of limited gallery-going and live music, the loss of Infinity Cat is probably not the only change we’ll see as the Arts & Music at Wedgewood-Houston events crawl back to life this spring. Change is the norm in Nashville’s ever-evolving visual arts scene — artists and art spaces inevitably come and go, and some are missed more than others. One thing that separates artists from non-artists is that artists know when a work is completed — they put down the brush, they unplug the guitar. Artist Harry Underwood sums up the greater meaning of the exhibition best, painting his kitchen wall like a blackboard covered in chalky aphorisms and random notes. One line reads, “My assignment is done.” EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JESSICA McFARLAND HARRY UNDERWOOD, BRYCE McCLOUD, JULIA MARTIN, JEN UMAN, ELSA NAUMANN, JULIANA HORNER, BRETT DOUGLAS HUNTER

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songsmith Steve Earle, who released his 20th LP Ghosts of West Virginia in May, followed in January by J.T., a tribute to his late son Justin Townes Earle. Woofstock shows tend to sell out quickly, and both of Saturday’s gigs are long sold-out for limited, pandemic-adjusted audiences. The late show, however, will be streamed — a true livestream with no replay option, so plan to set up and settle in before the 8 p.m. start time. Tickets are already on sale for the next Woofstock show, an April 26 performance with Matraca Berg and Jeff Hamilton. 8 p.m. Saturday, April 3, via City Winery STEPHEN TRAGESER

FILM

MINARI [TALES OF THE WEST]

WATCH MINARI AND ATTEND THE LIVING ROOM FILM CLUB

Motivated by the need to have his young children see him succeed and prove their move to the West was the right choice, Minari’s Jacob (Steven Yeun) spends most waking moments building a farm where he can grow Korean produce — a taste of home. As his wife, Monica (Yeri Han), worries his efforts are all for naught, he tells her: “Even if I fail, I have to finish what I started.” That kind of remarkable resilience — something many immigrants carry with them across borders — isn’t easy to depict. But with Minari, KoreanAmerican writer-director Lee Isaac Chung does so with mastery, weaving the tale of his own roots in Arkansas and his memories as a 6-year-old with great emotional nuance. This is what the American Dream looks like for so many, and it’s one we rarely see in Western cinema. Now nominated for six Oscars — including Best Picture — Chung’s film is hopefully only the beginning. You can stream Minari right now via the Belcourt’s virtual cinema. Chase your screening with the Scene’s own Living Room Film Club — our latest installment in partnership with the Belcourt is all about Chung’s Oscarnominated film. We’ll be joined by We Jung Yi, assistant professor of Asian studies at Vanderbilt University, whose work focuses on modern Korean literature and culture, as well as Steve Haruch, a Scene contributor whose work has also appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic. Register for the discussion via belcourt.org. 8 p.m. Thursday, April 1, via the Belcourt

from the country-Americana legend and equally phenomenal friends. They’re often held in intimate venues, and they benefit two organizations that help animals (and people too). One is Bonaparte’s Retreat, a nonprofit Harris founded to provide foster homes for shelter dogs with special needs. The other is Crossroads Campus, which helps connect young people with pets that need loving homes, focusing on the healing and educational aspects of the relationship. For Saturday’s early and late shows at City Winery, Harris will be joined by revered

[GIVE ME ATTITUDE]

STREAM THE NASHVILLE BALLET’S ATTITUDE PART II

Set to Max Richter’s recomposition of Antonio Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Four Seasons, this beautiful work looks well beyond obvious references to nature and the passage of time, digging deeper into themes of joy and melancholy, identity and human connection. Attitude Part II will be available to view any time between 7 p.m. on Friday, April 2, and 11 p.m. on Sunday, April 4. Tickets are $20. To learn more about this and other upcoming performances, visit nashvilleballet.com. April 2-4 via the Nashville Ballet AMY STUMPFL MUSIC

W E E K L Y

[HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR]

STREAM CHROME PONY’S SET FROM THE 5 SPOT

Over the past several years, the dominance of garage-, psych- and punk-schooled bands in Nashville’s Spring is in the air, and the underground music scene has Nashville Ballet is ready to EDITOR’S NOTE: diminished a fair bit. And it’s usher in the season with style. AS A RESPONSE TO THE not an entirely bad thing — Following the successful ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED THE FOCUS OF before the pandemic began to virtual premiere of the THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO shut down live entertainment acclaimed contemporary INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN as a whole, as exhibited at series Attitude in early March, PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE events like Spewfest V, the the ballet returns this weekend AT HOME. scene had only gotten more with a much-anticipated second diverse and more exciting. But performance. Attitude Part II that doesn’t mean bands toward the showcases artistic director Paul Nuggets-y end of the spectrum aren’t Vasterling’s evocative Seasons, which first doing good work, too. Chrome Pony, aka debuted in 1997. Vasterling has expanded brothers Tyler and Kyle Davis, released and reimagined the work specifically for their inaugural hard-charging EP Illegal this digital presentation — that means even Smiles back in 2011. They slowed the roll a more dancers and gorgeous costumes.

STREAM ATTITUDE PART II APRIL 2-4

nashvilleballet.com

MUSIC

SADAF AHSAN [GET ON THE BAND-WAGGIN’]

WATCH WOOFSTOCK AT THE WINERY FEAT. EMMYLOU HARRIS AND STEVE EARLE

You probably don’t need much incentive to catch one of Emmylou Harris’ Woofstock benefit shows, which feature performances

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CRITICS’ PICKS

“FIELD WORK,” TWIGZ (FEAT. J. REGGAERICA)

[SHAKESPEARE FOR ALL]

CHECK OUT NEW EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTIONS FROM NASHVILLE SHAKES

More than 400 years after his death, William Shakespeare still has much to teach us. And Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s education team is dedicated to sharing those lessons with students of all ages. NSF recently released a great pair of filmed productions in place of its annual Winter Shakespeare and regular in-person touring programs. First up, there’s a sleek fiveactor rendition of Romeo and Juliet, edited and directed by executive artistic director Denice Hicks. The cast includes Elyse Dawson, Abbey Rhyne, Meggan Utech, Gerold Oliver and DéYonté Jenkins, plus

N2020: COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

MUSIC

LISTEN TO SAVE THE MOUNTAIN ON ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY

Nashvillians don’t need any lessons about the plague of aggressive real estate development — most of us can just look out our window to see how greed is transforming our city before our eyes. But 40 years ago — long before the phenomenon was a frequent topic of discussion — a group of environmental activists got together to fight Marriott’s intentions to build a hotel/ condo/golf course complex on the site of a defunct hotel overlooking bucolic Lake Minnewaska, near New York’s Catskill Mountains. Longtime Nashville singersongwriter Julie Grower, a New York native, lived in the area at the time, and she banded together with several other musicianactivists to record Save the Mountain, which helped raise awareness and money for the cause — which, after many years of legal battles, was ultimately successful, resulting in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve. At 8 p.m. on Monday, April 5 — the 40th anniversary of the album’s release concert — tune in to WDST at radiowoodstock.com to hear Save the Mountain in its entirety, including Grower’s soul-stirring a cappella rendition of Holly Near’s “Mountain Song/ Kentucky Woman.” 8 p.m. Monday, April 5, via Radio Woodstock JACK SILVERMAN [CROWNING GLORY]

LISTEN TO DRY CLEANING’S DEBUT ALBUM NEW LONG LEG

South London foursome Dry Cleaning hits a bullseye on the first try with its 2019 EP Sweet Princess, which features a half-dozen deadpan exercises in Sisterera Sonic Youth worship with a classic post-punk gait. (Lead singer Florence Shaw has cited L.A. art-popsters Eels’ 1996 debut Beautiful Freak and Pet Shop Boys’ ’80s karaoke classic “West End Girls” as influencing her half-sung, half-spoken vocals.) Just before everything ground to a halt in 2020, I’d been fiendishly reloading Dry Cleaning’s site as I listened to the tape on repeat in hopes of seeing U.S. tour dates appear. Those obviously never materialized, but with the royal family all over the news last month, Sweet Princess standout “Magic of Meghan” — Shaw’s tribute to the dreamy duchess — re-entered my consciousness, coinciding with the April release of New Long Leg, the band’s first LP for the legendary 4AD Records.

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

STREAMING

Jay Jenkins — aka Woke3 — kicked off Norf Wall Fest in 2015, and the momentum of that event solidified an artistic movement that is grounded in community and fellowship. As a founder of Norf Art Collective, Woke3 has marked the city with his paintbrush, executing public artworks around town and in galleries — including at the Frist Art Museum in 2019. In his latest project, N2020: Community Reflections, Woke3 has again partnered with the Frist to process all that has happened since last March in an online exhibition. N2020 uses videos, music and photographs to showcase creative expressions by an array of Nashville artists in response to the historic events and challenges of 2020. “The N in the title represents several ideas,” explains

ERICA CICCARONE

[THE GOOD FIGHT]

Taking a smashing debut mini-album and translating that lightning-in-a-bottle energy to a full-length can be challenging for any band. Dry Cleaning tries a moodier, funkier, weirder tack on New Long Leg, written mid-pandemic and produced by John Parish, whose credits include PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse, and Shaw’s beloved Eels. The frontwoman’s free-associative, tough-toparse lyrics carry over from the EP, but the music is less punchy and more psychedelic, with an emphasis on rhythm and negative space. It’s an onion of an album — worth taking the time to peel back — keeping Dry Cleaning near the top of the list of newer bands I hope to see once live music returns.

[AFRO-FUTURE]

SUBSCRIBE TO THE KWELITV STREAMING SERVICE

Last week, we told you about a new YouTube game show, Do You Know Black?, in which Black contestants answer Black questions in order to snag some Black-as-hell prizes. One of those prizes we took a particular interest in: a subscription to streaming service kweliTV. Launched in 2016, this is the latest video platform to offer Black-and-proud programming. (There’s also Brown Sugar, best known for providing various Blaxploitation movies from the ’70s.) KweliTV is more global and Afrocentric, offering 400-plus independent films, documentaries and TV shows that focus on Black stories from around the world. One of my favorite features is a channel curated by comedian Lil Rel Howery, who was named the service’s head of comedy last fall. People have been picking up on kweliTV ever since the BLM protests last year — subscriptions have more than doubled since last April. Even if you don’t have a darker complexion, test it out for a while. It’s only $5.99 a month, and can be viewed on Roku, Apple TV and other streaming devices. CRAIG D. LINDSEY PODCAST

EXPLORE N2020: COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS VIA THE FRIST

there’s an original score from Rollie Mains. Education director Katie Bruno has edited and directed a whimsical two-actor take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring Bruno and Jarvis Bynum. These virtual programs were introduced to area schools in mid-March, and are now available to the general public. You can tune in for the virtual premiere and live watch party of Romeo and Juliet at 7 p.m., April 2 (available to stream any time after 8 p.m., with 48hour access after first view). A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s premiere and live watch party is set for 10 a.m., April 3 (available to stream after 11 a.m., with 48-hour access). Closed captioning in English and Spanish is also available. To learn more, visit nashvilleshakes.org. April 2-3 via Nashville Shakespeare Festival AMY STUMPFL

MUSIC

[STILL PROCESSING]

Woke3 on the Frist’s website. “N for North Nashville, Nashville, the nation, the end of 2020, and also ‘in,’ like going within yourself, as we’ve all been doing during the pandemic.” The images and videos show scenes from North Nashville after the tornado swept through, racial justice demonstrations and empty grocery store shelves — but they also show glimmers of hope. People paint a sign to be planted in a community garden, and dozens of smiling North Nashvillians pose for a photo at a Juneteenth community bike ride. The spoken-word performance by Karimah is especially worth your time. Featured photographers include Woke3’s fellow Norf Art Collective member Keep3, LeXander Bryant and Lesa Dowdy. The Conscious Collective’s music video “VOTE” includes notable Black Nashvillians like poet Stephanie Pruitt Gaines, producer and songwriter Desirée Holiday and Meharry Medical College president and CEO Dr. James Hildreth. The photo that brought tears to my eyes was one I’ve seen before — of the late activist and civil rights leader Kwame Lillard raising his fist in solidarity. It’s comforting to know that a new generation of North Nashvillians has taken up his mantle, affirming through powerful artwork and words that Black lives most definitely do matter. As always, the work of artists and poets will see us through. Through Aug. 1 via fristartmuseum.org

THEATER

ART

bit and loosened things up when Jota Ese, a crafter of psychedelic hip-hop audiovisual productions, joined on bass. Between many, many tour dates (some opening for Cage the Elephant overseas), the group worked on track after track without ever quite coming up with something they felt great about as an album. Last summer, they released Seeds of Doubt Vol. 1, a collection of recordings made between 2014 and 2018 that they’d initially marked as subpar. “At this point, after distance and time, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised with what we had created,” reads a note the band published on Facebook. “These songs never got shared because of doubt and a need to present the perfect ‘product.’ After much examination we’ve come to the conclusion there is no perfect anything — only honest attempts.” The tunes are as subtly sophisticated and groovy as anything they’ve put out. You could say the same for “Where Do You Go,” the catchy, hip-shaking single the band released March 15. It previews their decadein-the-making full-length, titled Always Back to Lorraine, set tentatively for a 2021 release. Saturday evening, you’ll have a chance to get up to speed with Chrome Pony when they stream a high-def performance from the cozy stage of Five Points bar/venue The 5 Spot. 8 p.m. Saturday, April 3, via The 5 Spot STEPHEN TRAGESER

[FROM THE SOURCE]

LISTEN TO SUAVE PODCAST

This new podcast from Futuro Media and PRX explores the life of David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, a prisoner who was sentenced to life for murder as a juvenile, and later became an inside source for legendary journalist Maria Hinojosa for 30 years. After the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who received mandatory life sentences could seek new hearings, Suave gets a chance at freedom for the first time in decades. The show dives into Suave’s life before, during and after prison, from his

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 1 – APRIL 7, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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CRITICS’ PICKS collaborator Robert Elswit) — or 2012’s Hoffman/Joaquin Phoenix team-up The Master ($4 via Prime, et al.). Some folks will tell you to skip 2014’s vibrant, psychedelic Thomas Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice ($3 on all those handy platforms), but those people would be wrong. Bring your PTA streaming fest home with 2017’s gorgeous Phantom Thread (now available on HBO Max), a film that features Day-Lewis in what he has said will be his final role (let’s hope not), and that I once called in these pages a “seething cauldron of tension” (dramatic but true!).

: Winners’ Reader poll

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FILM

[I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING, OLD-TIMER]

BUILD YOUR OWN STREAMING PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON FILM FESTIVAL

Maybe — just maybe — in the coming months, we’ll begin to see the reopening of multiplexes and arthouses nationwide as vaccination numbers continue to go up and COVID-19 cases continue to go down. In the meantime, we’re still going to churn out these build-your-own-streaming-fest Critics’ Picks, hopefully inspiring you to queue up some fine flicks from the comfort of your own couch. For this, our 36th installment, let’s talk about the work of one of my favorites — 50-year-old L.A. native Paul Thomas Anderson (not to be confused with the also-great Paul W.S. Anderson, who we just might get to a streaming fest on one of these days). Start with Anderson’s feature debut, 1996’s underrated and understated Vegas-set Hard Eight ($4 on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and iTunes), which features a delightful cameo from a young Philip Seymour Hoffman as a shit-talking crapstable goofball. Totally essential is the director’s breakthrough second feature, the Altman-esque porn-land romp Boogie Nights (available with a Hulu subscription), which Anderson made as a 20-something and features another killer turn from the late, great Hoffman. Much as Kubrick did with Eyes Wide Shut the very same year, PTA used Tom Cruise’s star power to elicit something very weird and special in 1999’s Magnolia ($3 via Prime, iTunes and YouTube), which the director has said is “for better or worse, the best movie I’ll ever make.” Not as essential but still wonderful is 2002’s Adam Sandler-starring Punch-Drunk Love ($4 via those aforementioned platforms), which you can follow with 2007’s masterful There Will Be Blood (available on Netflix) — the first PTA film to win any Oscars (Best Actor to the legendary Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Cinematography to regular Anderson

BOOKS

D. PATRICK RODGERS

tough upbringing in the 1980s South Bronx to his struggles to navigate life on parole. Hosted by Maggie Freleng, the podcast also examines the deepening bond between Hinojosa and Suave, a dynamic that blurs the line between the typical journalistsource relationship and friendship, but also makes a compelling case for compassion in reporting. The seven-episode series isn’t another run-of-the-mill true-crime tale. This is a story about societal failures, trauma, journalism, criminal justice and new beginnings, all masterfully told. You can listen on futuromediagroup.org/suave, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast services. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

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GO TO THE LIBRARY

For all the great improvisation the Nashville Public Library has done during the pandemic, there’s one thing curbside service and e-books simply can’t replicate: the sensory experience of a library. First, the smell — an olfactory symphony of leather and well-thumbed paper, of newsprint and whatever it is that books that aren’t leather-bound are made of. There’s the percussion of footfall on tile and the rhythm of reshelving. Once, it was punctuated by the stamping of due dates. But alas, that music is electronic now, though the beeping of the scanner is a nice reminder that the tradition of libraries has persisted into the modern age — as essential and vibrant as ever, one of the most truly democratic institutions in society. A place where all can come and, as Jerry Seinfeld said, take out any book you want and they just give it to you. Libraries are a beautiful thing, physically and metaphysically, and for those of us who have missed our pilgrimages to the temples of knowledge, there is good news: NPL is reopening the main library and two branches — Madison and Southeast — for limited capacity March 31. (Curbside pickup will remain in place as before, except at the main library.) All the standard protocols — masks and six feet and all that — will be in place, and computer usage will be by reservation. But you can again roam the stacks, thumb the pages, seek the next book by intuition like a dowser out for a session of water-witching. The librarians do ask that patrons depart promptly once their business is complete, and alas, it doesn’t seem that mere flânerie qualifies as business enough to justify an hours-long saunter through the stacks. But signs are, that glorious day is coming.

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FOOD AND DRINK

HOLY CACAO

The Gulch’s Blue Stripes Urban Cacao is both the devil and the angel on your shoulder SUGAR SHOCK

BY MEGAN SELING

t feels like a massive tear forms in the space-time continuum the moment you walk through the glass door of Blue Stripes Urban Cacao. A devil pops up on one shoulder, an angel on the other. Suddenly you’re being BLUE STRIPES torn between URBAN CACAO indulgence and 335 11TH AVE. S. restraint, hunBLUESTRIPES.COM ger and health, chocolate and PRALINE FINGERS, $8 GIANT ROCHER, $11.75 cacao. BEAUTIFUL FRUITS BOWL, $7.50 Blue Stripes CACAO SHELL FLOUR BREAD opened in FebMIX, $15 ruary in the Three Thirty Three building. The Gulch cafe is the latest from Oded Brenner, cofounder of the worldwide chocolate cafe chain Max Brenner. Blue Stripes, which also has a New York location in Union Square that has been closed during the pandemic, is where “wellness meets indulgence.” It’s

also where Brenner employs the whole cacao pod — fruit, beans, shell, even its juice — to make everything from sugar-packed, luxurious desserts to keto-friendly postworkout energy snacks. At the front of the shop sits the pastry counter, where a Willy Wonka-worthy assortment of chocolate creations awaits made-to-order finishing touches. Above a pile of golden croissants, on a silver pastry filler, hangs a sign reading “Nutella injected croissants.” The machine’s hopper is filled with several cups of the thick chocolate-hazelnut spread. Inches away, plump, salt-speckled soft pretzels hang from wooden dowels, waiting to be dipped into the buckets of warm dark and milk chocolate that have been built into the counter. There’s a tray of oversized cinnamon rolls soon to be glazed with coffee icing, as well as plates of brownies and puffy chocolate chip cookies that’ll get a drizzle of

to learn about all the functional benefits that are hiding in the ‘unknown parts’ of the plant and felt that as a true cacao storyteller, this would be the second chapter of my cacao book.” The Cacao Shell Flour Bread Mix — a blend of rice and potato flour, various seeds and cacao shell flour — claims to be a “superfood boost for gluten-free bread,” with the front of the packaging listing all the ways in which it benefits the blood, immune and digestive systems, as well as muscle function. Such claims are not posted on the doughnut-hole fondue. Cacao Fruit Sugar — not cheap at $35 for an 8-ounce bag — is freeze-dried and ground cacao fruit to be used in “energy shakes, granola bowls, baking and parfaits.” Nine times more antioxidants than blueberries per serving, apparently! Bags of cacao chocolate chips promise to improve your mood and focus, and boxes of keto-friendly cacao-and-almond-butter energy bars proudly read “0g SUGAR,” all but giving the finger to the chocolate- and syrup-covered Belgian waffles displayed a few feet away. Like the shop itself, the food menu is divided. Next to the listings for chocolate pizza and Cake & Shake (your choice of shake served with a miniature Black Forest cake) are items like the Power Bowl, a gluten-free scrambled-egg bowl loaded with

CHOCOLATE CLOUD

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MY FAMOUS CHOCOLATE PIZZA

melted chocolate upon order. There’s also a tower of what Blue Stripes calls Giant Rochers, baseball-size chocolate-covered confections that have a Rice Krispiestreat-and-hazelnut-cream center. They’re wrapped in gold foil, just like the iconic candy they’re modeled after, and they are phenomenal. There’s even more hiding behind the scenes on the plated dessert menu. The Perfect Chocolate Slice comes with toffee bananas, crunchy peanuts and vanilla-bean whip. A wedge of White Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake is served with lemon curd, pistachios and toffee. And then there’s the My Famous Chocolate Pizza, available with your choice of chocolate, and by the slice ($7) or as a whole pie ($27). Oh, and there’s also soft-serve ice cream. Have I mentioned the soft-serve ice cream? You can have it served in a waffle cone, a churro cone or as a sundae along with a brownie or fresh berries and an array of toppings — crispy chocolate pearls, candied hazelnuts and feuilletine flakes. It’s the epitome of decadence — it’s borderline hedonistic. There is no moderation. Just a few steps beyond, though — past the espresso bar and drinkable chocolate mousse on tap (yes, you read that right) — there are shelves lined with dozens of Blue Stripes’ retail items, a line of wellness products that Brenner launched last year. As he told Forbes at the time, “I was excited

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BEAUTIFUL FRUITS BOWL

feta cheese and veggies, and the Protein Bowl, a poached egg with prosciutto and barely a carb in sight. It’s one thing to offer options, and it’s another thing entirely to present conflict. But Blue Stripes balances the dichotomy well. Nowhere — save for the little scale icons on some of the retail packaging, I suppose — does it feel as though Blue Stripes is shaming one side or the other. There’s no calorie-in/calorie-out nonsense, no talk of, “You must eat this to cancel out eating that.” The shop, as well as Brenner’s messaging, seems to lean into the idea that human beings want‚ and more importantly, deserve — both. The high-calorie, the low-calorie, the high-fiber, the fiberless filled instead with fat and sugar. After I finished my Beautiful Fruits bowl — a hearty serving of fresh and dried fruit (kiwi, figs, strawberries, bananas, apricots and blueberries) sprinkled with

cacao nibs and chopped pistachios — I shamelessly tucked into a before-noon order of Praline Fingers. They were perfectly sized, about as big as a person’s ring finger, and they boasted a deep, dark chocolate flavor balanced with a good punch of saltiness and a delicate, crisp texture thanks to the addition of feuilletine flakes. No one blinked when I grabbed a chocolate chip cookie to go, too — “Do you want the cookie drizzled with milk or dark chocolate?” was the only question asked. Eat that Nutella-stuffed croissant. Grab a Giant Rocher while you’re at it. Then wash it all down with a 10.5-ounce bottle of vegan, gluten-free, paleo, no-addedsugar cacao water flavored with chili, lime and cardamom for $4. Humans are complicated creatures, and at Blue Strips Urban Cacao, there’s no shame in having the best of both worlds. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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