Nashville Scene 4-13-23

CITY LIMITS: HOUSE REPUBLICANS

VOTE TO EXPEL

DEMOCRATS FOR ANTI-GUN PROTESTS

PAGE 7

CITY LIMITS: WHITE SUPREMACIST

INCIDENTS RIPPLE

ACROSS NASHVILLE

PAGE 8

FOOD & DRINK: TWO-PART DATE NIGHT AT NOKO AND PROPER SAKE’S RICE VICE

PAGE 26

The Whole Story

Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People chronicles the full spectrum of African American history

BY RON WYNN

CITY LIMITS

Republicans Vote to Expel Reps. Jones and Pearson; Johnson Expulsion Fails 7 Democratic members were kicked out of House for leading anti-gun protest

BY KELSEY BEYELER, CONNOR DARYANI, STEPHEN ELLIOTT AND D. PATRICK RODGERS

COVER STORY

The Whole Story

Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People chronicles the full spectrum of African American history

BY RON WYNN

CRITICS’ PICKS

Hip Hop Cinderella, Snooper, Heaven Honey, Nate Bargatze and more

26

FOOD AND DRINK

Date Night: Noko and Rice Vice

Sushi, sake and a stroll around East Nashville BY DANNY

BONVISSUTO

28

VODKA YONIC

Animal Instinct

I know I’m getting old because I’ve started to love the music that plays at Kroger

BY SARAH NORRIS

BOOKS

Motherless Child

Monica Brashears’ debut novel House of Cotton

BY SARA BETH WEST; CHAPTER16.ORG

THIS WEEK ON THE

Four-Story

ON

Photo by Eric England

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STATE LEADERS PATRONIZE STUDENTS ASKING FOR ACTION ON GUN REFORM, EXPEL THE LEGISLATORS WHO CHEERED THEM ON

Following the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, thousands of students and allies joined together in a strong show of protest against the current state of gun laws in Tennessee. These students, grieving and fearful, showed up in peaceful protest, pleading for better gun laws. But some Republican lawmakers did not want to hear it, and instead turned their focus toward the three Democratic legislators who took charge in assisting the students.

Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville and Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis acknowledged the protesters from the House floor. Jones took to the well of the House with a bullhorn, and the three led chants for gun reform for the students. Though the three were trying to let the students know they were heard and understood, other legislators called it “disorderly behavior” and grounds for expulsion. The two young Black representatives, Pearson and Jones, were expelled from their House seats. Johnson remains in her seat.

Legislators used words like “decorum” to explain their argument for expulsion. But as the Tennessee Lookout notes: “House Republicans didn’t care about decorum when former Rep. David Byrd was credibly accused of sexually assaulting high school basketball players he coached, nor when the FBI raided the homes and offices of three GOP House members, nor when former Sen. Brian Kelsey was indicted on federal charges.”

As The Tennessean noted on April 6, “No House member has ever been removed from elected office for simply violating decorum rules.” So why now?

According to the expulsion resolutions, the three “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions.” But what about the dishonor this brings to our state? What about the dishonor brought to the students, who go unheard because the expulsion of these legislators has taken the national spotlight?

The expulsions of Pearson and Jones did nothing good for Tennessee’s reputation. Expelling two young Black legislators makes the Republican legislators appear racist, and the original plea for gun reform by students has been brushed to the side.

According to British newspaper The Independent: “In America, even the most stirring calls to action to prevent mass shootings have a way of quickly being forgotten or neutralised. No matter how many victims speak out, no matter how many legislators call for a new approach, no matter how awful the details of each new massacre at hand — little has been done in decades to change the way guns are accessed in the U.S., aside from Republicanled states making it easier to carry pistols without a permit.”

Gov. Bill Lee told students who showed up at the Capitol, “You’re heard.” He said this with legislation on the table — House Bill 1158 — to lower the permitless carry age from 21 to 18.

Gov. Lee’s solution to gun violence in schools is to place an armed security guard at every Tennessee public school, boost security at both public and private schools, and provide additional mental health resources. And then what? Bars on the windows? Treating students as if they are the prisoners is hardly conducive to creating a good learning environment. If anything, it could lead to students feeling even more fearful and anxious. After all, anytime an armed guard is needed nearby, doesn’t that always indicate imminent danger? Further, mass shootings don’t happen only at schools. Will we be provided with armed guards at the grocery store, the mall, bars?

The focus should be on identifying the root cause of the problem, which is the easy availability of guns in the country and here in Tennessee. CNN reported in 2021: “The U.S. has the highest firearm homicide rate in the developed world. In 2019, the number of U.S. deaths from gun violence was about 4 per 100,000 people. That’s 18 times the average rate in other developed countries.” Allowing people to purchase guns without proper background checks, training or licensing is irresponsible and dangerous.

Expelling lawmakers because they are advocating for gun reform alongside their constituents? Even if you disagree with their position, that is not right. When politics are prioritized over the need to create a safer and more just society, that is just plain unacceptable.

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REP. JUSTIN JONES, BACKED BY HOUSE DEMOCRATS, SHORTLY BEFORE HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTED IN FAVOR OF HIS EXPULSION, APRIL 6, 2023

PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

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REPUBLICANS VOTE TO EXPEL REPS. JONES AND PEARSON; JOHNSON EXPULSION FAILS

Democratic members were kicked out of House for leading anti-gun protest

BY KELSEY BEYELER, CONNOR DARYANI, STEPHEN ELLIOTT AND D. PATRICK RODGERS

Ten days after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville left three children and three staff members dead, politics reached a fever pitch at the Tennessee State Capitol.

Tennessee House Republicans voted on Thursday, April 6, to expel Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) and Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) from the legislature after they led an anti-gun protest on the House floor days earlier. A resolution to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) failed to secure the required two-thirds support by a single vote, with a 65-30 tally. The protest from the three lawmakers — who’ve come to be known as the “Tennessee Three” — followed protests by students and parents calling for gun reform at the Capitol.

Expulsion is rare in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Republican Rep. Jeremy Durham was kicked out of the House in 2016 following a series of sexual harassment allegations. In 1980, Rep. Robert Fisher was expelled for accepting a bribe. In 1866, six representatives were kicked out of the House for opposing civil rights for the formerly enslaved.

To begin the expulsion proceedings, Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) moved to suspend the rules to show video from March 30, the day of the Tennessee Three’s protest. Democrats argued that they did not know whether the video was selectively edited or relevant. Republicans allowed for the video, featuring clips of the trio standing in the well leading anti-gun chants and later describing the events in a press conference. Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons of Nashville argued that the Republican members who took the video should be punished, as rules prohibit recording on the floor.

The measure to expel Jones was heard first.

In his defense, Jones thanked Republicans for showing the video “because it showed to the world the ridiculousness of the claims that the actions of those who went to the well merits expulsion.” He pointed to the Tennessee Constitution, which reads, “Any member of either House of the General Assembly shall have liberty to dissent from and protest against, any act or resolve which he may think injurious to the public or to any individual.”

With throngs of protesters gathering outside the Capitol and in the House chamber, Johnson and Pearson welcomed supporters prior to the vote, encouraging them to remain silent throughout the proceedings to avoid being removed from the gallery. “Personally, I am begging you to not get kicked out of the gallery,” read a letter written by Pearson and disseminated to protesters in the House chamber. “Please do not let them put a veil over this process and kick everyone out from witnessing the injustice of what happens in TN when you listen to the people and speak out against gun violence.”

House leaders suspended the rules to take up several school-safety-related bills out of order at the top of the floor session, a move Jones called an “optical spectacle.”

“You ban books, you ban drag, kids are still in body bags,” the crowd chanted as legislative business was ongoing in the House. Attendees chanted in support of the trio and called Republican leaders fascists as they moved into the chamber. With audience sections above the chamber full, additional supporters watched the proceedings on televisions in the lobby and on their phones. Their chants were audible from within the chamber.

“The fact that this vote is happening is shocking, undemocratic and without precedent,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “Across Tennessee and across America, our kids are paying the price for the actions of Republican lawmakers.” Jones, Pearson and Johnson later met with Vice President Kamala Harris and spoke to President Joe Biden via a video call.

Jones was first elected to the House last year. Previously, he was a frequent presence in and around the Capitol as a protester and organizer. In 2019, he was banned from the Capitol after being accused of throwing a cup at then-House Speaker Glen Casada during a chaotic protest over a bust honoring Confederate general and KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. Jones said he filed a police report after an altercation with Rep. Justin Lafferty (R-Knoxville) following the House agreeing to consider the expulsion efforts.

Johnson was represented by former Reps. John Mark Windle and Mike Stewart.

“Please come up and face the people and explain why you perpetrated fraud on this woman and the people of the state of Tennessee,” said Windle, arguing that the expulsion resolution made false claims about Johnson yelling and slamming the podium. The resolution also said she was displaying a sign, which Windle said was untrue. During questioning, Johnson denied slamming on the podium, yelling or using a bullhorn as detailed in the resolution.

“The author of this document wants to take falsehoods and subvert the will of 70,000 voters,” Windle said.

Added Stewart: “This is the ultimate dangerous precedent, and it puts every member’s seat at risk.”

Johnson was first elected to the House

THE TENNESSEE THREE, FROM LEFT: REPS. JUSTIN JONES, GLORIA JOHNSON, JUSTIN PEARSON

in 2012 but lost reelection after a single term. She returned to the legislature after winning another bid in 2018. Johnson was one of the main lawmakers pushing for expulsion of former Rep. David Byrd, a Republican who apologized in a recorded conversation for sexually abusing a minor student when he was a basketball coach. Republicans killed that expulsion effort. Casada was forced to step down as speaker following a scandal involving racy texts sent between him and his chief of staff Cade Cothren; both were later arrested on fraud charges. Republicans did not push to remove Casada from the legislature.

“I may have broken a rule, but the words in this document are false, and I did what I was compelled to do based on speaking for the voters in my district who were begging me to bring this forward,” Johnson said.

Pearson was appointed earlier this year to fill the vacancy left by the death of longtime Rep. Barbara Cooper. He won a competitive Democratic primary in a special election for the seat.

“We committed no crime,” Pearson said. “We did nothing but come to this floor to say we need to listen to the voices of our constituents who are chanting to end gun violence.”

Pearson argued that he was never informed about the rules of the House, which were voted on before he came to the Capitol. He also said Thursday’s hearings were “the first day that I’ve seen something that is even a semblance of democracy, even on a day when this democracy is being challenged.”

Asked why she survived the vote but Jones and Pearson did not, Johnson said, “It might have to do with the color of our skin.”

Shortly before the Scene went to press on this issue Monday evening, the Metro Council held a special-called meeting to select a representative to take Jones’ District 52 seat. The council unanimously voted to send Jones back in an interim capacity.

“This afternoon’s vote is unprecedented, but so was the action of the legislature,” Mayor John Cooper said, addressing the meeting. “Let’s give them their voice back.”

Hundreds of supporters then marched the few blocks from the Metro Courthouse to the state Capitol, where the House was scheduled to begin a floor session minutes after the end of the special Metro Council meeting. On the steps of the Capitol, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles swore Jones in, returning him to his seat just four days after he was expelled.

Back on the House floor shortly after, Jones made his first comments: “I want to welcome the people back to the people’s house. I want to welcome democracy back to the people’s house. ... No unjust attack on democracy will happen unchallenged.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

WHITE SUPREMACIST INCIDENTS RIPPLE ACROSS NASHVILLE

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Tim Holman has seven cameras on his front porch. Six capture different angles of Beechwood, a quiet street lined with renovated bungalows a few blocks from Belmont University. A seventh faces out like a doorbell. Six more cover the side of his house and backyard.

On Saturday, April 1, residents on Beechwood, Ashwood, Linden, Cedar and other pockets of the BelmontHillsboro neighborhood woke up to plastic sandwich bags on their front lawns. They were filled with dried corn kernels and antisemitic propaganda, tossed into yards from a car late the night before. Holman got the make and model (a 2023 Hyundai Santa Fe) and the plate (XH7-D6T, registered in Missouri).

“The problem with tossing trash like this in people’s yards is that sometimes you drive past a house with really good cameras,” Holman wrote on Nextdoor, a social media platform that hosts neighborhood message boards. He stitched together three angles and posted surveillance footage to YouTube.

Holman passed the same information to the police. An officer told him that the vehicle had been rented.

“They know who rented the vehicle,” Holman tells the Scene. “I’m hoping they follow up on that and see who these guys are.”

The case is now in the hands of MNPD’s Specialized Investigations Division, headed by Officer Michael Buchanan.

The propaganda in Belmont-Hillsboro follows an outbreak of public displays of white supremacy and antisemitism across Nashville. In early March, a banner hung on Chestnut Street near Fort Negley praised Gov. Bill Lee for signing legislation blocking gender-affirming care for trans youth; it was marked with a swastika and featured a slogan common among white supremacist organizations.

According to an MNPD spokesperson, detectives “were unable to examine the banner for possible leads and no one turned it in.” In a statement to the Scene, the department said the case is open, but stalled.

“If new information presents itself, the investigation will proceed,” says MNPD public affairs officer Brooke Reese.

Two weeks later, police had exactly four pages of

documents related to the banner drop: an incident report naming two onlookers, Kyle and Rachael Trask, as “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2.” It goes on to state that they are not believed to be responsible for the incident, based in part on Kyle’s shirt, which according to the report, “displayed on Anti-Fascist type statement.”

“Everyone was talking about the banner, and I said, ‘I’ll gladly take it down,’” Kyle Trask tells the Scene. “It had already been removed when we got there. When we were leaving, a police officer tapped on our car window and took our licenses. I’m just learning now that we got written up. The cops told me they had cameras at the intersection — hopefully they are actively seeking out who is responsible. It’s a shame that this happened in Nashville, though I’m not surprised, in light of what’s going on.”

Kyle Trask says that, on the day the banner was spotted, his shirt read, “Ban the fascists, save the books.” A year ago, Mt. Juliet pastor Greg Locke — an avowed supporter of former President Donald Trump and the attempt to overthrow the United States government on Jan. 6, 2021 — organized mass burnings of texts like Harry Potter and Twilight, which he deemed anti-Christian. The burning was a response to a wave of book bans across Tennessee over the past couple of years, renewed energy to censor and control information in libraries and school districts buoyed by vocal support from politicians and conservative media. These efforts broadly target writing on race, white supremacy, Black history, gender diversity and sexual orientation, at times attempting to legally categorize such material as obscene.

In the fall, Nashville became the flashpoint for attacks on health care for transgender people when conservative commentator Matt Walsh aimed a camera at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Walsh works at The Daily Wire, which relocated to Nashville from Los Angeles two years ago. Walsh used the hospital’s small clinic for transgender health — and the nuances of gender-affirming medical care — to foment a national outrage complete with rallies, death threats and, a few months later, legislative action restricting genderaffirming medical care for young people, against the recommendations of the medical establishment. The

Human Rights Campaign has tracked record levels of violence against trans people in 2021 and 2022.

Two weeks after the banner drop, homes in Sylvan Park were vandalized with swastikas and racist slurs. Residents quickly gathered to clean up the hate speech, recalls Barbara Dab, a Sylvan Park resident and spokesperson for the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville.

“I think certain rhetoric has become normalized, and it has emboldened people to take action,” Dab tells the Scene. “And when something like this happens, you shudder to think what could happen next. As a community, we have been anxious, unhappy and uneasy. We have a very tight community and a very close relationship with our neighbors and allies outside the Jewish community. We have a lot of support and we are not going anywhere.”

Signs that read “Hate Has No Home in Sylvan Park,” have since sprouted up across the neighborhood.

Nashville has endured several public displays of white supremacy through March and early April. The banner drop hit the first week in March, followed by vandalism and hate speech in Sylvan Park. BelmontHillsboro got flyered the Friday after the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Green Hills. The same weekend, Justin Kanew, an activist who runs liberal media outlet the Tennessee Holler, released a statement saying that his home in Williamson County’s College Grove had been shot at multiple times on April 2. Spray-painted swastikas appeared around East Nashville sometime in mid-March. In early April, a neighbor identified the flag of a white supremacist hate group flying in front of a house near Eighth Avenue in the Wedgewood-Houston area.

On Cedar Lane, Janet Wolf remembers picking up the little blue pamphlet on the morning of April 1. She had spent the week participating in demonstrations at the state Capitol calling for tighter gun laws. A Black Lives Matter sign in Wolf’s front yard had been cut in half — by high winds or a discontented passerby, she doesn’t know for sure.

“The culture of violence in our city is escalating,” says Wolf. “It feels like it’s coming from all directions. It’s all the more important for the community to respond quickly and strongly. I have hope for this next generation because of what we’re seeing, and in some ways, I think these incidents are a backlash from people who feel like they’re losing power. They are a response to what’s coming. The good stuff that’s coming.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Residents tie vandalism and propaganda to a heightened culture of violence in Nashville. Police investigations remain open.

A TDOT EMPLOYEE PAINTS OVER WHITE SUPREMACIST GRAFFITI NEAR I-65, FEBRUARY 2023

“AS A COMMUNITY, WE HAVE BEEN ANXIOUS, UNHAPPY AND UNEASY. WE HAVE A VERY TIGHT COMMUNITY AND A VERY CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR NEIGHBORS AND ALLIES OUTSIDE THE JEWISH COMMUNITY. WE HAVE A LOT OF SUPPORT AND WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.”

—BARBARA DAB, SYLVAN PARK RESIDENT AND SPOKESPERSON FOR THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER NASHVILLE

BABY STEPS

Doulas struggle to receive reimbursement to serve city’s most vulnerable

BY HANNAH HERNER

Even for those who have done it before, childbirth can be full of surprises. Doulas provide nonclinical emotional, physical and informational support while serving as advocates for the pregnant person.

“We are explainers of the medical jargon, and we are advocators for what you want in that space,” says Andrea Hewitt, founder of East Nashville Doulas. “I think there’s just such a mystery around birth. There’s so much misinformation out there, and people don’t really understand what’s normal. I think that is something that doulas bring to the table.”

Studies show that having doulas in the room contributes to better birth outcomes, and can combat maternal mortality. The state’s latest maternal mortality report found that between 2017 and 2020, 113 Tennessee women died during pregnancy or within a year of their delivery because of pregnancyrelated causes. Most of those deaths (89 percent) were deemed preventable. NonHispanic Black women were 2.5 times more likely to die than white women.

State Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) introduced two related bills involving doulas this year. One bill, which would have mandated TennCare to cover doula services, got some bipartisan support but was ultimately shut down by the state-sponsored insurance. Another bill still making its way through the legislature (SB0394) would create an advisory committee to study existing doula certification programs and sort out reimbursement rates for the profession if it were to be implemented in TennCare coverage.

“I think that in the new state of birthing that we have here in Tennessee, with abortion being banned and women are forced to have kids — I really think this should be a priority to offer services that have been proven to reduce the rate of infant and maternal mortality in the United States,” Lamar tells the Scene. “More women are going to have babies. The ones who will be most impacted are poor women who can’t, if they wanted to, go out of state to access an abortion.”

Adding TennCare coverage for doulas would create a path for these professionals to serve the most vulnerable as well as get paid for their services. But there’s trepidation in the community around certification. Some doulas fear that if state certification becomes more regulated, people with lived experience rather than conventional training could be left out. Kristin Mejia is a doula and founder of Homeland Heart, an organization that focuses on Black maternal health. She would like to see doula legitimacy based less on a certification from an organization, and more on being able to verify the person’s knowledge.

“The art of doulaing is one that is a traditional art that’s been mastered through generations and passed down, as we see in

Indigenous cultures and African American culture,” Mejia says. “It is very hard to be able to put a mark on what makes someone adequate enough to do the work. However, there’s a standard knowledge base that comes along with being a doula.”

In 2022, the Metro Public Health Department introduced doula services for the first time in its Strong Babies program, which serves seven ZIP codes deemed most at risk of infant mortality in the Nashville area. The program measures success in a decreased number of cesarean sections, and therefore a decreased likelihood of post-op complications. High breastfeeding rates, low epidural rates, and high participation in postpartum visits are also measures of success.

In the first 10 months of the program, 63 percent of doula-supported families did not use epidurals, 100 percent initiated breastfeeding, and 63 percent of doulasupported families completed their postpartum visits.

To work at Metro, a person has to be trained, but there’s room for flexibility when it comes to certification. That’s according to Dawn Smith, a doula and and doula-support coordinator for Metro Nashville Public Health.

“I think experience outweighs being able to certify or take an exam,” Smith says. “What is your experience and what are your outcomes? That speaks more to me.”

Mejia notices plenty of interest in the profession and demand for services, but the doula workforce suffers from low pay

and high turnover. Homeland Hearts has a sliding scale of $125 to $2,000, and East Nashville Doulas charges between $1,300 and $2,000, depending on experience. Services are almost never covered by insurance. Metro offers services for free, and Ascension Saint Thomas and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have volunteer doula programs.

“How do we provide enough doulas that are cost-effective for people to have, and where doulas get paid?” Hewitt asks. “Because if they do too many births where they don’t get paid, they’re gonna get burned out, because who is going to pay their bills? That’s kind of where we are right now, is trying to figure that out. And I don’t think anyone has figured that out yet. In my mind, we have enough doulas when everyone who wants a doula has one.”

As the statistics show, the situation is especially dire for Black mothers — who historically are under-informed by doctors when it comes to their deliveries, Mejia says. She says a notion in the Black birthing world is that doctors are to Black women what police are to Black men.

“Unfortunately, for Black women, there is a need for there to be some additional supervision in the room, which is unfair,” she says. “But until we can work through that, it’s important, it’s vital that there’s another set of experienced eyes in the room.

“It’s been going on for years that we’ve been working through this doula reimbursement bill,” Mejia continues. “In that amount of time, women are dying. While I have a lot of hope for the progression for this bill and the advancement of the doula reimbursement project, I think we need to go ahead and put our track shoes on and start sprinting toward the finish line.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

National media reported from the Capitol this week on expulsion proceedings brought by Republicans against Democratic Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. Lawmakers succeeded in kicking out Jones and Pearson, a move that drew criticism from figures including Barack Obama, Bernice King, Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden. … Students, teachers, parents and allies continued to rally at the Capitol calling for gun control and in support of Jones and Pearson, who were expelled for participating in protests earlier in the week. Two weeks after a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Green Hills, Republican lawmakers have not considered any legislative action on gun control. … A federal judge temporarily blocked the implementation of a new Tennessee law restricting drag performances U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Parker, a Trump appointee, found that the law was too broad to be enforced, ruling in favor of a Memphis theater company that sought a restraining order against the state of Tennessee. … Justin Kanew, who runs popular liberal site the Tennessee Holler, shared that his family’s home in Williamson County was shot at multiple times on Saturday, April 1, while he and his family were asleep. … Councilmembers deferred legislation related to the city’s approval of a new $2.1 billion Titans stadium last week. As the April 4 meeting stretched well past midnight, members chose to delay the next vote on one of the city’s most anticipated debates, which will now take place on April 18. … Sen. Heidi Campbell announced she will run for mayor, joining a crowded field that includes her fellow Democratic state Sen. Jeff Yarbro Campbell was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 2020. Last year, she ran an unsuccessful congressional campaign in Tennessee’s 5th District against Republican Andy Ogles Metro Property Assessor Vivian Wilhoite appointed a treasurer for her own mayoral campaign, the first official step for a longtime Metro figure who has been expected to run since John Cooper announced he wouldn’t seek reelection in late January. As of press time, Wilhoite has not officially announced a campaign. … An Ohio-based real estate developer announced plans for a 154-unit apartment building at the current site of Donelson Bowl, the city’s oldest bowling alley. Once the sale closes, the bowling alley will cease to operate at the 3.85-acre site at the corner of Lebanon and Donelson Pikes. Apartment construction is expected to be completed by 2025.

… Contributor Betsy Phillips puts the GOP’s ouster of Jones and Pearson in the context of Tennessee’s legacy of white supremacy and white leaders’ bias against young Black leaders. While we deal with the implications of that bias on a “rigged and unjust” political system, writes Phillips, the state avoids answering calls for gun control.

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG:

ANDREA HEWITT, FOUNDER OF EAST NASHVILLE DOULAS

WITNESS HISTORY

Kris Kristofferson. Loretta Lynn. Charley Pride. The signatures on Sunny Sweeney’s Gibson J-45 Historic Collection acoustic guitar highlight the lines that tie together the past, present, and future of country music.

From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music

RESERVE TODAY

artifact: Courtesy of Sunny Sweeney artifact photo: Bob Delevante

The Whole Story

Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People chronicles the full spectrum of African American history

BY RON WYNN

While the phrase “multimedia event” is not an inaccurate description of the ambitious and imaginative undertaking that is The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph, it is about as far as you can get from complete.

The piece is a collaboration between composer-instrumentalist Hannibal Lokumbe and the Nashville Symphony, and it makes its world premiere at the Schermerhorn with four performances April 13 through 16. While the production is technically the first opera among Lokumbe’s extensive body of multidisciplinary works, it obliterates distinctions between idioms. It combines and converges elements of symphonic and improvisational music while also incorporating aspects of theater and dance.

In addition to the Grammy-winning Nashville Symphony, The Jonah People brings to the stage an African drum and dance corps as well as a 100-voice choir whose members come from HBCUs in both Tennessee and Kentucky. There’s a jazz band that recalls Lokumbe’s days on the road as a young man. There are film elements and a live dramatic component utilizing the skills of 30 actors.

“For me, it’s the realization of a dream that I’ve had since childhood,” Lokumbe says in a recent conversation with the Scene. “I

wanted to chronicle the full measure of the African American experience — the glories and the tragedies, the incredible things that have occurred along the way.”

The story is presented in four movements, called “veils,” beginning with one set in Africa at a point of departure for enslaved people bound for America. This is the foundation for the production’s overarching symbolism, comparing the past 400 years of African American history to the biblical parable of Jonah and the whale: surviving the horrors of slavery, enduring Reconstruction and building lasting and vibrant communities, in spite of injustice fueled by systemic racism.

It is a story about building pride and strength by seeing the promise of the future in the past and present, chronicling the resilience and visionary ingenuity of Black people throughout the history of the United States. It is deeply personal for Lokumbe, including memories of his own and those of his family and mentors, and it’s meant to touch a broad audience.

“It isn’t possible to include every single important figure and event, but I feel we have done a good job of presenting the major developments and personalities,” says Lokumbe. “Getting the full scope of our experiences and lives was the goal. I spent a lot of nights on specific segments — what would work with actors and in a theatrical way — while also getting the musical

elements together.”

Lokumbe views The Jonah People as a crowning achievement in his career, and when discussing its conceptual origins, he is both reflective and exceptionally detailoriented. Another of the veils is devoted to Minton’s Playhouse, the legendary Harlem club where leading lights like Roy Haynes, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk crafted innovations in modern jazz that would become known as bop. Lokumbe built the narrative in this segment around stories shared with him by Haynes, who is now 98 years old.

“He’s one of the very few people alive who

played at Minton’s [in its heyday],” says Lokumbe. “Getting that degree of accuracy and authenticity within the piece, so it honors that achievement, is so critical.”

LOKUMBE HAS A DEEP gratitude for the greats he’s worked with. Now 74 years old and dividing his time between his studio space in New Orleans and his home in Bastrop, Texas, he grew up in a farming community outside Austin. He formed a top-notch soul band in his teens and studied briefly in the renowned music program at North Texas State University (now the

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

INSTALLING THE JONAH PEOPLE SET

“I wanted to chronicle the full measure of the African American experience — the glories and the tragedies, the incredible things that have occurred along the way.”

— Hannibal Lokumbe

University of North Texas). He left in 1970 for New York City, playing with and learning from figures like Haynes, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Gil Evans. Lokumbe quickly earned widespread critical respect as a trumpet soloist of distinction. He toured the world and appeared on such landmark recordings as Sanders’ Black Unity that still influence forward-thinking contemporary jazz musicians.

In the 1980s, Lokumbe began work on music for classical ensembles, and his expansive suite African Portraits premiered in 1990 at Carnegie Hall. Since then, orchestras and other groups across the nation have performed or commissioned his works, which focus on the stories of marginalized people and historic figures who fought for freedom. Pieces have ranged in scale from A Star for Anne — a piece for string quartet and narrator, in memory of Anne Frank — to Crucifixion Resurrection: Nine Souls A-Traveling, which features a chorus, a jazz band and more, and remembers the victims of the 2015 racist shooting that left nine people dead at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. “I really have sought to get out of the box of categorization,” Lokumbe says. “If there is one major theme that I emphasized throughout the development [of The Jonah People], it’s that this piece represents the spectrum — both of my life and that of African Americans since arriving here. So in that regard, I wanted everything that the audience will see and hear included.”

Over many months leading up to the premiere, Lokumbe and Nashville Symphony staff got deeply involved in community outreach programs. They visited local schools and engaged students — especially young Black people — in

discussions about perseverance and the value of what they have to offer.

Soprano Karen Slack, who has collaborated with Lokumbe on three previous projects, is one of four principal voices in The Jonah People. She was immediately hooked by the project’s conceptual framework and overall scope.

“When Hannibal and I discussed the libretto and what he wanted to do with this piece, I was so thrilled,” Slack says. “So many times as African Americans, we don’t get to tell our stories. So to be a part of something this extensive and far-reaching is such an experience. I applaud the Nashville Symphony for their willingness to present this, and I would like to urge the Black community in particular to please come out and support this. Too often, the story that is being shown here isn’t included in programs by symphonies.”

Nashville is steeped in Black history and the cultural and social contributions of Black people. For just a small sampling: Music City was home to the Union Army’s U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, and later to civil rights leaders like Diane Nash, Rip Patton, Kwame Lillard and Z. Alexander Looby. Blues and soul singers turned North Nashville’s Jefferson Street into a thriving and renowned center for entertainment, before the construction of I-40 strangled the neighborhood. We have a rising and deep-rooted conglomeration of hip-hop scenes. The Black musicians who have always been an integral part of country music are finally getting a degree of support in Nashville, thanks in no small part to grassroots organizations like Black Opry, whose leaders have relocated here; there’s still plenty of work to be done to build true equity. We’re the home of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the Tennessee State

University Aristocrat of Bands and the phenomenal National Museum of African American Music.

The Nashville Symphony has a commitment to honoring the full breadth and depth of American music, and it’s fitting that a story on the scale of The Jonah People be told here, with help from our world-class orchestra. In February 2019, Lokumbe was in Nashville for a residency with contemporary classical ensemble Intersection. During that time, he had conversations with the symphony’s music director Giancarlo Guerrero and its president and CEO Alan Valentine. Those talks made the decision to join forces with the Nashville Symphony an easy one.

“When I sat down with Giancarlo and Alan and we discussed it, their energy and enthusiasm made it obvious they really understood the importance of this project,” Lokumbe says. “Plus the experience I had during my residency here with Intersection and presenting a piece at Fisk — it was deeply moving. I also had the chance to see the Nashville Symphony performing works by composers from Tchaikovsky to Ellington, and there was no lessening of respect and reverence given to one over the other. I just knew this would be the ideal situation and best place to debut this piece.”

Both Guerrero and Valentine see presenting The Jonah People as an enormous opportunity and a great, invigorating challenge.

“If you know Hannibal, you know what a great musician and composer he is,” Guerrero says. “This might be the most ambitious and important thing we have done as an organization for many reasons. It fully falls in with our mission to celebrate the complete body of American music. It’s a stimulating and brilliant work. It will

hopefully continue extending the message that as an orchestra, we are truly welcoming — and that if this is truly Music City, then we as an orchestra are truly open to all music.” Valentine echoes Guerrero’s message of diversity and inclusion. He also addresses the practical concerns of presenting a project this massive.

“We had to meet the challenge of just mounting a production with this size and scope,” Valentine says. “There was and is no question that this project is exactly what our mission is about as a communitybased organization. … I see projects like this as helping to unify the community through the arts. It is reflecting a historical set of experiences, and it’s a major part of the entire American musical experience. We remain fully committed to reaching out to every community in the city. It hasn’t always been an easy task, but it is one we are engaged in. And we see projects Iike The Jonah People as an important part of that.”

THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE of preparations for the premiere is taking up the majority of the bandwidth of those involved with The Jonah People. But Lokumbe has had some thoughts about the legacy of the piece. He’s open to the prospect of it continuing beyond this series of performances, whether its future life involves turning into a traveling production or becoming an annual staged event in Nashville.

“Right now, I am just so happy to finally see this happen,” Lokumbe says. “Not only is it the realization of a lifelong dream, it really is for me an affirmation of everything that makes the Black experience so vital and special.”

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

DESIGNING COSTUMES FOR THE JONAH PEOPLE

UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE MUSEUM’S CMA THEATER

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MAY 11 LOS LOBOS 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

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RON POPE 2023 TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST LYDIA LUCE

JUNE 17

BRUCE COCKBURN WITH SPECIAL GUEST DAR WILLIAMS

JUNE 27

JAKE SHIMABUKURO

AUGUST 5 LORI McKENNA

THE TOWN IN YOUR HEART TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST MARK ERELLI

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CRITICS’ PICKS

WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO

THURSDAY / 4.13

[STILL

THEATER

FITS]

HIP HOP CINDERELLA

Over the years, we’ve seen countless adaptations of the familiar Brothers Grimm fairy tale Cinderella. But with the world premiere of Hip Hop Cinderella, Nashville Children’s Theatre offers a truly fresh approach. Adapted by Linda Chichester and David Coffman (and featuring an imaginative book by Scott Elmegreen), this new work gives us a futuristic twist on the classic tale, with Ella C losing her “stellar sneaker” at a Hip Hop Ball and Rap Competition — and sending the handsome prince “on a quest throughout the stars.” Audiences can look forward to music and lyrics by Rona Siddiqui, music director for the 2022 Tony-winning musical A Strange Loop. And as always, NCT’s executive artistic director Ernie Nolan has put together an excellent cast, including Sarah Michele Bailey, Meggan Utech, Jordan Tudor, Maya Riley, James Rudolph II and Gerold Oliver, along with dancers Travis Cooper and Joi Ware. William Ditty has cooked up some really fun costume designs, and I’m especially eager to catch Dominic Moore-Dunson’s choreography. April 13-May 21 at Nashville Children’s Theatre, 25 Middleton St. AMY STUMPFL

[BOYS

MUSIC

ARE BACK IN TOWN]

WORRY CLUB

Some theoreticians of pop maintain that rock ’n’ roll — and pop itself, in case you want to muse on the essential quality that separates the two — works because it doesn’t have roots. Listening to Chicago pop-punk-emo-rock band Worry Club, I appreciate leader Chase Walsh’s lyrics, which portray him as a guy who wants to be normal but isn’t sure how. For Walsh, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs listening to his parents’ eclectic record collection and cites Arizona pop-emo band The Maine and ’70s rockers Thin Lizzy as inspirations, the concept of rock ’n’ roll exists in an attenuated form that fans of, say, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish can grab onto. Since I like pop and don’t care if music strays from the ground where its roots lie, I hear a lot of nice ideas in Walsh’s music on singles like 2020’s “Japanese” and this year’s “Nothin.” In classic emo fashion, Walsh goes from Ramones guitars to double-tracked vocals, with nifty tempo shifts and postprog sections. Walsh isn’t above sticking in melodies — sometimes played on keyboards — that sound like pretty good earworms. Worry Club definitely has roots, but they’re shallow. Complaining about that seems less than productive — if you believe in pop. Opening will be Nashville emo-punk bands Early Humans and Smallville. 7:30 p.m. at Drkmttr, 1111 Dickerson Pike EDD HURT

It’s comforting to know that Xiu Xiu is still as bleak as ever. Jamie Stewart’s experimental rock band has been churning out self-loathing anthems since 2002’s Knife Play, when his signature dark-as-fuck lyrics (“A-I-D-S / H-I-V! / I cannot wait to die! / Can’t you tell?“) uncomfortably aligned with relatively upbeat but discordant percussive grooves. On 2023’s Ignore Grief, the song “Maybae Baeby” is about an abused child who befriends a tarantula, and it’s as heartbreaking and sinister as a fucked-up combination of Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” and The Cure’s “Lullaby.” “Esquerita, Little Richard” features the spoken-word lyric “Tears of blood / clouds of glitter.” That’s the dark-and-light dichotomy at the heart of all Xiu Xiu, a band whose most musically accessible albums (2004’s Fabulous Muscles) include lines like “Your true love has drunk herself into not being able to pay her rent,” and who recorded an entire album of Twin Peaks covers. 8 p.m. at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, 623 Seventh Ave. S. LAURA

HUTSON HUNTER

[TALKING THE TALK]

EQUAL CHANCE FOR EDUCATION’S EVENING OF CONVERSATION

Equal Chance for Education is a local organization that provides immigrant students in Tennessee with highereducation scholarships. Eligible students

include those who are undocumented, those who are in or are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and those who have temporary protected status. According to its website, ECE started when founder Michael Spalding realized that his friend’s child was ineligible for in-state tuition at Nashville State Community College because of her legal status. Though she was an accomplished student who was eligible for merit-based scholarships at Lipscomb, she didn’t qualify for student loans. Spalding helped fund her college career, and since then, ECE has supported nearly 500 students. The organization is hosting its second annual Evening of Conversation to raise money for supporting even more students. The event will include cocktails, food and a panel discussion regarding immigration and higher education. Speakers include University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd, Democratic former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, Republican former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, and former publisher of The Washington Post Donald Graham, who is also the CEO of Graham Holdings and founder of TheDream.US. Tickets aren’t cheap, starting at $300, but it’s for a worthy cause.

6 p.m. at The Hermitage Hotel, 231 Sixth Ave. N. KELSEY BEYELER

XIU XIU

THURSDAY, APRIL 13

FRIDAY / 4.14

[A HEAVY HITTER]

THEATER

HEAVY

You probably know Alicia Haymer primarily as an actor and director. The Nashville native has been a driving force in the local theater scene for more than 20 years, working with major companies such as Nashville Rep, Nashville Children’s Theatre and Street Theatre, among many others. But Haymer also is an accomplished writer, and you can check out her first full-length play this weekend as Actors Bridge Ensemble presents the world premiere of Heavy. Set in a Southern Black neighborhood, Heavy follows two spirited 11-year-olds who “hatch a plan to keep their best friend from moving away.” But much will be revealed when the pair go missing after a visit with the “neighborhood witch.” Haymer directs a terrific cast — including Josh Inocalla, Nikki Staggs, Alaya Walton, Nina Hibbler-Webster and Shawn Whitsell — and is also taking on the role of Goldie. April 14-23 at Actors Bridge Studio, 4610 Charlotte Ave. AMY STUMPFL

[NIC CAGE! IN A VAMPIRE FILM! (NOT THAT ONE!)]

FILM

MIDNIGHT MOVIES: VAMPIRE’S KISS

Vampire’s Kiss, the satirical 1989 vampire/yuppie nightmare from director Robert Bierman, is the movie that made a lot of people realize that maybe something is a bit off with Nicolas Cage.

The Blue Room at Third Man Records

PHOTO: CODY CLOUD

After giving oddball performances in Moonstruck, Peggy Sue Got Married and Raising Arizona (aka your mama’s favorite Coen brothers movie), he turned it way the hell up to 11 as a New York literary agent who believes he’s morphing into a member of the undead after being bitten by a ravenous lady (Jennifer Beals). The story (written by After Hours screenwriter Joseph Minion, inspired by his toxic relationship with producer Barbara Zitwer) is just as bugnuts-crazy as Cage, who pulls such memorably insane stunts as eating a cockroach and manically reciting the alphabet during a therapy session. For those who’ve ever wondered when Cage started becoming an actor who usually does the most on-screen, this film is certainly a good place to start. Watch all this wild shit unfold in glorious 35 mm! Midnight Friday at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY

underground have known since live shows returned in earnest in 2021. The group — known to number as many as five onstage — is a force to be reckoned with. Last month, Henry Rollins shouted out Snooper’s forthcoming first proper full-length in a Guardian Q&A. Quipped the Black Flag frontman: “It’s a fun record — all 23 minutes of it.” Later in April, meanwhile, they’re set to open for Bikini Kill at Knoxville’s Mill & Mine club. Kansas City synth-punk kindred spirits Silicone Prairie support, plus un-Spotify-able curiosities Crystal Egg — named, perhaps, for an 1897 H.G. Wells short story — and Gas XYZ. 8 p.m. at Soft Junk, 919 Gallatin Ave., Suite 14

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

[THE BUG IS BACK]

THE THEATER BUG PRESENTS MY FAVORITE SEASON

school just in time for her senior year. As if that’s not challenging enough, Eden also has dissociative identity disorder (DID) – meaning she “experiences the world through a system of distinct personalities.” It’s an intriguing new work, exploring complex themes of friendship, acceptance, resilience and more. (Audiences should note that the production portrays situations and emotions of distress related to DID, and the script also includes some mild language.)

April 14-16 at the 4th Story Theater at West End United Methodist Church, 2200 West End Ave. AMY STUMPFL

MUSIC [LONG LIVE THE QUEEN]QUEENSRŸCHE W/TRAUMA

In the 40 years since Queensrÿche’s debut EP, the band has occupied a unique space in the arc of American heavy music. The prog-metal masters have ridden the thin line — aggressive enough for the Headbangers Ball demographic, yet virtuosic enough for the tenured faculty in the music department. But throughout all their incarnations, the band has remained true to their formula: giant melodic guitars, ambitious songwriting and a healthy skepticism about conservative politics. Joining Queensrÿche on tour is former Megadeth axman Marty Friedman, a speedmetal shredder of the highest order. Get there on time to catch Trauma. Though best known as the band that Cliff Burton left to join Metallica, Trauma was a major player in the primordial Bay Area thrash scene.

7:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl. 925 Third Ave.

N. P.J. KINZER

MUSIC [COLLECTING JUNK]

THE BOBBY LEES

something titled “Hollywood Junkyard”

(I almost typed “Hollywood Babylon”) proceeds as you’d expect as a tune about rummaging in the detritus you can find only in the land of dreams. Meanwhile, “Strange Days” finds Quartin, who recently moved to Tulsa, Okla., singing about her life as a rocker who wants nothing more than to get “back on the farm.” Like fellow trash auteur Jon Spencer, who produced the band’s 2020 full-length Skin Suit, The Bobby Lees succeed on sheer effrontery. You’ve heard every oddly angled riff and wacked-out piano part on Bellevue a million times, and it almost doesn’t matter. Opening will be Nashville rockers The Shitdels. 10 p.m. at The Basement, 1604 Eighth Ave. S. EDD HURT

SATURDAY / 4.15

POETRY [AFFECTIVE, EFFECTIVE]

SADIE DUPUIS POETRY READING

MUSIC [SNOOP THERE IT IS]

SNOOPER

Snooper formed during pandemic lockdown as the brainchild of local punks-about-town Connor Cummins (guitar) and Blair Tramel (vocals). The band favors an ’80s-retro, all-analog sonic and visual aesthetic but delivers its high-velocity postpunk workouts with an urgency apropos of the current moment. Snooper got a Writers’ Choice nod in the Scene’s Best of Nashville issue as the Best Live Band of 2022, and the rest of the music world is starting to get hip to what participants in Nashville’s

The Theater Bug first introduced its innovative program The Playground in 2022 with the goal of helping young writers tell their own stories onstage. It’s a fabulous program that includes everything from educational workshops and opportunities for professional mentorship to a short play festival and even a fully realized production of a student-written play. This weekend, audiences can check out the latest work to come out of The Playground as The Bug presents the world premiere of My Favorite Season. Penned by 18-year-old Lucero Gomez, My Favorite Season follows Eden, a student who moves to a brand-new

Hailing from the legendary rock ’n’ roll town of Woodstock, N.Y., The Bobby Lees got a career boost in 2022 when Ipecac Recordings A&R person Henry Rollins brought them to the label. Along the way, the band — led by singer, songwriter and actor Sam Quartin — has picked up accolades from the likes of Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry. Their 2022 album Bellevue is dominated by Quartin’s rather actorly vocals and the quartet’s penchant for the sinister riffs and simplistic structures of what you might call trashy post-rock with semi-autobiographical overtones. As such, Bellevue comes across as a tad obvious —

Sadie Dupuis is so many things, including a union organizer, head of an indie label, a publisher and a writer on an array of topics — one great recent piece is her interview with Tegan and Sara in TapeOp. She’s also the singersongwriter-guitarist at the center of rock band Speedy Ortiz; add “producer” and “multi-instrumentalist” to the mix when you consider Dupuis’ solo project Sad13, and don’t forget “Basement Queens,” her collab track with Lizzo. You could be forgiven for not thinking of “poet” as the top item on Dupuis’ CV, but poetry is a fundamental part of her work; the ideas and images in the lyrics don’t have to dance off the page to make compelling punk, but that’s consistently the case for Dupuis. Last year, she published her second book, a volume of poetry called Cry Perfume. It’s an extension of her response to friends and loved ones dying from substance abuse; that response also has included more concrete actions, like working to make overdose prevention resources available for music venues. But art is a vital tool for processing grief, and that’s one of the key themes of Cry Perfume Dupuis will stop in at Grimey’s to read from and discuss the book on Saturday. Her Nashville-residing fellow musician and poet Tristen will read, and outstanding freelance writer (and longtime Scene contributor)

SNOOPER

THE BOBBY LEES

PHOTO: POONEH GHANA

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS™ PART 1 IN CONCERT

May 11 to 14

PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND

May 21*

AT LAST! A TRIBUTE TO ETTA JAMES

May 24

THE BEACH BOYS

May 25 to 27

MARVEL STUDIOS’ BLACK PANTHER IN CONCERT

June 15 to 18

RICHARD MARX

June 23

GET HAPPY: A JUDY GARLAND CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

June 30

JURASSIC PARK IN CONCERT

July 6 & 7

Presented without the Nashville Symphony

Presented without the Nashville Symphony

Charlie Zaillian will moderate a Q&A session. 5 p.m. at Grimey’s, 1060 E. Trinity

Lane STEPHEN TRAGESER

COMEDY [I LOVE PANCAKES]

NATE BARGATZE: FROM OLD HICKORY TO BROADWAY

“I mean, 20 years ago, I was standing on a corner in New York City, handing out flyers to get people to come into shows,” comedian Nate Bargatze told the Scene in October, shortly after the announcement of his headlining Bridgestone Arena show. “And you’d just kind of daydream as you were out there, and so for it to be here is pretty wild.” Indeed, the Old Hickory native — who won Best Stand-Up Comedian in the Scene’s 2022 Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll — has steadily ascended through the ranks of the comedy world, making his upcoming headlining show at the neighborhood enormodome something of a hero’s homecoming. As showcased in his latest stand-up special, this year’s excellent Hello World, Bargatze has a knack for taking seemingly unremarkable material — aging, raising kids, pancakes — and making it, somehow, impossibly funny. Maybe it’s his deadpan delivery. Maybe it’s his relatability. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s undeniably likable and kindhearted. Whatever it is, the guy’s got the goods. See him on the big stage. 7 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway

D. PATRICK RODGERS

ART

[MMM WHATCHA SAY] HIDE

AND SEEK: THE WORK OF MEG ‘PIE’ POLLARD

Meg Pollard is the latest artist to have benefited from The STATE Gallery and Studios Scholarship Program, and this exhibition is the culmination of that partnership. Pollard titled the show Hide and Seek to emphasize the difference between what is told and what isn’t — “I’m telling a lot without telling a lot,” she says in her artist’s statement. That kind of stylized but simple approach is reminiscent of both contemporary artists (Margaret Kilgallen, Bony Ramirez) and street-art muralists. The show is up through May 9, but the opening is an ideal way to introduce yourself to Pollard’s work and the STATE’s program — plus, it’s sponsored by Bearded Iris Brewery, so you can help yourself to an IPA or high-gravity kombucha while you peruse the work. Opening reception

6-10 p.m.; exhibition runs through May 9 at STATE Gallery at The Forge, 217 Willow St.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER FESTIVAL

[HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW]

NASHVILLE CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL

I’m not one to jinx a good thing, but it seems spring has arrived in Nashville, and what better way to celebrate than with the annual Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival? The festival has planted 1,000 of the trees in Nashville. Their pink blooms are short-lived but extraordinary, and the festival provides a way for us to celebrate Japanese culture and reflect on the fleeting nature of life. It will all start at 9:30 a.m. when consul-general of Japan in Nashville Yoichi Matsumoto will lead the 2.5-mile Cherry Blossom Walk from Public Square Park north along the Cumberland. The fest

will host entertainment throughout the day, including martial arts groups, the JASK Yosakoi Dance Club, musicians from the Franklin Suzuki Academy and Houstonbased Japanese drumming ensemble Kaminari Taiko. The fest will be packed full of food vendors — including Sarah Gavigan’s new noodle shop Super Happy Noodle — and food trucks. There are plenty of activities to keep the kids busy, including sumo suit wrestling! (Don’t worry, they have adult-size suits too.) If you can get your dog into a pink costume, meet at the Proverbs 12:10 Animal Rescue’s tent at 10:30 a.m. for the Pups in Pink Parade. Visit nashvillecherryblossomfestival.org for the complete list of attractions as well as info about where to park. 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. at Public Square Park, 1 Public Square ERICA CICCARONE

FILM [LENSCRAFT]

SUNDAY / 4.16

BOOKS [WRITE ON TIME] CURTIS CHIN IN CONVERSATION WITH STEVE HARUCH

people around you respond in kind. The Big Lebowski turns 25 this year and, in fact, The Dude abides. Played by Jeff Bridges, he’s become one of the most recognizable movie characters of all time — and certainly the most quotable of all the Coen brothers’ masterpieces. And while it’s easy for The Big Lebowski to live on in people’s memory as a character study of The Dude, it’s worth rewatching if only to remember the brilliance of the plot, visual style and ensemble cast. So grab your gang, stir another White Russian, and focus on the big picture, man. Fathom Events will host screenings at theaters throughout Nashville; check fathomevents.com for listings. April 16 & 20 at various locations TOBY LOWENFELS

MUSIC [COOL IT NOW]

NEW EDITION W/KEITH SWEAT, GUY & TANK

SEMINAR:

A CONVERSATION WITH CINEMATOGRAPHER PAWEL POGORZELSKI

It’s not often that you get the opportunity to learn about a craft in person from an acclaimed modern practitioner. But on Saturday at the Belcourt, you can do just that. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, who has lensed such films as Hereditary, Midsommar, Nobody, and the upcoming Beau Is Afraid and Blue Beetle, is in town this spring to film Holland, Michigan, a Hitchcockian thriller from director Mimi Cave starring Nicole Kidman, Gael García Bernal, Matthew Macfadyen and Rachel Sennott. Pogorzelski and his camera crew are dropping by the Belcourt for “an informal conversation about cinematography and each crew member’s vital role in production.” Take note, aspiring filmmakers! This could be your chance to learn some tools of the trade from an Independent Spirit Award nominee and his team. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for Belcourt members. 11:30 a.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. LOGAN BUTTS

Nashville will welcome one of the most important voices in the Asian American literary world when Curtis Chin stops by The Porch for a conversation with Steve Haruch, the senior producer at WPLN’s This Is Nashville daily show and a former Scene culture editor. Chin’s work can be found everywhere from the pages of The Boston Globe to film screens around the world (check out last year’s Dear Corky, a tribute to legendary photojournalist Corky Lee), and he’s the lauded co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City. Chin’s visit to Nashville is an encouraging milestone for the city’s growing community of AAPI writers, Haruch tells the Scene. “A lot of Asian American writers here are meeting each other for the first time even in the last few months,” he says. “It’s big to have someone who has the track record that Curtis does to come and sort of give that perspective and help people see that it’s worth seeing through and worth staying in community with each other.” Another reason to pop by: Chin will read from his forthcoming memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, a full six months before its October release date. API Middle Tennessee, which is hosting the event, asks that attendees pre-register for the event at porchtn.org. 4 p.m. at The Porch, 2811 Dogwood Place COLE VILLENA

FILM [HIS DUDENESS] THE BIG LEBOWSKI 25TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING

Anybody who’s ever donned a bathrobe while carrying a White Russian knows that The Dude is a good character to walk around in for a while. Only a few minutes into becoming The Dude, your whole attitude changes and life is just … better. You care less about the little things, and

You could argue New Edition ushered in the modern boy band as we know it, even though the white dudes from New Kids on the Block seem to get all the glory. The crew from Roxbury brought danceable R&B to pop music airwaves and slick dance moves to music videos and stages in the ’80s, paving the way for acts across R&B, pop and new jack swing in decades to follow. The band is back together for its Legacy Tour — and that includes troubled star Bobby Brown — and they’re rolling with R&B royalty. Super-producer Teddy Riley’s group Guy and singer Keith Sweat are on the bill, with a special appearance from prolific, underappreciated singer-songwriter Tank.

7 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

MONDAY / 4.17

COMEDY [THAT ONE]

DRUSKI

Druski is a comedian with his own brand of humor and his own brand of camo. His sketches went viral during the pandemic,

and he’s been soaring ever since, serving as the opener for Chris Brown and J. Cole, plus making appearances in videos for Drake, Jack Harlow, Chloe Bailey and Lil Yachty. Now, the self-described Georgia boy says, “I’m coming off my most successful year in comedy, and it’s time to show the world my growth as an entertainer.” His Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda Tour is his first time headlining and features a mix of traditional stand-up with the spontaneous element of Druski’s livestreams, in which he gives up-and-coming entertainers the chance to perform for millions. 8 p.m. at the Ryman, 116 Rep. John Lewis Way N. TOBY

LOWENFELS

WEDNESDAY / 4.19

[DIG THE CLASSICS]

MUSIC

HEAVEN HONEY W/HEINOUS ORCA, BLEMISH & IMPEDIMENT

If you’ve been hankering for a heapin’ helpin’ of multifaceted homegrown rock ’n’ roll, Fran’s and the crew at To-Go Records have you covered on Wednesday. Jordan Victoria’s Heaven Honey brings you outstanding songwriting chops with an everevolving style that leans toward the darker side of rock with electronic enhancements. Her originals are incisive, witty and moody, and she made her cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Something About What Happens When We Talk” her very own. Heinous Orca boasts a surfeit of creative minds in sisters Isabel and Laura Solomon, plus Ziona Riley and Austin Hoke. Where lots of bands that

describe themselves as “psych rock” lean pretty far toward the “rock,” this quartet is firmly on the “psych” side of the spectrum. If you’re itching to go darker, don’t miss out on the abrasive, heart-pounding intensity of Blemish. Impediment, meanwhile, rounds out the bill with deliciously loud, jangly, shreddy punk that isn’t necessarily happy-go-lucky but seems to fight against the malaise by refusing to sit still. 8 p.m. at Fran’s Eastside, 2504 Dickerson Pike STEPHEN TRAGESER

[FEED YOUR LEMON HEAD]

MUSIC

THE LEMON TWIGS W/ANDREW H. SMITH

The brotherly duo of Brian and Michael D’Addario have been producing jangly power pop with a bent for the theatrical as The Lemon Twigs since 2016. However, the March release of In My Head finds the two songsters at their most introspective as maturing rockers. Undeniable harmonies and hooks reminiscent of The Beach Boys frame melancholy lyrics such as, “In my head, I am different in my head, I am someone else instead,” in the title track. The three-song collection acts as a prelude to their highly anticipated fourth fulllength album titled Everything Harmony due out May 5. Andrew H. Smith, the prolific Chicago singer-songwriter, multiinstrumentalist and producer who is also a member of Jungle Green, will open the show with a set of eclectic indie pop. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St.

JASON VERSTEGEN

DRUSKI

GUITAR LESSONS

Saturday, April 15

SONGWRITER SESSION

Acoustic

Guitar Project

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, April 16

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Laura Ray

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, April 22

HATCH SHOW PRINT

Block Party

10:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 3:30 pm

HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY

Saturday, April 22

SONGWRITER SESSION

Gretchen Peters

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, April 23

INTERVIEW AND PERFORMANCE

Dave Alvin

2:30 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, April 29

SONGWRITER SESSION

Trannie Anderson

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, April 30

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Billy Justineau

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, May 6

SONGWRITER SESSION

Madeline Edwards

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, May 7

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Mike Rogers

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

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

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DATE NIGHT: NOKO AND RICE VICE

Sushi, sake and a stroll around East Nashville

BY DANNY BONVISSUTO

Date Night is a two-part road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.”

On one of the many nights recently when strong winds huffed and puffed and tried to blow the house down, my husband Dom and I shared a tasty plate of poutine made by Southern Grist’s new in-house food concept, L by Lauter, in the Nations. What we really wanted to do was hit the couch with a pizza and a blanket, spend too long deciding on a movie just to fall asleep halfway through. But our child was at a slumber party so we forced ourselves to leave the house. Just as trivia night was getting started, we left for Redheaded Stranger. But when Ellington Parkway dumped us off at Dickerson Pike, all the streets were dark. The East Nashville taco joint and everything around it had lost power. So we took it over to Chopper at Gallatin and Stratton to try Maiz de la Vida, the acclaimed Mexican food truck stationed out front — but it was a 45-minute wait for a table at Chopper, then another 45-minute wait for food.

We decided to punt. I’d heard good things about the recently opened Noko, so we headed down Eastland to Porter. The hostess at Noko said we were welcome to stalk people for their seats at the bar, but there was very little chance she could find us a table before they closed. She was genuine about it, which is hard to pull off when you tell 25 people in a row the same thing, so I couldn’t even summon the energy to be pouty. We settled for a big salad at Greko on Main Street, went home and slept while our trash cans tumbled around outside in the wind

Of all the restaurants in our progressive non-dinner around East Nashville, I was most curious to return to Noko, which bills itself as “Asian-inspired and wood-fired” but also has a prosciutto grilled cheese, burrata over focaccia, a Caesar salad and fries on the menu. Is that odd or awesome?

It’s both. More on that in a sec.

A few Tuesdays later, I pulled up Noko’s online reservations for Friday night: OpenTable offered me their first available table three weeks later. When I called to ask about walk-ins, the founder, Jon Murray, said he could seat us right at 5 p.m. There was no awkward “early bird special” feel when we arrived at 4:59 p.m. We

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

TUNA CRISPY RICE AT

weren’t even the first, second or seventh people at a table. The wood-fired oven had already filled the smallish space with gentle notes of smoke, and the sound system was pumping out “Welcome to the Jungle” to “I Wanna Sex You Up.”

I was fascinated by the guy behind us in his Jeffrey Dahmer glasses; the parents and adult son next to us on their phones and the young woman on a date wearing a blazer with gold sequins up and down the lapels like she’d just left an audition for A Chorus Line. Who are these people and why are they eating so early? I guess the cool kids eat when they can get a reservation, just like the rest of us.

The bar was a little underwater to start, and our tuna crispy rice arrived well in advance of my ube colada. Ube is a purple yam with a subtle taste and rich color showcased perfectly in a pineapple-shaped glass.

If I were the kind of girl who enjoyed drinking games — which I am not — I could’ve made one out of the number of tuna crispy rice orders that came consistently out of the kitchen. Noko’s version of this ubiquitous appetizer has slices of serrano on top of each piece that give it a really nice, noticeable heat, but I wish they didn’t take such a heavy hand with the sweet soy sauce drizzle on top. The over-sauce-ification of sushi in this town makes me sad.

I asked our server, Kylie, to recommend one sleeper hit on the menu — something most people don’t order but should. She gushed about the Caesar, and I thought, Damn it, now I have to order a Caesar salad in an Asian restaurant.

But besides the crab fried rice, which made me forego chopsticks for a fork so I could get as much of it in my mouth as possible, Noko’s Caesar blew my mind. Instead of gloppy, mayo-like dressing, their version incorporates kimchi. Instead of oversized, overbaked croutons, they use a light dusting of panko. When I return, I will order the Caesar again, and this time I will not share. I will, however, share everything else, because that’s the best way to work a night at Noko. Instead of appetizers and entrées, their menu is broken up by flavor profile: fresh and bright; rich and savory; woodfired; and smoked. Within those, 80 percent of the menu has a fire element.

Bring friends and choose a few dishes from each category to pass around. In that context, dishes like the burrata and fries, which have Asian-ish elements, make more sense. Also, almost everything is super rich and not really meant to be a meal. You want the Gifford’s bacon, with its spicy ssamjang for dipping. And you want beef burnt ends wrapped in beautiful Bibb lettuce. But if you have too much of either, you might feel, to quote Dom, a little “overly fatty-meated.”

Everyone’s excited about Noko, which opened in early March in what was previously Pomodoro East. This includes the cashier at Dirty Livin’, the gift shop a few doors down, who was beside herself that we hadn’t tried the District Sando, a prosciuttoand-white-cheddar grilled cheese with truffle aioli.

“Y’all,” she said, in the way Southerners do when they mean to bold-face, underline and cover what comes next in verbal yellow highlighter. “Y’all, it’s so fucking good.”

WE LEFT NOKO, drove a few blocks west, parked on Chapel Avenue and walked the quiet sidewalks, stopping at the corner of North 16th Street and Sharpe to look at the first house I bought, and where we spent the first year of our marriage. We do this every blue moon: stand in the street and make judgments about the current owner’s choice of paint colors and landscaping, then beat ourselves up for selling the house long before sleepy little East Nashville blew up.

An eight-minute drive later, we walked into Rice Vice, the world’s best-named sake bar. It’s a sliver of a space covered floor to ceiling, and I mean that literally, in various forms of light-colored wood. Nas on the record player. My Neighbor Totoro on the TV. Charmingly goofy thrift-shop art on the walls.

Don’t like sake? Me either. I’ve tried, I really have, but I just don’t. And still I felt fully welcome to sit on my little cushion (because plywood benches aren’t super comfortable) and pet Moo — the longhaired dachshund at the next table — take a few obligatory sips of my drink and hang out. If we hadn’t just eaten a questionable amount of food at Noko I would’ve had some Instant Ramen, pizza bagels or a rice bowl from the Two Ten Jack pop-up just inside the front door.

If you do like sake, Rice Vice offers six sakes they make in house under the Proper Sake Co. label and six Japanese imports, plus two highball options — one with sake and one without — and a lager named Koji Gold.

There’s something very sweet and disarming about Rice Vice. It’s the only sake brewery in Nashville, and an award-winning one at that, but it oozes humility, not hype. It’s exactly the kind of spot you might stumble into while walking through a Los Angeles or Brooklyn neighborhood and 100 percent not where you’d expect to spend a lovely evening between warehouses and machinery shops off East Trinity Lane.

That’s the beauty of East Nashville: You never know where the wind will blow you.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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VODKA YONIC

ANIMAL INSTINCT

I

BY SARAH NORRIS

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.

Iknow I’m getting old because I’ve started to love the music that plays at Kroger — mid-’90s, especially, but also early and late ’90s. Early Aughts. Select ’80s. I would put all of these grocery-store backdrop songs into a category I consider to be “Corny but Elite” — e.g., Jagged Edge, hand-picked Jane’s Addiction, Rusted Root, etc.

Last week at the Inglewood Kroger, I was first in line at the pharmacy picking up nasal spray, because I’ve decided to be proactive about my snoring. (Read: I started having sex again. With another person.) The Cranberries song “Linger” came on. Such a great song. I asked the pharmacist if it was possible to turn up the volume. Never got an answer.

I recently dreamed that my new-ish boyfriend and I were living in North London beside Primrose Hill, and we often walked up to a particular spot, sometimes bringing friends, grapes, a bottle of wine, tumblers, cigarettes. It felt so familiar. In this dream, he and I were ascending the hill to “chase the night” when we heard hippies strumming guitar and singing. “Must be Dylan they’re playing,” my dream-self thought. But no, as we got closer, we made it out that the hippies were singing “Linger.” Boyfriend said, “The music of the 1990s is now as far away as the music of the 1960s and 1970s was from the 1990s.” A mind-bendingly disturbing fact. Sugar, sugar. I don’t know if I have a response. I left Kroger with my nasal spray. I also picked up some chewable melatonin, Death Wish coffee, plain yogurt, red grapes,

a chunk of Parmesan and a gluten-free quesadilla made by a brand called Life Cuisine. Which used to be Lean Cuisine. Before women were pressed to eat a diet “high in protein,” we were supposed to aim for “low in calories.” (This fell shortly after the period in which the diet industry encouraged us to slam a SlimFast shake for breakfast and lunch.) I grew up in a time before everybody started trying “to get their steps in” and drink 16 glasses of water a day. I grew up in a time when the news was just the news, the same news everyone heard, and none of us knew we were living in a constant state of dehydration. On the flip side, we were not yet hip to the threat of hyponatremia. These were golden days.

I was driving home on Gallatin Avenue when a car cut me off, no indication. That’s pretty normal “Nashville behavior” now, am I right? But this turned out to be possibly the worst driving I’ve ever seen, worse even than what I witnessed on the highway, in the rain, heading back to Dubai from Abu Dhabi, and that was criminally bad. This was worse. No blinkers, a busted tail light, exhaust shooting out of the tailpipe. I’ve been meaning to get my eyesight checked — again — but it’s intact enough that when I squinted I could read the bumper sticker: “I’m on My Way to Chain Smoke at The Cobra.” I thought, “You’re going the wrong way.” Then I thought, “I kind of want to be friends with this person.”

There is still trash music in rotation at grocery stores, but I don’t mind that stuff when it’s sandwiched between songs that made me feel alive when I was a teenager, climbing trees in Centennial Park at night. No longer a kid but not yet an adult. Hanging out on a limb trying to look like I was having the time of my life. I was, in a way. All these years later, that room in my heart is intact, and that soundtrack holds a key.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THE SAME NEWS EVERYONE HEARD, AND NONE OF US KNEW WE WERE LIVING IN A CONSTANT STATE OF DEHYDRATION.

know I’m getting old because I’ve started to love the music that plays at Kroger

I GREW UP IN A TIME BEFORE EVERYBODY STARTED TRYING “TO GET THEIR STEPS IN” AND DRINK 16

I GREW UP

WHEN THE NEWS WAS JUST THE

MOTHERLESS CHILD

Monica Brashears’ debut novel House of Cotton delivers a strange, haunting world

BY SARA BETH WEST

The well-known spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” has been performed by artists including Mahalia Jackson, John Legend, and even Hootie and the Blowfish. Its haunting melody and lyrics are full of despair, likely drawing on the terrifying reality of a child who has been sold away from their enslaved mother. But what of the mother who has lost her child? What if the lost child is no longer a child but a woman capable of bringing new life into the world herself? Monica Brashears’ tremendous debut novel House of Cotton considers such questions as it follows 19-year-old Magnolia Brown through exploration and exploitation, longing and grief.

The book opens with Magnolia at the funeral of Mama Brown, her grandmother and the one who has kept her fed and safe and whole in the four years since her mother, Cherry, effectively disappeared into drugs. Magnolia feels trapped and explains: “When I get this way, when I feel like kudzu is wrapped tight around my ribcage and I’m bleeding a bright heat, I like to slip inside my head. I can forget about this hardbacked pew and all the silk, wide-brimmed hats bobbing to the mourning gospel. I ain’t here. I ain’t in Mountain Bend Baptist. I ain’t even in Tennessee.”

From the start, Magnolia’s voice rings with clarity and familiarity, even as the narrative proceeds to unsettle, taking readers into a flash of the fairy-tale-inspired imaginings inside Magnolia’s head. These snippets are vivid, weaving Magnolia’s Southern roots with the traditional stories of Grimm, Andersen and the like. But despite her imagination, Magnolia must face the reality of life without her grandmother, and as Mama Brown is buried, Magnolia wonders, “How would I feel if I could weep? Silly. Wetting the earth with tears ain’t ever made anybody sprout. The last light of the day sinks into the ground with her.” She is alone now, uncertain how to move forward with only her gas station job to cover the rent and keep her landlord Sugar Foot at bay.

When Sugar Foot suggests she offer him her body in exchange for rent, she is certain something has to shift, and into that certainty walks a man named Cotton, “a whistling man with blood-smeared hands,” a man who “sounds like he’s from here, but he don’t dress like it,” a man who compares her to Josephine Baker and offers her a modeling job at the funeral parlor he runs. Against her better judgment, she accepts the job, moves in with Cotton and his aunt, Eden, and finds herself haunted. She’s haunted by the ghost of Mama Brown, by the trauma her body has suffered and the ways she is willing to exploit that body to meet Cotton’s increasingly

4.26

odd demands, and by the life that might be growing inside her.

Magnolia’s narrative voice is fierce and often forces a feeling of cold detachment, but she is fully embodied — a thoroughly physical creature in a vividly inhabitable world. Even as the edges of reality shift and blur in the story, Magnolia remains a particular body in a particular space. Whether she uses that body in sex with strangers or in depicting the recently deceased, she is seeking a kind of power, even as she suspects that the agency she is claiming might be more slippery than she first imagined. Her mind knows she can’t manage a baby at this point, but her body disagrees: “My body eager in a way I ain’t — Yes, I want to be a cocoon for this baby in me and Please, child, rip me apart with your life, and I will bear fruit and milk. Good, sweet milk.” Magnolia is both a motherless child and a childless mother, and her story is full of raw spots and ragged edges. But in the end, she forges a selfhood, a confidence in who she is and might still become: “And I felt the way newborns must feel — spank of a gloved hand, lungs flushed with swirls of wind. Stunned.”

With its reverberations of pain and trauma, House of Cotton is not for the faint of heart; however, it is lush and gorgeous — and evidence of a new and decisive talent in Monica Brashears, who grew up near Knoxville. Brashears employs language like a knife, cutting and shaping with remarkable dexterity, and the result is a wonderwork of a first book. This is a novel that sweats and broods, a story where something fretful is always boiling just under the surface. It embraces its Southern Gothic heritage and then leans past it into something unexpected. Readers will be submerged into Magnolia’s strange, haunting world and will emerge changed.

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

BOOZY BRUNCH

MIMOSAS,

4.28 AN EVENING WITH MATT HIBBARD

4.29 BILLY JOEL & ELTON JOHN BRUNCH WITH THE PIANO MEN

4.29 THE SADIES W/ JON BYRD & PAUL NIEHAUS

4.29 SCHATZI’S LOVE LOUNGE

4.30 QUEEN TRIBUTE FROM CALIFORNIA: THE KINGS OF QUEEN

4.30 INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY WITH NJO: FT SANDRA DUDLEY, JEFF COFFIN, SHAYNA STEELE & MORE

4.30 CLARE CUNNINGHAM

5.1 AN EVENING WITH SAWYER FREDERICKS & CHASITY BROWN

IMPERMANENT FIXTURES

Caroline Rose shares lessons about healing on The Art of Forgetting

BY BRITTNEY M c KENNA

Caroline Rose released their fourth studio album Superstar on March 6, 2020, right on the edge of the pandemic. A concept record about the trappings of fame in an increasingly digital age, Superstar flew beneath the news cycle, and Rose was forced to cancel an extensive run of tour dates in support of the LP. It was a brutal blow for Rose, who found breakout success in 2018 with their excellent third record Loner That experience, coupled with a pair of painful personal losses shortly after, led Rose to their most ambitious project yet, their fifth LP The Art of Forgetting. Released in late March, the album finds the Austin, Texas-residing singer-songwriter and multiinstrumentalist building an even bigger sonic world than they did on their prior two indie-pop- and synth-rock-leaning records. It’s a fitting move given the project’s themes: memory, grief and finding a way to move on in the face of loss.

Calling from home in Austin a day before heading out on tour, Rose tells the Scene that despite initially feeling uncertain about the

trajectory of their career during those dark early-pandemic days, they still found their way back to seeking solace in making music. First, though, they needed to grieve the loss. There were lessons to be had.

“It left me in a weird place,” Rose says. “You put all this time and energy into something, and there’s just never a guarantee that something is gonna work out. So it was a bit of a smack in the face. Inevitably, and maybe subconsciously, I had all these expectations for myself. When none of it pans out, it leaves you pretty empty if you have no other bucket that you’re filling — if you’re just hyper-focused on this one thing. That was a rude awakening for me. Like, I need to have a life outside of music and my career.”

Those reverberations soon paired with the aftershocks of a devastating breakup, which left Rose feeling uncertain about more than just music. As their emotions began to build, it became clear to Rose that the best way to approach this maelstrom of feelings was to try to write about it.

“At a certain point, it was just like shaking a can of soda,” they say. “The top is about to pop off. That’s what it felt like, in the beginning at least. And then some time passed, and I started to feel more and more like my-

self. This is still happening. I’m still trying to feel more and more like my best self. And maybe I always will. But it stopped being so explosive and became more healing.”

As Rose began to accumulate material, they went to work in their home studio, creating larger and stranger sounds than the taut, infectious synth-rock of Loner or the funky, intricate pop of Superstar. Creating a mood mattered more than building hooks. The resulting album is an immersive, often intimate journey through one person’s painful path to healing.

“This record, I wanted it to sound like this combination of lo-fi texture — where the narrator feels small,” they say. “But then, these big emotions come up, and this feeling of intensity or rapture or hope, or even anger, starts filling the void. To me, it was a really interesting combination. And I was like, ‘That’s exactly how I feel. I feel small, and I don’t really know how to care for myself. But I have these big feelings that are so powerful and relieving, in a way.’”

The texture of opener “Love / Lover / Friend” builds up from ominous plucked flamenco guitar to a moody, orchestral crescendo, immediately signaling that this isn’t your average Caroline Rose record. That track gives way to the aptly titled “Rebirth,” another slowly building track that blends skittering drums with pained backing vocals. The song ends without the chord progression resolving, holding the tension through a moment of silence until the beginning of

standout track “Miami” — a heart-wrenching assortment of memories from a doomed vacation with an ex-lover. Other highlights include “Jill Says,” named for Rose’s therapist, and “The Doldrums,” a dark, dreamy consideration of an earlier self.

Interspersed throughout The Art of Forgetting are voice memos from Rose’s late grandmother, who was experiencing memory deterioration at the time. Rose says they spoke on the phone every day, and these messages from their grandmother helped them find perspective while grieving the other losses in their life. Mimicking Rose’s experience, each snippet offers a moment of grounding in the record for the listener, too.

Rose looks forward to getting another shot at touring a record, and their current jaunt brings them to Brooklyn Bowl on Wednesday. Asked if they felt like they were getting a second chance to play songs from Superstar after being robbed of the opportunity in 2020, Rose doesn’t feel as if they were “robbed” of anything. That’s a far cry from the overwhelming feeling of those early days, and a reminder of one of the many ways that music can bring about healing.

“It was just, ‘This is what life does.’ There’s never a guarantee of anything. There’s no guarantee of even living tomorrow. So I’m just trying to enjoy the ride and enjoy the process. A new difficulty crops up every day. The challenge is to stay aware and still enjoy everything around me.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PLAYING WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, AT BROOKLYN BOWL

PHOTO: MONICA MURRAY

HEARTBEAT CITY

The drama underlying M83’s electronic programming is deeply felt

BY JASON SHAWHAN

There’s always been a sense of the cinematic to the sounds that Anthony Gonzalez and his cast of collaborators in the M83 project have come up with. That’s putting aside their brilliant scores for Gonzalez’s brother Yann’s films

TOUGH FREAK

New Jersey’s Garcia Peoples keep on chooglin’

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

Ever have one of those songs that sits quietly in the back of your head, waiting patiently, only to become a personal anthem that props up your mental health and well-being during a desperate moment? “Tough Freaks”

by Garcia Peoples, who perform Friday at Third Man’s Blue Room, is that song this week. And last week. And probably next week too, as long as the militant squares of Tennessee — especially those in the state legislature — keep on their fascist bullshit.

The track, a prime cut from the New Jersey outfit’s stellar 2022 LP Dodging Dues, will probably stay in rotation until the gnawing dread that comes with dropping my kid off at school wears off. But for now it’s a friendly reminder of the power of freakdom and

You and the Night and Knife + Heart, or even their gutsy 2005 attempt to rescore the stargate sequence of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun.” Any M83 album in your headphones can turn the most banal of endeavors into a John Hughes montage, with all the drama one could hope for.

Of the number of blunders that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made over its years of existence, ignoring Gonzalez’s collaboration with Norwegian vocalist Susanne Sundfør and arranger, orchestrator and co-composer Joseph Trapanese on the theme song to 2013’s Oblivion is one of the most jaw-dropping. “Oblivion” illustrates everything that Gonzalez excels at:

cinematic sweep, memorable but ethereal hooks and a pervasive sense that the drama behind the programming is all too real and deeply felt. Even the most fervent of rockists can’t help but get swept away by the deep emotional resonance that comes from the chord progressions and meshes of sound that have defined the M83 project over the past 20-some-odd years, and that is a major achievement.

This year’s M83 album Fantasy does an impeccable job taking the listener on a journey — understanding the sense memory that certain kinds of sounds evoke in a listener, never settling for pastiche or cut-and-paste pop, but crafting soundscapes that feel like a memory slipped out of time. This is

guitar-around, playing-songs-as-if-around-a-campfire kind of thing, which was really beautiful. It’ll be nice to get back to Nashville and hopefully play a proper rock show.”

Garcia Peoples seems to truck in perseverance. Founded in 2017, they’re a band of road warriors who have made their way through the long, dark lockdown era, emerging stronger despite it all. As a band that excels on wax but explodes in person, as a band that was really just building steam as COVID let the air out of everything, Garcia Peoples’ continued existence feels like a win that listeners get to revel in.

especially true of “Amnesia” and then later on with the one-two punch of “Laura” and “Sunny Boy.”

When firing on all cylinders, M83 offers the kind of endorphin spike you get from finding a blanket that kept you warm as a child, lit up with the most sordid neon glow. One wall-of-synth swoop and your brain swims in a memory that may not have happened to you, but still comforts and caresses the pleasure centers. Saturdays = Youth isn’t just the title of M83’s 2008 U.S. breakthrough album, it’s also a philosophy that consistently animates their work, exploring the frequencies and waveforms that trigger whatever synapses are in charge of potential, of possibility, of hope.

There are times when an artist taps right into the subconscious of a moment — Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” did it in the early days of mash-up culture — and it’s from these kinds of happy synchronicities that something truly expansive and genredefining can happen. In 2011, M83’s “Midnight City” became a benevolent virus of nighttime heat that, despite a relatively low tempo of 105 beats per minute, conveys an immediate energy; it has a pulse that seems like so much more. You could spend an hour just tripping out on the many mash-ups of “Midnight City” that have proliferated in the intervening decade, with Rihanna, Taylor Swift, INXS, The Beastie Boys, Men at Work and Queen all finding their way into M83’s soundscape and blending in perfectly.

So M83’s upcoming visit to Marathon Music Works feels like a whole heaping lot of possibilities for the kind of electronic majesty that we as a city don’t get nearly often enough. Gonzalez & Co. can take you from the disco into outer space with a chord change, so there’s no doubt that the course of their set on Tuesday is going to cover a lot of ground. But know this: You have to go back to Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky” to find a song that elicits full-tilt weeping fits like those brought on by “Un Nouveau Soleil” from You and the Night. We’re incredibly lucky that M83 uses their sound and sense for good; cosmic therapy for the shaken and the disturbed.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

of everything. Garcia Peoples’ place in the music world — beyond the fold of jam-band culture, hovering around the edges of indie rock — feels like it is expanding. Their songs are tighter than ever before: Dodging Dues is like a bait shop full of earworms and, according to Cush, their improvisational instincts are pushing beyond the “Garcia Peoples thing” into the panoramic scope of pioneering improvisational minds like Can and Miles Davis.

an assurance that there’s strength to be found in community. It’s the sort of song you want hanging around your skull, a lithe little melody for helping you stand up and fight when slipping into darkness seems the easiest path.

“I’m excited to play in Nashville,” Garcia Peoples bassist Andy Cush tells the Scene. “We have only ever played there once before, and we had a really great time. But it was a very particular kind of show because, uh, the power went out at the club right before we were supposed to go on. Most of the show ended up being this lights-out, passing-the-acoustic-

“There were a few tours in the earlier days of things opening up again where we maybe didn’t always have the greatest turnout,” Cush explains. “And there was a sense of, like, ‘Do people still want to come to shows and stuff?’ Then we went out, maybe a month or two ago — we did just a week in New England, and it felt, like, ‘OK, now it’s back.’ People came out, and we played to some pretty raucous crowds, and it seemed like people were feeling comfortable being out at shows again. … That was really nice.”

The freaks, it seems, are powering through, making a push for a return to abnormalcy in the face

“[You have to be] active about challenging yourself to do something different, rather than just sort of playing the first thing that comes to mind,” says Cush. “It’s like a push and pull between doing what you do and making some kind of active decision to try to do something else … when somebody plays something where you’re like, ‘Where the fuck did that come from? That was awesome.’”

That determination and the cathartic results it delivers run through “Tough Freaks,” and that need to push forward makes each new GP record a different adventure from the last. It’s the kind of vibe that will make school drop-offs a little bit easier for the foreseeable future, and that is awesome.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PLAYING TUESDAY, APRIL 18, AT MARATHON MUSIC WORKS

PLAYING FRIDAY, APRIL 14 AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS

PHOTO: ELLA HERME

THE SPIN

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME

BY STEPHEN TRAGESER

ashville and Tennessee don’t feel like home as much as they used to,” said Tower Defense’s Mike Shepherd as he tuned up between songs on Thursday. “But you know, what feels like home is the fuckin’ 5 Spot.”

YK Records honcho Michael Eades booked a birthday party for his homegrown label weeks ago, so there was no way he could have known it would fall on a day when a lot of folks were feeling frustrated and angry about the Tennessee House of Representatives expelling two of three members who led an anti-gun protest on the House floor the week before in the wake of the Covenant School shooting. To be fair, you could throw a dart at the state legislature’s meeting schedule, especially this session, and stand a decent chance of hitting a day when something shameful happened. But Shepherd’s point still stood that it was a good night to be in a comfortable spot, celebrating something positive and rocking the hell out.

From the label’s inaugural release of pop maestro Uncle Skeleton’s Pancho Chumley in 2009 to its recent unearthing of rockers The Features’ The Mahaffey Sessions 1999, Eades has built a home at YK for musical projects that aren’t necessarily going to make anyone wealthy, but that Nashville’s conglomeration of music communities would be poorer without. Count among that number Thursday’s first act: General Trust, the latest project from musical polymath Jay Leo Phillips. His credits include much-loved Nashville post-punks Apollo Up and a stint with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in addition to his solo releases.

Phillips doesn’t play out often, but every time I see him, the band blows me away; in the case of General Trust, Phillips is the band, and the sentiment holds true. As cold blue lights cut through the copious fog, he stood alone with a small table of electronic gear. Over rich and driving synth and drum arrangements he had programmed, he played lithe and spirited guitar in the vein of Bernard Sumner, Johnny Marr and Vini Reilly as he sang melancholy coldwave originals like his February single “Blue Ride.”

Up next, Cody Newman and New Man shifted the mood dramatically with their post-Beach Boys take on rock ’n’ pop. Tunes from their forthcoming EP The New New Man, due April 28, settled nicely alongside those from their 2018 record New Man Sings. Newman’s songs lean into the fine tradition of poking around under the corners of everyday life. For a fine example, take the new number “Hedgerow,” which is about not being able to stop wondering what’s on the other side of an impenetrable boxwood — and in the process, becomes a Nilssonian meditation on the nature of curiosity. If you’re ever at a New Man show and find

it’s not your thing, you’re still going to want to stick around for Dan Sommers’ bag of tricks; he stretches the definition of “multi-instrumentalist” to the limit by performing expertly on guitar, keys, an array of percussion instruments, slide whistle and piccolo trumpet.

“NOne of the myriad problems the characters encounter in 2001: A Space Odyssey is that the proto-AI computer HAL 9000 has an existential crisis and no way to cope with it. If there’s ever a reboot in which HAL has access to some electronic music gear and writes songs as a form of self-care, it might just sound like the dark and propulsive compositions of Sugar Sk*-*lls, who played next. At the top of the set, project principal Ben Marcantel, a longtime stalwart of Nashville experimental and experiential music, gave thanks to Eades and The 5 Spot (which celebrates its 20th anniversary on April 22). When he realized he couldn’t turn his vocoder off, he went off-mic; it wasn’t easy to hear, but it was clear it was heartfelt.

As the aforementioned Tower Defense set up, I chatted with longtime freelance photog Steve Cross about one of the many things that makes them special. Mike Shepherd and his wife Sarah Shepherd both play bass, but they’re consistently playing different parts; often, Mike and guitarist Currey May trade between rhythm and lead, giving their sound a low center of gravity as drummer Jereme Frey drives it forward with great force. They came blasting out of the gate with a mix of songs old and new that showcased their knack for processing social and political issues in intense and engaging music, often as not inspired by Mike’s dreams.

They wrapped with the onetwo punch of their newest digital single: a cover of The Cure’s ominous and dreamy “A Forest” followed by “Sea Ranch,” in which unsold records and tapes — “the music of a thousand years” — gets sent to the bottom of the ocean because we’ve run out of room to store it.

The night’s final act, The Medium, went on around 10 p.m. Like all their YK brethren and sistren, they’re inventive and distinctive, filtering rocking ’70s pop music — think Badfinger, Supertramp, The Kinks — through their unique lens. However, they seem like they’re just a few steps away from building a widespread fan base through extensive touring, in a way that many YK signees aren’t. In any case, The Medium brought to their showclosing set charming and often delightfully weird songs about getting along in our strange world. Among the highlights was their wholesome recent single “She’s Got It”; singer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Perry told us he wrote it about his wife, who he noted he was missing a lot because she was out of town.

Amid a run of as-yet-unreleased songs — including one about a ghost that haunts a flower bed and another inspired by Joe Buck, Jon Voight’s character in Midnight Cowboy — Perry also admitted he wasn’t all that comfortable onstage. You wouldn’t necessarily know that from the performance, but if nothing else, honing those chops in front of a welcoming hometown crowd — who might just be feeling more at home for being there with them — is exactly why shows like this are important.

TOWER DEFENSE

Photos by Tiffany Bessire

— JEFF COFFIN, GRAMMY-WINNING SAXOPHONIST

FUEL FOR THOUGHT

Eco-thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline deploys an ensemble cast to tackle the climate crisis

BY DANA KOPP FRANKLIN

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a caper drama where the stakes are unusually high — the target isn’t a cache of gems or the contents of a bank vault.

The crew behind this job has set their sites on the future of the planet.

The movie is inspired by the nonfiction book of the same name, written by climate activist Andreas Malm — a book that despite its DIY-harkening title doesn’t actually give instructions for blasting the hell out of a petroleum pipe. Rather, Malm looks at the tactics of the climate protest movement and notes: “Thus far, the movement for averting a spiralling climate catastrophe has not only been civil: it has been gentle and mild in the extreme.”

Malm is no Chairman Mao. He concedes the advantage of nonviolence as a strategy. But he and other activists say attempts to persuade the powerful to ditch fossil fuels have proven futile, and it’s time to consider launching attacks on property.

Which brings us to the group of fictionalized young people at the center of Pipeline the film. We watch them gather in a dusty patch of Texas where they plan to sabotage an oil facility. They joke about being terrorists — “Jesus was a terrorist!” one says giddily — but they aren’t mad bombers. Their painstaking plan is to disable the pipeline without hurting humans

THEATRICAL CATCHUP

From The Super Mario Bros. Movie to Dungeons & Dragons , here’s a rundown of what’s currently at the megaplexes

BY JASON SHAWHAN

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

Thirty years after a semi-visionary studio-recut mess that left audiences bewildered, Nintendo’s pride and joy have returned to the big screen in a colorful and vibrant animated endeavor (made in conjunction with Illumination, the studio behind the Minionsverse). The Super Mario Bros. Movie is, in many ways, a branding recommitment that above all else erases the 1993 Jankel and Brooks film and reestablishes our dudes Mario (Chris Pratt, who does not draw attention to himself) and Luigi (Charlie Day, who isn’t given nearly enough) as hapless plumbers with hearts of gold. The two get swept into another dimension wherein they must stop a rampaging su-

or creating a massive oil spill. Of course, plans are never certain, and the filmmakers (director Daniel Goldhaber, writing with Jordan Sjol and Ariela Barer, who also stars) have devised tension and twists that propel the film for a taut and satisfying 104 minutes.

Frequent flashbacks flesh out the stories of the crew. A central figure is Xochitl (Barer), who grew up next to a refinery and watches her childhood friend Theo (Sasha Lane) suffer with leukemia — due, a doctor hints, to exposure to refinery toxins.

Theo is on board with the pipeline plot, along with her girlfriend Alisha (Jayme Lawson), whose subtle facial expressions convey a pragmatic reluctance about the mission — a sentiment canceled out by her fierce love for Theo. Logan and Rowan

perturtle from Sheriff-of-Nottinghaming his way into a marriage with a pastel-clad sovereign (Anya Taylor-Joy, whose deadpan Princess Peach does quite a bit of heavy lifting).

About that superturtle ... Bowser, voiced by Jack Black (having more fun than everyone else in the whole endeavor), is a megalomaniac nonetheless plagued by deep insecurity. He’ll gleefully torch an

(Lukas Gage and Kristine Froseth) seem like West Coast bubbleheads, but they prove wily and strong when plans go awry. The man with the munitions is Michael (Forrest Goodluck), who has a penchant for rage and sharing his explosive tips on the internet. Shawn (Marcus Scribner) is a bookish filmmaker who is ready to graduate to direct action. Finally there’s Dwayne, a Texan with a young family to feed who has a powerful grievance against the oil industry.

As noted, the movie’s pace is propulsive, thanks to the writing and clever editing by Daniel Garber. Tehillah De Castro’s cinematography invokes ’70s thrillers without being precious. The soundtrack of electronic music helps drive the tension, but to me, it occasionally devolved into a pinging distraction.

ice castle and subjugate countless beings to his will, but also have introspective piano moments while overthinking every interaction he might have with someone he hasn’t even met in person yet. Black’s Bowser is the apotheosis of Leo energy, and the actor is now officially forgiven for I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Super Mario Bros. is not a sacred text, and this is

The filmmakers do a good job of showing the exhilaration of disparate people coming together for a cause. The script neither glorifies the characters nor looks down on them. And it’s up to the viewer to decide whether the team is taking the right strategy toward a very dire dilemma.

Ultimately, the filmmakers aim to stir a sense of empathy, vital to piercing the apathy that surrounds the climate crisis. And director Goldhaber is clearly the right man for the job.

In an interview before the film screened at the Toronto Film Festival, Goldhaber noted that his parents are climate scientists, and added with a laugh, “I’m grateful to them for raising me with an impending sense of doom.”

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

a movie made for kids, stoners and the gaming and DeviantArt communities. It’s a visual treat (I’m seeing the damn thing again just for the 3D experience, because this is tailor-made for such a thing), and it is packed full of dad jokes (including the most jawdropping ongoing Vietnam joke you could ever expect in a children’s film) and an overwhelming amount of Easter eggs for fans of the game. If they make a sequel, I’d love for it to be a left-field remix of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. Let Birdo claim their flowers as a trans icon. Let the land itself yield vegetables to be hurled at one’s enemies.

COUNTRY GOLD

Writer-director (and in this case, star) Mickey Reece has been one of the most interesting voices in American indie cinema for several years now, leaping between genres and tones with the kind of gonzo nimbleness that it took directors like Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee more than a decade working in and adjacent to the big studio system to be able to access. And while his microbudget affairs have been the talk of the festival circuit, the Oklahoma City auteur has tragically never gotten the sort of mainstream traction that could be a leg up in awareness beyond the freaks, critics and cinephiles who soak in the wild and the weird.

HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE R, 104 MINUTES OPENING THURSDAY, APRIL 13, AT THE BELCOURT

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE

Hopefully that changes now. With Country Gold, Reece has taken an idiom he worked in masterfully with 2017’s Mickey Reece’s Alien — a stylized blackand-white “what if” about the life of Elvis Presley — and crafted a Nastyville Brundlefly of This Is Spinal Tap and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood made in deep affection to the giants of country (and their many foibles).

In 1994, Troyal Brux (Reece, the exact kind of amiable egotist for the part) is on the rise, navigating the precipice of fame with the anchors of family and perspective. But he’s shaken when he gets a letter from the legendary George Jones (Ben Hall) inviting him out to Nashville for the weekend, and he leaps at the chance to talk and hang out with a living icon. But what he finds there is nothing like what he expected, with The Possum looking to spend a night on the town before going in for cryogenic freeze the next morning.

Country Gold is a weird, oddly moving film about fame, integrity and the origins of our capacities for reinvention. It is vulgar, occasionally silly and ultimately deeply effective, and its genuine affection for (and perceptive needling of) these personae will hopefully give it the immortality it rightfully deserves. May it be shared among musicians, speed freaks, comedy heads and whatever passes for record label boardrooms these days. There’s nothing that captures the timeless idea of Nashville quite like the brief montage we see from Troyal’s eyes, artfully composed pointillist pieces of the more timeless parts of the city, shot sometime in the pandemic era but still full of ghosts; victims of the city’s consumptive desire to remake and remodel, never to erase and rewind.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES

The unspoken truth about post-Star Wars Hollywood filmmaking is that oftentimes, casting a blockbuster really is like assembling a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. You’ve got to balance your appeal across all audience quadrants, allocating your resources to assemble the team that’s going to accomplish your mission — whether that’s breaking box office records or avenging the tragic collateral damage in the ongoing war between sundry clans of thieves, sorcerers, highwaymen, shapeshifters and all manner of creatures.

The pleasure of a D&D adventure, both the game and in this rather enjoyable film take on the material, is the way the lore can feel both carved in stone on ancient peaks but also quickly improvised for a maximum dose of drama. The script (by Chris McKay, Michael Gilio and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein) draws gleefully from all manner of fantasy traditions, giving us the kind of loose gathering of archetypes that allows all participants to feel part of the proceedings. My old D&D group had rugby players and porn stars (I was a social justice illithid), and that was before anyone rolled a die.

Maximum respect to Michelle Rodriguez as Holga the Barbarian (is that a sly Flannery O’Connor reference?), Sophia Lillis as Doric the Wild Shape Druid (who is just as cool as a battling Owl-Bear as she was as Nancy Drew) and Regé-Jean Page as the smoove paladin Xenk. Chris Pine is good as our ostensible lead Edgin, but he’s a bard (in one of the great jokes that IRL players will most appreciate). Also, Arrested Development made a joke of the “he’s just trying to get his kids back” trope decades ago, and it feels like a disservice both to him and to the character of his daughter.

As with the Super Mario film, there are so many Easter eggs here that it can feel overwhelming at times. But this film understands the unspoken beauty of playing the game — sometimes you have to pee real bad, or the exterior world intrudes and you have to put out a fire real quick. The game (and the film) isn’t depending on just you; it’s a demonstration of the collective in action, and it’s ready for you when you can duck back in. And you absolutely should — there’s so much imagination in the film’s dungeons and its dragons, and when the magic starts happening and we tip into the fray, it’s fun. Unlike so many of the big effects-based action/superhero films, this one is kinda breezy and a lot of fun. A special shoutout to the continuous sequence in which Doric shifts through several forms during an escape fight, getting into the possibilities that dramatically rendered Wild Shape can offer to the viewer.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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APRIL 22+23

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OUR SPRING A RTS & CRAFTS FAIR RETURNS!

Get ready to shop ‘til you drop! Crafty Bastards is a FREE TO ATTEND festival and will feature 100+ vendors selling their handmade goods, leather works, art, petproducts, clothing, home decor, jewelry, candles and more! Enjoy craft cocktails and beer while you shop, plus food truck fare, live music and more.

ACROSS

1 What slackers do visà-vis non-slackers

5 Music genre from Tokyo

9 Dishes often made with mayo

14 Org. involved in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case of 1967

15 Something a loafer lacks

16 Pitched, as speech

17 *Defeat in a 100meter dash, say

19 Uneasy feeling

20 Big-eared star of a 1941 film

21 Clear for entry

23 Matched

24 It may extend a hand

26 *Pub seat

28 Applies the first row of loops to a knitting needle

32 Some glass signs

33 *Realtor’s objective

36 Publication that’s not on paper

38 Medic

39 It’s a bit higher than a D

41 Org. that sells large batteries, ironically

42 Guitar played by Hendrix and Harrison, familiarly

45 *Start of a golfer’s action

48 Repair specialists, familiarly

50 Like eyes beneath a prominent brow

51 *Bio pic

54 Unsafe car seat?

55 Played out

56 Text before a latenight call, perhaps

58 Powwow host

62 Memorable parts of songs

64 Opposites … or instructions for answering this puzzle’s starred clues

66 Red, white and blue land, for short

67 Take off

68 Slip through the cracks?

69 “Goodness!”

70 Part of CBS: Abbr.

71 Partner of nice

DOWN

1 “Columbo” org.

2 Color from the French for “unbleached”

3 Narrow

4 One way to get baked

5 Singer at the Biden/ Harris inauguration, familiarly

6 Singer Bono’s given name

7 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, e.g.

8 Sauce traditionally made in a mortar

9 Author of 2015’s “Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir”

10 Sign-in sheet, e.g.

11 Show from which “Pinky and the Brain” was spun off

12 Reptilian swimmer

13 Wooden skis, essentially

18 Place for a six-pack

22 One component of solar wind

25 Petulant pout

27 Singer Scaggs with the 1970s hits “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle”

28 Bad guys

29 Much on the line

30 Private entrance, perhaps

31 Like R-rated pics, in brief

34 ___ Cohen, spy portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen in 2019

35 Smooth, in a way

37 How a jet stream typically flows

40 Neutrogena dandruff shampoo

43 German cry

44 “Word has it …”

46 Top number in a time signature

47 Inform

49 Portuguese holy title

ANSWER

51 Lackluster

52 Rear ends

53 Stain, as a reputation

57 “Whoopie” treats

59 Brain spark

60 Some drones

61 Award for great plays

63 Fast-food chain whose secret recipe includes “11 herbs and spices”

65 Walker’s charge

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.

UBS Business Solutions US LLC seeks Director, Reporting Specialist in Nashville, Tennessee. Supervise the US tax withholding and information reporting team. Advise business analysts in operations, change control and IT teams for FATCA compliance. Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com.

Please reference 000203.

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UBS Business Solutions US LLC seeks an Authorized Officer, Employee Conduct Product Manager in Nashville, TN. Work with stakeholders to prioritize requirements and work with IT to plan the delivery of the requirements. Conduct platform demonstrations for stakeholders. Qualified Applicants apply through shprofrecruitingcc@ubs.com.

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EOE/M/F/D/V.

UBS Business Solutions US LLC seeks Associate Director, Market Risk Reporting and Analysis Specialist in Nashville, TN. Build and maintain an understanding of UBS’ trading portfolio, as well as analyze risk sensitivities (Greeks). Analyze and understand ho w UBS’ portfolio could react to market and economic events. Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com.

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UBS Business Solutions US LLC seeks Authorized Officer, IT Support Analyst in Nashville, TN. Ensure workflows, processes, tooling and applications are of the highest quality standard. Support the Service and Product Manager across several technical domains. Qualified Applicants apply through shprofrecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 001235. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V.

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Qualifacts Systems, LLC, Product Owner (RCM) Nashville, TN. *Work from home option available –hybrid position*. Resp. for driving execution of the Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) product roadmap & owning delivery of product dev. initiatives through close collaboration w/the cross functional team. Serves as the primary liaison between customers, business & RCM development team. Req. a bachelor’s degree in Comp. Science, Info. Technology or Business Mgmnt. 5 years’ exp. in software development industry or rltd field. Complete knowledge & full understanding of Agile methodology, principles, & practices w/in software development. Strong understanding of database structure & comfort working w/a software development team to prioritize work.

Proven exp. solving complex business needs w/ software tech. solutions – either through product design & development, or through customer facing consulting and configuration. Please visit: https://jobs.jobvite.com/qualif acts/job/oI5ymfwr and apply through company website.

bachelor’s degree in Comp.

Science, Info. Technology or Business Mgmnt. 5 years’ exp. in software development industry or rltd field. Complete knowledge & full understanding of Agile methodology, principles, & practices w/in software development. Strong understanding of database structure & comfort working w/a software development team to prioritize work. Proven exp. solving complex business needs w/ software tech. solutions – either through product design & development, or through customer facing consulting and configuration. Please visit: https://jobs.jobvite.com/qualif acts/job/oI5ymfwr and apply through company website.

Hodges Foundation, Inc. dba The Hodges Foundation for Philosophical Orientation seeks Executive Director in Nashville, Tennessee. The Executive Director is responsible for advancing the foundation and the philosophy of orientation, conducting original rese arch of orientation, as well as overseeing the programs and strategic plan of the foundation; must be intimately familiar with and well versed in all areas of philosophy and stand ready to discuss it contemporaneously with others; must have sound knowledge of all major philosophers; must have studied Dr. Werner Stegmaier, a leading scholar in philosophy and the study and interpretation of Nietzsche and contemporary philosophers. Domestic and international travel 10 percent of the time to present at conferences and seminars. Requirements include published academic translations in the field of Continental philosophy, from German into English; must be able to communicate in writing and orally in both English and German, with academic publications in both langua ges. Telecommuting may be permitted. To apply, email resume to Kimberly Bass at careers@hfpo.com.

translations in the field of

Continental philosophy, from German into English; must be able to communicate in writing and orally in both English and German, with academic publications in both langua ges. Telecommuting may be permitted. To apply, email resume to Kimberly Bass at careers@hfpo.com.

Qualifacts Systems, LLC. Nashville, TN. Senior Software Engineer. Multiple Openings *Work from home option available – hybrid position*.. Participates in development team activities including work on new development, maintenance & production support tasks for existing systems. Resp. for delivering accurate, innovative, & low-defect software solutions. Bachelor’s in comp. science, info. systems, comp. engineering, systems engineering, business admin. or rltd industryrelated field. Min 5+ yrs.’ exp. as a developer on enduser apps & back-end services. 3+ yrs.’ exp. developing J2EE web apps &/or using “Open Source” software. Exp. in following ar eas:

Languages: Advanced Java 8, PL/SQL, JavaScript, &/or Advanced SQL ANSI. Frameworks: Advanced Spring, Hibernate,MyBatis, JQuery, ReactJS, &/or Java Server Pages. Technologies: Docker &/or Tomcat. Databases: MySQL,MariaDB, Oracle, &/or MongoDB. SDLC process: Scrum, Kanban, &/or UML Artifacts, etc. Advanced engineering environment tools such as Jira, Git, Jenkins, SonarQube, &/or Eclipse. Design & implementation of SOA Paradigm approach & Continuous Integration knowledge. Usage of tools for Enterprise Architecture Modeling Like Sparx EA, Rational IBM, etc. Familiar w/ Model Driven Development (MDD), Domain Driven Design (DDD), Test Driven Design (TDD), Roundtrip Engineering w/in a structured execution environment. Familiar w/ Enterprise Business Patterns & Enterprise Design Patterns. Please visit: https://jobs.jobvite.com/qualif acts/job/oR5ymfwA and apply through company website.

knowledge. Usage of tools for Enterprise Architecture Modeling Like Sparx EA, Rational IBM, etc. Familiar w/ Model Driven Development (MDD), Domain Driven Design (DDD), Test Driven Design (TDD), Roundtrip Engineering w/in a structured execution environment. Familiar w/ Enterprise Business Patterns & Enterprise Design Patterns. Please visit: https://jobs.jobvite.com/qualif acts/job/oR5ymfwA and apply through company website.

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High Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. Promo Expires 1/21/24.

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BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

in as little as ONE DAY! Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months! Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call 1-866-370-2939. (AAN CAN)

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1-866-571-1325 (AAN CAN)

If you have water damage to your home and need cleanup services, call us! We’ll get in and work with your insurance agency to get your home repaired and your life back to normal ASAP! Call 833-664-1530. (AAN CAN)