THE SPIN

SUMMER SOUNDTRACK 2023

Strength In Numbers

BY AMANDA HAGGARD

At the final stop of their coheadlining acoustic Miko & Rissi Tour, Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer delivered a heartfelt and warm evening of country, soul and blues to an admiring audience Thursday in The Lounge at City Winery. Ahead of the show, Marks and Palmer told the Scene they were thrilled to get to be onstage together. The familiarity that comes with being in a tour bus (or van) over an extended period can breed contempt, but Palmer told the audience that even after traveling together for the past few weeks, she and Marks were “still friends.”

“And not just ‘still friends,’” Marks said, adding to Palmer’s assessment. “We’re better friends. … We’re stronger together.” drum loop that emerges in the chorus — evocative of both New Order’s “1963” and Us3’s “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)” — sets the vocative plea of “Stay awhile with me,” question mark elided, apart from the three different moods (and beats) “Violet Chemistry” takes us through. It serves as both a thesis statement and a thematic megamix for Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation, understanding the way that circumstance plays fucked-up games with where any emotional path can lead.

Palmer noted that they simply flipped a coin to determine who went first each night of the run. Fate determined that Marks would go first Thursday. She and two members of her band — who also happen to be her producers, Justin Phipps and Steve Wyreman — kicked things off with a call to the “Ancestors,” via a song Marks and her group The Resurrectors released in 2021. While the song is normally a bit more playful and upbeat when accompanied by a full band, the live acoustic version was haunting and drawn-out. She kept the vibes coming in an eight-song set that included the swampy and groovy “River” from 2022’s Feel Like Going Home as well as the blues-rockinspired “Trouble,” an homage to late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.

“I hope this inspires you to make good trouble,” Marks told the crowd — which she noted included her 82-year-old godfather Wilbert McAlister, who flew in from California to watch her perform. He was decked out in an ornate gold-and-black Western suit.

Theoretically, every song does that — or at least it should. But “Violet Chemistry” pulls off something akin to that monolithic statue of Jesus at Christus Gardens in Gatlinburg, the one that’s looking at you no matter where you’re standing in the room. The horny triumph of potential, the comforting and perpetual inertia we call routine, the holding close of what’s slipping away; “Violet Chemistry” is there for wherever you are in that three-way dialectic. And it bangs, smooth and electronic, warm and conciliatory with the kind of confidence that can only come from knowing your hooks take no prisoners. Sometimes the right mood is determined by the stereo; seeking the abjection of verbal silence when those words don’t quite encompass that wave of emotions. Pop music can make the ephemeral eternal, an everlasting commemoration of love — or something like it — at the club or bar or boudoir, when those harsh lights hit you like a ton of bricks.

JASON SHAWHAN

SPENCER CULLUM, “KINGDOM WEATHER”

Your toes sink into cold sand as a breeze ruffles your hoodie. While the sun rises over the steady crashing waves, you take a drag from that one-hitter you bought for Bonnaroo ’08. These are peak vacation experiences, and they embody the vibe that Spencer Cullum brings to “Kingdom Weather,” a prime cut from the wake ’n’ bake record of the summer: the second installment of his Coin Collection series.

Evoking the soft-psych of ’70s surf-film soundtrackers like G. Wayne Thomas and Daryl “The Captain” Dragon with a dash of Stereolab’s motorikmeets-shoegaze explorations stirred in, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2 features the songsmith and steelist enlisting lots of friends to explore heady territory with a sense of awe and wonder. When it’s

“Now, that man, he is a real cowboy,” Marks said. “He’ll wear that to McDonald’s.”

When Palmer took the stage with her stellar guitarist Charles Newkirk, she noted that it had gotten fairly cold in the room. Before she could finish the sentence, a man from the audience had rushed to the stage to offer his denim jacket, which she wore throughout the show. “Chivalry is not dead,” another man yelled toward the stage before Palmer and Marks performed a tearjerking and gorgeous cover of The Judds’ “Flies on the Butter.”

Palmer headed into her solo set with the song that launched her career, “Country Girl.” She mentioned that she previously had to play a slightly different version of the song, originally released in 2007, because her old label owned it.

“But not now,” Palmer said, smiling. “As of last week, I now own this song.”

Palmer is a dynamic storyteller, bringing her experience in holding an audience during her Color Me Country Radio show to the stage and getting laughs for her expert delivery. Her set included “Love on You,” a song written about her dream man. She told the audience it was written with a boyfriend she had just broken up with, and called herself the “brown Taylor Swift.”

Palmer’s song “Seeds” plays on a work by Dinos Christianopoulos, a gay poet who lived in Greece in the late 20th century. He wrote a now-well-known couplet that translates roughly to: “What didn’t you do to bury me / But you forgot that I was a seed.” Palmer took the opportunity to remind the crowd of the dangers of exclusion and of not time for an early-morning smoke amid the gentle sounds of nature stirring, Cullum and his pals — on this track, that’s guest vocalist Yuma Abe and guitarist Sean Thompson — are the perfect company.

SEAN L. MALONEY

BRIAN BROWN, “NBA JAM”

Stellar rapper Brian Brown’s EP

Two Minute Drill is an exercise in the creative possibilities of limitations, with all four tracks clocking in under two minutes. Even so, none of the songs feels pressured or rushed, and opening number “NBA Jam” is perhaps the most chill. Riding a beat built around a melancholy soul sample, Brown takes stock of strange times in the city he’s called home all his life. He’s advocating calm attention, awareness and appraisal — a useful perspective to have as we head into what’s shaping up to be a long, hot, weird summer.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM advocating for their vulnerable community members.

“Anytime we ‘other’ somebody and they try to get rid of ‘other,’” Palmer said, “guess who they’re coming for next?”

She ended her set with “Good Night,” a tune from the children’s album Best Day Ever that she released in 2013. The song could be best described as a gentler, lyrical version of the book Go the Fuck to Sleep

Then as the evening drew to a close, Palmer brought Marks to the stage for one last song. You could practically feel the light and warmth — something we could all use more of, even as summer creeps in — radiating from the pair as they sang and danced to their recent collaborative single “Still Here.”

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

JULY 8, 2023 4-9PM