STREET VIEW: THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE SEIGENTHALER BRIDGE >> PAGE 7
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WHO’S WHO IN THE MIDTERMS With early voting now open in the Nov. 3 election, we break down what’s on the ballot
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CONTENTS NEWS
7 Street View: The Past and Future of the Seigenthaler Bridge The Titans and the city are expanding the historic structure to reach the new Nissan Stadium BY LENA MAZEL
8 Titans’ Disaster Season Has Sparked a Fan War A new stadium isn’t making sense next to historic levels of losing BY ELI MOTYCKA
10 Pith in the Wind This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
13 COVER PACKAGE: WHO’S WHO IN THE
MIDTERMS
14 The Battle for the Governor’s Mansion Memphis Democrat Jerri Green is stumping hard against the heavily favored Marsha Blackburn
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BY ELI MOTYCKA
14 Davidson County’s Three Congressional Races From political newcomers to longtime incumbents, here’s who’s vying to represent Nashville at the federal level BY JULIANNE AKERS
16 Williamson County’s Two Congressional Races Heated races in the newly redrawn 5th and 9th districts impact a wide swath of Tennessee territory
Hummingbird at a Feminist Bird Club meetup • ANGELINA CASTILLO
MUSIC
41 State of Mind Chris Gantry’s new album Worth Every Nail looks back at his early days in Nashville BY EDD HURT
41 East Side Story Country champion Kaitlin Butts drew inspiration for her new LP Hello, Honky Tonk from imagining the stories of the Skinny Dennis clientele
BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS AND EMILY R. WEST
20 Republican Candidates Lead the Financial Race
Redrawn congressional districts have gained national attention with funds from a super PAC that targets Dems
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
42 The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out The Chicks at The Truth
BY NICOLLE S. PRAINO
23 CRITICS’ PICKS
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
FILM
USA Rugby International Series, Justice Jam, Nashville Jazz Festival, Murder of Crows: Ghost Stories and more
46 Prepare for a Scare
FOOD AND DRINK
47 Frostbite
33 Date Night
Full Moon Cineplex is a shrine to all things horror BY LOGAN BUTTS
Jimmy Kelly’s, Hall of Fame Park, The Southern Steak & Oyster
Fjord is a political puzzle of Norwegian bureaucracy and Romanian rage
BY DANNY BONVISSUTO
BY KEN ARNOLD
CULTURE
39 In the Club: Bird Is the Word Feminist Bird Club provides low-barrier birding BY HANNAH HERNER
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NEWS: STREET VIEW
THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE SEIGENTHALER BRIDGE The Titans and the city are expanding the historic structure to reach the new Nissan Stadium BY LENA MAZEL
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
THOUGH IT’S BEEN called several different names, the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge has been a part of Nashville for more than 100 years, and like many historic landmarks, it has gone through plenty of changes. Pretty soon, it’s going to change again. On Sept. 22, the East Bank Development Authority voted to allow a $75 million extension to the bridge, extending its eastern side to reach the new Nissan Stadium on the Cumberland River’s East Bank. As Scene columnist Betsy Phillips recently asked, could the substantial changes to the bridge’s structure proposed by the Tennessee Titans mean that it loses its place on the National Register of Historic Places? Beyond that, this update might feel like a typical case of development changing a landmark that characterizes the Nashville landscape. But that characterization is perhaps too reductive:
The Seigenthaler Bridge has gone through many changes before, and its history is as complex and surprising as its neighborhood. Originally called the Sparkman Bridge, the Seigenthaler Bridge was built between 1907 and 1909 by Foster-Creighton Company as a way of further connecting newly incorporated Edgefield to downtown. (It was built alongside a bridge that had been built decades prior in the location of what is now the Woodland Street Bridge.) According to its National Register application, the Sparkman Bridge was built by “inexperienced laborers, many of which were ex-convicts or parolees,” including people incarcerated in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. It was dangerous work: Four men died during construction; others suffered injuries. The city also used its location as an excuse to clear a slum called Black Bottom on its western side. But why does the bridge have such historic value? Part of it comes from the style. The Seigenthaler Bridge is known for its use of Pratt trusses, a particular style of supportive beams that share the load of a structure in triangular
“Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” caused $23,000 of damage to the bridge’s pavement. More recently, police spotted two men — one in a gorilla suit and another in a Hawaiian shirt — crossing the bridge after physically assaulting a victim downtown and stealing his shoes. They were later arrested. In 2014, the bridge was renamed in honor of journalist and civil rights advocate John Seigenthaler. In 1954, Seigenthaler saved a man named Gene Bradford Williams, who had threatened to jump off the bridge and wanted to speak to a journalist. When Seigenthaler saw that Williams was going to jump, he grabbed him by the collar and held him until reinforcements came to help. Seigenthaler told The Tennessean that Williams initially said, “I’ll never forgive you,” but later had a change of heart, writing from the hospital, “I owe JOHN SEIGENTHALER you eternal gratitude for PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE having saved me from the PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES briny deep.” formations — often used for railway bridges and A similar incident made headlines in 2024 pedestrian bridges. Though the Pratt truss style when Jon Bon Jovi helped persuade a woman gave the bridge its historical significance, the to come off the ledge of the bridge to safety. At structure’s load-bearing capacity was debated, the time, the musician was shooting a music and some city officials worried about its ability video there. to carry cars. The bridge saw repairs in 1960 but There are countless other moments the Seiclosed in 1998 because of its poor condition. genthaler Bridge has seen in its long, weird hisBut in the 1990s, an all-too-familiar scene was tory, including a Dolly Parton music video and unfolding in downtown Nashville: fierce demultiple weddings. In many ways, it exemplifies bate over public funding for the city’s new NFL a story that’s told so many times in Nashville — a stadium. Still, despite attempts by grassroots past that’s complicated and difficult, and a presadvocates to defeat the stadium by referendum, ent that’s full of contradictions and surprises. Adelphia Coliseum (which changed names a But historic landmark status aside, the Seifew times before becoming Nissan Stadium) genthaler Bridge seems perfectly emblematic was built for the newly relocated Tennessee of Nashville’s character. The city is constantly re(née Houston) Oilers. And once the stadium was defining itself in unexpected ways. At the same built, the bridge was a convenient way to get time, it feels like city officials are grappling with people to it. So in 2003, it was refurbished and the same political issues again and again — in reopened to pedestrians. this case, a weird rerun of a drawn-out scene From there, the Seigenthaler Bridge (then from the 1990s. called the Shelby Street Bridge) had an eventful This isn’t the first time our NFL team has 20 years — thanks in large part to its proximity changed the shape of this downtown landmark. to an increasingly chaotic downtown. In 2004, It probably won’t be the last time, either. ▼ horses from the music video for Big and Rich’s NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NEWS
TITANS’ DISASTER SEASON HAS SPARKED A FAN WAR A new stadium isn’t making sense next to historic levels of losing BY ELI MOTYCKA NEW NISSAN STADIUM UNDER CONSTRUCTION, AUGUST 2026
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SEVEN YEARS AGO, the Tennessee Titans lost in the AFC Championship Game, pro football’s semifinal round just before the Super Bowl. Superstar running back Derrick Henry took handoffs from Ryan Tannehill, a veteran quarterback who’d won the Associated Press’ Comeback Player of the Year award with the team and made the NFL playoffs in three straight seasons. Fans widely praised coach Mike Vrabel, who’d soon be named the AP’s 2021 Coach of the Year, for winning over the locker room. The front office had clearly won its second-round draft gamble on wide receiver A.J. Brown, who matured into a three-time Pro Bowl selection and league-leading playmaker. The team has since tumbled so far down the standings, and stayed there for so long, that the Titans fandom has entered an existential crisis. Blame has gradually moved up the organizational hierarchy to the top — CEO Burke Nihill and owner Amy Adams Strunk — as the team experiences historic levels of losing. The team’s recent baby-blue rebrand has turned into a mocked symbol of Band-Aid solutions. A taxpayer-subsidized $2.1 billion stadium for a team valued at $8.5 billion has stopped making sense for fans who have seen just one win
in the past 16 home games while castoff stars Henry, Vrabel and Brown succeed elsewhere in the league. The Titans’ draft pick history, a key metric for building teams that measures the capability of a front office, is mostly a string of busts as the team entertains its fourth general manager since 2022. Across the league, the team is ridiculed in memes. Sports media, including Titans reporting, differs from other types of journalism, because there is a clear desired outcome and bias. Owners, fans and combative radio hosts all want wins. Reporting analyzes why the team is not winning. Bad games invite criticism about play-calling and individual performances; one or two bad seasons turn the spotlight to coaches and management. After dropping five games to start the 2026 campaign, the Titans now stare down a fifth straight losing season. Such a dark period has starved supporters of positive talking points and pushed content past typical on-field analysis. Deeper questions surfaced in recent weeks about the fundamental competency of the Titans organization following a string of high-level incidents widening the gulf between fans and team leadership.
AFTER DROPPING FIVE GAMES TO START THE 2026 CAMPAIGN, THE TITANS NOW STARE DOWN A FIFTH STRAIGHT LOSING SEASON. SUCH A DARK PERIOD HAS STARVED SUPPORTERS OF POSITIVE TALKING POINTS AND PUSHED CONTENT PAST TYPICAL ON-FIELD ANALYSIS.
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After the preseason, team leaders revoked press credentials for flamethrowing commentator Jared Stillman — known for his relentless criticism — after a tense line of questioning between Stillman and Titans quarterback Cam Ward. But the team’s consistent failures often prove Stillman right, and he has earned a large audience over years on the beat. “It’s become like North Korea, where everyone must praise the supreme leader,” Stillman tells the Scene. “They have dug a moat around the organization because they don’t want to face negativity.” Three executives were abruptly fired last week, though their domains (chief revenue officer, brand marketing, creative) seem divorced from on-field success. Instead, it looked like a bottom-line business decision as team newsletters reflect badly suffering ticket sales, especially regarding expensive luxury seat licenses in the new Nissan Stadium, which will make its debut next season. With abysmal results and the organization seemingly in shambles, A to Z Sports’ Titans reporter Easton Freeze released his own “Fan Sentiment” survey to followers. Nearly 8,000 responses showed self-described obsessive fans who have turned apathetic. More than half vowed not to spend any more money on the team this season. Opinions on Strunk and Nihill have dramatically shifted negative in the past year. Both have overseen regular firings at coach and general manager that produced the same results. Fans blame them for a lot, but mostly, they just want to see leaders publicly take responsibility. Strunk splits her time between Tennessee and Texas and has empowered Nihill as an organization spokesperson. According to other reporters, Nihill has been avoiding media and turning down interview requests. (The Titans did not grant the Scene’s request either.) Hours after Freeze dropped his survey results, Nihill addressed the public. “I personally feel a sense of stability,” Nihill told ESPN. “I believe that [general manager] Mike Borgonzi and [coach] Robert Saleh are ultimately going to get this team out of the woods and restore it to competitive football. The train is on the tracks. It just hasn’t picked up momentum, but it will.” Every year, the NFL rewards the league’s worst team with good draft picks and punishes the top teams with difficult schedules. Five losing seasons defies structural balancing mechanisms in place to help keep the league competitive. A comeback win on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts became long-awaited salvation. In a media ecosystem prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, it also gave fans the faintest reason to believe in a turnaround. ▼
PITH IN THE WIND
NASHVILLESCENE.COM/NEWS/PITHINTHEWIND Fort Negley Park will open early next year on 66 acres, a decade after preservation-minded opponents helped derail development plans at the site. Commercial investors pulled that project in January 2018 after six months of backlash and debate over the Civil War battlement and its surrounding campus. Blowback from the city’s controversial lease agreement renewed city interest in Fort Negley, built for the Union Army atop St. Cloud Hill by runaway slaves, enslaved people and free Black laborers. Workers are now building the vast park around Fort Negley officially planned in 2022 under then-Mayor John Cooper. The park’s official groundbreaking was in February, but construction has amped up significantly in recent weeks. Designs center on the park’s Memorial Lawn, whose gently curving title stone can be seen from Chestnut Street, itself an active construction zone as city workers rejigger the road to make room for bike lanes.
Last month, a broad coalition seeking a charter amendment to ban racing at The Fairgrounds Nashville delivered boxes containing more than 75,000 petition signatures to the Metro clerk. At its Oct. 16 meeting, the Davidson County Election Commission officially certified 47,679 of those signatures as the amendment moves toward a direct referendum in 2027. That’s enough to clear the legal threshold — 10 percent of active registered Davidson County voters as of June — ending the DCEC’s herculean certification effort and continuing a legal and political saga between billionaire sports owners. Poll workers and employees worked daily in two shifts, logging more than 12,500 work hours at the DCEC, to validate boxes of signatures provided by petitioners. Administrator of elections John Richardson did not share the commission’s exact reasons for tossing out 36 percent of the collected signatures. Ongoing legal matters could muddy the next step of the campaign, which promises to keep fairgrounds drama under the Metro spotlight in 2027.
The General Jackson Showboat — the kitschy and iconic Old Nashville institution among the last remnants of bygone theme park Opryland USA — will soon cease operations after more than 40 years cruising along the Cumberland River. Opry Entertainment Group confirmed the General Jackson’s closure in a statement provided to the Scene on Monday, citing maintenance issues related to the boat. Its final public cruise will be held Dec. 15.
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WHO’S WHO IN THE MIDTERMS With early voting now open in the Nov. 3 election, we break down what’s on the ballot BY SCENE STAFF; PHOTOS BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS EARLY VOTING IN the Nov. 3 midterm general elections is open through Oct. 29 in Tennessee — and if this summer’s unusually high early-voting primary numbers are any indication, Nashvillians are ready to cast their ballots. At the top of the ballot is the gubernatorial race, in which heavily favored Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn faces a Democratic underdog challenger in Memphis City Councilmember Jerri Green. As reporter Eli Motycka writes in this issue, Green is savvy and has a sharp message, but Blackburn has more money — a lot more. Also on their ballots, Nashvillians will find races in the post-gerrymandering 4th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts; meanwhile, Williamson County residents will cast ballots in the 5th and 9th. We’ve got lots more on those races in this issue as well. At the federal level, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty is seeking a second term. The Trump administration’s former U.S. ambassador to Japan, Hagerty was elected in 2020 over Memphis Democrat Marquita Bradshaw and has remained a loyal Trump ally since. Bradshaw once again won the Democratic nomination for the seat and will face a steep (very steep) uphill battle against Hagerty — who defeated the Memphis activist by 27 percentage points six years ago, and has millions of dollars in campaign funds on hand. Also on the ballot for all Tennesseans are three constitutional amendments: one that would allow judges to deny bail for certain offenses “when the proof is evident or the presumption is great”; one that would prohibit Tennessee from ever imposing a state property tax; and another that would clarify language in the state constitution to revise the rights of crime victims.
At the state level, the Tennessee General Assembly’s Davidson County seats are mostly unchanging. House Districts 50, 51, 53, 54, 56 and 58 will see no change after Democratic Reps. Bo Mitchell, Aftyn Behn, Jason Powell, Vincent Dixie, Bob Freeman and Harold Love Jr. all ran unopposed in the primary, with no Republican challenger on the ballot to contest them in the general. Democratic state Sens. Charlane Oliver and Jeff Yarbro also ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for their District 19 and 21 seats, and no Republican will challenge them in the general election. State House District 59, a traditionally Democrat-held seat that contains the Belle Meade and Bellevue areas, will see a race between Democrat Mark Proctor and Republican Bill Hancock. Republican incumbent state Rep. Mark Pody of House District 17 is facing Democratic challenger Lindsey Patrick-Wright. A few Republicans are running for the solidly Democratic city’s state House seats. Republican Michele Vetter will challenge Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones for his District 52 seat, Republican Jayla Thomas will take on House Minority Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons in the District 55 general, and Republican Eva Romero will challenge Democratic Rep. Shaundelle Brooks in District 60. Republicans have a trifecta in D.C. and in Nashville. Midterms typically go poorly for the incumbent party, and national trends — like a very unpopular Trump administration — will give Democrats a boost across the country. Democrats’ energy and turnout may narrow the GOP’s lopsided winning streak, but the state is still Republicans’ to lose. Read on for more as we break down who’s who in the midterms. Nicolle S. Praino and Eli Motycka contributed reporting. —D. PATRICK RODGERS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
NASHVILLE’S 15 EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS open through oct. 29: Bellevue Library 720 Baugh Road Bordeaux Library 4000 Clarksville Pike Casa Azafrán Community Center 2195 Nolensville Pike Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee 3421 Belmont Blvd. Edmondson Pike Library 5501 Edmondson Pike Election Commission Office 1281 Murfreesboro Pike Goodlettsville Library 205 Rivergate Parkway, Goodlettsville Hermitage Library 3700 James Kay Lane, Hermitage Hillwood High School 6215 Hickory Valley Road Lentz Public Health Center 2500 Charlotte Ave. Madison Library 610 Gallatin Pike S., Madison Metro Office Building 800 President Ronald Reagan Way Scarritt Bennett Center 1027 18th Ave. S. South Inglewood Community Center 1624 Rebecca St. Southeast Library 5260 Hickory Hollow Parkway, Antioch ▼
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MARSHA BLACKBURN, JUSTIN PEARSON, BRENT TAYLOR, CHARLIE HATCHER, CHAZ MOLDER
THE BATTLE FOR THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION Memphis Democrat Jerri Green is stumping hard against the heavily favored Marsha Blackburn BY ELI MOTYCKA
Republicans’ ruling trifecta in D.C. “One of our goals is to make certain Tennessee is the freest state in the United States of America,” Blackburn told a Clarksville crowd at an Oct. 12 rally, where she shared the stage with Trump. “There is only one conservative Republican in this race for governor, and it is me. So as we get ready for this election, President Trump needs you. I need you. And we need to make certain that we get everybody to the polls to vote.” Polls and predictions have Blackburn firmly leading the field by 10 to 15 percentage points. While she’s stayed clean from major personal scandals through 30-plus years of politics, Blackburn’s reputation has suffered recently after awkward run-ins with local media, whom she typically avoids, and opponents’ increasingly effective portrayal of Blackburn as a beltway creature. Republican U.S. Rep. John Rose landed this attack often during a bruising primary that left Blackburn with 44 percent of the GOP vote. Pivoting offices so quickly into her second Senate term, close ties to the increasingly unpopular Trump administration, and a career fueled by corporate donations (and a pro-corporate voting history) don’t mesh well with a current political climate championing everyday Americans over industry giants. That is exactly Democrat Jerri Green’s pitch to both highly engaged Democrats and disaffected
Republicans. She serves as both the Shelby County public defender and a Memphis City Council member, went to college in Knoxville and practiced law in Nashville. She reminded a packed house of her bona fides at a campaign event on a recent unseasonably warm Wednesday evening on East Trinity Lane. Scoring an upset for Democrats will take all of Tennessee — East, Middle, West, red, blue, rural, urban. The last Democrat to win statewide office was Gov. Phil Bredesen in 2006. Bredesen lost to Blackburn in a race for one of Tennessee’s two U.S. Senate seats 12 years later by 10.8 percentage points — about 250,000 votes. Green has sharpened her conversational stump speech during a whirlwind state tour with more than 200 campaign stops. She hits national talking points on affordability, healthcare access and corporate greed, all topics that poll well across both parties. She goes local, vowing to protect public school funding against Lee’s voucher push and to tap millions in dormant Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money. Big tech becomes “Big Data” as Green experiments with new national fervor against data centers, corporate data collection, privacy concerns, and an artificial intelligence panic. Data center debates have roused communities across the state. They also contrast with controversial plans previewed by Sens. Hagerty and Blackburn to lure tech companies to East Tennessee with the state’s
AS NASHVILLIANS HEAD to the polls, there’s a good chance they’ll be voting in an entirely different congressional district than the one where they cast a ballot in 2024. This is due to this spring’s gerrymandering spearheaded by the Tennessee General Assembly’s Republican supermajority, which split Memphis — previously the state’s only Democratic stronghold and majority-Black district at the federal level — into three districts, subseMATT VAN EPPS quently affecting Nashville’s
congressional lines. This practice isn’t new. In fact, it’s the second time in the past four years legislators have redrawn the state’s congressional map to favor Republicans, with Democratic-leaning Nashville separated into three districts in 2022. The new map splits Nashville between the 4th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts.
MARSHA BLACKBURN TENNESSEE SHOULD ATTRACT young families supported by stable jobs. These jobs should pay well enough that these families can buy houses and raise children who, in turn, have access to a good education that leads to their own stable and well-paying futures. Candidates for governor agree on this simple premise, which is also mostly the American Dream. Major party nominees Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, and Jerri Green, a Democrat, build stump speeches around it. From there, they diverge quickly. Blackburn, a former state senator, comes back to state politics after eight terms in the U.S. House and eight years in the U.S. Senate. She won a second term in 2024, and if she’s successful on Nov. 3, would vacate her seat — then likely tap her own replacement as the newly minted governor. With Gov. Bill Lee gone, no one could dispute Blackburn’s perch atop Tennessee’s GOP heap. Once elected senator in 2018, Blackburn quickly aligned her national brand with Trump and Fox News, where she has made frequent appearances praising the president. Her campaign rhetoric matches his with patriotic platitudes, its frequent focus on villains — Democrats, China, minority groups, taxes — and a broad deflection of the country’s current economic woes despite
DAVIDSON COUNTY’S THREE CONGRESSIONAL RACES From political newcomers to longtime incumbents, here’s who’s vying to represent Nashville at the federal level BY JULIANNE AKERS
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
7TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
The majority of Davidson County, along with Cheatham, Robertson, Dickson, Macon and Trousdale counties, and the majority of Sumner and Montgomery counties. Among the most contested Nashville races is the 7th Congressional District. Longtime Nashville campaign strategist and political consultant Darden Copeland, a Democrat, is taking on Republican incumbent U.S. Rep.
JERRI GREEN nuclear-powered computing potential. Green also freely labels Blackburn with names like “Mississippi Marsha,” a reference to her opponent’s birthplace. She also references Blackburn’s track record of protecting pharmaceutical companies during the opioid crisis. “We are fighting for a more affordable Tennessee, we are fighting for a Tennessee where we have better health outcomes, we are fighting for better public schools, we are fighting for fundamental freedoms,” Green told a cheering Nashville crowd this month. “We’re also fighting to end Marsha Blackburn’s career forever.” Green has a strong tailwind and sharp message, but Blackburn has more money, name recognition and the dominant party’s ticket. Two other independent candidates — Lauren Pinkston and David Hatley — poll in the low single digits but will likely pull from would-be Republican voters, a small X factor in the race. The race is still Blackburn’s to lose, but an unpopular president, household economic strain, a confused war in Iran and developing political fronts like data center backlash could show the pendulum swinging back to Democrats ever so slightly. ▼
Matt Van Epps, who won the seat via a special election in 2025 following the resignation of former U.S. Rep. Mark Green. Copeland ran for the seat during the 2025 special election, but lost to state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) in the Democratic primary. In his previous run, Copeland appealed to rural voters in the district. It appears he’s catering this campaign toward middleand working-class voters, labeling himself a “different kind of Democrat.” DARDEN COPELAND
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“Too many politicians are abandoning the middle class, and serving the billionaires, bigots, and bullies,” reads Copeland’s campaign website. “We’re adding trillions to our national debt, while cutting the safety nets so many of us depend on — expanded Medicaid, Medicare, affordable healthcare premiums, student loans, food assistance.” His top issues are the unaffordability of groceries and healthcare, protecting Social Security and Medicare, ending political corruption and standing up to President Trump and MAGA Republicans. Meanwhile, Trump-endorsed U.S. Army veteran Van Epps is presenting himself as a politician prepared to defend and advance issues championed by Trump. He lists his top issues as strengthening the economy, cracking down on immigration, supporting veterans and ultimately — as his campaign website reads — “advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.” Van Epps has also emphasized limiting abortion access, allyship with Israel, defending gun rights and anti-trans issues like prohibiting transgender women from participating in women’s sports. As the race continues to heat up, Copeland has turned his efforts toward appearing on national news
broadcasts and, more recently, filing an ethics complaint against Van Epps. The complaint alleges that Van Epps’ campaign used taxpayer-funded staff to run his reelection campaign, with the filing focusing on Alex Joyner, a Van Epps senior adviser who previously served as the congressman’s campaign manager. Van Epps’ campaign called the complaint “misleading, factually unsupported and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the law.” 6TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
A portion of middle and eastern Davidson County, portions of Sumner and Campbell counties, and all of Wilson, Smith, DeKalb, White, Putnam, Jackson, Clay, Overton, Cumberland, Morgan, Fentress, Pickett and Scott counties. The MAGA Republican ethos of an unyielding allegiance to Trump is also very much present in the 6th district race, where state Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) is running against U.S. Navy veteran and Democrat Mike Croley, a Vanderbilt graduate and nonprofit founder currently living in Crossville. Garrett spent much of the state’s 2026 legislative session sponsoring legislation focused on strict immi-
gration laws and culture war issues. These included a bill requiring sheriffs’ offices across the state to coordinate with ICE, as well as legislation to rename a portion of Vietnam Veterans Boulevard in honor of Charlie Kirk. Garrett has focused his congressional campaign on furthering immigration crackdowns and advancing anti-trans legislation — all while pledging unwavering support to Trump. After winning the Republican primary in August, he emphasized putting “America first over a radical woke agenda.” Croley’s campaign emphasizes affordability, accountability and accessibility when it comes to everyday costs, healthcare, voting and veterans’ services. He’s also pushed for transparency from elected officials, public agencies and corporations. Croley supports issues like the legalization of recreational marijuana use and raising the federal minimum wage to $20 per hour. 4TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Southeastern Davidson County, the majority of Rutherford County and all of Cannon, Coffee, Warren, Van Buren, Bledsoe, Sequatchie, Grundy, Marion and Franklin counties. Over in the 4th district — which now stretches to
the edge of Chattanooga — Marion County Republican incumbent U.S. Rep Scott DesJarlais is facing Democrat Victoria Broderick, a tech support professional from Fayetteville. DesJarlais is seeking his ninth term in Congress, aligning himself with traditional conservative values like reducing taxes, securing the border and protecting the Second Amendment. His reelection campaign follows multiple personal scandals throughout his political career, including instances when DesJarlais — a physician — had sexual relationships with multiple patients and pressured at least two former sexual partners to get abortions. Despite this, DesJarlais continues to brand himself as an anti-abortion conservative. Broderick has cited the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as motivation for her political activism, which includes previously serving as chair of the Lincoln County Democratic Party. She’s stated that she is running her campaign on safety, affordability, freedom and equity, citing a range of issues from decriminalizing marijuna to holding AI companies and data centers accountable, reducing gun violence, keeping rural hospitals open and protecting religious liberty. ▼
WILLIAMSON COUNTY’S TWO CONGRESSIONAL RACES
Heated races in the newly redrawn 5th and 9th districts impact a wide swath of Tennessee territory BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS AND EMILY R. WEST TENNESSEE’S NEW CONGRESSIONAL lines have charted an unknown path forward for political candidates this cycle, particularly in Williamson County. Now gerrymandered into the 5th and 9th Congressional Districts, voters will share federal representation in a wide swath of territory, stretching from Memphis to Franklin. 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT The western half of Williamson County, along with all or portions of Maury, Lewis, Hickman, Humphreys, Houston, Stewart, Montgomery, Benton, Henry, Weakley, Obion, Lake, Dyer, Lauderdale, Tipton and Shelby counties. Affordability has been at the center of the 5th Congressional District election since the beginning of this cycle, exacerbated by an unpopular war against Iran that has raised prices of fuel, food and numerous other goods worldwide. Charlie Hatcher is a Williamson County dairy farmer and the state’s former agriculture commissioner. He earned the Republican nomination after upsetting Trump-endorsed incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles in the August primary. In campaign emails, the state GOP has characterized Democratic nominee Chaz Molder, the sitting Columbia mayor, as “masquerading as a conservative” as he works to earn votes in the newly redrawn district.
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Hatcher’s website lists “expanding American energy production, strengthening domestic supply chains, encouraging competition and creating an economy where wages can grow without government driving prices higher.” Molder’s website lists “advocating for policies that lower everyday expenses, such as healthcare, housing and groceries.” But the most striking difference between the two became clear on Oct. 10, when Hatcher stood alongside President Donald Trump at a Clarksville rally. He called for cash-strapped Tennesseans to be patient and have faith. “I know we are facing fierce economic headwinds,” Hatcher said at the rally. “Just give it a little time. We’ll get that taken care of.” He referenced “record diesel prices,” which have impacted the production and distribution of goods across the American economy. “Tennessee families don’t have ‘a little time,’” Molder tells the Scene in a statement. “They’re paying more at the pump today. Farmers are paying more for diesel and fertilizer today, and every truck that hauls groceries into Williamson County is passing that cost along today. ‘Give it a little time’ is what you say when you don’t have a plan, or when you won’t stand up to the people making the decisions. Charlie Hatcher can’t name a single thing he disagrees with the
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
president on, so I’m not surprised his answer is to wait. Mine is to act.” Just two weeks after his primary win, Hatcher publicly — albeit gently — questioned Trump’s move to import tariff-free foreign beef to reduce beef prices for consumers, which has caused public outcry from U.S. ranchers
and farmers. Hatcher also quietly edited his campaign website to remove the phrase “proTrump,” but nevertheless received the president’s endorsement. He also has key support from outgoing Gov. Bill Lee. Hatcher supports the ongoing war in Iran,
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JUSTIN PEARSON echoing GOP talking points that the war will continue to prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons. He told Scene sister publication the Nashville Post that if the U.S. can both ensure a nuclear-free Iran and “prevent them from having a stranglehold on the global oil economy,” there could be “peace in the Middle East, and I think the economy will take off and everything will get better.” (A refrain those who recall the George W. Bush administration should be familiar with.) Molder opposes the war and tells the Scene Congress should vote on the matter, which so far has been waged by the U.S. Department of Defense under order of the president. Molder also says Congress should “reverse the blanket tariffs” imposed by the Trump administration. “Those are decisions Congress can make right now,” Molder says. “Families shouldn’t have to wait on them.” Molder’s supporters include former Gov. Phil Bredesen and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who stumped for Molder in Nashville on Oct. 3. “This is a single-digit race,” Molder said at the event, “and it is improving on a daily basis.” 9TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT The eastern half of Williamson County, along with all or portions of Rutherford, Bedford, Moore, Marshall, Lincoln, Maury, Giles, Lawrence, Wayne, Hardin, McNairy, Hardeman, Fayette and Shelby counties. On a warm October night, state Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) stands in front of a crowd of 20 inside the Masonic Lodge in Shelbyville — in the rural outskirts of the newly redrawn 9th Congressional District. He points to his beige ball cap, which reads “coonskin hat 2.0.” It’s a nod to Tennessee frontiersman Davy Crockett, who previously held a piece of the seat Taylor wants. Taylor tells the Bedford County Republican Party he grew up in a small town before becoming a funeral director. He eventually had a company that bought funeral homes and flower shops before selling off to a private equity firm. Taylor claims his background is more applicable
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
BRENT TAYLOR to a job in Congress than that of his opponent, state Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis). “I know what it’s like to have both sides of the check,” he says to the crowd. “I’ve been in business myself, and it’s about revenues and budget.” Taylor tells the Scene he would like to spend his time making the United States energy-independent, removing red tape for small business owners and cutting what he deems “wasteful spending.” Though the redrawn 9th — formerly a Democratic stronghold — now skews red, Taylor spends the majority of his time in Bedford County echoing the same sentiments he delivered at a rally headlined by Donald Trump in Clarksville on Oct. 10, focusing on Pearson rather than specific ideas he would like to implement if sent to D.C. “The choice is clear in this election: competence over chaos,” Taylor says. “Let me walk you through my opponent. He got on the House floor with a bullhorn and led a protest against gun legislation. He disrupted the House proceedings. A year ago, he was in a committee meeting. Democrat-socialist Justin Pearson got so angry he charged toward Rep. Andrew Farmer, and had to be physically restrained. He disrupted a committee meeting. Recently, he got up from the House floor, and he got nose-tonose with state troopers and called them stupid mother F-ers and narrowly avoided getting arrested.” In 2023, not long after three adults and three children lost their lives in the Covenant School shooting, Pearson was part of what became known as the Tennessee Three, a group of lawmakers who stood on the floor of the state House and protested in favor of gun reform. The legislature expelled Pearson, but he was soon returned to his seat via the Shelby County Commission. He later won reelection. In late 2024, Pearson’s brother died by suicide, which prompted him to take a break from the legislature in early 2025. When Pearson returned, Farmer — a Knoxville Republican — criticized the Memphis Democrat for spending time away
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from the legislative session. The final incident to which Taylor refers occurred in the House gallery during this year’s vote over congressional redistricting. State House Speaker Cameron Sexton removed protesters from the balcony, but Pearson’s other brother, KeShaun, refused to budge. Pearson rushed up, told state troopers to stop touching his brother, and watched as authorities placed KeShaun under arrest. Republicans may consider Pearson a nuisance, but a crowd that recently gathered for a campaign event in Brentwood clearly haven’t found his activities in the legislature to be a hindrance. In fact, they’d like to see more of this kind of resistance from their elected officials. Pearson’s supporters at the Granny White Park event chanted in support of Pearson, who took questions and raised $5,000 on the spot. He called Taylor an “egotistical maniacal person.” But in an interview with the Scene, Pearson hardly mentions his opponent. “Now I’m across 15 different counties, and able to really listen and learn about how systems of injustice are impacting people, whether they’re factory workers, pharmacists, teachers
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES LEAD THE FINANCIAL RACE Redrawn congressional districts have gained national attention with funds from a super PAC that targets Dems BY NICOLLE S. PRAINO
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
THE MOST RECENT campaign finance reports, filed last week, give the first look at candidates’ cash on hand for the general election and provide insight into who is funding the races as they head toward their finish. The Tennessee gubernatorial race is playing out about as expected, with Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Q3 report ending with a balance of more than $3.1 million — significantly higher than Democratic candidate Jerri Green’s Q3 ending balance of $559,538. But Green raised almost $1 million in Q3, her biggest quarter in this race, mostly from individual donors, unions and party support. But unsurprisingly in a deeply conservative state, Blackburn topped that with more than $2 million in contributions this quarter, largely from political action committees. The two independent gubernatorial candidates are running very different races. David Hatley carries the largest balance of any candidate with more than $6.85 million at the end of Q3, but his campaign is self-funded, with outstanding loans of $12 million from himself. Lauren Pinkston has $38,176 on hand, having
or farmers, and that has really been a significant learning curve for me,” Pearson tells the Scene. “But it has made me appreciate and love this state more, and also taught me and showed me what I always knew — that these counties and communities do not have adequate representation in the state House and the state Senate. These communities are being left behind, and the folks who come to the capital to work are responsible for the travesty that I am seeing across District 9.” Pearson and Taylor have no policies in common. Pearson wants to eliminate AI data centers and crack down on the expansion of oil and gas pipelines. Taylor wants to see the U.S. break its reliance on the Middle East for oil. Pearson wants to raise the minimum wage, while Taylor fears the impact that could have on small businesses. Pearson wants Medicaid for all, but Taylor says that will bankrupt the country and cause healthcare access issues nationwide. But both believe they are the best man to represent a congressional district that now sweeps across half the state, including parts or all of 15 very different counties. ▼
raised $149,637 from individuals. Possibly more interesting than who is funding the race to the governor’s mansion is the fundraising for Tennessee’s toss-up congressional districts, which are garnering nationwide attention following the state legislature’s successful gerrymandering efforts. After the districts were redrawn, incumbent 5th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles lost in the Republican primary to former state agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Meanwhile, longtime Democratic 9th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen decided not to seek reelection in his redrawn district. With both incumbents gone, Hatcher faces Democratic candidate and Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder in the 5th, while state Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) faces state Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) for the 9th. The 5th and 9th now split Williamson County but do not include any of Davidson County. Federal Election Commission filings on Oct. 14 show super PAC MAGA Inc. spending more than $100,000 in digital advertising against Democrats in Tennessee races for the first time this year. The PAC spent more than $75,000 on ads against Molder and more than $25,000 on ads
“NOBODY SPENDS MONEY DEFENDING A DISTRICT THEY DREW TO BE SAFE UNLESS THEY’VE SEEN NUMBERS THAT SCARE THEM.” Tucker Karnes, Chaz Molder’s campaign manager
opposing Pearson. “Nobody spends money defending a district they drew to be safe unless they’ve seen numbers that scare them,” says Tucker Karnes, Molder’s campaign manager, in a release. “They’re pulling out of swing seats to prop up Charlie Hatcher in a district the president won by 23 points.” Nashville’s split delegation now consists of the 4th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts, which are all considered safe for Republicans. Longtime 4th Congressional District incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais has more than $522,000 on hand and has raised $635,000 as of his October report. His Democratic challenger, little-known Democrat Victoria Broderick, has just shy of $9,000 on hand, and has raised a total of $80,391 in the race. The 7th Congressional District race sees Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps running to retain the seat he just won last year in a special
election. He holds $308,000 on hand and has raised $739,000 this election cycle. Democratic candidate Darden Copeland has $120,000 on hand and has raised $272,000. The 6th Congressional District is an open race. State Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) has nearly $297,000 on hand, having raised $1.5 million in his first run for U.S. Congress. He’s likely to take the seat formerly held by U.S. Rep. John Rose, who is not seeking reelection after a failed bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Democrat Mike Croley holds about $23,000 and has reported earning more than $68,000 in the race. Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Marquita Bradshaw — who faces incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, to whom she already lost in 2020 — holds about $26,000 and has raised $34,000. Hagerty has raised nearly $13.7 million this cycle, with about $5.3 million cash on hand. ▼
David Hatley >$6.85 million Bill Hagerty $5.3 million Marsha Blackburn >$3.1 million
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THU 13th Annual LIGHT THE LATE NIGHT 8:30 10/22 featuring Charles Esten with special guest Kyndal Inskeep
12:00 FRI WMOT Roots Radio Presents W 10/23 Finally Friday featuring FREE SHO John Ford, Scott Cook & Don Pedigo
Emily West & Friends honoring 8:00 Dolly Parton featuring Katie Kadan, Sarah Potenza, Brandon Jane, Breann Young, Maia Sharp, Shannon LaBrie, Larissia Murphy, Luella, Laura Lamb, Misa Arriaga, Liz Foster McGillis, Kelsey Copeland, Caitlin Evanson, Sara Douga, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Stephanie Chapman, Kelli Belles, Stacey Kelleher, Luke Davids, LJ & More! 12:30 SAT Backstage Nashville! Daytime 10/24 Hit Songwriters Show featuring Mark D. Sanders, Brice Long, Dallas Wilson & Baylee Lynn
5:00
Nashville Jazz Festival with ‘SUPER SAT NOVA’ featuring Jeff Coffin, Bill Evans 10/24 & Keith Carlock + Dara Starr Tucker, The Day Drinkers, Sofia Goodman Septet and Giovanni Rodriguez
5:00
Nashville Jazz Festival featuring SUN 10/25 Kirk Whalum, Rod McGaha, Chester Thompson & David Williford
12:30
MON Bluebird on 3rd featuring Brinley Addington, Austin Jenckes & Dustin 10/26 Christensen with Tai Shan + Melissa Erin
8:00
The Time Jumpers
6:30
7:30
Thanks to everyone who voted in this year’s Best of Nashville!
Jeffrey Steele, Bridgette Tatum, WED Chuck Cannon and Mark Trussell : 10/28 Strings and Stories - A Songwriters Night benefitting The Brentwood Family YMCA Casey’s Countdown
THU
10/29
FEATURED
11/12
1/29
11/27
11/10 CADILLAC SKY
895 ALIVE PRESENTS TEDDY THOMPSON WITH JON BYRD
12/3 THE CLEVERLYS
JOSEPH WOOTEN & FAMILY!
10/30 DAVID GARFIELD... “LA + NYC + NASHVILLE” 10/31 RUBIKS GROOVE HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA! 11/1 BUDDY MILLER WITH ADAM WRIGHT 11/3 CATPHISH WITH TIN ROOF CATS 11/4 THE NICEST NIGHT IN NASHVILLE 11/5 CJ SOLAR & THE OLD SOULS 11/6 RAY WYLIE HUBBARD SOLD OUT!
11/7 RAY WYLIE HUBBARD SOLD OUT! 11/8 895 ALIVE PRESENTS THE PO’ RAMBLIN’ BOYS WITH TENNESSEE WOODPILE 11/11 SCOTT MULVAHILL 11/11 THE CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT BAND 11/12 JONELL MOSSER & FRIENDS 11/13 THE EAGLEMANIACS
KURT STEVENS + JAMES T. SLATER
12/9 THE LOW DARTS
COMING SOON 11/14 THE LONG PLAYERS PERFORM CAT STEVENS “TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN” 11/15 895 ALIVE PRESENTS YARN WITH CORY GRINDER AND THE PLAYBOYS 11/17 WE ARE THE MERLE: CELEBRATING THE MUSIC OF MERLE HAGGARD 11/19 MATT WARREN & THE GOODFOOT WITH WYATT PIKE
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
Carter Vintage Guitars
606 eighth ave South Suite 201 nashville, TN
CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO
THE U.S. WOMEN’S NATIONAL RUGBY TEAM COMPLETES A TRY
WILLIAM EDMONDSON ARTS AND CULTURE FESTIVAL PAGE 24
SATURDAY, OCT. 24 [IN THE SCRUM]
USA RUGBY INTERNATIONAL SERIES
Nashville continues to make its case as a rugby town. After hosting the inaugural Music City Rugby Showdown in April, Geodis Park will now welcome Team USA’s rugby squads for a doubleheader on Saturday. The USA Rugby International Series will begin with a matchup between the U.S. women and Italy at 3:15 p.m., followed by an outing between the U.S. men and Australia at approximately 6 p.m. “Nashville as a city is lovely,” Team USA veteran Rachel Ehrecke tells the Scene. “I think women’s sports in general is having a lot of momentum, and rugby is right there with it. We saw after the previous Olympics, there was a huge surge in not only the fan base but people that wanted to play. I work with youth sports in Colorado, and the sign-ups exploded with people … who wanted to play this sport, and we had so many more fans coming out to games too, so I just see that continuing to grow as people fall in love with the sport.” Saturday’s doubleheader will be just the second-ever non-soccer sporting event at Geodis. LOGAN BUTTS 3:15 AND 6 P.M. AT GEODIS PARK 501 BENTON AVE.
SPOOKY MARKET FOR THE RECENTLY DECEASED PAGE 29
THURSDAY / 10.22 FILM
SPORTS
PHOTO COURTESY OF USA RUGBY
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
[SHIVER ME TIMBERS]
SHOCKTOBER: THE FOG
If there’s ever been a director who captures the spirit of Halloween, it’s John Carpenter. No, not just because he made a very notable movie with that holiday in its title, but also because he can create the spookiest yet coziest horror movies you’ll ever see. The Fog is a tale that feels right out of a campfire story — which is exactly how the narrative is framed. Released in 1980, it’s a classic ghost story through and through, about a small town smothered by an eerie fog that contains a presence you could also
TIRRC VOTES DARE-OKE PARTY AND FUNDRAISER PAGE 30
find in an episode of Scooby-Doo: ghost pirates. Carpenter’s penchant for atmosphere helps him create iconic and terrifying images, such as the baleful buccaneers looming over a priest in a church, or a golden cross that shines against the encroaching mist. Every scary seaside tale also needs a lighthouse, and there’s a sequence involving Adrienne Barbeau’s character that’ll be sure to send shivers down your spine. It’s a beautifully macabre picture, and one you won’t want to miss on the big screen with its new 4K restoration. It’s showing at the Belcourt for the theater’s Shocktober series. IAN MATTHEWS 2:10 AND 9:50 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
Be Moved. Be Amazed. BE. HERE.
NashvilleSymphony.org
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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THE HAPPENING HIP HOP CYPHER $10 WED 5PM WRITERS @ THE WATER OPEN MIC 2.7 27TH AVE. N OPEN WED.-SUN. 11AM-LATE NIGHT 115
10.28 9pm
115 27TH AVE N. OPEN WED - SUN 11AM - LATE NIGHT
WHAT IS WHAT ?? ??
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A JOY A
FACTORY FACTORY
PIANO KARAOKE
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EAST NASHVILLE
7 P.M. AT THE CAVERNS 555 CHARLIE ROBERTS ROAD, PELHAM
FRIDAY / 10.23 [REALITY IS JUST A GAME]
SHOCKTOBER: EXISTENZ
What if your game console was a semisentient flesh machine that you had to insert into an orifice connected to your spinal cord? That’s the brave question David Cronenberg — master of body horror — tackles in Existenz. This mind-bending little film feels like Cronenberg fully embracing his wackiest tendencies. Odd names abound, as with Jude Law’s timid Pikul (pronounced pie-cull, not pickle), the stilted dialogue is almost Lanthimos-paced, and it features one of the coolest weapons in a film: a gun made entirely of bones. Hell, it even shoots human teeth. Like many of Cronenberg’s tales, this explores the limits of the human body and our associations with it. At the same time, you can totally roll with this as a trippy, gross ride through layers of reality. Seriously, if you thought Inception had dreams within dreams, wait till you get a load of what Existenz is pulling. If at this point you aren’t sold, let me just add that there’s a gas station attendant played with perfect weirdo energy by Willem Dafoe, whose apt character name is simply Gas. How wonderful. See it at the Belcourt as a part of the Shocktober series. IAN MATTHEWS
6 AND 10 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
MURDER OF CROWS: GHOST STORIES
Asia Pyron and PYDANCE are back and ready to welcome the Halloween season with Murder of Crows: Ghost Stories. Presented in partnership with Bubblegum Theater Company, this immersive murder mystery experience “invites audiences to uncover the ghostly secrets lurking within the Darkhorse Theater.” Local dance and theater lovers may remember the original Murder of Crows, which first premiered at the Welcome to 1979 recording studio as part of the 2024 Kindling Arts Festival. As with that thoroughly engaging piece, this edition is set to music from the French jazz-funk album Troupeau Bleu by Cortex. And while the storyline is quite different from the original, Ghost Stories captures much of the same dark humor and movement-driven character dialogue. Drawing from iconic mystery and horror motifs — think Alfred Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone and American Horror Story — Ghost Stories blends contemporary dance, physical theater and immersive storytelling into one haunting theatrical experience. Audiences will move about the theater alongside a restless group of ghosts, “searching for answers about how they died — and why they remain trapped within its walls.” The cast includes a number of familiar faces, including Porter Colt, Spencer Grady, McKay House, Emma Morrison and Saùl Rodriguez. AMY STUMPFL
OCT. 23-24 AT THE DARKHORSE THEATER 4610 CHARLOTTE AVE.
SATURDAY / 10.24 [HOUSE PARTY]
WILLIAM EDMONDSON ARTS AND CULTURE FESTIVAL
The fifth annual William Edmondson Arts and Culture Festival honors an artist who not nearly enough Nashvillians even know existed, takes place in the yard of the artist’s long-gone house, and vibes like the coolest family reunion you’ve ever been to — even if you don’t know most of the people there. The food is good. The music is fun to dance to. The booths are full of interesting arts and crafts. And it still feels like a neighborhood event. This can’t last. Everything cool in Nashville eventually becomes too crowded
to be any fun. But for now, it’s still a lovely way to spend a day honoring Edmondson — an undersung sculptor who was born to formerly enslaved people and became one of Nashville’s artistic greats — while supporting contemporary local artists and craftspeople. BETSY PHILLIPS 10 A.M. AT WILLIAM EDMONDSON HOMESITE PARK & GARDENS 1450 14TH AVE. S.
FILM
THEATER
[CROW CHOREOGRAPHY]
[A NAKED AMERICAN MAN STOLE MY BALLOONS]
SHOCKTOBER: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
As the Belcourt will dissect the stateside horrorcomedy genre with its “Who’s Laughing Now?!” seminar on Saturday morning, they’ll also screen writer-director John Landis’ freaky, funny frightfest An American Werewolf in London later that evening. Fresh off helming the anarchic smash comedies National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers, Landis had enough pull in the biz to dust off the shelved script for this 1981 horror-comedy mashup, in which former Dr. Pepper pitchman David Naughton plays a U.S.-born grad student whose grisly run-in with a lycanthrope leads to him turning ravenous during full moons and wreaking havoc in jolly ol’ England. Landis properly brought the scares, working with makeup-effects whiz Rick Baker to create some gnarly shit that would land Baker the first-ever Oscar for Best Makeup. But it’s the bizarrely comic moments — like Naughton’s cursed Yankee at a porn theater, watching a laughably cheesy/sleazy skin flick with his surprisingly polite, walking-dead victims (they may be dead, but they’re still British!) — that make it one of the most memorably off-kilter monster movies made. CRAIG D. LINDSEY 6 AND 10 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
ART
SUN 4PM JAY PATTEN BAND FREE 2.4 27TH 5pm AT -THE 115 AVE N.WRITERS OPEN WED SUNWATER 11AM -FREE! LATE NIGHT WED
STEPHEN TRAGESER
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
FESTIVAL
MUSIC
2.2
FRI 5pm JABBERWACKERS SHUR AT 8pm 4PM KEVIN W FREE (ROCKNROLL 10.23 T 6PM WFUN HITEHOUSE!!! AOLF NIMALS FREE DJ) FREE! 2.3 9PM CROCTOPUSS, PUMP ACTION 2.1 POPLAR CREEK SAT 4:30pm& DEAD HORSE RIDERS 6PM WWARREN HITE ANIMALS FREE FRI 9pm 10.24 RECORD RELEASE! SUN 4PM JAY 2.2 PATTENBYROM’S BAND FREE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND MEMBERS 2.4 OF ALTERED STATESMAN $10 SAT 4PM KEVIN WOLF FREE 2.3 WED 95PMPMCW RITERS @ ,THE WATER OPEN MIC ROCTOPUSS PUMP ACTION 2pm TOMMY WOMACK SUN 2.7 & P OPLAR C REEK SPRINGWATER SIT IN 10.25 5pm
THE RESIDENTS: ESKIMO LIVE
For more than half a century, fandom of The Residents has been a kind of not-so-secret handshake among folks who appreciate unfettered creativity turned up to the max with the knob ripped off. You also get an artistic lampoon of the dreck and bloat in mainstream culture that deftly blends high concept with earthy humor, with results that are always weird, sometimes extreme and never the same twice. In the early 1980s, the anonymous-by-choice ensemble began a tradition of touring floridly out-there happenings with fascinatingly bizarre and complex sets, costumes, movement and multimedia. (Watch the documentary Theory of Obscurity for the deep backstory, starting with their origins as Southern transplants learning how to make art in the post-hippie California of the early 1970s.) They’re making their debut in Middle Tennessee in the most natural place — the underground concert hall at The Caverns — and they’re performing a newly conceived stage show for their 1979 album Eskimo. The record, consisting mostly of electronic soundscapes and unnerving chants, is a companion to an overthe-top absurd faux ethnographic study of Inuit culture in the liner notes. The goal is to skewer those who like to say (or think) they understand cultures they clearly do not and cause a lot of harm in the process. Rushadicus the Cello Goblin will set the mood with an opening performance.
FILM
THUR 6PM WHITE ANIMALS FREE 9pm BLIND ADAM & THE FEDERAL LEAGUE, 2.1 THU MIDDLE OUT, THE CATASTROPHES, 10.22 KIDSFREE $10 HITE ANIMALS FRI 6PM WGRAVEYARD
[I KNOW OBSCURITY WHEN I SEE IT]
[I AM BECAUSE WE ARE]
10TH ANNUAL NORTH NASHVILLE CULTURE CRAWL
This weekend, the North Nashville Arts Coalition marks a decade of celebrating Black creativity in the 37208 corridor with its biggest Culture Crawl yet. This notable anniversary crawl is built around the Ubuntu phrase “I am because we are,” and the 10th annual event brings curated art exhibitions, live music, historical programming and community happenings to
ACOUSTIC STAGE
600s
Presented by
PUBLIC WIFI ACCESS
400s
MAP LEGEND FIRST AID INFORMATION
COSTUME CONTESTS Presented by JACKSON® Don’t forget to come to PumpkinFest dressed to impress! Enter our Costume Contest to show everyone your creative flair or outfit your four legged friends and enter them in our Pet Costume Contest! *Line-up begins at 12PM for humans, and 3:30 PM for pets.
RESTROOMS SHUTTLE STOP ATMS
KIDZONE Presented by HOPE UC Looking for endless fun at PumpkinFest? Look no further than KidZone! With exciting games, creative crafts, and engaging activities, KidZone is the ultimate destination for your little adventurers. *Located in the Landmark Booksellers Parking Lot.
MAIN STAGE Presented by NISSAN You can’t have PumpkinFest without MAIN STAGE! Rock on over to the Square to see a variety of bands, acts, and performances take center stage.
ACOUSTIC STAGE Presented by CORCORAN REVERIE There’s plenty of great music awaiting you at PumpkinFests’s Acoustic Stage!! You’re not going to want to miss out on this year’s incredibly talented lineup of performers on the corner of 4th and Main!
ROAD SHOW STAGE Presented by REDBIRD REAL ESTATE You won’t want to miss the talent lined up for this stage, because it’s on a TRUCK! Catch live performances rolling at the corner of 2nd and Main.
FEARFEST Presented by The Franklin Theatre Stop by for FearFest, the Theatre’s annual Halloween movie marathon, running all weekend long! Film screenings are ticketed, but restrooms and concessions are open to all PumpkinFest guests.
JOIN THE SCARECROW CRAWL Enjoy discounts and be entered in a raffle to win a family movie 4-pack (4 movie vouchers, 4 popcorn vouchers, and 4 soda vouchers) at The Franklin Theatre! One raffle winner will be chosen for each day of the festival. Grab a passport and follow the Scarecrow Crawl to find the unique Scarecrow at each destination and write its code on your passport to enter! • Elle Park • Hollie Ray Boutique • Kilwin’s Franklin • The Franklin Butchery • Visit Franklin Visitor Center • Shuff’s Music
• Savory Spice • Heart and Hands • The Franklin Theatre • Rooted from Yarrow Acres • Tweeds Custom Suits • Franklin Road Apparel
Passports available at the HF tent on the Square or at the Shuttle Stop entrance.
FOOD VENDORS F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11
Flour and Forge Smokey Dawggs Gourmet Hot Dog Co. Cousins Maine Lobster Salsa Franklin Taco This Turkey Here Ground Food Truck Bullbourne Bison Palmare LoneStar Daughters Cafe ARRIVAL Coffee Lolly Gourmet Pops
F12 The Franklin Butchery F13 The Street Food Connection F14 Scoop de Ville F15 Peace Love Quesadillas F16 POSH Privy Restroom Trailer F17 Hogwood BBQ F18 40 Below F19 Fox Fudge F20 Whitney’s Cookies AA 1 Tristar Tap Truck AA 2 Chillz on Wheelz
5TH
Autumn Alley is back with a full block of fall fun on Main Street! Between the square and 4th Avenue, watch local artists compete in a live pumpkin painting contest hosted by the Williamson County Arts Council, then cast your vote for the winners! You’ll also find the Sister Cities Great Pumpkin, the Pumpkin Tree, the Boy Scouts, photo ops, free games, face painting, and more.
500s
AUTUMN ALLEY Presented by PUBLIX
A
4TH
SPECIAL ACTIVITY AREAS
Scan the QR code above for free public wifi access while at our festival! Public Wifi is provided by our Connectivity Partner, United Communications.
SCARECROW CRAWL
BOOTH & PARTNER DIRECTORY VENDOR KEY * *** PS AA KZ
Double Booth Triple Booth Public Square Autumn Alley KidZone
AA3 Boy Scout, AA4 Deer Run Camps & Retreats AA5 Fantasy Face Artistry AA6 Arts Council of Williamson County 101 Alani Nu 102 Destin Fine Woodworking 103* Dakota TJ's 105* Jason Stoddart Photography 107* Music City Made 109* North Fork Mercantile 111 Cheiman Tea 112 Gorgeous Chaos Designs 113 Maxxdoggtoyz 114 Brush, Quill and Monsters 115 chickadee co. 116 Designs by Mia Lauren 117 EVOriginals 118 MADWAG 119* Landmark Booksellers 121 Nashville Opera 124 Bethany Christian ServicesTFC Smyrna-TN 125a Hollie Ray 125b Elle Park 126 Robert Mayo 127 PIECES PAST 128 Hightower Crafts 129 Andrea Cropper Art 130 Bailey & Daisy Series 131 ArtworksbyKim 132 Fleur de Lis Farm TN 133 Frosty Fryed TN 134 Selah Publications 135 The Cozy Cottage Co. 136 The Memphis Maker 137 Lemon Zesty 138 Milton Maison 139 St. Philip the Apostle
140 Wyndi J's Custom 141* Swinford Designs 143* Num Num's Mountain 145* Dixie Pottery 147* Britts Leather Co. 201 Twine Graphics 202* Shiver 'N Sweat Woodworks 204* Southern Bales - Art by Allie's Studio 206 Authors Circle Mid TN 207 Soul Society Beauty and Boutique 208 Candylane Jewelry 209 Toodlebug’s 210 Good Boy Biscuit Co. 211 Fabled Raven 212 Walden Farmacy 213 Jamie’s Country Kitchen 214 Creative Clay Creations 215* The Oak Shed 217 Heart & Hustle Paper Crafts 218 Great Thou Art 219 The Pearled Rose 220 Pottery Art by Jana Rohlickova 221 Jewel Hippie 222 Pedego Franklin Electric Bikes 223* Simply Amazing Apples 225 City of Franklin | Water Management 226 Nana's Workshop 227 Southern Edge Wood Design 228 Crew of 5 229 FLU KISSES 230 Braxton's Books & Boards 231 HAYDS 232 Knox Handmade Toys 233 Ginger and Minx 234 Fire Light Creative Services and Art with Dr. A. 235 Band In My Hand 236 Bake to Belong 237* Nicholas Ricaurte 239 Amp Lamps 240 Keepsakes and Flowers 241* Fabulina Designs 243 Leaf Filter 401 Southern Grace / SkinTheoryRx 402 Heylee b
403 sanctuaire 404 Palmer Kennedy 405 crickets & clovers 406* Bearded Bee Works, 408 MP Studio 409 Rooted from Yarrow Acres 410* Little Boo-tique 412 Tom Beckbe 413 Cowboy Science 414 Flying Cow Tallow 415* McCrearys Irish Pub and Eatery 417 Stable Reserve 418* Princess and Papa 420 SEWphisticated Styles 421 Southern Clay by Ejide 422 The Diggingest Girl 423 The Candler Maker 424 The Heirloom Shop 425 Dan Powell Art 426 Welded Permanent Jewelry 427 Vinnie Louise Franklin 428 WILDER 429 Port Royal Woodworks 430* The Olive Branch Candle Co. 432 Kilwins Franklin 433 JONDIE 434 Emily Combs Art 435 Philanthropy 436 Craig’s Wood Art 437 Friends of Williamson County Animal Center 438* [PICKLES] 440 Khatya's Ceramics 441 Redbird Realty 442 Franklin Theatre 443 Franklin Pride TN 444 Pottery by Wes 445* Binks Outfitters 447 Cinder Bella Studios 448 Finnleys 501 Puckett's Restaurant 502* Nashville Heritage 504 Law Enforcement Assistance Partnership (LEAP) 505 2 Nerds and a Dog 506 Action Minifigures 507 So Loved / So Love 508 Both Hands on the Wheel
600s
Presented by
KIDONE
Presented By
Food Vendors
BEER GARDEN
Foo dV s dor en
PS 1-30
200s
100s SHUTTLE STOP
PS
4
700s
500s
7-
39
AUTUMN ALLEY
ROAD SHOW STAGE STAG ST
MAIN STAGE
1ST
2ND
3RD
4TH
Presented by
STAGE SCHEDULE 509 510 511 513 514 515 516 517 518 519*
Speckled Rabbit Woodworks Glitter and Toadstools Christian Prayer Candles Campbell Craft Woodwork Vintage Again Arts Christina Alford Sutton and Suede Hat Co. Silver Elevations Youth VIllages Star Mountain Soap Company 521 Modern Bronze 522 Hudson River Inlay 523 Brazier Moon 524 Fable Beard Co. 601 Corcoran Reverie 602* WW Farms Lavender Fields 604* In The Potters Hand 606 Hey Fancy Plants 608 Beyond Baubles & Trinkets 609 Fiddle & Flame Candle Co. 610 J R Whitsett Woodworks 611 Mimi & Dottie 701 Lux Candle Co. 702 Ramblin Bee 703 Hollywoof Styles 704 Circle K Art 705 Nancy Crochet Flowers 706 Bull Boards 707* Jennifer Lynn Crafts 709 Campana Leather 710 Shepherd Pottery and Art 711 Half Pint Tie Dye 712 Buff and Huck Face Painter Fantasy Face Artistry PS1 Williamson Health PS 2 Mix 92.9 PS 3 96.3 JACK FM PS 4 Passanante's Home Foods PS 5 Cosmetics Boutique PS 6 Braswell & Son PS 7*** Nissan PS 10 City of Franklin | Parking Study PS 11 Big Blue Marble Academy PS 12 Sports Illustrated Resorts PS 13 Trugreen PS 14 Dog Training Elite PS 15* Publix
PS 17 Power Home Remodeling PS 18 Academy of Westhaven PS 20 Nashville Scene, Williamson Scene PS 21 Sanctuary Functional Medicine PS 22* Magnolia PS 24* Xfinity PS 26 Nashville Predators PS 27 Grimmett Law Firm PS 28 Craft Body Scans PS 29* Williamson Health PS 31 Ace Kettle Corn PS 32 Bavarian Bierhaus PS 33 Woolson Concessions PS 34 Buffalo Texas Sausage PS 35 The Steel Pony PS 36 Sweethaven PS 37 Ellie’s Old Fashioned Doughnuts PS 38 Southeast Christian Church PS 39 City of Franklin | Sanitation PS 40 Great Day Improvements PS 41 Tennessee Titans PS 42 Heritage Foundation of Williamson County PS 43 Williamson Herald, Southern Exposure PS 44 United Communications KZ Hope UC Costume Jackson Insurance AA Tristar Tap Truck
OCT.
24
SATURDAY
9:45 Opening Remarks
MAIN STAGE presented by
10:00–10:30 Southern Irish Dance 10:35–11:05 Rocky Top Revue 11:15–11:45 NS Dance Academy 11:55–12:25 WCPR Rhythm & Spirits 12:30–2:00 People Costume Contest presented by Jackson 2:20–3:05 School of Rock 3:10–4:00 Mark Anthony Ensemble
OCT.
25
SUNDAY
11:10–11:40 Ann Carroll School of Dance 11:50–12:20 Histown Dance and Performing Arts 12:40–1:10 Nashville Opera 1:40–2:20 School of Rock 2:30–3:00 Music City Strings 3:20–3:50 Musicville 4:15PM–5:00 Brandon Scott
4:00–4:45 Pet Costume Contest presented by Jackson 5:10–5:45 Brandon Scott
OCT.
ACOUSTIC STAGE presented by
24
SATURDAY
OCT.
25
SUNDAY
10:30–11:30 Ella Gracen
11:30–12:30 Aftyn
11:40–12:40 Taylor Tuke
12:40–1:40 Sarah Grace Manning
12:50–1:50 Danny Nocito
1:50–2:50 Hiwassee Bend
2:00–3:00 Ashley Carson
3:00–4:00 Lindsey Liebro
3:10–4:10 Patrick McCormic
4:10–5:00 Rayshard
4:20–5:20 Danza Azteca Quetzalli
Scan the QR code to participate in our Community Survey
ROAD SHOW STAGE presented by
OCT.
24
SATURDAY
OCT.
25
SUNDAY
10:30–11:30 David Rondoni
11:30–12:30 Patrick McCormic
12:50–1:50 Ashley Carson
12:40–1:40 Jake Martini
2:00–3:00 South Margin
1:50–2:50 Danny Nocito
3:10–4:10 Rayshard
3:00–4:00 Lilia & Bruno
4:20–5:20 Danza Azteca Quetzalli
4:10–5:00 Taylor Tuke
A FULL WEEKEND OF AUTUMN MAGIC!
AREA SPONSORS MAIN STAGE
ACOUSTIC STAGE
KID ZONE
AUTUMN ALLEY
COSTUME CONTEST
PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
ROAD SHOW STAGE
BEER GARDEN
PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
CONNECTIVITY PARTNER
EMS PARTNER PRESENTED BY
PRESENTED BY
MAJOR SPONSORS
MEDIA SPONSORS
10/26 Halloween Party Extravaganza 10/29 FearFest: Nope 10/30 FearFest: Rocky Horror Picture Show 10/30 FearFest: Child’s Play
10/31 10/31 10/31 10/31 10/31 11/6
FearFest: Coco FearFest: Beetlejuice FearFest: Obsession FearFest: Halloween FearFest: Psycho Glenn Miller Orchestra
FRANKLINPUMPKINFEST.COM
MARKET
3-9 P.M. ALONG THE JEFFERSON STREET CORRIDOR [IT’S SHOWTIME!]
SPOOKY MARKET FOR THE RECENTLY DECEASED
Calling all those who are strange and unusual: The Spooky Market for the Recently Deceased will be hosted by Shadowed Pages Mobile Bookshop. The Beetlejuice-themed market will feature a selection of spooky treats and bookish goodies, right in time for Halloween. Shadowed Pages will have a curated set of spooky book titles inside the truck. Joining them with more bookish goods will be Mad Poppy Reads and Sarah Sundays, who specializes in book charms. Skull and Ash has created a special tattoo flash sheet for the event, with designs ranging from ghosts and cauldrons to a few literary references. Other spooky vendors include Reliquary Perfume — a Southern Gothic fragrance house that features vegan and crueltyfree scents — and White Witch Alchemy, which will be on hand to do live tarot readings. Plenty of other local vendors will be on hand, making this market a required stop during this spooky season. The event is free, but an RSVP is required, so head to @shadowedpagesbookshop on Instagram to snag a spot. TINA DOMINGUEZ NOON AT ROSEMARY & BEAUTY QUEEN 1102 FOREST AVE.
MUSIC
MIKE DELEVANTE
UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE MUSEUM’S CMA THEATER OCTOBER 27
JAKE SHIMABUKURO
WITH SPECIAL GUEST SAM BUSH
OCTOBER 28
TRIBUTE TO THE STANLEY BROTHERS
WHERE THE SOUL NEVER DIES: AN 80TH ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE TO THE STANLEY BROTHERS NOVEMBER 1
BRUCE COCKBURN
WITH SPECIAL GUEST LIVINGSTON TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 13
THE JAYHAWKS
SANCTUARY PARK TOUR: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF THE JAYHAWKS NOVEMBER 14
SHAUN CASSIDY
[DEPTH OF FIELD]
UNWRAPPED: SONGS & STORIES FOR THE HOLIDAYS
DJ SHADOW
DJ Shadow, who is also known as Josh Davis, is performing his 1996 debut album Endtroducing..... on his current tour, which marks the 30th anniversary of the release of a great album. Endtroducing takes all the varied music Davis was listening to as a crate digger and sonic innovator and turns it to the purpose of an inward vision. On an album in which samples by Tangerine Dream, Meredith Monk and — in one of the many conceptual coups on the record — Nashville songwriter and singer Dennis Linde coexist along with forgotten ’60s comedian Murray Roman, all music becomes valuable. Endtroducing isn’t dry or academic — Shadow empathizes with his often beleaguered fellow Americans, as he does
NOVEMBER 21
AJ GHENT
AJ GHENT & HIS SINGING GUITAR
DECEMBER 6
DAN TYMINSKI BAND
DECEMBER 11
ERIC BENÉT YOU DO TOUR
TICKETS ON SALE NOW DJ SHADOW
PHOTO: KOURY ANGELO
JOE NOLAN
[WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS]
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Mike Delevante, who will perform Saturday night at Brown’s Diner, is best known as one-half of the awardwinning Americana duo The Delevantes. But in 2025, he stepped outside the group to record and release his debut solo album, the acclaimed September Days. “September Days was a lot about my experiences growing up,” he tells the Scene. “I just started to tell stories about people I grew up with.” Sonically, the album harkens back to the emergence of folk rock in the mid-’60s, mining the hooky, jangly sounds of 1965 on the 13 tracks produced by Joe Pisapia. Guitarist Pisapia will accompany Delevante on Saturday evening, along with guitarist John Jackson, bassist Garry Tallent of E Street Band fame and drummer Jamie Dick. During the first part of the show, Delevante will perform September Days in its entirety as well as a few covers by artists such as John Lennon, George Harrison and Bob Dylan. During the second part of the evening, Delevante and the band will be joined by his brother Bob Delevante. “I’ll do a set, and then Bob will come up with me, and we’ll do a bunch of Delevantes songs,” he says. David Newbould will open the show with an acoustic set. DARYL SANDERS 7 P.M. AT BROWN’S DINER 2102 BLAIR BLVD.
MUSIC
the Jefferson Street neighborhood. The crawl is anchored by a one-night-only group exhibition at Kossie Gardner Park. The show is curated by Stephen Watts, and it features the work of student artists from North Nashville schools including John Early Middle School, Pearl-Cohn High School and Isaiah T. Creswell Middle School of the Arts. Woodcuts Gallery is hosting a companion show curated by local artist Marteja Bailey that runs through Oct. 31, alongside an exclusive artist talk at 6 p.m. Admission is free, and shuttle service is provided. Find out about all the live music, art and events at the crawl at northnashvillearts.com/culture-crawl-2026.
Museum members receive exclusive pre-sale opportunities for CMA Theater concerts. Learn more at CountryMusicHallofFame.org/Membership.
BOOKED BY @NATIONALSHOWS2 • NATIONALSHOWS2.COM
The CMA Theater is a property of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
MKTG_Scene_1:2Page_PrintAd_Rolling_10.22.26.indd 1
224 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY S • NASHVILLE, TN CMATHEATER.COM • @CMATHEATER
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10/15/26 10:11 AM
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
917 Woodland Street Nashville, TN 37206 | thebasementnashville.com basementeast thebasementeast thebasementeast
10/29 8/25
10/30
donny BENÉT
10/31
the bends
Early show! rock and roll playhouse: halloween spectacular for kids
w/ otnes
w/ wanderbout
blade rave
11/1 southern underground pro wrestling
10/31
2/6 & 2/7
just announced
saxsquatch
Upcoming shows treasures & sicksense
nov 12 devon gilfillian w/ alex lambert nov 14 hiss golden messenger w/ sam amidon nov 15 red leather w/ the romance nov 16 bryan andrews w/ lou ridley nov 17 protomartyr w/ j.r.c.g nov 18 fruit bats w/ sarah klang nov 19 king buffalo w/ l.a. witch nov 20 the last waltz tribute nov 21 alyssa grace Sold out! nov 22 ethan regan w/ lily kershaw low tickets! nov 27 guilty pleasures 11th annual post thanksgiving bash nov 28 guilty pleasures 11th annual post thanksgiving bash dec 2 katie pruitt w/ anthony da costa & baerd dec 4 the wldlfe w/ landon conrath low tickets! dec 5 the emo night tour
MUSIC
Stop by Lowbar located underneath the basement east for drinks, pool, darts, karaoke and more! Open 5pm-late
with Roman, who gets locked up in Long Beach for unpaid parking tickets. The spoken-word fragments work in tandem with music that can be a version of fusion jazz, like “Changeling,” or a kind of futuristic rock, as on “The Number Song.” Like filmmaker Bill Morrison’s 2002 movie Decasia, which employed deteriorating film, Endtroducing uses decomposition as a unifying force, but the album doesn’t make any case for negativity. Shadow achieves a compositional depth throughout the album that rewards concentration, and it’s also kinetic and funny — an uncanny masterpiece. EDD HURT 8 P.M. AT MARATHON MUSIC WORKS 1402 CLINTON ST.
o
1604 8th Ave S Nashville, TN 37203 | thebasementnashville.com thebasementnash thebasementnash thebasementnash
10/29
10/30
Colin miller & styrofoam winos
john francis o'mara
w/ mando saenz & suzie brown
Upcoming shows oct 22 bella mccormick w/ a.r. simmons [7pm] oct 22 connor clark & blue rhythm revival w/ june & giles [8:30pm]
oct 23 jp harris w/ kassi valazza [9pm] oct 24 noah levine [7pm] oct 24 dylan leblanc w/ Jaimee Harris [9pm] oct 25 kaleb scherer & the fender benders w/ lucille klement [7pm]
oct 25 edm takeover! ft. vaas, obee, ahmadeus [9pm]
oct 28 neptune flowers [7pm] oct 29 colin miller & styrofoam winos [7pm] oct 29 carver jones [9pm] oct 30 john francis o'mara w/ mando saenz & suzie brown [9pm]
nov 1 reed turchi w/ aj fullerton & tim carman [7pm] nov 2 the angles w/ the citrus brothers [7pm] nov 2 kings of leon tribute night w/ nicholas collins & friends [9pm] Sold out!
Don't miss new faces Night every tuesday at 7pm!
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
[THE SWING’S THE THING]
NASHVILLE JAZZ FESTIVAL
3rd and Lindsley will be jumping this Saturday and Sunday, when it plays host to the second annual Nashville Jazz Festival. The festival is the brainchild of saxophonist Jeff Coffin, who is probably best known as a member of the Dave Matthews Band. “A number of years ago, I bought the URLs for Nashville Jazz Fest and Nashville Jazz Festival,” Coffin recalls. “I had spoken to a number of folks, and I knew that I couldn’t do it alone.” The idea for the festival came to fruition in 2025 after he joined forces with Nashville Jazz Workshop, which the event benefits. Coffin gives a lot of credit to NJW’s former executive director David Rodgers. “It was really because of David’s leadership that we were able to put something together that was what this has become and what it will become,” he says. “In my opinion, some of the greatest musicians on the planet are going to be at this [year’s festival].” Super Nova, Coffin’s jazz-fusion side project with legendary sax man Bill Evans and drummer Keith Carlock
(Steely Dan, Toto), will headline Saturday’s bill that also includes Giovanni Rodriguez and Dara Starr Tucker. Saxophonist Kirk Whalum headlines Sunday’s lineup, which will also feature drummer Chester Thompson (Weather Report, Frank Zappa) and trumpeter Rod McGaha. The complete festival lineup is available at nashvillejazzfest.com. DARYL SANDERS OCT. 24-25 AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S.
SUNDAY / 10.25 COMMUNITY
above snakes
OCT 27 PORCH LIGHT w/ HOTEL FICTION OCT 29 Donny BENÉT w/ OTNES OCT 30 THE BENDS w/ wanderbout low tickets! oct 31 Early show! rock and roll playhouse: halloween spectacular for kids oct 31 blade rave nov 1 southern underground pro wrestling nov 2 maddie zahm w/ semler nov 3 the olllam w/ rachael davis nov 5 deer tick w/ dug nov 6 sawyer hill w/ never ending fall nov 7 havok w/ hellripper, slackjaw, & xoth nov 8 dan deacon w/ terror pigeon
nov 11 mushroomhead / fear factory w/ nine
[PAY TO PLAY]
TIRRC VOTES DARE-OKE PARTY AND FUNDRAISER
TIRRC Votes, the election-focused wing of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, is inviting everyone to sing their hearts out and raise money for their canvassing efforts. Or pay to avoid going onstage. The “dare-oke” event lets you make a donation to dare someone to go and sing a song, and if they get stage fright, they’ll have to match the donation to opt out. The Madison event includes drinks and a buffet of Filipino food from Maemax Market. Costumes encouraged. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ 4 P.M. AT MAEMAX 2106 GALLATIN PIKE N., MADISON
TUESDAY / 10.27 MUSIC
oct 22 chasing abbey w/ abby k oct 23 Michigander w/ chapel & noah torralba oct 24 My so-called band: 90s Halloween! oct 25 edgehill w/ palmer & meadowglade oct 26 wednesday 13 w/ dead on a sunday &
[AND JUSTICE FOR ALL]
JUSTICE JAM
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready is bringing a multi-genre show to Cannery Hall Mainstage as part of a high-profile effort to free innocent
FILM
[I WAS ALWAYS ALONE]
SHOCKTOBER: PULSE
PHOTO COURTESY OF ZANIES
The J-horror era of the late ’90s/early Aughts was such a gotdamn blur. That initial wave of influential, artfully terrifying Japanese horror films slowly but surely crept its way into U.S. multiplexes and video stores back in the day, especially after The Ring (adapted from the 1998 flick Ringu) became a smash and studios immediately went after other haunting Asian imports to adapt. The 2001 techno-thriller Pulse (which will screen at the Belcourt in a new 4K restoration) had its inevitable U.S. counterpart in 2006, with then-fresh faces Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder playing young characters who discover an influx of ghosts infiltrating spaces
JAMES HOLIDAY
through the internet. As always, it doesn’t beat Cure director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s eerie, existential original (which finally hit America a year before the remake), perhaps one of the most prophetic allegories on losing yourself via the World Wide Web. Whether you’re dead or alive, either staring at it or stuck inside it, the ’net is gonna get you and fuck you up regardless. CRAIG D. LINDSEY 2:15 AND 8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
BRINGING ORIGNAL MUSIC BACK TO BROADWAY
WEDNESDAY / 10.28 COMEDY
people from incarceration and prevent future wrongful convictions. The one-night Justice Jam, produced with the Tennessee Innocence Project in partnership with the Washington Innocence Project, will feature McCready co-headlining with hometown country star Dierks Bentley, plus The McCrary Sisters, Terri Clark, Jaid Joice, Angie K and others. In addition to the music, expect to hear stories of social justice and exoneration from those intimately involved with these efforts. Justice Jam is an all-ages show being billed as an inaugural event, suggesting it may become an ongoing effort. General admission tickets are $134 (including fees). After purchasing a GA ticket, VIP add-ons are available, including a party at Third Man Records ($350), rail passes ($150) and afterparty passes ($250). Proceeds from the show will support criminal justice reform efforts, including funding legal advocacy and reentry support for exonerees. MARGARET LITTMAN 7:30 P.M. AT CANNERY HALL 1 CANNERY ROW
[KILLER QUEEN]
HOUSE OF HOLIDAY 5: NASHVILLE WHORER STORY FEAT. JAMES HOLIDAY
James Holiday is poised to be the first successful stand-up comedian out of Green Hills. On Instagram he posts daily reels for his loyal fans, lamenting a host of Champagne problems while descending the mall escalator or walking around his gated community in a Dolce & Gabbana bathrobe. Holiday usually milks the affluent suburb for all it’s worth, referring to it at a recent City Cast Nashville roast as a “food desert.” His material also pokes fun at his husband, detailing the eighth renovation they’ve done of the same bathroom, and draws on sex, drugs and — most shocking of all — his past career as a music teacher. On Oct. 28, the self-appointed “Goddess of Green Hills” is trotting out a wildly different kind of show for the main room at Zanies. Nashville Whorer Story will feature other stand-up comedians, drag and even a sideshow sword swallower. It’s going to be fabulous. TOBY ROSE 7 P.M. AT ZANIES 2025 EIGHTH AVE S.
10.24 Willis Alan Ramsey
10.6 Haley Reinhart 10.15 CRAIG CAMPBELL
UPCOMING SHOWS 10.31
Aaron Nichols & The Travellers - Chris Stapleton Tribute
10.29
Brassfield, Matt Warren & The Goodfoot
11.1
Eric Johanson, Alastair Greene
Haley Reinhart
11.3
10.8
Ultimate Eric Church Experience
Dallas Wayne, Daryl Wayne Dasher
11.4
Jeff Hyde
10.10
Sundance Head, Casey James
11.5
Anthony Gomes
10.11
Nik Parr & the Selfless Lovers
11.7
Waymore’s Outlaws
10.15
12.3
Sandra McCraken
Craig Campbell
10.19
12.5
Jared James Nichols
Buddy’s Place Premiere Writer’s Round
12.6
10.22
Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
The History of Country Music - Holiday Edition
12.9
RaeLynn
10.24
Willis Alan Ramsey
12.12
Julie Roberts
Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Plays & Sings The Beatles’ Revolver
12.17
Struggle Jennings
10.3
Point of Grace, Rachael Lampa
10.4
Scott Terry (Red Wanting Blue)
10.5
TKA Takeover w/ Alli Walker, Colin Stough, and more
10.6
10.28
ORIGINAL MUSIC AT CHIEF’S Great music comes from the heart and soul of its creators. Chief’s celebrates the brilliant minds behind some of today’s most iconic songs.
11.5 ANTHONY GOMES
10.3 POINT OF GRACE
10.10 CASEY JAMES
GET TICKETS AT CHIEFSONBROADWAY.COM
2ND & BROADWAY NASHVILLE, TN FOLLOW US @ChiefSBROADWAY NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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pokenash.com |
Pokenash |
Pokenash
ASSEMBLY FOOD HALL (NASHVILLE) 5055 Broadway place, Nashville, TN 37203
HENDERSONVILLE 206 Indian Lake Blvd # 5 Hendersonville, TN 37075 SYLVAN PARK, WEST NASHVILLE 4101 Charlotte Ave G120, Nashville, TN 37209
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
FOOD & DRINK: (FAMILY) DATE NIGHT
JIMMY KELLY’S, HALL OF FAME PARK, THE SOUTHERN STEAK & OYSTER A birthday dinner gone bad inspires a Steak Sunday visit to locally owned steakhouses
PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND
BY DANNY BONVISSUTO
JIMMY KELLY’S
JIMMY KELLY’S
Date Night is a multipart 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.”
WHEN I TURNED 16, I couldn’t get to the DMV in my parents’ baby-blue, wood-paneled station wagon fast enough. When my son turned 16 last month, he had no interest in getting his license — no desire to drive to Cane’s for chicken fingers and crinkle fries by himself. All he wanted was to golf with his dad, as well as his friend and his friend’s dad, then have a steakhouse dinner with both families. The restaurant he chose wasn’t on their game that night — 30-minute wait despite reservations and forgetful service — and I was furious with myself for dropping a car payment at a chain steakhouse instead of supporting local. The upside is that it inspired Steak Sunday: A quarterly family Date Night that we’ll continue until we’ve hit every locally owned steakhouse in town … or bankrupted ourselves — whichever comes first. STOP 1: JIMMY KELLY’S Telling my kid the story of Nashville steakhouses means starting at the beginning. In 1934, bootlegger John Kelly opened 216 Supper Club
JIMMY KELLY’S WAGYU SLIDERS AND CORN CAKES
on Eighth Avenue — the year after Prohibition was repealed. In 1949, John’s son Jimmy opened Jimmy Kelly’s across from the Belle Meade Theatre. When that land was sold, Jimmy Kelly’s moved to their current location, a three-story Victorian on Louise Avenue, in the early 1980s. Some years later, when my prom date and I walked under that iconic black awning, Jimmy Kelly’s was the most upscale restaurant I’d ever experienced. Walking back under it recently with my husband and son, surrounded by corporate healthcare and apartment buildings, I worried Jimmy Kelly’s might feel dated and sad. Instead, it felt like an old friend still doing their thing and doing it well. To ensure we got a bar table — the kid can’t sit at the bar proper — we arrived when they opened at 4 p.m. As the hostess led us to the bar,
I noticed that early birds had already descended on the main dining room. We settled into a tufted leather banquette in the bar, which had a good view of both TVs plus three stained-glass windows that somehow didn’t feel out of place amid all the shiny wood. Within seconds, the bartender delivered three glasses of ice water that wobbled slightly atop the cushion that buffers the white tablecloth and table. We ordered from the Bar Bites menu, plus a Caesar because the kid must try a Caesar everywhere we go. The complimentary silver-dollar-size corn cakes arrived first, alongside a ramekin of butter covered with a paper lid that had a tab for easy lifting. Then the salty fried oysters and pickled asparagus, with a half-lemon covered in a mesh net to contain the pulp and seeds when we squeezed. A tiny sprig of parsley added color to a plate of thin bourbon-glazed chicken skewers. We unrolled
our black napkins, which didn’t deposit white lint on our clothing. This level of detail isn’t fussy or over-the-top — it’s a subtle art form that whispers, We’ve thought of every possible way to take care of you. Modern steakhouses hire design teams to create the same baked-in combination of luxury and history that Jimmy Kelly’s exudes, including framed portraits over mantles, gold mirrors, pressed-tin ceilings, drippy chandeliers and patterned wallpaper for days. There have been updates over the years, of course, but it still has the air of a godfather whose ring you should kiss. STOP 2: WALK OF FAME PARK Anyone can see that downtown’s Walk of Fame Park is 2.5 acres of green space between the Country Music Hall of Fame, Bridgestone Arena, Schermerhorn Symphony Center and the Hilton Nashville Downtown. What you
WALK OF FAME PARK NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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LIVE MUSIC | URBAN WINERY | BAR RESTAURANT | PRIVATE EVENTS
JOSHUA RADIN
11.05
WITH SPECIAL GUEST RAYE ZARAGOZA
THE SOUTHERN STEAK & OYSTER
10.26
10.29
VIVIAN GREEN
10.31
CHERRY BOMB
RAKIM
10.24 PRINCESS PARTY BRUNCH 10.24 ALMOST ELTON PRESENTS 10.25 PURESOUL MICHAEL JACKSON’S “THRILLER” 10.27 JOHN SPLITHOFF 10.28 KENNEDY RYON - THE CAN WE EVOLVE? TOUR 11.1 GUNHILD CARLING DINEVA LIVE 11.2 FUNKY FEATURING QUENTIN LATHAM CRACKING THE SERIAL KILLER CODE: 11.3 A CHILLING EVENING WITH DR. KATHERINE RAMSLAND 11.4 JON KONDELIK’S ADULT BINGO THE MUSIC OF HEY ARNOLD! LIVE! FEATURING JIM LANGE AND THE PS118 11.6 ALLSTARS WITH SPECIAL GUEST CRAIG BARTLETT 11.7 SPELLBINDER: MAGIC & HIP HOP THEATER BRUNCH 11.7 ULTIMATE REWIND
RESENTS FINAL GIRL: THE IMPROVISED HORROR MUSICAL
11.8 THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS 11.9 KING’S X 11.11 MC LYTE MARCUS VELTRI & ROB LANDES 11.12 REQUESTS ON THE ROAD GRAMMY AWARD 11.13 (TWO SHOWS) WINNER AVERY*SUNSHINE 11.15 TYRONE WELLS WITH TONY LUCCA 11.16 ABBY LEE MILLER SPILLS THE TEA
10.23 CINDY ALTER 10.24 GINA & JOHNNY BAND 11.2 3RD ANNUAL GIVING GUITARS BENEFIT CONCERT GRAVEL ROAD SHOWCASE FEAT. DARCI CLAIRE, 11.7 SAWYER LEE, SOFIA LEE DAVIS, RYAN JACOBS, BUTTER & GRIT, MOSLEY & ROGER JAEGER
oct 30 Harvest
tASTING STING
Taste & Discover
CRAFTED RIGHT HERE IN NASHVILLE
Experience
STOP 3: THE SOUTHERN STEAK & OYSTER If Jimmy Kelly’s is the distinguished patriarch of locally owned Nashville steakhouses, The Southern is the fun uncle. Opened in 2012 by Tom Morales — the man behind Tomkats Catering, Saffire, Acme Feed & Seed and more — it doesn’t bother to compete with the 20plus traditional steakhouses within strolling distance of its downtown corner spot. Instead, it stands out by being steakhouse-ish without taking itself too seriously. Among other wood-fired entrées like ribs and a pork chop, there’s a strip steak, a filet and the Nudie Suit, a “custom cut” steak named for late, legendary tailor to the country stars Nudie Cohn (whose rhinestone-ensconced Nudie Suits are still frequently replicated). But there are no cushioned tabletops or gold mirrors — just a big-ass bar straight through the middle of the place, an open kitchen, TVs everywhere and trucker hats for sale by the door. No one is particularly gussied up; most guests wear either T-shirts or convention lanyards. Instead of oysters Rockefeller, The Southern offers oysters with collard greens, andouille
Wines From The World’s Best Regions
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can’t see is that it also acts as a green roof that covers the Gateway Commons parking garage. That’s more interesting to me than the inlaid markers honoring country music legends, all of which look the same aside from the name and date of the induction. And it’s slightly less interesting than the cardio drumming — involving exercise balls in large baskets, drumsticks and dancing — that was happening when we strolled through while there was still a bit of light left in the night sky.
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
THE SOUTHERN STEAK & OYSTER
BARBECUE SHRIMP sausage and cream. Instead of wagyu sliders on lacquered rolls, there are blue cheese biscuits with beef tenderloin in the middle. Similar variations on the deviled eggs and barbecue shrimp point to their “South of Somewhere” motto. Service started strong, then stumbled. The strip and filet came out fine, though their temps were swapped. No big deal. But the Farmer’s Plate arrived as a salad, though it wasn’t described that way on the specials sheet — and it was only lettuce and carrot ribbons with a jalapeño slice. Had our server checked back to make sure everything was OK, it could’ve been quickly fixed. But by the time he returned, we were almost finished with everything else. He made no offer to replace the entrée, but rather brought the correct version by for a quick hidey-ho so we
Nashville’s Best Thai Street Food degthai.com degthaistreetfood 750 W Main St # B, Hendersonville, TN 37075
Photo booths designed for the unforgettable
Cocktails Small Bites Intimate Atmosphere 4210 Charlotte Ave. 615.678.4086 ottosnashville.com
YOUR NEW FAVORITE. AVORITE. THANKS FOR YOUR VOTE!
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
35
FILET MIGNON could see what it was supposed to look like. That was strange, but it didn’t inspire the same exploding-head-emoji energy I felt when I left the chain steakhouse that set this Steak Sunday Date Night in motion. Walking back to the car, I asked the kid to compare Caesar salads at both restaurants. He rated them down to a 10th of a point, noting that the lettuce was “too crunchy” in one, the dressing “too prominent.” I guess the Parmesan doesn’t fall far from the grater. ▼
Jimmy Kelly’s 217 Louise Ave. jimmykellys.com Walk of Fame Park 121 Fourth Ave. S.
MERCH AREA
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
The Southern Steak & Oyster 150 Third Ave. S. thesouthernnashville.com
THE BATTLE IS BACK. FOUR CHEFS. ONE SECRET INGREDIENT.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12 | 6-9PM | HARKEN HALL Four of Nashville’s top chefs will throw down in a head-to-head cooking competition featuring a secret ingredient to vie for the coveted Iron Fork trophy! Catch all the action while you enjoy unlimited sips and bites from 25+ restaurants, spirits, beers and more!
INTRODUCING YOUR 2026 COMPETING CHEFS
Ana Aguilar & Josh Cook Executive Chefs Tantísimo
Marcio Florez
Executive Chef Limo Peruvian Eatery
Alfredo Bueno Executive Chef 888
Dung “Junior” Vo
Executive Chef Partner, Noko Hospitality Noko | Kase x Noko | Noko Yaki
ENJOY UNLIMITED SAMPLES FROM
888 | A-Roi | Dos Santos | etch | etc. | Gus’s Fried Chicken | Halls Catch | Hattie B’s | Indaco | Limo Peruvian Eatery | Mere Bulles | Oak Steakhouse | O-ku | Prime + Proper | Puesto | Soho House | Sunda | Sushi Row | Zaytinya
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
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SHO-BUD.COM/RYMAN DOORS 6:30 PM • SHOW 7:30 PM A BENEFIT CONCERT SUPPORTING 9-1-1 PROJECT HARMONY • TN SUICIDE PREVENTION NETWORK FRIENDS LIFE COMMUNITY • UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY PETER FRAMPTON MYOSITIS RESEARCH FUND
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IMMERSIVE ART. DJ + DANCING. DRINKS INCLUDED. Plus late-night bites by Chef Brian Riggenbach. Party for Nashville’s creative community.
AN IMMERSIVE CELEBRATION OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. JOIN THE PARTY.
GET TICKETS + LEARN MORE
Saturday, November 14 | 9-11 PM | Studio 615 | bignightforthearts.org
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
CULTURE: IN THE CLUB
BIRD IS THE WORD Feminist Bird Club provides low-barrier birding BY HANNAH HERNER
ILLUSTRATION: LIZ CLAYTON FULLER
ILLUSTRATION: JENNIFER DICKINSON
LIZ CLAYTON FULLER PHOTOS: ANGELINA CASTILLO
In the Club is a recurring series in which the Scene explores local social club offerings.
IN MAY, when the Feminist Bird Club Nashville met for a walk at Shelby Bottoms for the first time, more than 60 people showed up. Bird-watching (or “birding”) groups tend to trend “pale, male and stale,” observes Feminist Bird Club Nashville co-founder Liz Clayton Fuller. She and fellow bird enthusiast Kristen Englenz had applied to the national Feminist Bird Club organization around the same time, and worked together with Jennifer Dickinson to start the Nashville chapter this year. “My interest in birds is very relaxed, and I just like to be where I’m at and enjoy nature,” Fuller tells the Scene. “It didn’t really feel like there was a space explicitly for that, and also a space where people could come who shared the values of intersectional feminism.” The club also doesn’t require any expertise or gear. They offer binoculars to borrow, and go on short walks on greenways in an effort to keep their approach accessible. The group also
puts on Bird Bingo events to raise money for causes in line with the Feminist Bird Club ethos. “We hope to be a welcoming space for people to say, ‘Hey, I see something — I have no clue what it is,’ and then knowledge gets shared,” Englenz says. “Hopefully, that positive experience just encourages people to go out more and share that love of nature and learning.” For Fuller, it’s all birds all the time. Their experience started in a scientific illustration class in art school, and today they’re a bird-drawing specialist. Fuller has their own freelance illustration business, and also draws birds for textbooks and field guides as part of their day job. “I just started painting birds because they were nice to look at, and that has literally snowballed into my entire job,” Fuller says. “I’m lucky to have pulled on that thread.” To unwind from a day of scientific drawing, Fuller makes whimsical drawings of birds wearing outfits. “I illustrated a chickadee in a ’90s power pantsuit the other day, and I’m really, really happy about how that turned out,” Fuller says. Each bird enthusiast can name a “spark bird” — a bird that got them interested in birding. The term “bird-watching” is largely interchangeable with “birding,” but sometimes birds are heard but not seen — and some people have strong feelings about the semantics. Many of the Feminist Bird Club regulars got more interested in birds during the pandemic. “I noticed with the lack of human sounds like planes and cars and everything, you could hear so many more birds, and so I think that
kind of kicked off a wave of bird appreciation and birding amongst different people,” Englenz says. For Dickinson — whose spark bird is the red-winged blackbird and its synthesizer-like call — an app called Merlin Bird ID has been key. Take a picture of the bird or a recording of its call, and the app will identify it for you. Englenz’s journey with birding began with imitating the Canada geese in her childhood yard, and was bolstered by her love of the 1996 film Fly Away Home. Today the singer-songwriter admits that audiences at times enjoy her bird calls and drawings over her songs. Englenz also produces an educational YouTube channel about birds called Caterwauling With Kristen. While birds can be intimidating, or even viewed as villains by some, for the founders of the Feminist Bird Club in Nashville, there’s no such thing as an unlikable bird. “I think every bird is a good bird, and I kind of want to stand up for any birds that are maligned by people, because we’re in their space,” Fuller says. “I’m a fan of them all. I think that we impose a lot of human morality onto birds, and cowbirds are just living their lives and trying to survive.” Birding is a year-round hobby, but a special time in Nashville is purple martin season, when tens of thousands of the birds roost in the city on their way to South America each summer. During the most recent purple martin visit, club members volunteered to keep watch over the roost and educate visiting people about the visiting birds. Like humans, birds are social creatures. When woodpeckers drum on the trees, it’s not just to find food — it’s to communicate with each other. Each kookaburra family has its own song that they teach to the youngest of the flock. Different birds know each other’s alarm calls to alert each other to a predator, like a snake or an outdoor cat. The Feminist Bird Club founders hope the club will be a way for people with similar values to be social, too. “It’s a walk where you’re looking at birds and having a nice time, but you’re also finding community, feeling seen,” Fuller says. “And then there are these opportunities for us to make these societal changes that we’re all aligned on as well.” ▼
BIRDING WALK KRISTEN ENGLENZ
Feminist Bird Club Nashville Instagram: @fbc.nashville ILLUSTRATION: KRISTEN ENGLENZ
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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MUSIC
PHOTO: LJ HUTCHINS
BY EDD HURT
CHRIS GANTRY
“As far as anybody acknowledging my past — or who I was or what I’ve done — or acceptance, it’s zero, baby,” says songwriter Chris Gantry, discussing his profile in the music business. The onetime Nashville outlaw singer and tunesmith is speaking to the Scene from his home in Dyer,
Tenn., a town about 40 miles north of Jackson. As he tells me about life in Dyer, “It’s very quiet, no traffic, no nothin’ — it’s just real quiet.” Gantry, who turns 84 in December, returned to Tennessee in late 2023 after spending the preceding three years in Galveston, Texas. He cut two
EAST SIDE STORY
Country champion Kaitlin Butts drew inspiration for her new LP Hello, Honky Tonk from imagining the stories of the Skinny Dennis clientele
PHOTOS: THOMAS CRABTREE
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
KAITLIN BUTTS
WHEN WRITING HER new album Hello, Honky Tonk, out Oct. 30 via Republic Records, Kaitlin Butts spent a lot of time in one of her favorite neighborhood watering holes: East Side honky-tonk Skinny Dennis. She began making up stories in her head about the familiar faces who gathered there, from the two-steppers to the wallflowers. “I kept visualizing all the songs within a honky-tonk,” Butts tells the Scene, “with the guy with the wandering eye, the lovers, the people on the dance floor, the
gang was made up of songwriters like Mel Tillis and Harlan Howard. In contrast, Gantry was part of the same movement that produced Guy Clark, John Prine and Lee Clayton. Motor Mouth gets into areas undreamed of in the rhinestone-loving philosophy. In particular, “Allegheny” subverts the idea of the narrative country song, so much so that to say more would spoil it. Gantry’s lyrics have a modernist edge on Worth Every Nail, and the music references country in ways that are often indirect. “Dean” gets sonics that approach soundscape, while the band nods to Introspection on “Catchphrase.” The song is a litany of concepts and words that have lost their meaning. As Gantry sings: “I am a combination of many hearts and minds / God, don’t let me become or be a catchphrase of the time.” The song is hooky and philosophical in equal measure, but Gantry sounds disinclined to take credit for any catchphrase he might come up with. ▼
Worth Every Nail out Friday, Oct. 23, via Appalachia Record Co. Release party 8 p.m. Oct. 24 at The End
THE TENNESSEEAN, MARCH 6, 1966, PAGE 202
Chris Gantry’s new album Worth Every Nail looks back at his early days in Nashville
albums while he was living in Galveston, with the full-band Rock Across Texas and the minimalist The Outlaw Bible showing off two sides of his musical personality. His new Nashville-recorded Worth Every Nail revisits his late-1960s work, which made the New York-born songwriter a star in Nashville among a group of fellow innovators that included Kris Kristofferson and Shel Silverstein. Gantry recorded The Outlaw Bible in 2023 and Rock Across Texas in 2023 and early 2024. For Loney John Hutchins, who produced Worth Every Nail and is releasing the record on his label Appalachia Record Co., working with Gantry was an opportunity to expand on the style of his 1968 album Introspection and 1970’s Motor Mouth. Both of those records were cut with Nashville producer Fred Foster. Gantry had talked to Hutchins about doing a project, and Hutchins had a sound in mind. “I got back to him pretty quickly and I said, ‘Hey man, I want to do something that’s hinting at the Fred Foster stuff — something really eclectic, [where] every song is different,’” Hutchins says. Gantry recorded Worth Every Nail in February 2025 with a crew of players including drummer Brian Kotzur, guitarist William Tyler and keyboardist Tony Crow. As Hutchins says, the songs on Worth Every Nail are varied, and the backing evokes everything from countrypolitan to jazzy rock. For Gantry, the complexity of his new songs evokes his early Nashville days. His songs were recorded by the likes of Leroy Van Dyke, who cut “Just a State of Mind” in 1965, and — most famously — Glen Campbell, who charted with “Dreams of the Everyday Housewife” in 1968. “There was this energy going on in Nashville for change,” is how Gantry describes the city’s music scene in the 1960s. He’d come to town in 1963 and signed a publishing deal with songwriter Marijohn Wilkin’s Buckhorn Music in 1965, moving on to Combine Music later in the decade. “People were just drawn to the city for some undescribable reason. We all came in from different places, met each other, hung out, and started to write songs that changed the dynamic of what was the rhinestone gang, or country at the time.” As he tells me, what he calls the rhinestone
PHOTO: GERALD HOLLY
STATE OF MIND
entertainer — which is me — the bartender, the girls that are bitching about the boyfriend in the bathroom who are probably going to leave with him anyway.” Butts also channeled her lifelong love of musical theater, casting herself as a countrified Roxie Hart and dreaming up her own beer joint, Katie B’s Honky Tonk Saloon. The record is a kind of vaudeville stage show with each character in the tavern getting their moment to shine. “It’s me from the stage turning the spotlight to different corners of the room,” Butts explains. It’s not the first time Butts has embraced her theaterkid experience. Her stellar 2024 album Roadrunner!, which features the viral barnburner “You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead to Me),” was inspired by the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! “I’ve always had this common thread of country
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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MUSIC: THE SPIN [with] my outfits and songs that I would choose to sing, even as a theater kid,” Butts says. “There’s always some sort of country theme. Or I’d be doing Annie Get Your Gun with a rifle on my back or singing about killing a guy. All the themes that would go towards what I do now.” The 14-track album opens with a spoken-word dispatch from Katie B’s courtesy of Grammy- and multiple CMA Award-winning country star Lainey Wilson. “I was like, ‘Who has the most country voice that I can think of?’ — and that’s obviously Lainey Wilson,” Butts says of her friend and former tourmate. “She’s just somebody who I adore and who said yes, no hesitation, and sent it to me within 24 hours.” If Butts were to create her own stage musical, the songs on Hello, Honky Tonk would be a perfect fit. The rowdy “I Wanna Be Bad,” inspired by a night out at Skinny Dennis, serves as the scene-setting opening number. “The Joker” and “Bacon Naked (Take It From Me)” showcase Butts’ gift for wry humor, while the forlorn “That Makes One of Us,” an ode to the lonely hearts at the bar who feel invisible, brilliantly channels Chicago’s “Mr. Cellophane.” The autobiographical “What More Could You Want,” a devastatingly honest portrayal of feeling alone in the spotlight, would be the showstopper at the end of Act I. “I kind of needed to be at the end of my rope to even write that song,” Butts says. “I just remember standing over [co-writers] Natalie Hemby and Topher Brown [saying], ‘I just want the song to feel like I’m at the end of the number and I’m out of breath and I’ve got jazz
hands and I’m wondering if they like me yet. ‘Do you like me? What if I tried this?’’ I feel like that constantly, but I love it. I love trying to figure out what people like. I love messing up and correcting or saying: ‘I don’t fucking care if you like it. This is what I am.’ It’s just this ever-evolving thing.” Hello, Honky Tonk comes on the heels of Butts’ greatest commercial success to date. “You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead to Me)” introduced the Tulsa-born singer-songwriter to a slew of new fans. She’s since toured with Ella Langley and Lainey Wilson and was recently nominated for a MusicRow Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. But that success comes after more than a decade of diligently paying her dues. The 33-year-old recalls years of performing to crowds at fairs and beer gardens from the back of a truck bed and playing four-hour gigs that often paid only in food. “I feel really grateful to have this slow burn where I’ve done the gradual climb,” Butts says. “I’m now entering into this world that I don’t feel like I quite understand yet, but if I hadn’t had all those years, I don’t know what I’d be doing.” On Oct. 29, Butts will play an album release show at Skinny Dennis, bringing Hello, Honky Tonk home to the venue and the crowd that inspired it. “I’m excited to perform at the place where I see the album the most. I really just hope that people experience the songs and romanticize this little dusty honky-tonk.” ▼
Hello, Honky Tonk out Friday, Oct. 30, via Kaitlin Butts/Republic Playing 8 p.m. Oct. 29 at Skinny Dennis
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
WHEN YOU COME ’ROUND AGAIN BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER When The Chicks released their album Taking the Long Way in 2006, the Texas trio was only three years removed from what’s now known to country fans as “the incident.” In March 2003, just days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the band’s Natalie Maines made a statement onstage in London during their Top of the World Tour: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.” Music fans are well-versed in what happened next. The Chicks, the bestselling female band of all time in the U.S., were suddenly persona non grata on country radio. Artists who had once buddied up to the country stars were now admonishing them in the press for daring to speak their minds. Protesters in Bossier City, La., famously smashed the group’s CDs with a 33,000-pound tractor. It was just one of multiple events denouncing the group — many of which were organized by radio stations — held around the country. But controversy has a way of weeding out the fairweather fans. And The Chicks’ most ardent supporters kept showing up — including at the trio’s sold-out show at The Truth on Oct. 15. The Nashville stop was part of the band’s ongoing Taking the Long Way 20th Anniversary Tour, celebrating two decades of the Grammy-winning, Rick Rubin-produced album that served as their defiant comeback. During their nearly three-hour set, The Chicks (that’s Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer) played Taking the Long Way in full, kicking off the night with album opener “The Long Way Around.” The song is a mission statement for the record and an ode to those who refuse to bend to the status quo. “Twenty years ago Rick Rubin reached out to us and asked if he could produce an album,” Maines told the audience. “[Rubin] asked us to co-write everything. He thought we had some things to say. He was right.” Throughout the show, the band shared clips from the 2006 documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, which chronicled the backlash they faced in the wake of the controversy. The video included Maines’ famous remarks, followed by a montage of just some of the vitriol they received in the wake of the controversy — including conservative pundit Pat Buchanan calling them “bimbos,” making the group’s fiery performance of “Not Ready to Make Nice” feel even more cathartic. “Well, a lot has gone on in 20 years,” said Maines. “Who knew that now we’d be ashamed that the president of the United States is from the United States?” Maguire reflected on the support The Chicks
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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COMING SOON FLOCKING TOGETHER: SHERYL CROW WITH THE CHICKS
received at the time from like-minded artists, such as Bruce Springsteen, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. But the list of vocal supporters in the country music community was short, as evidenced in “Bitter End.” “The last verse of this song kind of has to do with Nashville,” said Maines, introducing the song. “The last verse is about all the friends on country radio and [in] Nashville we thought we had that dropped us like a hot potato.” “You had a good time drinking all of our wine after the show,” the trio sang in harmony. “We all rode the wave of that crazy parade / Oh, where’d you go? / What happened to the ones we knew? / As long as I’m the shiniest star / Oh, there you are.” The second half of the record features some of the album’s most quietly devastating moments. The trio’s performance of the roots rocker “Favorite Year,” which featured a surprise appearance from co-writer Sheryl Crow, was another highlight of the night. As they played through Side 2, the group shared stories and memories of what they were experiencing while dealing with an intense public backlash, including strained relationships (“Baby Hold On”) and fertility struggles (“So Hard”). Before they came to the album closer “I Hope,” Maines reflected on a recent visit to the Obama
Presidential Center in Chicago. “It was a great reminder of what it was like to not have a nut job running this country — a deranged nut job,” she said. “In these times, it’s hard to find hope, and I will say that going to the [Obama] Center gave me hope.” After a short intermission, The Chicks returned to tear through a selection of fan favorites. There was a transcendent performance of “Gaslighter” and a sizzling cover of Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons.” But the rest of these songs fell on the timeline before “the incident” — among them the murder ballad “Goodbye Earl,” which itself garnered controversy (and resistance from radio programmers), and the cheeky “White Trash Wedding” from the group’s 2002 album Home. The 40-minute run of hits was an important reminder that even before country radio turned its back on them, The Chicks never had much interest in conforming to the Music Row mold. It’s fitting that the group closed the show with the breakneck scorcher “Sin Wagon,” a tribute to sexual freedom (or as the trio puts it, “mattress dancin’”) from their 1999 album Fly. The Chicks were pushing the envelope long before ruffling Dubya’s feathers, and it’s a safe bet that they’ll be doing the same in 20 more years. ▼
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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FILM
PREPARE FOR A SCARE Full Moon Cineplex is a shrine to all things horror
PHOTOS: ANGELINA CASTILLO
BY LOGAN BUTTS
BEN AND STACEY DIXON
AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX, it’s always Halloween. When you walk through the front door of the former Courtyard Cinema 8 in Hermitage, you’ll be greeted by life-size cardboard cutouts of horror icons and walls covered in movie posters and memorabilia. Ben and Stacey Dixon’s creepy campus is a shrine to all that is spooky. And it is indeed a campus. In addition to the old-school, dine-in movie theater, the Full Moon complex features an on-site tattoo shop and, from late September through early November, longtime local haunted attraction Slaughterhouse. “It’s probably the only tattoo studio/haunted house/movie theater in the country,” says Ben. On Friday nights throughout the year, Full Moon offers dinner-and-a-movie service, with popcorn and a soda included. During the fall, you can also add on a ticket to the haunted house for an almost all-in-one experience — the Dixons say no one has landed the quadruple axel yet by also getting a tattoo the same day. Ben and Stacey purchased both Slaughterhouse and the ex-theater in 2014. The building had sat empty for 13 years by that point, so it took some work to get it up and running. After the haunted house and the tattoo studio were built out, the couple decided to convert the remaining screen into a functioning movie
HORROR DECOR
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
Full Moon Cineplex 3445 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage fullmooncineplex.com
theater in 2016. Naturally, they wanted the programming to highlight classic horror films. Stacey cites the 1985 vampire chiller Fright Night as an influence on her love for scary movies, while Ben thinks back to ’70s classics like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror. “Going to a movie theater and seeing your favorite films like The Crow and Batman … Pulp Fiction, seeing them here and then one day we’re owning it, that was kind of surreal,” says Ben, who like Stacey has a long history in the Hermitage area. The two also share a love of filmmaking, specifically makeup effects. Ben graduated from the Joe Blasco Makeup Artists School in Orlando, while Stacey studied at legendary artist Tom Savini’s Special Make-Up Effects Program outside of Pittsburgh. In fact, the two met on a film set. Ben was directing an independent horror film titled Wolfsbayne when Stacey, who also acts, was brought on as a makeup artist. Stacey even helps with the makeup for Full Moon’s haunted house each year. Another shared skill for the Dixons — tattoo artistry. Every spring, they combine their love for film and tattoos by hosting the Full Moon Tattoo and Horror Festival, which saw its 23rd iteration in April.
HORROR FILM MEMORABILIA
“We used to open the haunt for the festival, and that was just too much,” says Stacey. “We would do it for one night of the festival, and I was just like, ‘This is a production within a production within a production.’ Not again.” Fall is when Full Moon’s calendar is at its busiest, but the couple programs season-specific offerings year-round, like My Bloody Valentine in February or Jaws in July. “One year we even did New Year’s Evil, and that was really fun,” says Stacey. “We opened the haunt up, and then we had the movies going, and then at midnight we did The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We did a head-drop.” This year for their scary season slate, the Dixons stuck to “the great ones,” which has proved to be a literal murderers’ row. Since mid-September, Full Moon has screened classics spanning nearly 100 years of cinema, including Dracula, Alien, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Poltergeist, with heavy hitters like Halloween, The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Scream still to come. They even show films on Saturday nights during the Halloween season, something they refrain from during the rest of the year. “I think this time around, we kind of went back to all the greats,” says Ben. “Some years we’ve ventured out and played different stuff, but this year we just were like, ‘Let’s load it up.’” And Full Moon champions horror of all kinds, not just the classics. As independent filmmakers themselves, the Dixons hold space for other independent outings like The 3 Killer Pigs, a micro-budgeted 2026 release that screened earlier this month. Local filmmakers also rent out the theater for screenings. With the added Saturday night showings and haunted house upkeep, it’s hard not to burn out this time of year, especially with such a small team. The tattoo studio is open seven days a week, and Slaughterhouse runs on the weekends. During the Friday night dinner-anda-movie service, Ben and Stacey — who have three kids, including one who is a tattoo artist at Full Moon — even cook the meals themselves. “During the rest of the year, when we’re just doing Friday nights for the dinner and the movie, people are like, ‘Why don’t you do Saturdays?’” says Ben. “Well, because we want to do something on a Saturday night too. We want to have some fun.” ▼
FILM Fjord PG-13, 146 minutes; in Romanian, Norwegian, Swedish and English with English subtitles. Opening Friday, Oct. 23, at the Belcourt and AMC Thoroughbred 20.
Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...
FROSTBITE
Fjord is a political puzzle of Norwegian bureaucracy and Romanian rage BY KEN ARNOLD THE GHEORGHIU FAMILY has moved to a small Norwegian town. Shortly after the Gheorghius settle into their new life, their children are taken from them by Barnevernet (Norway’s version of the Department of Children’s Services). Their crime? Spanking. Norwegian mother Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) attempts to navigate bureaucracy to get their children back, while Romanian father Mihai (Sebastian Stan) takes a more drastic approach, getting the Romanian government involved. Working off of the real-life 2015 case of the Bodnariu family, director Cristian Mungiu turns the controversy into a dramatized political case study. Though it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Fjord has been a difficult film for North American audiences, as the Gheorghius are a conservative Christian family and often seem to echo rightwing talking points we hear frequently in the U.S. But Mungiu is approaching his film as a Romanian, and his approach feels generally free of ideological bias. Instead, he highlights the totalitarianism of thought and forced assimilation Romanians face in Western and Northern Europe. The focus is not on whether the family’s beliefs are right or wrong, but on whether someone is allowed to hold dissenting beliefs. Spanking is a common form of discipline in Romania, though it is illegal in Norway.
The issue is not with the law, but with the disproportionate response from Barnevernet — a response that arguably causes more trauma for the children than the spanking does. What makes Fjord shine is the escalation on both sides of the issue — the systematic targeting built on structural bias and executed with self-declared enlightened thinking crashing into two desperate parents who are willing to do anything to get their children back. Mihai in particular transforms from a migrant taking a job he is grossly overqualified for to a highly divisive activist pulling on whatever strings he can to be reunited with his family, from evangelicals to the Romanian government. Each side becomes more radical in its mindset. In classic Mungiu fashion, there is no right answer to the moral arguments presented here. Instead, Fjord is a complex minefield of political puzzles: tolerance of dissenting opinions, cultural assimilation, government overreach, totalitarian echo chambers, and European hypocrisy and performative inclusion. Mungiu doesn’t hand his audience the answers. Fjord shows that government overreach isn’t as simple as a left-versus-right political dichotomy, and that any government, even those with the best intentions, can step over the line. ▼
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
BACK OF THE BOOK EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 1
Across 1 Buds 5 Concealer for the face 9 Pre-K building blocks 13 Plant that thrives in a terra-cotta pot 14 Stick it to your rival! 15 Bring in 16 Twill-woven worsted wool garment 17 Fix, in a way 18 Purple bubble tea flavor 19 Annual e-sport fighting competition, in brief 20 Short sidekick? 21 Chocolatier with the tagline “Life is a ball” 22 Dub over? 24 Cuatro y dos 26 Business magnate Condé 28 Promising places? 32 Ferry or wherry 35 Start of an incantation 37 Pastoral sound 38 Web design feature that may cycle back to earlier sections ... or a hint to this puzzle’s theme 42 Inspired stuff 43 Pro device 44 ___ out a win 45 Bond alternatives 47 “... ___ no one ever”
50 Edge jump in figure skating 52 Scenes on Black Friday 56 Kaitlin of “Hacks” 59 Pawn 61 Addendum to the five W’s 62 Female antelopes 63 “’___’ is the thing with feathers” (Emily Dickinson poem) 64 Woodsy scent 65 Top of a mosque, often 66 Column in decimal notation 67 Central Plains people 68 Losing streak 69 Column in decimal notation 70 Cheeky Down 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10 — 11 — 12 — 20 Reddit Q&A sesh 21 Purple shade
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615.255.2527 mortonplumbing.net
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PRESENTED BY
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an independent bookstore
Puzzle by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano 23 Prefix with body or bacterial 25 Side mirrors on a car, anthropomorphically 27 “Toodle-oo!” 29 One way to run 30 Actors like biting into a juicy one
31 On board, say 32 Pollster’s concern 33 “Handling this as we speak” 34 Hairstyle that you’ve picked out? 36 Kings and queens, e.g. 39 Canon competitor
40 ___ facto 41 Makeover 46 Film production environment for an intimate scene, perhaps 48 Digital security credential 49 Get to
51 Telegram and Simple Dialer, for two 53 Cannellini, e.g. 54 Organ-related item in a wallet 55 Perfect place 56 Expert employed by a sportsbook
57 “Show me some real effort!” 58 It’s not a full stop 60 Room in the audience up for grabs 63 Absolute train wrecks 64 Andy Warhol, e.g.
for independent people
UPCOMING EVENTS
PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTS FOR TICKETS & UPDATES 10:30AM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24
SATURDAY STORYTIME
with RACHEL TAWIL KENYON at PARNASSUS I Might Be a Penguin Too TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27 6:30PM
DANIEL NAYERI ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE A P P S H E R P I T C H S I R I Y E E E N S U E D E N A B L E S E I N F E L D S U R R B I S N O G G I N T A P E R E D Y U K C L A S S R O OM S H E D C A M E D U E A S A P A L I B A B A F U S S Y P E T N A M E R E R U N N C A A U N S C R EW P O K E R G A M E H I E S S T EWA R T M A C U T A H I S H G L A M P S E P I C F A I L S I R E N S L I Z A N T E E N D C U T A S K M E L T E R O A D 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.
with JAMIE SUMNER at PARNASSUS This Is a Door THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29 6:30PM
ROZ CHAST
at PARNASSUS The Two Saddest Kitchens: A Comics Conversation 10:30AM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31
HALLOWEEN STORYTIME at PARNASSUS
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1 6:30PM
MARIE LU
with MARY E. PEARSON at PARNASSUS Mortal Things MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2 6:30PM
JEFF ZENTNER
with DAVID ARNOLD at PARNASSUS Love, Like Apples
3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 | Nashville, TN 37215 (615) 953-2243 Shop online at parnassusbooks.net @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks
@parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooksnashville
NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 – OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
49
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50 NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 - OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 - OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
51
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155688 Old Hickory Blvd. | Nashville, TN 37211 | 615.964.7119 @backtocubacafe1 BackToCubaCafeNashville.com | 52 NASHVILLE SCENE • OCTOBER 22 - OCTOBER 28, 2026 • nashvillescene.com