Nashville Scene 10-23-25

DANCE: OZ ARTS OPENS SEASON WITH THE U.S. PREMIERE OF LE GRAND BAL >> PAGE 43

From the Nun Bun and Snowbird to Opryland and political corruption, here’s our curated list of pre-‘it’-city Nashville artifacts

WITNESS HISTORY

Lainey Wilson wore this Dolce & Gabbana rawhide leather shirt on the cover of her Grammy-nominated 2024 album Whirlwind.

From the exhibit Lainey Wilson: Tough as Nails

artifact: Courtesy of Lainey Wilson artifact photo: Bob Delevante

BEST PHARMACY

For nearly 25 years, NPS Pharmacy has proudly served Nashvillians and Middle Tennesseans with care that goes beyond prescriptions. We’re honored to be voted Best Pharmacy once again — a reflection of our commitment to treating every patient with dignity, compassion, and respect.

Thank you for trusting us with your care and for helping keep the title where it belongs — at NPS Pharmacy. Learn more at www.npspharmacy.com

HAUNTING LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

SAT OCT

25

SCAN FOR TICKETS

NOVEMBER 17

DRAKE WHITE’S BENEFIT FOR THE BRAIN WITH RILEY GREEN, JON PARDI AND KASSI ASHTON

NOVEMBER

JANUARY 23

PETER ROWAN’S DECADES WITH SAM GRISMAN PROJECT AND SPECIAL GUESTS

FEBRUARY 28

KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD WITH JIMMIE VAUGHAN

MARCH 4 PRISCILLA BLOCK & FRIENDS

Street View: Boarding House Overreach

A local musician sublets rooms to fellow artists looking for cheap rent. Metro Codes says he’s operating a ‘boarding house.’ BY LENA MAZEL

Pith in the Wind

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

Behn, Van Epps Square Off for Open Congressional Seat

Candidates emphasize party unity, push fundraising in weeks following crowded primary BY ELI MOTYCKA

Adventure Science Center

Celebrates 80 Years

Nashville field-trip staple reveals plans for Oct. 31 anniversary and new exhibits with Tennessee focus BY HANNAH HERNER

COVER STORY

The Old Nashville Encyclopedia From the Nun Bun and Snowbird to Opryland and political corruption, here’s our curated list of pre-‘it’-city Nashville artifacts BY SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS

CRITICS’ PICKS

My Morning Jacket, Headliners Only, Sinners, Piper & the Hard Times and more

TRAVEL

Five Stays on the Way

From luxe dome to tricked-out train to hobbit hole, these unique accommodations east of Nashville are worth a stop BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

DANCE

The Liberation of the Body OZ Arts opens season with the U.S. premiere of Le Grand Bal BY AMY STUMPFL

We Want The Funk Seth Neblett’s new oral history spotlights the female members of Parliament-Funkadelic ahead of a Nashville event BY ANNIE PARNELL

MUSIC

In Abundance

The inaugural Nashville Jazz Festival will celebrate the breadth and depth of jazz in Music City BY RON WYNN

The Spin

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Drkmttr Fest II BY LIV RAPIER AND BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

FILM

Alien Earth

Yorgos Lanthimos’ shocking black comedy Bugonia might piss you off BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

Out on a Limb

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and the unrelenting weight of parenthood BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

AND THIS MODERN

COVER: Illustration by Taylor Stringer

SUBSCRIBE

NEWSLETTER: nashvillescene.com/site/forms/subscription_services

PRINT: nashvillesceneshop.com

CONTACT TO ADVERTISE: msmith@nashvillescene.com EDITOR: prodgers@nashvillescene.com

Thousands of people flocked to the Tennessee State Capitol on Oct. 18 for the second iteration of the nationwide set of “No Kings” rallies in protest of President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies. • PHOTO BY HAMILTON MATT MASTERS

WHO WE ARE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers

MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez

SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin

ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter

MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Logan Butts

AUDIENCE EDITOR Annie Parnell

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman

STAFF WRITERS Julianne Akers, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams

SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan

EDITORIAL INTERN Noah McLane

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cat Acree, Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Bailey Brantingham, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Tina Dominguez, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Jayme Foltz, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, J.R. Lind, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Katherine Oung, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon Shamban, Amy Stumpfl, Cole Villena, Kay West, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Kelsey Young, Charlie Zaillian

ART DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones

PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sandi Harrison, Tracey Starck, Mary Louise Meadors

GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN Taylor Stringer

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello

MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Robin Fomusa

BRAND PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS MANAGER Alissa Wetzel

MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MANAGER Meredith Grantham

PUBLISHER Mike Smith

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski

SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS

Teresa Birdsong, Olivia Britton, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Niki Tyree

ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS

Kailey Idziak, Allie Robbins, Andrea Vasquez

SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty

ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATES Audry Houle, Jack Stejskal

SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa

PRESIDENT Mike Smith

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton

CORPORATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones

IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer

DIGITAL DIRECTOR Caroline Prater

CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis FW PUBLISHING LLC

Fahamu Pecou. End of Safety: Surrender (detail), 2023. Acrylic on canvas; 60 x 36 in.

Courtesy of BackSlash Gallery, Paris. Image courtesy of the artist. © Fahamu Pecou

Welcome to The Haysboro. This boutique condo community in East Nashville’s sought-after Inglewood neighborhood blends timeless architecture with modern comfort. Enjoy thoughtful design, a vibrant community atmosphere, and flexible zoning that lets you grow with your space. Whether you’re seeking your first home, a low-maintenance lifestyle, or a place with walkable neighborhood charm, The Haysboro delivers. And don’t miss a visit to E+ROSE Wellness Café located just off the stylish lobby. Limited-time pricing and seller concessions available—contact us for details.

CONDOS FROM $300,000 INGLEWOOD

High View Cottages is a thoughtfully designed community of 3- and 4- bedroom homes featuring mid-century modern inspired architecture and several inviting outdoor spaces. Perched on a hillside loop road, Phase 3 is the final section of the neighborhood and offers some of the best locations and views in the neighborhood alongside some significant upgrades that are now included in the standard pricing.

HILLSIDE COTTAGES FROM $614,900

EAST NASHVILLE

BOARDING HOUSE OVERREACH

A local musician sublets rooms to fellow artists looking for cheap rent. Metro Codes says he’s operating a ‘boarding house.’

BY LENA MAZEL

Street View is a monthly column in which we’ll take a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.

IN MANY WAYS, Daniel Faulkner has a classic Nashville story. Known by his stage name Danny Nova, Faulkner moved to the city looking for more opportunities for collaboration after beginning his music career in New Jersey. He bounced around between a few apartments before renting a place in Berry Hill in 2017. He sublets some rooms in his house, advertising them as longer-term rentals on Airbnb and looking to attract fellow creative types.

In August, he got a letter from the Metro Department of Codes and Building Safety telling him he was operating a boarding house.

The letter, which Faulkner has shared with the Scene, is addressed to his landlord and references Faulkner’s multiple Airbnb listings. “Notice!” The letter reads. “This property is operating a boarding house without permits. Please remove all ads and stop renting 30 night single rooms.“

Faulkner rents a four-bedroom house and sublets two to three bedrooms on a month-tomonth basis, he says. Right now, his roommates include a saxophone player “who’s a teacher during the day” and a violinist who also works as an administrator. Faulkner tells the Scene he’s intentionally renting to people for lower rates to help them get ahead in an increasingly expensive city. “I rent to financially struggling people who can’t afford to live on their own,” he says. “Their stated income level doesn’t allow them access to apartment complexes who require proof of high income.”

“Musicians and struggling artists are left out in the cold, so to speak,” Faulkner says. “They find themselves living in their cars or living on the street unless they happen to come across someone like me who doesn’t require a credit score or large deposit to rent a safe and secure house-share room.”

Faulkner tells the Scene he rents the rooms for between $800 and $1,100 a month, including all utilities.

Even though Faulkner’s arrangement might work well for artists who are new to town, the Codes Department does consider it a boarding house. Bonell McBroom III, short-term rental permits chief with Metro Codes, explains that Nashville’s short-term rental ordinances do not allow “simultaneous rental to more than one party under separate contracts.” Faulkner got around this by advertising the rentals for more than 30 days at a time. But then he ran into a new issue: The city’s definition of a boarding house, according to Metro, is “a building arranged or occupied for lodging, with or without meals, for compensation and not

occupied as a one- or two-family dwelling.”

“To obtain [a short-term rental property] permit the dwelling is also required to have a home inspection which is also conducted in accordance with the Code sections in the attachment,” McBroom explains in an email to the Scene. “Mr. Nova’s rental activity is considered as a ‘Boarding House,’ not an STRP. For this reason, Mr. Nova has been asked to obtain the proper permits to operate a Boarding House. He has not complied.”

McBroom pointed to Faulkner’s multiple listings on Airbnb, noting that he is listing rooms on separate contracts.

Nashville has restricted short-term rentals like Airbnb since 2015, and in 2022, the city stopped issuing permits for non-owner-occupied STRs in residential areas. This legislation has slowed (but not stopped) the growth of STRs, and some issues remain — like some owners operating STRs without the correct permits

An initial run-in with Metro Codes made Faulkner stop renting his rooms on a short-term basis; he said his landlord is supportive of the current arrangement.

“He’s 100 percent for it because he’s propeople,” says Faulkner. “He’s been in Nashville for 30 or 40 years; he’s seen what’s happening.”

Cheap, unconventional apartments have often been a way for the city’s artists and performers to find their footing, and housing is a priority for city officials amid a serious shortage in affordable units. But while arrangements like Faulkner’s could offer an affordable alternative to some renters, Metro Codes says affordable housing issues won’t be solved by people operating rentals that are against the rules.

“We are all for affordable housing, as long as we can ensure that it is safe, affordable housing through adherence to the Code,” says McBroom.

Thousands of people flocked to the Tennessee State Capitol Saturday for the second iteration of the nationwide set of “No Kings” rallies in protest of President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies. Protesters of all ages turned out for the event, which was organized by progressive activist group Nashville Indivisible. “We’re here today because we refuse to live under kings, dictators and tyrants,” Jennifer Brinkman, a volunteer with Nashville Indivisible, told the crowd. “The rich and powerful are dividing us. … They want to strip away our health care. This isn’t a left or right issue. This is an up and down issue — bullies and billionaires at the top, and we’re at the bottom.”

He also points to a significant contribution to Nashville’s Barnes Affordable Housing Trust Fund by the Metro Codes Department every year — this money comes from an earmarked portion of funds taken in from STRs.

Other individuals have offered more structured affordable housing solutions too, though these take permits and organizational power. Nashville’s first publicly funded cooperative housing development opened last year, and individuals like activist Karl Meyer have privately been offering affordable rent to Nashvillians in need for decades

Faulkner tells the Scene that he’s looked into applying for a boarding house permit, but the city told him he’d also have to install a sprinkler system. “It’s not like I own the property,” he says. “There’s no benefit for me to … spend $3,000 or $4,000 for a sprinkler system.”

In a follow-up email to the Scene, Metro Codes zoning administrator Joel Hargis explains that Faulkner’s house could also become compliant if everyone residing at the house went on a single lease to rent the property together on a long-term basis — at least 30 nights.

But for now, the four-bedroom artist house in Berry Hill is still in full swing, with music coming from every room. Faulkner hopes his housemates won’t have to look elsewhere, but he doesn’t want to run a boarding house either. “My plan is to hopefully raise enough awareness that this will come to a senator’s attention, and that he will go in for a show of cause and stop any of this ordinance stuff happening until it can be debated,” he says.

But barring that sort of intervention, Faulkner might just try to rent the extra rooms as offices. And if that doesn’t work? At that point, he says he might just leave Nashville altogether. ▼

An Oct. 15 quarterly report from Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles shows mounting debt and weak fundraising just when his reelection bid needs a boost. Ogles reported $57,916 on hand against $70,368 in campaign debt ($20,000 of which is a personal loan, while Ogles owes the rest to firm Holtzman Vogel) through Sept. 30. Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder a Democrat, and Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatch, a Republican, are both launching bids to unseat Ogles, a Trump acolyte who has held the 5th Congressional District seat since 2023.

Tennessee Democrats are sounding the alarm after what they call a “devastating new milestone”: the state recording its highest number of annual gun deaths ever. Citing two recent reports — including one published by Tennessee Under the Gun a data-collection project from the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus — lawmakers note that nearly 1,600 gun deaths occurred across the state in 2023. “We’re here today to make sure that Tennesseans see the truth, to make it impossible to look away, and to remind the state’s leaders that their inaction has consequences, measured in lives lost,” Democratic state Sen. Heidi Campbell said during a press conference, pointing the blame toward the state’s Republican supermajority

Last week, speaking about the state and federal task force occupying Memphis, Gov. Bill Lee told reporters: “We do know this is going to last for months, and we have just begun. In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever.” In September, Memphis police said crime in Memphis is at a historic low. The White House says it’s at an all-time high. Writes Scene columnist Betsy Phillips: “I have to believe that Gov. Lee knows the Trump administration is using the sins of a whole region as an excuse to punish a city. But I’m also sure, just based on years of observation, that he doesn’t care.”

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

DANIEL FAULKNER

BEHN, VAN EPPS SQUARE OFF FOR OPEN CONGRESSIONAL SEAT

Candidates emphasize party unity, push fundraising in weeks following crowded primary

BY ELI MOTYCKA

DEMOCRAT AFTYN BEHN and Republican Matt Van Epps each won contested primaries this month, setting up a proxy clash between Trump and his progressive detractors in the Dec. 7 special election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.

The district’s conservative history and primary voting data still give Republicans a comfortable edge — significantly aided by the GOP’s 2022 decision to redraw Nashville’s heavily Democratic vote into three rural districts, including the 7th. Army surgeon Mark Green, a Trump-aligned conservative, won the seat by almost 70,000 votes in 2024 before abruptly resigning over the summer for a private sector job.

Before leaving office, Green tapped Van Epps as his preferred replacement, giving the fellow Army veteran a head start on networking and fundraising. A late endorsement from Trump helped Van Epps fend off a credible challenge from state Rep. Jody Barrett, who has consolidated support as a rare Republican voice of opposition to Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher push in the state legislature. A crowded field of Democrats — led by state Reps. Bo Mitchell, Vincent Dixie and Behn, as well as centrist political consultant Darden Copeland — jumped at the unexpected opportunity to run a federal campaign. In the primary race, Democrats vowed to flip the seat as a message to Trump amid highly publicized cuts to federal programs. Protecting rural health care, specifically, emerged as a favorite rallying cry for the opposition party.

Van Epps, a West Point graduate and high-ranking Tennessee National Guardsman, has fully adopted the president’s policy agenda

and built his political persona around his military credentials. He has been a loyal party bureaucrat while making several logical career steps for someone aspiring to public office.

Van Epps spent almost a decade circulating through various posts in Gov. Lee’s administration, interrupted by a few private-sector stints; according to his LinkedIn profile, Van Epps tried briefly to leverage his military and government experience into consulting profit with “Darkhorse Strategy LLC.” In 2024, he also disclosed a financial stake in 38 Ventures LLC, a small influence-peddling outfit also connected to former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn and former Lee chief of staff Blake Harris. Taken together, this political newcomer looks more like a well-connected product of the Tennessee GOP’s own “blob” — the pliable hierarchy inside a partisan government that adopts establishment ideology.

Trump built support attacking this type of government waste, leading Van Epps to bet against voters’ discernment by copy-pasting the president’s talking points. In the primary, he won every county within the 7th District except two — Hickman and Dickson, Jody Barrett’s home turf — and banked more than $400,000. On Oct. 16, Van Epps credited Tennessee GOP chair Scott Golden with helping “bury the hatchet” in service of party unity — pictured holding a literal hatchet, Van Epps and Golden posed with Barrett and other party figures. So far, Van Epps’ biggest political risk might be a slicked-back coif that might get him confused with maligned California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In the primary sprint, Behn leaned on her

ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER CELEBRATES 80 YEARS

Nashville field-trip staple reveals plans for Oct. 31 anniversary and new exhibits with Tennessee focus BY

HANNAH HERNER

EXHIBITS MAY come and go at Adventure Science Center, but memories of making a tornado in a 2-liter bottle or staring up at the planetarium sky are forever. This month, Adventure Science Center is celebrating eight decades of science education for kids.

“For 80 years, Adventure Science Center has been a place where curiosity and hands-on learning thrive,” says Leah Melber, the center’s president and CEO. “Generations of Nashvillians have grown up exploring our exhibitions, asking big questions and discovering the joy of science. As we celebrate, we’re also looking ahead to a new era, ensuring STEM education and pathways toward STEM careers remain accessible, inspiring and fun for everyone.” (The acronym STEM refers to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.)

progressive bona fides and organizing experience to draw out the party’s dedicated progressive wing. She has support from local grassroots groups like Planned Parenthood and TIRRC Votes, as well as labor groups like AFL-CIO. To win, she will likely have to expand her popularity beyond tapped-in Davidson County liberals. Mitchell, Dixie and Copeland joined Behn at Fido cafe after her primary win for the Tennessee Democratic Party’s Unity Breakfast, helping inject cash and momentum into the longshot bid under new party chair Rachel Campbell.

Behn, whose folksy selfie-style fundraising ads indicate that she seems to genuinely enjoy the spotlight, will have to find tens of thousands of votes across the massive district. Special elections typically suffer from low turnout, giving an opposition candidate the chance to narrow margins in a vote without Trump’s name on the ballot. Even so, Republicans outvoted Democrats 36,854 to 31,002 on Oct. 7; Behn won only Williamson County outright and performed solidly enough in Nashville and Clarksville to keep a 900-vote lead over runner-up Copeland.

Van Epps has already begun painting Behn as a law-breaking leftist — not hard to do, as Behn describes herself in similar words and picked up a disorderly conduct arrest in 2019 at the Tennessee State Capitol protesting then-Rep. David Byrd’s history of alleged sexual assault. Behn’s Substack has been unusually quiet since her primary win, perhaps a signal that she’s planning a communications pivot. In the meantime, her campaign has leaned on Organizing 101: Knock on doors, make calls and talk to people, a timetested formula for scoring an upset. ▼

From July 2024 through June 2025, Adventure Science Center welcomed more than 260,000 visitors from all 95 Tennessee counties, all 50 states and 21 countries. Those numbers include more than 26,000 students from 198 schools on field trips to the center. Then called the Children’s Museum of Nashville, the center opened in 1945 in Lindsley Hall — a castlelike structure on Second Avenue South that now houses Metro offices. A star projector was installed in 1952 and became one the the main attractions in the museum. The organization was renamed Cumberland Museum and Science Center in 1972, and moved to its current Fort Negley Park location in 1974. In the early 1980s, the center opened its laser shows — which are still offered today — and its first computer lab.

A 16,000-square-foot expansion came in 1986, and the stately Adventure Tower climbing structure opened in 2002. In 2008, the new Sudekum Planetarium and the Space Chase exhibit gallery opened — with the center employing the first GOTO Chiron Hybrid projection system in the U.S. Recent additions include an exhibit on pollinators on the center’s third floor and a new set of classrooms for visiting students to perform experiments. Also recently added is a space suit that belongs to Eiman Jahangir — an associate professor at Vanderbilt University and director of cardio oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who was a finalist twice for NASA’s astronaut candidate program. Last year, Jahangir visited space via a Blue Origin craft.

Jahangir’s story is the kind that Adventure Science Center hopes to inspire. He was an Adventure Science Center kid, visiting with his family, and eventually leading summer camps there as an adult. Noah Gray, the center’s director of brand strategy, says he hopes seeing Jahangir’s example could spark something in a child’s brain — even if it’s just to

PHOTO:

AFTYN BEHN

MATT VAN EPPS

Thank you, Nashville!

Thank you for voting Simmons Bank as the Nashville Scene Best Bank runner-up!

From your first savings account to retirement… Life is full of important moments. With our modern banking solutions, managing your finances becomes effortless and efficient. So you can focus on the moments that matter most.

Proud supporter of the moments that matter.

Equal Housing Lender. All accounts subject to approval. Simmons Bank NMLS #484633.

go to summer camp at the center.

“We want to make sure that we’re expanding access to STEM education for everybody,” Gray says. “We want to make those career pathways the heroes of the story as obviously as possible.”

The center also recently added the Soundbox exhibit, which highlights Manuel Delgado, owner and luthier at Delgado Guitars. As it turns out, a great deal of physics goes into building guitars. ASC reps say that in time, every part of the center will have a Tennessee or local connection. Even the fossils at the newly added Fossil Frontier, which replaced the zero-gravity exhibit, were found in Tennessee.

The nonprofit plans to add an exhibition focusing on river preservation in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority, and to revamp its 2005-opened Body Quest exhibit with updated health science curriculum.

For its 80th birthday celebration on Oct. 31, Adventure Science Center will throw it back to the scientific innovations of 1945, including a demonstration on sodium polyacrylate, an absorbent material used in cat litter and diapers. Staff will also demonstrate the science behind the Slinky and help visitors make their own version of Silly Putty.

This year, the center continued its streak as Best Place to Take Kids When It’s Raining in the Scene’s annual Best of Nashville readers’ poll. But it’s not only for children. Adventure Science Center periodically hosts its 21-and-up Way Late Play Date events.

“There’s a ton of stuff to learn for adults here,” Gray says. “It doesn’t talk down, it doesn’t use childish language. There’s a lot that kids can enjoy and play with that’s tactile, but adults love it and learn while they’re here too. It’s also fun to watch a few hundred 21plus people run around here like they’re kids.” ▼

ADVENTURE SCIENCE CENTER

The 30 th Medallion Ceremony

Produced and Presented by THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL

OF FAME® AND MUSEUM

We congratulate Tony Brown, June Carter Cash, and Kenny Chesney, and express our deepest gratitude to the many people who gave their time and talent to produce this very special 2025 Medallion Ceremony.

Paul Franklin,Steel guitar

Jen Gunderman, Keyboards

Tania Hancheroff, Vocals

Brent Mason, Electric guitar

Alison Prestwood, Bass

Jerry Pentecost, Drums

Deanie Richardson, Fiddle and Mandolin

Mica Roberts, Vocals

Jeff White, Guitars and Vocals

Charlie Worsham, Guitars and Vocals

Biff Watson, Bandleader and Acoustic Guitar

Emmylou Harris

Keb’ Mo’ and Ruby Amanfu

Trisha Yearwood

George Strait

John Anderson

Megan Moroney

Kelsea Ballerini

Steve Earle

Lukas Nelson

Vince Gill

Eric Church

Kacey Musgraves and Daniel Tashian

Joe Galante

Lyle Lovett

Tony Brown John Carter Cash and Carlene Carter for June Carter Cash

Kenny Chesney

Photos by: Tibrina Hobson and Terry Wyatt / Getty Images for the Country Music Hall of Fame, and Amiee Stubbs

From the Nun Bun and Snowbird to Opryland and political corruption, here’s our curated list of pre-‘it’-city Nashville artifacts

BY

IN 2013, The New York Times’ Kim Severson wrote a story under the headline “Nashville’s Latest Big Hit Could Be the City Itself,” deeming us “the nation’s ‘it’ city.” Though Nashvillians didn’t know it at the time, that profile became a sort of line of demarcation: All that came before January 2013 was Old Nashville, and all that has happened since is New Nashville.

We’ve spilled more than enough ink (including a couple of cover stories) on the Great “It” City Debate. This week’s cover package is not more of that. Instead, we’ve rounded up roughly three dozen entries on classic, pre-“it”-city Nashville artifacts that will strike a chord with long-timers — and bring the New Nashvillians up to speed.

The Old Nashville Encyclopedia is not a comprehensive text. Yes, we could list beloved establishments that have shuttered — like downtown’s Nashville Sporting Goods or Hillsboro Village’s Jackson’s or Brick Church Pike’s Old Timer’s Pit BBQ & Fish. (OK, OK, there is a little bit of that. But covering them all would probably chew up a year’s worth of cover stories.) Instead, what we offer here is a curated selection of political scandals, cringe-inducing moments, colorful characters, forgotten landmarks and erstwhile sports franchises from what we fondly look back on as Nashville’s “small-town” days. No, we’re not reaching all the way back to the days when fur trapper Timothy Demonbreun made a home in a cave near the Cumberland River, or past that to the many centuries when Middle Tennessee was inhabited by a thriving and diverse civilization of Indigenous peoples. For our purposes, we’re (very roughly!) setting the boundaries of the Old Nashville era as 1963 (when Nashville and Davidson County merged to form Metro Nashville) and 2013 (when the aforementioned Times piece ran).

Did we miss something? We’re sure you’ll let us know, and maybe we’ll put it in Volume 2.

D. PATRICK RODGERS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS | ILLUSTRATIONS BY TAYLOR STRINGER

‘40

JEALOUS WHORES’

At 40 members, Nashville’s Metro Council is the third-largest city council in the country — behind New York City’s 51 and Chicago’s 50. And as we speak, the city and the state are engaged in a years-long battle over the Tennessee General Assembly’s attempts to slash the council in half. Over the years, some Nashville mayors have had acrimonious relationships with the body, and perhaps none more so than Beverly Briley — the first mayor to lead Nashville and Davidson County after the consolidation of the city and county

governments in 1963. Briley (whose grandson David Briley also served as Nashville’s mayor decades later) famously once referred to the council, which he saw as bloated and bickering, as “40 jealous whores.” Though the phrase is uttered less and less as the years go by, it still lingers in local political circles.

D. PATRICK RODGERS

ADULT WORLD

Before Lower Broadway became a redneck Disneyland for bachelorette parties and country singers’ branded bars, it was a grimy haven for the city’s creeps. Adult World was one of the many sexually explicit shops that once lined the strip. When it closed in February 1989, its shuttering marked the end of an era — part of a broader decline that also claimed the Mini Adult Theater on Fourth Avenue North and the Midtown Adult Cinema on Church Street. The change had less to do with morality than with technology: The rise of VCRs and X-rated videotapes made it easy to watch — and rewatch — porn at home, rendering adult shops increasingly obsolete.

George Gruhn, who ran Gruhn Guitars next door to Adult World, told Tennessean reporter Renee Elder that the sex-shop business was dying. “If you can rent a porno movie and view it in the privacy of your own home,” he asked, “why would you want to come downtown and spend your money in those places?”

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

BIG TUSSIE JACKSON

Nashville music completists may know Carrie Lee “Big Tussie” Jackson as the namesake for one of Lambchop’s early albums, but she was part of Nashville’s fabric long before Kurt Wagner and his band immortalized her on vinyl. (Well actually, Big Tussie was a cassetteonly release.) In 1969, the gospel-singing resident of the John Henry Hale Homes — who could allegedly bench press more than 400 pounds — fought off three Metro police officers, and it eventually took six more to bring her into custody. She ran (unsuccessfully) for Metro Council, and according to her attorney — the legendary Avon Williams Jr. — she damn near threw him out of a window. Naturally, Jackson became a professional wrestler on the local circuit. At a time when “girl wrestlers” were largely eye candy, Big Tussie was a certified bruiser (and an excellent mic worker) whose gimmick was that she wanted to fight men and that the promotion couldn’t control her. In a different time, she’d have been a major star. J.R. LIND

CARNIVAL KIA GUY

Chris Bostick was a ubiquitous fixture of local TV ads in the ’90s and early 2000s, urging budget-conscious car buyers at his Carnival Kia dealerships, “Don’t you leave till you see me.” He had all one would expect from a canI-really-trust-him car dealer: a toothy alabaster smile, golden leather tan, perfectly trimmed and highlighted hair and an overall oeuvre of ostentatious Williamson County new-money wealth. A real Keith Suburban. His fall from

grace was swift and bizarre: First arrested for assault, he eventually caught a federal charge for owning unregistered submachine guns.

J.R. LIND

CAT STEVENS AND THE ISLAMIC CENTER OF NASHVILLE

The Islamic Center of Nashville, home to the city’s oldest Muslim congregation, occupies a prominent spot in the 12South neighborhood. Its presence there is thanks in part to singersongwriter Yusuf Islam (best known as Cat Stevens). In the mid-1970s, Nashville’s small Muslim community gathered at what is now the Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt University. By 1979, the community had grown to around 3,000 members. That same year, with $30,000 in raised funds — including a generous donation from the “Peace Train” songwriter — the group purchased an old house at the corner of 12th Avenue and Sweetbriar to serve as their first mosque. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

THE CHURCH STREET ‘GAYBORHOOD’

Gay clubs Tribe Nashville and Play Dance Bar are the remaining strongholds of a mighty “gayborhood” that once stretched down Church Street for blocks. At one time, Suzy Wong’s was its own restaurant (Suzy Wong’s House of Yum) and not just the name of a drag brunch. People ate at gay-friendly restaurant The World’s End (Wednesdays featured “bridge night” happy hour), sang karaoke at Blue Gene’s, danced at New Attitude, hung out at KC’s Club 909 and gathered after hours at Excess. The closure of bookstore Outloud! in 2011 was a blow, but the closing of community center OutCentral in 2018 was a turning point. Canvas moved to East Nashville’s Fatherland Street in 2023, dubbing it the new “gayborhood.” HANNAH HERNER

DANCIN’ IN THE DISTRICT, RIVERSTAGES, SUMMER LIGHTS, ET AL.

Before Mayor Phil Bredesen had the bright idea to build a stadium and an arena in the middle of town, the city used live music to draw people back into the city. On Thursday nights in the summer, Dancin’ in the District drew crowds to Riverfront Park to see (usually) prominent local acts for a free concert series. How many times can you see Jason & The Scorchers or The Features or The Honeyrods or Fluid Ounces? A lot! RiverStages was a weekend festival that brought in national acts, usually ones that had hit it big on the radio. (Fastball! Semisonic! Everclear!) Summer Lights was a little bit older (both in its own lifespan and its clientele). By the 2010s, Music City would try its own version of SXSW with Next Big Nashville, a club-hopping week of local music with its spiritual roots in those bargestage nights by the river. J.R. LIND

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JANET MARCH

In August 1996, artist, University School of Nashville alum and mother of two Janet Levine March disappeared from her home in Nashville’s affluent Forest Hills neighborhood.

As reporter Willy Stern put it in his Jan. 16, 1997, Nashville Scene cover story, “Seldom has an investigation attracted so much attention and inspired so much speculation.” The case — “the most talked-about local investigation since [9-year-old Nashvillian] Marcia Trimble was murdered in 1975,” Stern wrote — made national headlines, with evidence continually mounting against Janet’s husband, attorney Perry March. After legal battles with his inlaws, relocations to Chicago and Mexico, and a secret grand jury indictment, Perry March was convicted of his wife’s murder in 2006, 10 years after Janet’s disappearance — despite no body ever being discovered. After his arrest, Perry March was also found guilty of conspiring, with his father, to kill his in-laws. He’s now serving a 56-year sentence in an East Tennessee prison. D. PATRICK RODGERS

ELLISTON PLACE GOLDEN AGE

More than just one dive, diner or steakhouse, Elliston Place cultivated an aura of niche Nashville nightlife. Jimmy Kelly’s will soon celebrate a century in business; others have since fallen or ascended to second or third lives. The Gold Rush, Calypso Cafe, Rotier’s, Cafe Coco and Elliston Place Soda Shop all were close enough to Vanderbilt and downtown to draw regulars but far enough to create a neighborhood unto their own. Just down West End, Vandyland contributed its own family-friendly dining room. Exit/In and The End (both of which still exist) helped supply a nightly crowd of hungry and thirsty patrons who scattered through the Rock Block before and after shows. The block still gets traffic, but its golden age — when independent businesses flourished over today’s franchised and corporate storefronts — is many locals’ treasured memory. ELI MOTYCKA

FATE THOMAS

If post-consolidation Metro had a political boss, it was Fate Thomas. For 18 years as the sheriff, Thomas (an integral organizer of the Hooligans and center of attention at the Last Saturday Breakfasts … more on those later) used his ability to appoint deputy sheriffs to create a clutch of loyalists and — importantly to his fellow politicians — a mighty GOTV regime. Perhaps not shockingly, Thomas eventually met the fate (forgive me) that

befalls many Tennessee sheriffs: Indicted on federal charges of misuse of public office, he went to federal prison in the late ’90s. J.R. LIND

FUNSCAPE

There was a time when Green Hills was fun. For a few golden years in the late 1990s, when boardroom consultants were throwing cash at the emerging kids’ tech market, city birthday parties knew no greater merriment than an open tab at Funscape. As Regal Cinemas prepared for its 1993 IPO, the company expanded its movie theater offerings to include multiroom indoor theme parks. Foam-ball battle rooms, first-gen virtual reality experiences, arcade games and a smoking lounge briefly captured moviegoing families at Regal Green Hills. It was like Chuck E. Cheese done right. To this day, walking down the esplanade toward the box office can still activate Funscape euphoria grooves formed on the brains of many Nashville youth. ELI MOTYCKA

GATHERING OF THE TRAVELLERS

The American branch of Irish Travellers — a nomadic and clannish ethnic group similar to, but culturally and genetically distinct from, the Roma — see Nashville as a sort of spiritual home. Having first come to town in the late 19th century to take advantage of nearby horse markets in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro and mule centers in Gallatin and Columbia, they formed a bond with the priest at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. For decades, they’d return in early May to bury their dead, baptize their children, get married and do some courting. With tents and caravans on Murfreesboro Road, the annual pilgrimage was breathlessly reported in the local media. Families still come in the spring but to a far lesser degree. J.R. LIND

GOV. RAY BLANTON’S ‘IMPEACHMENT, TENNESSEE-STYLE’

As contributor Betsy Phillips once beautifully summarized for us: “Ray Blanton was governor of Tennessee from 1975 to 1979, and his time in office was scandal-ridden, to put it mildly. … He gave jobs to all his friends. He did state business with his family’s company. And he sold pardons. That was the big one. You give Blanton enough money and he’ll pardon anyone you want.” Blanton’s exploits at the tail end of his sole term in office were so egregious, in fact, that his own fellow Democrats (yes, Democrats used to actually hold power in this state) teamed up to fast-track Republican successor Lamar Alexander’s inauguration. Lt. Gov. John Wilder later referred to Blanton’s early ouster as “impeachment, Tennesseestyle.” Blanton was indicted on mail fraud and extortion charges, spending 22 months in federal prison. The horrific icing on this shitty cake? Decades later, it was determined that Blanton’s administration hired a hitman to kill Samuel Pettyjohn, a cooperating witness in the pardon scandal. (Bonus: In Marie, the 1985 film based on the scandal starring Sissy Spacek, attorney Fred Thompson played himself. Thompson would go on to serve in the United States Senate and also have a successful acting career.) D. PATRICK RODGERS

GUMMO AND ‘LIL’ BRYANT CRENSHAW

Amid the local film landscape post-Robert Altman’s Nashville, weirdo provocateur Harmony Korine’s 1997 directorial debut Gummo might be the most influential movie to come out of Music City. The ex-Nashvillian’s experimental coming-of-age drama became an underground sensation following its release, its influence appearing everywhere from Donnie Darko to TikTok. Shot in less than a month all over Nashville, Gummo featured

JACOB REYNOLDS IN GUMMO

several nonprofessional local actors, including “Lil” Bryant Crenshaw. Crenshaw — who could usually be found selling waters at the corner of 12th and Wedgewood near where Smoothie King is now located — made an indelible impression in the film. Sadly, Crenshaw died in 2015 when he was struck by a vehicle on Murfreesboro Road. LOGAN BUTTS

THE HIGH AGE OF BLOGGING

Blogging was a big deal in the early Aughts, such that WKRN ran Nashville Is Talking, an aggregator helmed by the big-sister energy of Brittany Gilbert. There were meetups and bar crawls and comment wars and flaming and community. That era of blogging included A.C. Kleinheider’s Volunteer Voters (eventually coming under the then-Southcomm umbrella as Post Politics; Kleinheider was a victim of budget cuts and has been the flack for both Ron Ramsey and Randy McNally) and our own columnist Betsy Phillips. Also included: the blog arm of progressive radio show Liberadio(!), hosted by Mary Mancini (who eventually led the Tennessee Democratic Party) and an I.T. guy named Freddie O’Connell. J.R. LIND

LAST SATURDAY BREAKFASTS AND

THE

LOYAL ROYAL SECRET ORDER OF HOOLIGANS

These days, the power center of Nashville Democrats might be seen at East Nashville Beer Works, where righteous young progressives gather to be wooed by would-be elected officials. But in the period between Metroization and “it” city, nobody was moving up in the party without doing time at the Last Saturday Breakfasts at John A’s, or schmoozing at the annual Hooligans’ St. Patrick’s Day gathering. Both events still exist, a little grayer but still robust with labor leaders, longtime Metro and state functionaries and what would be called ward heelers if Nashville’s machine didn’t fade away with consolidation and end up wherever the Hopewell box went. The events aren’t so much “gone but not forgotten.”

With a rising left in the city, they are increasingly “forgotten but not gone.” J.R. LIND

LT. GOV. JOHN WILDER

For 36 years, John Wilder served as Tennessee’s lieutenant governor. It was a time of Democratic dominance in the Volunteer State, and the General Assembly was controlled by a faction of rural West Tennessee Democrats (which, at the time, existed). Piloting his plane to Nashville from Fayette County, Wilder became best known for his … unusual relationship with the English language. “The Senate is the Senate,” he’d proclaim without explanation. Once, faced with the problem of senators getting drunk in the chamber by topping off cans of Donald Duck orange juice with vodka, Wilder banned Donald Duck orange juice. “The Senate don’t quack quack no more,” he told the press, the ink-stained wretches no doubt confused why Wilder didn’t just ban vodka instead. J.R. LIND

MAYOR BILL BONER

Where to begin. After a five-term run representing Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District (largely uneventful, though it did end with an ethics investigation), Democrat and native Nashvillian Bill Boner was elected mayor of Music City in 1987. But Boner hadn’t seen the last of scandal. While married to his third wife, Mayor Boner commenced an affair and subsequent engagement with local singer Traci Peel, who boasted to a Nashville Banner reporter that the couple’s … uh, romantic sessions lasted for seven hours. This detail was brought to national audiences when Peel and Boner appeared on a 1990 episode of The Phil Donahue Show. The episode featured Boner sparring with Bruce Dobie (the Nashville Scene’s founding editor-in-chief) and playing harmonica while Peel sang “Rocky Top.” “There was not a single Nashvillian who did not watch that show,” Dobie recently told me. And it was enough to make Boner the namesake of the Scene’s annual screw-ups

issue, the Boner Awards. D. PATRICK RODGERS

MINNESOTA FATS AT THE HERMITAGE HOTEL

Nashville has always attracted colorful characters, and few were more vibrant than legendary pool player Minnesota Fats. During his years living at The Hermitage Hotel, Fats (born Rudolf Walter Wanderone) often invited guests and local looky-loos to watch as he performed trick shots on the pool table he kept on the mezzanine. Stories say Fats loved to challenge onlookers to play a friendly game with him for a small wager. After winning the first round, guests were often emboldened enough to play a second round — which they always lost. JANET KURTZ

MINOR LEAGUES

Minor league baseball has been part of the city since, basically, Reconstruction, and the Nashville Sounds returned to baseball’s spiritual home by heading back to Sulphur Dell in 2015. But in the 150 years of minor league baseball, the Sounds and their predecessors have shared the city’s sports scene with other below-the-majors teams. Hockey came with the opening of Municipal Auditorium. The first team — the Dixie Flyers, whose uniform the Predators celebrated with their Stadium Series jerseys in 2022 — was full of talent, as the NHL had only six teams at the time. The South Stars (whose logo featured a hockey player swinging a guitar, à la the Sounds’ Mr. Sound and his baseball-bat sixstring), the Knights (their fans’ chants later inspired many that have become part of the Preds fabric) and the Nighthawks (who had a pugilistic rivalry with the Macon Whoopee … seriously) followed. An untold number of hoops teams from various fly-by-night leagues (men’s and women’s) played on the hardwood. The Metros repped soccer for 23 years, the longest-lived team in the United Soccer Leagues. And for a time, Nashville had two minor league teams: The AA Xpress lasted but two seasons, but one of them was the year Michael Jordan played in the bus leagues, and his visits with the Birmingham Barons drew rare sellouts to Greer Stadium. J.R. LIND

THE MUSE (AND OTHER BYGONE MUSIC VENUES)

In Hayley Williams’ excoriation of hypocrites “True Believer,” she sings about “The club with all the hardcore shows / Now just a grayscale Domino’s.” If you haven’t lived here long, you may have no idea that she’s referring to crusty punk outpost The Muse, which shuttered in 2012 and became a Domino’s Pizza following what one hopes was a helluva deep cleaning. Indie venues are notoriously difficult to run and aren’t guaranteed to last forever, and we could spend all day listing long-gone spots like Jefferson Street’s Club Baron, Cantrell’s, Lucy’s Record Shop and The Stone Fox. But in this age of corporatized everything, celebrating and supporting what indie venues — both those

defunct and ones that persist like Springwater, The 5 Spot and all-ages nonprofit Drkmttr — do for our music communities is crucial. The concern is much more visible in the wake of COVID thanks to national trade groups like National Independent Venue Association and locals like Music Venue Alliance Nashville, which have spearheaded efforts like the Greater Nashville Music Census and the 615 Indie Live festival. STEPHEN TRAGESER

THE NASHVILLE CURSE

While Nashville has had plenty of vital music that isn’t country, it took until the mid-1980s for a local rock band to approach mainstream success. EMI signed the hottest rockers in town at the time, but the marketing suits decided that Jason & The Nashville Scorchers needed to drop “Nashville” from their name, and the group reluctantly went along. Lots of factors were at play in the Scorchers and their contemporaries achieving only modest commercial success. But the idea that the drought was karmic payback for the Scorchers dissing their hometown stuck. Thus was born “The Nashville Curse,” to wit: Rock bands from Nashville were forever doomed to poorly charting singles and meager sales numbers. Who should “break” said curse but Franklinresiding emo-pop-punks Paramore, whose second LP Riot! went gold in 2007 within six months of its release, went platinum in 2008 and was certified triple platinum in 2021. Bands today may or may not achieve Riot! numbers, but many more of them frequently tour the country and the globe. STEPHEN TRAGESER

THE NORTH NASHVILLE MUSIC SCENE

By the middle of the 20th century, Black Nashvillians turned North Nashville into a cultural and economic hub. A panoply of clubs along and near Jefferson Street made up a thriving entertainment district. They hosted stars and future legends: Among many others, Little Richard had a residency at Club Revillot, Etta James Rocks the House was recorded at the New Era (where a young Jackie Shane cut her teeth in the house band) and Jimi Hendrix and Billy Cox, fresh out of the Army, played the Del Morocco. The city’s decision to build I-40 through the area in the 1960s devastated the community and destroyed decades of progress, and we continue to feel aftershocks. Today a prime resource for learning more is the Jefferson Street Sound Museum: Founder Lorenzo Washington grew up in the area when the district was bustling. STEPHEN TRAGESER

THE NUN BUN

This is the story of the Nun Bun, Nashville’s only internationally known pastry. The tale began in 1996 at the Bongo Java coffeehouse on Belmont Boulevard. As recounted on the Bongo Java website, an employee noticed the roll displayed a resemblance to famed humanitarian Mother Teresa. The staff shellacked the pastry to preserve it. Bongo Java owner Bob Bernstein called a tabloid, and the story went worldwide. As it happened, Mother

TRACI PEEL AND BILL BONER ON THE PHIL DONAHUE SHOW, 1990

Teresa heard the tale and contacted Bernstein through her lawyer. She didn’t care for one of the phrases being used — “the immaculate confection” — but she was OK with “the Nun Bun.” The bun resided in a place of honor for nine years, until someone broke in and stole it. It was never recovered. DANA

KOPP FRANKLIN

OLD SECOND AVENUE

Originally gaining popularity due to its proximity to the Cumberland River, downtown Nashville’s Second Avenue North has seen a couple of forced renovations: from a 1985 fire and the 2020 Christmas Day bombing. (A 1996 historic zoning overlay means the neighborhood’s facades will mostly stay the same from here on out.) The bombing killed off Old Spaghetti Factory and its beloved streetcar (which featured seating), along with The Melting Pot, Rodizio Grill, B.B. King’s, Simply the Best $10 Boutique and others. For natives, Second Avenue North still conjures visions of youth-group haunt Laser Quest and the Market Street Festival. HANNAH HERNER

OPRYLAND USA

As we proved with our Dec. 29, 2022, cover story (“Looking Back at the Rushed 1997 Closure of Opryland USA”), we can and have written a great deal about Nashville’s late, lamented country-music-themed amusement park. From May 1972 until December 1997, Opryland

brought in millions of visitors with downhome entertainment and some genuinely thrilling rides. Those rides included longtimers like the Grizzly River Rampage (a whitewater-rafting ride used as a qualifying course ahead of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta — yes really) and the Wabash Cannonball, as well as latter-day additions like The Hangman. And then there was the mind-bending Chaos, whose sister ride Revolution lives on at Antwerp, Belgium’s Bobbejaanland. Despite the park’s long-lasting popularity, affordable fare, status as a de facto babysitter for Nashville-area youths and being featured in Robert Altman’s iconic 1975 film Nashville, Gaylord Entertainment closed Opryland USA to make way for 1.2 million-square-foot shopping mall Opry Mills. The move was later referred to by former Gaylord CEO Bud Wendell as a “dumb, dumb decision.”

D. PATRICK RODGERS

PANGAEA

Pangaea was a Belmont-Hillsboro Village institution that outfitted the bedrooms of a generation of Nashville’s teenagers — at least those with an affinity for celestial designs and stuff with Frida Kahlo on it. Store owner Sandra Shelton opened her shop in 1987 after being inspired by a trip to Honduras and Guatemala, and she kept it stocked with vintage clothing as well as hammered silver jewelry and other home goods. The store was

initially housed on Belmont Boulevard in what is now Proper Bagel, but it eventually moved to the corner of Belmont and 21st in Hillsboro Village. According to a podcast interview with Nashville Public Library from 2023, Shelton says the name Pangaea was a playful reference to intentional community The Farm, which had named its own shop One World. “Wait a minute,” Shelton says about hearing that name. “I took geology — there’s a name for that ‘one world,’ it’s Pangaea!” LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

QUIRKY LOCAL PRONUNCIATIONS

Living in Tennessee can leave newcomers tongue-tied. Well-read and well-traveled visitors may be forgiven for mispronouncing the towns of Santa Fe, Lebanon, Milan or Bolivar — none of which sound like you might think. Even seemingly straightforward locale names like Cookeville, Shelbyville and Murfreesboro have their subtle signifiers of who’s from here and who isn’t. God forgive the aspiring politician who slips up on one of those. Here in Nashville, ignore the pronunciation proffered by your GPS when it comes to Buchanan, Lafayette and Demonbreun streets. Duh, it’s duh-MUN-breeuhn STEPHEN ELLIOTT

RABBIT VEACH

From the 1950s until the early 1980s, there was no career criminal more beloved in Nashville than Clayton “Rabbit” Veach, a serial car thief who became a fixture in the local papers for his sheer unrehabilitated derring-do with the hot wire, his mythical ability to escape from any facility that dared to hold him and his homespun charm and wisdom. He escaped from the psych ward in 1963, and the papers noted it was already his seventh breakout. He escaped from jails in Davidson County, Sumner County and as far away as Oklahoma. Eventually, when he’d be arrested, he’d have to await his appearances at the state penitentiary because no county jail could hold him. His last arrest and conviction, in 1987, was the 58th (that we know of). He spent the last 29 years of his life out of trouble and died in 2016. J.R. LIND

RUSSELL BROTHERS

When authorities found an abandoned plane, landing gear not deployed, in the grass at the defunct Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville in April 2012, there really wasn’t any question who the plane belonged to — local character Russell Brothers. The septuagenarian was notorious in town for his long history of going to prison for international drug smuggling (which he attributed to a midlife crisis), working at Cornelia Fort Airpark back when it was a working airport, and being nonchalant about

the truth. For instance, after this incident, he told police he had nothing to hide. They went to his house and found a bunch of guns, which he — a convicted felon — was not supposed to have. If Brothers hadn’t been up to no good, it’s hard to understand why he appeared to have deliberately avoided drawing any attention to the emergency landing and then snuck away in the middle of the night, leaving the plane behind. But if he was still, ahem, suffering from a midlife crisis, police found no evidence of it. He went to prison on the gun charges and spent his remaining years as a local legend.

BETSY PHILLIPS

SHONEY BEAR

After 30 years affiliated with Big Boy and its ur-Funko Pop mascot, Nashville-based Shoney’s launched its own lovable ursine mascot in 1977. Shoney Bear and his forest friends featured on the kids menu and activity books, keeping young’uns occupied between trips to the fruitsalad-and-soup bar and while waiting for hot fudge cakes to come from the chill box. Soon enough, huggable stuffy Shoney Bears were available for purchase, and ultimately a lifesize, full-on man-in-a-costume became part of Nashville’s civic life. Quite literally. For a brief but glorious period of time in the early Aughts and 2010s, nary a major Metro event could pass without someone snapping a shot of Shoney Bear tossing his furry arms across the shoulders of Nashville’s powers-that-be. J.R. LIND

SLICK LAWSON AND WHITLAND AVENUE

When beloved member of the Nashville community Slick Lawson died in 2002, the Scene honored the famed photographer, hot air balloonist, motorcyclist and prankster. Lawson, who created the Whitland Avenue Fourth of July parade, loved keeping his neighbors guessing. One of his best pranks happened while he vacationed in Alaska. While gone, someone planted a sign in Lawson’s front yard that read: “Future Home of Whitland Condominiums. 10 Story UltraModern Highrise. Construction Financing by First Nashville Mortgage Investors.” The quiet neighborhood erupted in consternation, letters to the paper and calls to the mayor’s office in protest. The next week, a sticker was added to the sign “Only 4 Left.” Lawson never claimed credit, but the joke still earns laughs on Whitland Avenue today. JANET KURTZ

‘TECHS’ THE ROBOT COWBOY

You’re 7 years old and you’re at 100 Oaks Mall with your mom, trying to convince her that you really need a new LEGO set. Suddenly, a drawl booms at you from the food court: “Howdy pardner! Wanna sing with me?” The voice emanates from a golden being with a 10-gallon hat and saguaros stenciled on his pecs. You’ve been spotted by Techs, the Robot Cowboy, and there’s no escape. Techs was a sophisticated animatronic puppet run by a live operator who did crowd work from a hidden control room. He was nightmare fuel to area elementary schoolers in the 1990s and early 2000s, though he’s remembered fondly today, as in country duo Westwood Avenue’s wistful ballad “Robot Cowboy.” Techs hasn’t been seen in years, but the company that built him is called Advanced Animations and is still in business.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

THE TENNESSEE TITANS’ SUPER BOWL RUN

During the 1999-2000 NFL season — the inaugural campaign for the Tennessee Titans, who’d spent the two previous seasons as the Tennessee Oilers — I was a sportsobsessed first-grader. That was a prime age for introduction to sports-fandom heartbreak. Following back-to-back 8-8 seasons, the Titans went 13-3, setting up a playoff run for the ages. Tennessee’s postseason was bookended by two of the most iconic plays in NFL history. The Titans won their opening-round

matchup against the Buffalo Bills thanks to the exhilarating “Music City Miracle” — a last-second kickoff return that must be seen to be believed — and fell one agonizing yard short of forcing overtime in the most dramatic Super Bowl ending of the 21st century. I’m not ashamed to admit that I, then 6 years old, cried. The Titans haven’t been back to the Super Bowl since. LOGAN BUTTS

TENNESSEE TOWER WINDOW MESSAGES

Formerly the city’s tallest building at 452 feet and 31 floors, downtown Nashville’s Tennessee Tower was built in 1970 as the the corporate headquarters of the National Life and Accident Insurance Company. For more than two decades, the large, blocky tower wrapped in white travertine limestone would display seasonally appropriate messages at night, spelled out by its alternately lit and darkened windows. These included “Noel,” “Peace on Earth,” “Go Vandy” and — my personal favorite — “Boo,” that last one complete with a rudimentary jack-o’-lantern that looked like something created by an old dot-matrix printer. The tower was purchased by the state in 1994 and renamed the William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower, with the practice terminated due to the expense of leaving all those lights on overnight. There have been municipal efforts to bring back the tower’s window messages over the years, with at least one window slogan (“Peace”) popping up back in 2007. But now the practice remains a memory, a relic of a simpler time in a simpler town. D. PATRICK RODGERS

WOOLWORTH’S

The Woolworth’s department store on downtown Nashville’s Fifth Avenue became

an important civil rights site in 1960, when Black students were arrested for sitting at the whites-only lunch counter in protest of segregation. Among the group was John Lewis, a Fisk University student who would later represent Georgia’s 5th Congressional District and see the avenue named for him. The site operated as a lunch counter from the 1930s through the ’90s, and again after a restoration from 2018 until 2020. (It was a Dollar General in the interim.) In 2022, Woolworth Theatre began hosting a residency at the site: Shiners, a raunchy Vegas-inspired “cirque and adult comedy” show. HANNAH HERNER

WSMV’S CLASSIC ERA

All the local TV affiliates have things worthy of celebration (Forrest Sanders’ unique feature stories for NewsChannel 5) and ire (basically Fox 17’s entire social media presence). But with all due respect, no channel will top WSMV’s run of dominance. The Nielsen stats may not back this up, but culturally, it felt like WSMV dominated all local news conversations for about three decades thanks to iconic figures like current Nashville Banner executive producer Demetria Kalodimos (wardrobe provided by The French Shoppe), late beloved weatherman Bill Hall, late nationally known anchor Dan Miller and recently retired sports director Rudy Kalis. In 2017, WSMV made the horrendous decisions to let go of both Kalodimos and Snowbird — the latter being the station’s longtime school-closure-signifying mascot. Even though Snowbird has since popped back up on WSMV, the departure of the penguin and the beloved anchor marked the end of an era. LOGAN BUTTS ▼

SPECIAL ACTIVITY AREAS

AUTUMN ALLEY Presented by PUBLIX

Autumn Alley is back with a full block of fall fun on Main Street! Between the square and 4th Avenue, enjoy an interactive area including The Great Pumpkin, Pumpkin Tree, Extreme Pumpkin Carving, a couple of Autumn-inspired vendors, and Free Games!

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

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 VAVIA

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!

KIDONE 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 Simmons Bank Lot.

ROAD SHOW STAGE

You won't want to miss a moment of the incredible talent lined up for the Acoustic Stage—the one on a TRUCK! That's right, we're rolling out the fun! Catch the amazing performances at the corner of 2nd and Main and enjoy the best live music festival on wheels. This is one unique venue and lineup you have to see!

COUNTRY STORE

Visit our new Country Store - the place where you can find everything from pies to honey, and spices to jams.

SCARECROW CRAWL

Enjoy Discounts & Win a Movie Ticket to The Franklin Theatre! Grab a passport and follow the Scarecrow Crawl to find the unique Scarecrow at each destination and write its code on your passport to claim your prize!

• Binks Outfitters Elle Park

• Finnleys

• Hollie Ray Boutique

• Kilwins Franklin

• McGavock's Coffee & Provisions

PUBLIC WIFI ACCESS

Scan the QR code above for free public wifi access while at our festival! Public Wifi is provided by our Connectivity Partner, United Communications.

MAP LEGEND FIRST AID

• Molly Green Posh Boutique

• Rock Paper Scissors Rooted

• Shuff's Music

• Sweethaven

• The Heirloom Shop The Registry

• Tom Beckbe

• Twine Graphics Visit Franklin Visitor Center

• Walton's Jewelry

Passports available at the DFA tent on the square or at each shuttle stop entrance.

RESTROOMS INFORMATION SHUTTLE STOP ATMS

SCARECROW CRAWL

5TH

BOOTH & PARTNER DIRECTORY

STAGE SCHEDULE

MEDIA PARTNERS

OCT. 24

MUSIC [GAZING]

BLOOD ROOT & HORSEHELL DOUBLE ALBUM RELEASE FEAT. OFF TO SLEEP

One of the things that makes mom-and-pop music shops great is that staffers can often make recommendations based on using the gear in their own music. Taylor Wafford, a manager at much-loved Eastside Music Supply, is gearing up to release Turn, the new LP from her band Blood Root, with a big ol’ throwdown at the store. The songs showcase Wafford and company’s knack for using arrangement, effects and tones to enhance their narratives about feeling out of place, even within close relationships. This reference is always a little dangerous, but the ways Blood Root uses unconventional harmonies and textural shifts really do remind me of Radiohead at their best, without sounding much like Radiohead at all. Horsehell, purveyors of ethereal, slow-rolling bootgaze — that’s shoegazey songs with some country and folk DNA — are also marking the release of their album Nothing, an Infinity. Fellow local “slow-whatever” outfit Off to Sleep rounds out the bill, and their performance will include visuals by Bunny the Archmage. And that’s not all: Befitting Eastside’s reputation as Pedal Heaven, the show will also be the debut of a special limited-edition effects pedal by New Mexico’s Non-Human Audio called the Blood Loris (an educated guess suggests it’ll be based on their Slow Loris modulated slapback effect).

7 P.M. AT EASTSIDE MUSIC SUPPLY

2809 DICKERSON PIKE

STEPHEN TRAGESER

THURSDAY / 10.23

ART [NOSTALGIA, ULTRA] NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia is a collaborative exhibition by Olivia Ouzts and Anniston Drummonds currently hanging at Open Gallery. The show teases the boundaries between painting and sculpture, ending up in collage territory with some works in cyanotype — a photographic printing process that produces a blue print — included for good measure. If this sounds like a playful mix of elements, it’s because Nostalgia explores themes of childhood memory, the tension between innocence and experience, and the growing pains we feel along the way to adulthood. The exhibition revels in the desire to return to the past while also questing into the blurry borderlands between youth and maturity. One of the Nashville art scene’s biggest strengths is venues like Open that connect the gallery scene to local art departments and vice versa. Nostalgia feels — in the best way — like a show created by a pair of Lipscomb University studio art seniors looking forward to a bittersweet spring graduation. One word of advice? Plastics. Open by appointment through @opengallerynashville on Instagram.

JOE NOLAN

THROUGH OCT. 26 AT OPEN GALLERY AT THE PACKING PLANT

507 HAGAN ST.

FIIM [IT EVEN HAS A WATERMARK] SHOCKTOBER: AMERICAN PSYCHO

Yeah, I could spend a couple hundred words giving my thoughts on director Mary Harron’s faithfully black-comic 2000 adaptation of novelist Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial yuppie satire/horror story. I could mention Christian Bale’s star-making turn as sharp-dressed serial killer Patrick Bateman, wreaking homicidal havoc in the Big Apple circa 1987. But did you know there’s a remake in which Bateman is replaced by — wait for it! — Diddy? In the slapdash, low-low-budget movie African American Psycho: The Hip Hop Freak, a Puff Daddy-ish rapper named B-City is doing more than pulling out the baby oil and engaging in elaborate freak-offs. He’s also a gotdamn murderer. Instead of chopping up Jared Leto to Huey Lewis and the News, this dude bops down the stairs in a shiny getup, ready to hack away at someone who’s supposed to be Drake. Perhaps after you’ve taken in the Belcourt’s Shocktober screening of American Psycho, you might wanna head over to Tubi — that temple of half-assed Black cinema — and check out this hilariously horrible hood thriller, which is basically American Psycho for The Shade Room followers.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

9:30 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE

BLOOD ROOT

[GUIDED BY VOICES]

MUSIC

VOICES FROM THE LIGHT

A prolific composer and a passionate educator, Dorothy Rudd Moore inspired generations of Black musicians. This week, Vox Grata Women’s Choir and the W. Crimm Singers are teaming up to present two performances of Moore’s Voices From the Light. Blending “Negro spirituals and words of the Ancestors with the harmony of strings, oboe and piano,” the piece first premiered in 1997, with the Girls Choir of Harlem presenting it at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Voices From the Light remained largely unknown for many years, but it’s a marvelous work, and a fitting project for these two organizations to partner on. Established in 2012, Vox Grata is an auditioned, intergenerational women’s choir whose performances benefit local women’s charities and organizations. The W. Crimm Singers are a professional ensemble-in-residence at Tennessee State University. Performances are free, but guests are encouraged to contribute to an offering that will benefit YEAH (Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities) — a Nashville nonprofit serving youth ages 6 to 17 through music. AMY STUMPFL

OCT. 23 AT ST. VINCENT DE PAUL CHURCH (1700 HEIMAN ST.) & OCT. 26 AT SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (3511 BELMONT BLVD.)

FRIDAY / 10.24

[SIGNS AND OMENS]

MUSIC

SETH TIMBS ALBUM RELEASE

Seth Timbs — one of Nashville’s leading piano rockers for more than a quarter-century as the frontman for Fluid Ounces and as a solo artist — will celebrate the release of his impressive fourth full-length solo album Idle Hands Friday night at Eastside Bowl. Timbs wrote, produced and recorded the album’s 10 tracks of sophisticated pop rock. He also played most of the instruments on the record, although drummer Martin Lynds accompanied him on half the album, and Tripper Ryder contributed bass on two of the numbers. Lynds and Ryder will back Timbs Friday night, as will guitarist Justin Butler. “We’ll do the whole record,” Timbs tells the Scene, “and a couple from my previous records — and maybe a Fluid Ounces song or two from back in the day.” Following Timbs’

set, Apple Core: A Tribute to All Things Beatles — which features Timbs on keys, Philip Shouse and Jeremy Ashbrock on guitars and Eric Stroud on drums — will close out the night. Ryder will sub for the band’s regular bassist Mike Vargo, who is not available for Friday’s show. “I wanted to do my set early and then kind of have a party afterwards,” Timbs explains. DARYL SANDERS

8 P.M. AT THE ’58 AT EASTSIDE BOWL

1508A GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON

[C’MON, BABY, DON’T YOU WANNA GO?]

MUSIC

LUPE FIASCO

Chicago has always had its own style — deep-dish pizzas, Prohibition-era gangster movies, die-hard sports fans, and a long history of standing up against corrupt law enforcement, from the Haymarket riots to the recent ICE violence. Like many trends, hip-hop had already risen into mainstream culture on the coasts before blowing into the Windy City. But once it did take off there, Chicago hip-hop quickly set itself apart from the rest of the country, marrying the city’s long history of jazz with the beats, samples and flow of rap. Figures like Common, Noname and Earl Sweatshirt have managed to keep hip-hop weird while still making big hits. After escaping the shadow of that other Second City rapper/producer, Lupe Fiasco spent the past two decades making music that is thoughtful, spacious and imaginative — from early hits like rap’s first great skateboarding anthem “Kick, Push” to his magnificent recent albums for Nashville label Thirty Tigers, 2022’s Drill Music in Zion and 2024’s Samurai. His music is possibly smarter and better than ever before. P.J. KINZER

8 P.M. AT SKYDECK AT ASSEMBLY FOOD HALL

5055 BROADWAY PLACE

MUSIC

[HOMETOWN HEROES] HEADLINERS ONLY FEAT. DAISHA MCBRIDE, 2’LIVE BRE & TIM GENT

While we hate to admit it, summer is over. It’s October, and it is time to retire the linen and flipflops, and bust out the flannel, keeping yourself warm with memories of carefree pool parties and lake days. It’s also time to give Nashville rapper Daisha McBride’s July release So Much for Summer another spin. So Much is only six songs, but it packs more bounce to the ounce. Clever, playful and catchy as hell, McBride’s musical default is “party rocker,” so expect things to get live Friday night at Eastside Bowl. McBride will be joined by new-school country grammarian 2’Live Bre and Tim Gent, a longtime local whose “MLB (Make Love Baby)” hits the 9-month-old mark this month. SEAN L. MALONEY

8 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL

1508 GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON

COMMUNITY

[PANDA PROVISIONS] PANDA FEST

Let’s face it: This one is a pretty easy sell. Pandas are cute and Asian food is delicious, so it’s easy to see why Panda Fest sold out in Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia and Seattle. Now it’s Nashville’s turn. Panda Fest is a three-day festival headed to Fair Park near

The Fairgrounds Nashville. Organizers promise Asian cuisine from a variety of countries and traditions, cultural performances, live music and other activities. The idea is to spotlight diversity and creativity within the Asian community while everyone wears headbands with panda ears. Admission tickets range in price depending on the time and day and whether you’re going with general admission or VIP. Everyone receives the aforementioned headband. VIPs get more swag, plus access to some VIP areas and bathrooms. Food prices are not included. MARGARET LITTMAN

OCT. 24-26 AT FAIR PARK

2300 BRANSFORD AVE.

FILM

[IT’S JUST A BUNCH OF] HOCUS POCUS

It’s hard to believe Hocus Pocus was ever a flop. It’s true that when the movie came out in 1993, it bombed, losing Disney millions of dollars. But it was rescued from the sands of time because of its incessant screenings on Disney Channel, ABC Family, The Family Channel and the like. That feels about right, because my favorite celebrity, director Kenny Ortega, doesn’t make flops. (He’s also the choreographer behind Dirty Dancing and Xanadu and the director of High School Musical, Newsies and others.) Performances from Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters make this film an absolute classic. Plus, the cozy Salem, Mass., setting makes the film nearly synonymous with fall. Gather at Wasioto Park for a rare family-friendly downtown event among other fans who keep the film alive and the phenomenon that it is today. HANNAH HERNER

6 P.M. AT WASIOTO PARK

592 S. FIRST ST.

FILM

[YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED] THE OMEN

Before he made Superman fly, director Richard Donner helmed The Omen, the 1976 supernatural horror hit that one-upped The Exorcist by having its central child figure come out the womb demonic as fuck. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick star as a diplomat and his wife, who unknowingly adopt a kid who is the Antichrist (one of many shorthand synonyms for “bad child” pop culture has given us). Just like The Exorcist, The Omen eventually became a franchise, spawning two sequels, a TV movie, a very lousy remake and last year’s prequel The First Omen. It’s kinda funny that the Belcourt has programmed this on the same day the new A24 psychodramedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You begins its Nashville run. (See our review of that in this week’s film section.) They’re both extreme, nightmarish films in which parents drive themselves insane dealing with an unruly child. The Omen is still the more fuck-them-kids film of the two, practically scaring generations of adults out of having children who may not be the personalization of evil — but those little bastards could still act like they are. The Omen is showing both on Friday as part of the Belcourt’s Shocktober series and on Saturday at the Full Moon Cineplex. Visit belcourt.org and fullmooncineplex.com for showtimes.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

OCT. 24 AT THE BELCOURT (2102 BELCOURT AVE.) & OCT. 25 AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX (3455 LEBANON PIKE)

SATURDAY / 10.25

MUSIC

[COWBOY GUCCI] PIPER & THE HARD TIMES ALBUM RELEASE Saturday night at Fox & Locke, award-winning

PHOTO: COURTESY OF PANDA FEST

PANDA FEST

SETH TIMBS

7

blues outfit Piper & the Hard Times will celebrate the recent release of Good Company, their slamming sophomore album. The record is the follow-up to their stellar 2024 debut Revelation, which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Albums Chart. Revelation won Best Self-Produced CD at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in January and Best Emerging Artist at the Blues Music Awards in May. Mostly recorded at Nashville’s Ocean Way Studios in March and April, Good Company has garnered rave reviews since its release at the end of August. “We’ve kind of been shot out of a cannon the last yearand-a-half to two years,” guitarist and principal songwriter Steve Eagon tells the Scene. “We’ve had this brotherhood for 20 years or more as a band, and all of a sudden the last couple of years, man, things have really clicked.” While a few extra musicians and singers contributed to the album, Saturday’s show will feature the band’s regular lineup of dynamic frontman Al “Piper” Green, guitarist Eagon, keyboardist Amy Frederick, bassist Parker Hawkins and drummer Dave Colella. DARYL SANDERS

8 P.M. AT FOX & LOCKE

4142 OLD HILLSBORO ROAD, FRANKLIN

[HOUSE PARTY]

COMMUNITY

WILLIAM EDMONDSON ARTS AND CULTURE FESTIVAL

The annual William Edmondson Fest 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 one of Nashville’s artistic greats while supporting contemporary local artists and craftspeople. BETSY PHILLIPS

10 A.M. AT EDMONDSON HOMESITE PARK 1450 14TH AVE. S.

MONDAY / 10.27

[J. WALKER BLUES]

MUSIC

THE MINKS

Bluesy psychedelic rockers The Minks — Nikki Barber (rhythm guitar, lead vocals), Ben Giesecke (lead guitar, vocals), Henri Young (bass, vocals) and Dylan Sevey (drums, vocals) — have been woodshedding lately, writing material for the follow-up to their acclaimed 2023 release Creatures of Culture. They’ll be previewing songs from that untitled forthcoming record Monday night at The Basement, including their new single “Love Me Right,” which was released digitally on Oct. 13. That side will be paired with another new track, “Holy Howl,” on a 7-inch to be released later this year. Those recordings were cut in Nashville with producer Gregory Lattimer (Aaron Lee Tasjan, Molly Martin) at his Make Sound Good studio. Their new tracks are in the same vein as their previous album, but with more vocal harmonies. “Almost every song that we’re doing in our set is new, so that’s kind of the exciting part about taking a break,” Barber tells the Scene. “In December, we’re gonna go up to Lexington [Ky.] and record more [material] for the next full-length.” While Monday’s show will focus on their new songs, Barber says they will mix in a few numbers from Creatures. The Ragcoats and Good Country Dark are also on the bill.

DARYL SANDERS

9 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT

1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.

FILM [LET ME IN]

SHOCKTOBER & MUSIC CITY

MONDAYS: SINNERS

You’ve got (presumably) one more shot to see one of the year’s best films in theaters. Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s electric return from the Marvel abyss, was a critical and commercial smash when it was released back in April. The vampire-musical-action-thriller mash-up was a testament to what can happen when a director as talented — and crucially, with an innate understanding of moviegoing audiences — as Coogler is given the funds and the freedom to make something truly vital. Sinners has been discussed to death at this point, but don’t let that stop you from catching Smoke, Stack,

SINNERS

Preacher Boy and the rest of the crew (shoutout to the scene-stealing Delta Slim!) in theaters one more time, if only for the transcendent crossgenerational music showcase in which Coogler literally and figuratively burns the house down.

LOGAN BUTTS

9 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC

[PERFECTLY ALIGNED] MELISSA CARPER & THEO LAWRENCE

WILBY HENRY J. STAR WHITE REAPER

Because she has a real affinity for blues, Melissa Carper favors a Western-swing-meetscountry amalgam that swings harder and funnier than the norm. The Kansas-born singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist delivers on tunes like “Somewhere Between Texas and Tennessee,” a track from her 2024 release Borned in Ya. What elevates Carper out of the genre imitation you hear when you listen to enough Americana is partly her sheer verve. On the other hand, she nails a classic Louisiana/Texas two-chord blues groove on the Borned track “Evil Eva,” which I had to look up to make sure it wasn’t a cover of something I missed from the 1950s. Borned in Ya swings, and it’s indirectly political — listen to “Your Furniture’s Too Nice.” Meanwhile, Carper has been collaborating with French-born singer Theo Lawrence since he moved from Bordeaux, France, to Austin, Texas, in 2023. On his own, Lawrence intelligently updates post-Ray Price country on 2023’s Chérie, which adds just the right touch of irony to the retro-country concept. The duo sound perfectly aligned on tracks like “Dat Ain’t Right,” one of the songs on their 2025 full-length Havin’ a Talk. They know how to keep things light and swinging where others might get heavy, and that’s a gift. EDD HURT

8 P.M. AT SKINNY DENNIS 2635 GALLATIN AVE.

TUESDAY / 10.28

MUSIC

[CRYING IN THE RAIN] JACK SCHNEIDER

Jack Schneider’s music is timeless. If you’d told me his latest project, Streets of September, came out in 1972, I would have

wholeheartedly believed it. The album itself is a gorgeous testimony to personal growth, taking inspiration from the immeasurable depths of songsmith heroes such as John Denver and James Taylor. Schneider’s busy music career is impressive: He’s toured with Vince Gill and opened for artists including Ricky Skaggs and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Although it may be too early to say, Schneider’s own music falls in line with the greats of Americana. He’s a writer who understands the importance of preserving moments through song, as seen in Streets tracks such as “Bright Eyes” and “Gulf of Mexico.” Schneider’s strong musicality as a guitarist, along with his keen storytelling abilities, makes for a truly immersive concert experience full of warmth and genuine narratives. It’s not uncommon for Schneider to call up a few special guests during performances (such as Australian bass luminary Tal Wilkenfield at his last Station Inn gig). His show on Oct. 28 at the historic bluegrass venue is an absolute must-see.

GRACE BRASWELL

8 P.M. AT THE STATION INN

402 12TH AVE. S.

WEDNESDAY

/ 10.29

MUSIC

[HALF A LIFETIME] MY MORNING JACKET

If one were to talk about homegrown American bands that dominated a frame of time, you’d have to include My Morning Jacket’s takeover of the 2000s. Always innovative and experimental while keeping their country and rock roots in the mix, the Kentucky-bred five-piece is among the best live bands of their generation, and dynamic frontman Jim James and his band show no sign of slowing it down. Currently on tour celebrating their new release is as well as the 20th anniversary of their 2005 breakthrough album Z, My Morning Jacket will take the stage at The Pinnacle with Colombian psychedelic-funk trio BALTHVS opening. It will be an incredible opportunity to share a more intimate evening with some musical heroes and pretend it’s still just 2008. ML MEADORS

8 P.M. AT THE PINNACLE

910 EXCHANGE LANE

Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...

NO SMALL ENDEAVOR AT THE SCHERMERHORN

From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground icons, household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.

From pla hif’N h t

OCTOBER LINE UP

10.3 Lewis Brice 10.4 Waymore’s Outlaws

10.5 Shinyribs 10.7 Suzy Bogguss

10.8 Thom Shepherd Presents The Songwriters w/ Special Guests Kat Higgins, James Slater

10.11 King For A Day: A Tribute to George Strait w/ Shelby Lee Lowe, Skyelor Anderson, Cody Atkins, Jeff Holdbrook

Ashley McBryde: The Redemption Residency SOLD OUT

Ashley McBryde: The Redemption Residency SOLD OUT

Dalton & The Sheriffs

Dalton & The Sheriffs

WRITERS’ ROUNDS AT CHIEF’S

10.20 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Nick Fabian, Mallory Johnson, Dakota Striplin

10.21 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band Show Sings the Songs of John Prine featuring Ashley Monroe, Everette, Jason Carter, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Audrey Spillman, Neilson Hubbard, Parker Millsap

10.22 Young Gun Silver Fox –Pleasure USA Tour

10.23 Jon Wolfe

10.24 Aaron Nichols & The Travellers – Chris Stapleton Tribute

10.26 Chief’s Outsiders Round w/ Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek w/ Taylor Graves, Trent Cowie, Erlend, Riley Anderson

10.30 Jammy Buffet

At Chief’s we understand that great music is born from the heart and soul of it’s creators, which is why our writers’ rounds are dedicated to celebrating the brilliant minds behind some of today’s most iconic songs.

FIND REDEMPTION ON THE 5TH FLOOR OF CHIEF’S BROADWAY’S FIRST NA-FORWARD BAR

FALL INTIMATE DINNER SERIES

NOVEMBER 10-16

It’s back! This fall, some of Nashville’s most exceptional restaurants and chefs will invite guests to indulge in specialty dinners across the city. Get ready for six dinners featuring wine pairings, exciting chef collaborations, seasonally inspired menus and more! Reservations are open NOW!

MONDAY, NOV 10

WEDNESDAY, NOV 12

THURSDAY, NOV 13

“DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE” HENLEY

FRIDAY, NOV 15

WEDNESDAY, NOV 12

“FALL BASH” LOCKELAND TABLE

SUNDAY, NOV 16

“SUPPER CLUB” NELSON’S GREEN BRIER DISTILLERY

SAVE THE DATE Music City Food & Wine Festival

April 24-26, 2026

“A SUPPER THAT SUSTAINS US” 1 KITCHEN

“ODE TO MOTHER EARTH” MAIZ DE LA VIDA

Centennial Park Nashville, TN Scan to learn more + make reservations

BE IN THE KNOW

Sign up to be the fi rst to know when tickets go on sale! mcfwf.com

TRAVEL

FIVE STAYS ON THE WAY

From luxe dome to tricked-out train to hobbit hole, these unique accommodations east of Nashville are worth a stop

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

ONE OF MY favorite travel enhancements is the stay on the way. You’ve already taken off work and packed up your kids and car. Why not maximize your out-of-town time with a stop that’s new or noteworthy?

One night is all you need. Many places that typically require multi-night stays will make exceptions for weekdays, so if you’re traveling Monday through Thursday, you’re golden. Plus, if you book a one-nighter on the way back from your big vacation, you can avoid that awful Long Last Day of travel and instead recharge somewhere closer to home.

LUXE DOME, TERRALODGE, MONTEAGLE

92 miles

On the way to: Chattanooga, Atlanta

What’s better than being surrounded by nature? Being surrounded by nature with indoor plumbing and a big-screen TV. Terralodge in Monteagle is less than 20 minutes from downtown Sewanee. Its Scandinavian aesthetic — minimalist and clean yet cozy — is ideal for grilling steaks on the huge porch, watching leaves change through the panoramic windows or spotting deer from the hot tub (a ridiculously whimsical thing that did happen to us). Between the rain shower, heated floors and plush beds, it almost feels wrong to enjoy this many comforts in the middle of the woods — especially when you toss the kids into the twin beds in the loft. (Just be sure to pull the ladder away from the wall before climbing up, lest you nearly impale yourself like this rickety dipshit did.)

Notable nearby: Terralodge is less than 10 miles from Judith Tavern, the seriously delicious and absolutely stunning restaurant from Julia Sullivan, chef-owner of Nashville’s Henrietta Red. Order a cucumber gimlet, the crudo and the golden, crispy chicken Milanese. The thought of the tart green tomatoes and zesty green goddess that the latter was served with this summer still makes my mouth water.

SLEEPER DELUXE, HOTEL CHALET, CHATTANOOGA

133 miles

On the way to: Atlanta, Birmingham, Gulf of Mexico, South Carolina

Somewhere between reading The Boxcar Children and watching the Downton Abbey intro a hundred times, I became obsessed with sleeping on a train — so the reinvented Chattanooga Choo Choo was a no-brainer. The former railroad hub opened as a hotel in 1973, but until its $10 million renovation in 2023, it was more historic than high-end. Today the rooms are spacious, the lobby sumptuous and the pool and adjacent bar are chic yet still kid-friendly enough to make this a great spot for families. But the real draw? The 25 suites in 1920s and 1960s Pullman train cars, named for George Pullman, who invented the more comfortable sleeper carriages in the 1800s. While the hall and shower might feel a tad tight, the fanciful sophistication of getting to play out your Orient Express dreams — down to the lamp-lit patios outside — is worth the trade. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the station was made famous by the 1940 Glenn Miller Orchestra song “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” despite the fact that the station wasn’t actually called that. But the big-band, dress-up-to-travel ethos the song conveys still matches everything on site.

135 miles

On

This article is a print version of one of our online-only features, the Nashville Friday Five. Subscribe to our daily newsletter so you don’t miss articles like the Friday Five and more.

Notable nearby: Smack in the middle of the Southside neighborhood, this location is exceedingly walkable. Ditch the car (parking is $20/night), check out the Terminal bars and shops, and grab a burger at Main Street Meats or a highball at The Boneyard.

The state government is typically a hot mess, and that makes it easy to forget the positive. But Fall Creek Falls State Park is unforgettable. Clean, comfortable, affordable and laid-back, the state lodges are a surprise and delight, largely because they let Tennessee’s natural beauty do the work. At Fall Creek Falls, you get a lake view, balcony, pool access and free parking, which should be more than enough to thrill anyone who has staycationed in Nashville over the past decade. Even the local beers (from the inspired Tennessee Brew Works State Park Collection) at the gift shop are not triple the price like they’d be at a big hotel because the government is, theoretically, keeping prices reasonable for Tennessee residents. (I still can’t believe I’m writing this.) There’s one restaurant on-site where the food is pretty good and the lake views are great, but the best plan is to book a Fisherman or Lakeview cabin, bring some groceries and catch your dinner. The two- and three-bedroom cabins don’t just sit on the lake — they sit atop it.

So when you look down from your porch, you’re looking right into the water. Pull up a chair, throw out your line and read a book, sip coffee or chat with friends while you see what the tide brings in. It’s a setup that would cost you a small fortune were it not state-run.

Notable nearby: Happy Trails Brewing in Sparta hosts the most wholesome trivia hour ever on Sunday afternoons, but my must-stop mountaintop remains Calfkiller Brewing. When I picture the perfect fall day — draft beer, crisp breeze, leaves crunching, firepits lit — Calfkiller is where I am. BYO food (or order Domino’s delivery) and stretch out with brewdog Klaus, a very good boy who’s as likely to chase cars as he is to fall asleep in the road. (And it is his road, need he or we remind you.)

FAIRY COTTAGE, ANCIENT LORE VILLAGE, KNOXVILLE

187 miles

On the way to: North Carolina, Virginia

Do you sometimes feel like dining dressed as a witch in August? Or toting your quiver of arrows around on a Tuesday without getting side-eye? Ancient Lore Village is for you. As someone who can’t make it through Lord of the Rings but loves a high-class hobbit vibe, this chic shire caught my eye. And once I showed the Fairy Cottage to my 3-year-old? It was on, and it was all pretty adorable. The staff is attentive and kind, boxing up huge portions of the tasty

FISHERMAN CABIN, FALL CREEK FALLS STATE PARK, SPENCER

the way to: Knoxville, Chattanooga, North Carolina

SLEEPER DELUXE, HOTEL CHALET, CHATTANOOGA

LUXE DOME, TERRALODGE, MONTEAGLE

FISHERMAN CABIN, FALL CREEK FALLS STATE PARK, SPENCER

included dinner for us when my daughter wasn’t feeling well. We stayed on a weeknight, and the atmosphere was a little sleepier than I expected, but perhaps I’m the only one who wants a Harry Potter-style bar on site that stays open past 8 p.m. The location is a bit random for East Tennessee — near the mountains yet without a view of them — with the closest Knoxville landmark being Ye Olde Steakhouse. Still, if you’re looking for a place to spend a recovery night after a Knoxville gameday, or if you have a group of kids who squee at the photos, you’ll enjoy the sojourn.

Notable nearby: Before you head to ALV, stop by the Old City for a cocktail at Brother Wolf and Thai wings at Kaizen. And drop into the Pretentious empire — both the Pretentious Beer Company and the Pretentious Glass Company — where artist turned brewer Matthew Cummings makes and sells his experimental beers in his ethereal glassware.

BEAR CROSSING, ALPINE HELEN, GA.

257 miles

On the way to: Athens, The Highlands, Cashiers, Charlotte, Charleston

If you like the look of Ancient Lore Village but fear it may push your LARP limit, Alpine Helen, Ga., is your answer. It’s a tiny Bavarian-inspired town in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains,

and even my husband — who was ready to go full Grinch on it — admitted it was magical. Stroll through the quaint shops, listen to live music and build your own German food crawl, starting with a chopped-cheese-style reuben at Cafe International while you watch river tubing. To stay, you’ve got three routes: a thrifty mo- or hotel on the strip, a lovely resort you must drive to or a cabin that splits the difference. A cabin is the move for short visits, because you get natural beauty without getting stuck in traffic. Nashville artist Lauren Alexandra also happens to have her own cabin, Bear Crossing Airbnb, less than a mile from the strip. It’s got a screened porch, hot tub, firepit and bar — with neon mural by Lauren — as well as the “Bear Den” game room for kids. You’ve got a full kitchen to cook dinner, or you can do as I did: Drop an unhinged $250 on snacks and sips and general nonsense at Betty’s Country Store because every item looks tastier than the last.

Notable nearby: In Nashville, Arrington Vineyard is pleasant enough, but with sweet wines and a view that, while lovely, does include I-840, it’s not exactly Napa. Yonah Mountain Vineyards is a different thing entirely. The 200-acre family winery sits at the base of a mountain, which means you get gorgeous vistas and gorgeous wines like the stone-fruity but subtle 2022 Viognier. ▼

FAIRY COTTAGE, ANCIENT LORE VILLAGE, KNOXVILLE

Become

INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

DANCE

THE LIBERATION OF THE BODY

OZ Arts opens season with the U.S. premiere of Le Grand Bal

BY AMY STUMPFL

AT A TIME when we so often feel disconnected and overwhelmed, the simple act of gathering together can feel revolutionary. And with the U.S. premiere of Compagnie Dyptik’s Le Grand Bal — arriving at OZ Arts this weekend before heading to the prestigious Joyce Theater in New York City — choreographer Mehdi Meghari hopes audiences will feel the power of dance and “the liberation of the body.”

“In our society, we are so isolated — enclosed in our spaces with our phones and computers,” Meghari says, speaking from Dyptik’s home base in Saint-Étienne, France. “It can be an oppressive system, very closed-off. And when we are deprived of certain freedoms and social connections, our bodies need a release. People have a very human need to move, to break free and express themselves. There is something magic in that.”

Meghari first discovered such magic more than 25 years ago, when he and Dyptik co-founder and co-choreographer Souhail Marchiche were drawn to the dynamic, acrobatic elements of breakdance and hip-hop. Together, they worked to perfect their skills, focusing on dance competitions, eventually exploring deeper connections between story, choreography and “the universal language of dance.” The duo established Compagnie Dyptik in 2012, eager to develop new work that would speak to important themes and societal issues.

Le Grand Bal certainly fits that bill. Premiering in 2023, the stunning work draws inspiration from several surprising sources — everything from a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp to the behavior of post-pandemic audiences, and even a mysterious “dancing plague” said to have gripped 16th-century Strasbourg.

“As with most of our work, one project inspires another,” Meghari says. “Our visit to the refugee camp was so interesting because we talked to

these children who were having such difficulty. And yet they had so much energy and joy because they were together. They had to walk eight kilometers to school, but they were so happy because they would meet and go together, singing and dancing along the way. It was a great inspiration to us, and so we created a piece called Mirage, which looked at how even when in a most difficult situation, humans can make something good together, something to celebrate.”

Performed outdoors, Mirage offered an immersive experience, with spectators often joining the dancers onstage at the end of the performance. Even when COVID restrictions threatened that communal spirit, Meghari says audiences would not be deterred.

“We were told we could not have the audience join us, but at the end of the show, they all came up anyway,” he says. “We didn’t ask them. It wasn’t part of the script. I just think there was this need to connect, to gather together and dance. We talked a lot about the COVID pandemic and its effects, and that led us to learn about this pandemic in 1518 in Strasbourg. The story tells of a woman who started dancing wildly in the street. It was a desperate time, with famine and disease. The true story is that people, who probably had eaten contaminated grain and were maybe hallucinating, began moving like crazy. More and more joined in, dancing until they collapsed or even died.

“It’s not that we wanted to re-create that actual phenomenon,” Meghari adds. “But we wanted to study the idea behind it — the need for people to gather, to move together, to find that release. And so all of these ideas came together, inspiring us to create a danced fiction where we imagine an old epidemic that has reappeared. Where people are isolated and overwhelmed, and where dance is like a revolution, moving them from deep within.”

The result is Le Grand Bal, a darkly fascinating frenzy that gradually overtakes an ensemble of eight remarkable dancers. The performers slowly emerge from the audience, moved by a driving, rhythmic score and dazzling lighting effects. Energy builds, fades and builds again, but the dancers never stop moving. And though quite different in tone than Mirage, Le Grand Bal also captures Dyptik’s unmistakable energy and commitment.

“From the first moment to the last, there is no break,” Meghari says. “The dance moves through them, a physical reaction that goes through many stages and emotions. It is expressive, visceral and liberating dance — a revolution and release.”

As OZ Arts’ executive and artistic director, Mark Murphy sees Le Grand Bal as a perfect start to the organization’s 2025-26 season, a compelling lineup featuring performances and artists from six continents.

“Le Grand Bal is a truly breathtaking, edgeof-your-seat experience,” Murphy says. “It also captures the chaos of this historic, tumultuous moment more than any other art I can think of. These exquisite performers depict people transcending our collective craziness or anxiety with all-out physical release, and even ecstatic joy. Nashville artists will be inspired by the way they transform urban dance forms into a poetic and profound theatrical experience — visually, physically and emotionally. We are truly honored to host the first full-length performance by Compagnie Dyptik on American soil here in Nashville.” ▼

REP YOUR CITY

Le Grand Bal

Oct. 23-25 at OZ Arts 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle

REP YOUR CITY REP YOUR CITY REP YOUR CITY REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

REP YOUR CITY

PET OF THE WEEK!

Name: JINU

Age: 4 months

Weight: 16 lbs

MEET JINU

Named after the K-pop demon hunters, this 4-month-old cutie is just as brave and charming as his namesake! Jinu is a playful little pup with endless energy and a curious heart—always ready for an adventure or a cuddle. Whether he’s chasing toys, learning new tricks, or showing off his puppy grin, Jinu brings joy wherever he goes. Come meet this rising star at Nashville Humane Association and let him steal your heart (and maybe a few treats)!

Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org

Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209

Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.

WE WANT THE FUNK

Seth Neblett’s new oral history spotlights the female members of Parliament-Funkadelic ahead of a Nashville event

BY ANNIE PARNELL

an independent bookstore for independent people

UPCOMING EVENTS

PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTS FOR TICKETS & UPDATES

6:30PM

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23

REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES

reading HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN’S BOOK OF THE MONTH at PARNASSUS Grandad's Camper

10:30AM

6:30PM

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

SATURDAY STORYTIME with NASHVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATER at PARNASSUS Inside Out & Backwards

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27

JOHN T. EDGE with MARGARET RENKL at PARNASSUS House of Smoke

6:30 PM

7:00 PM

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28

JENNIFER LYNN ALVAREZ with KRISTIN O'DONNELL TUBB at PARNASSUS The Trespassers

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29

REESE WITHERSPOON & HARLAN COBEN

benefitting HUMANITIES TENNESSEE at SCHERMERHORN SYMPHONY CENTER Gone Before Goodbye

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30

6:30 PM CLARE GILMORE with JENNA LEVINE at PARNASSUS Never Over

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

@parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooksnashville

“THE WOMEN OF P-Funk and their legacy have been continuously, but anonymously, in plain sight since their inception,” Seth Neblett writes in Mothership Connected: The Women of Parliament-Funkadelic, out now via University of Texas Press as part of its American Music Series. The impact of Parliament-Funkadelic members Mallia Franklin, Debbie Wright, Shirley Hayden, Dawn Silva and Lynn Mabry is everywhere — within and outside the revolutionary Afrofuturist musical collective. Franklin introduced George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, and Collins stayed with her in Detroit in the group’s early days, fusing a nuclear partnership. She also recruited Walter “Junie” Morrison — someone Clinton once called “the most phenomenal musician on the planet” — to the group. The women’s spinoff groups, Parlet and The Brides of Funkenstein, were quietly some of the collective’s most successful acts aside from Parliament-Funkadelic itself. Their work has been heard on signature P-Funk songs like “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)” and “One Nation Under a Groove,” and inspired later girl groups like TLC and others.

Despite all that, the women of Parliament-Funkadelic have never truly gotten their due. While performing with P-Funk, they were pitted against each other and cut out of their own royalties, leading to lifelong tensions and career setbacks. When the group was added to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, none of the female members were inducted or invited. When the group was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, they weren’t even mentioned.

tem” and the revived interest in the collective through hip-hop samples by De La Soul, Ice Cube and others.

spent so much time proving to the world that she was The Queen of Funk. Whether she recognized it or not, she’d already earned her crown.”

He even explores the fate of the original Mothership — the massive metal spaceship prop that the group would accommodate by rehearsing in airplane hangars — which met an undignified end and was scrapped for parts in a Maryland junkyard. As he writes, it was “a sad metaphor for the state of the now-dissassembled band,” which fell apart in the midst of the 1981 Greatest Funk on Earth Tour as a result of legal, financial and addiction-related troubles. Many of the band members were never even paid for the tour. (Thankfully, a Mothership replica from the 1990s is on display at the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C.)

Neblett has a personal interest in bringing this history to light: Franklin, the Queen of Funk herself, was his mother. In a recollection of attending a P-Funk show at age 6, he describes her as “a long-lost love,” and establishes a personal side to Mothership Connected: a child’s attempts to understand the life and legacy of a parent who was “gone mostly” during his childhood. The way he explores her influence, and her constant fight for recognition, is especially poignant as he writes after her death at 57 in 2010.

That’s an oversight that Neblett’s new oral history sets out to correct through intimate, in-depth interviews with each member. Conversations with Clinton, Collins and the late, great Sly Stone — among others — appear throughout. But for once, the frontmen are supporting players. Instead, Mothership Connected lets the women tell their own story — the highs, the lows and the whole funk. What emerges is an intersectional yet compulsively readable must-have for funk fans and music history buffs. Finally, these groundbreaking female artists are getting the spotlight they’ve long deserved. Between the interviews, Neblett himself traces the trajectory of each artist’s career and the influence that followed — including Mabry’s later work with Talking Heads, Franklin’s with Death Row Records and Hayden’s stage career. His writing is part archaeology and part constellation building, bridging differing accounts and adding critical context. He analyzes the sexualizing, anonymizing imagery of Parlet and The Brides’ album covers, The Brides’ New Wave makeover, the pressure cooker of what bassist Starr Cullars calls “the P-Funk male sys-

“Even in her last days,” he notes, “my mother

In fact, at noon on Saturday, Oct. 25, he’ll continue to honor that legacy in Nashville. At the National Museum of African American Music — an institution whose motto is “One Nation Under a Groove” — Neblett and Hayden will appear for a free book talk to discuss the women’s impact, moderated by the museum’s Sydney Watson. Followed by a book signing and the donation of special P-Funk artifacts to the museum’s collection, it promises to be a truly funky affair. ▼

Mothership Connected: The Women of Parliament-Funkadelic By Seth Neblett University of Texas Press 360 pages, $34.95

Panel discussion, book signing and artifact donation noon-2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the National Museum of African American Music

SCHLITZ with AVA PAIGE

Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring MARK D. SANDERS, MATT ROGERS RAY STEPHENSON + TIMOTHY BAKER Strings and Stories: A Songwriters Night benefitting The Brentwood Family YMCA featuring Jeffrey Steele, Chris Tompkins, Bridgette Tatum, Alissa Moreno, Dylan Altman & Silence x Noise

NASHVILLE JAZZ FEST featuring TYLER BULLOCK, THE LORI MECHEM QUARTET, GUTHRIE TRAPP TRIO & TIA FULLER with THE MARCUS FINNIE BAND

| VIDEO | AUDIO

Graham barham w/ highway home band of skulls w/ Tom Hamilton Jr

dance party

tony kamel & rambler kane (7pm)

BB Palmer w/ wade sapp (9pm)

Jordy Searcy w/ jettee (7pm)

daphne (9pm)

Calista Kweon w/ paperview (7PM)

Sego w/ social cinema, bella on bass (9pm)

bedford

the minks w/ the ragcoats and good country dark jonas conner

dice w/ ray and paul (7Pm)

MUSIC

THIS WEEKEND’S INAUGURAL Nashville Jazz Festival, a two-day event organized under the auspices of the Nashville Jazz Workshop, continues a tradition initiated by events like the Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival and Fisk Food and Jazz Festival, as well as the Workshop’s own Jazzmania. The Nashville Jazz Festival supplants that longrunning fundraiser gala with two nights of concerts Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 25 and 26, at 3rd and Lindsley. The festival is the culmination of a goal that workshop artistic director David Rodgers began developing when he took on the role in mid-2024.

“We’ve seen over 100 percent growth in concert attendance, along with a wave of renewed excitement and rebranding happening organically around our programs,” Rodgers tells the Scene. “We wanted to channel that momentum into something bigger — an event that could celebrate the incredible musicianship in our city while giving Nashville a true large-scale jazz experience.”

Rodgers enlisted ace instrumentalist, jazz educator and record label owner Jeff Coffin to be the festival’s artistic director. Coffin was made aware that despite Nashville’s long history of excellent jazz, there hadn’t been an event called “Nashville Jazz Festival” in decades. Contemporary reports in The Tennessean show that a group called Patrons of Jazz produced a one-day event in 1967 by that name at War Memorial Auditorium headlined by Cannonball Adderley. The organization promoted a follow-up in 1968 that featured Dave Brubeck and Thelonious Monk and was produced by George Wein of Newport Jazz Festival fame.

IN ABUNDANCE

The inaugural Nashville Jazz Festival will celebrate the breadth and depth of jazz in Music City

BY RON WYNN

A few years ago, Coffin found that domain names for variations on “Nashville Jazz Fest” were available, so he bought them. While other projects remained at the forefront, he kept the idea in mind. When the opportunity arose, he jumped at the chance.

“The greatest challenge is including everyone who should be included,” says Coffin. “We wanted to represent the breadth and width of the local scene with players and writers and improvisers who exemplify the wide range of music that exists here. We also wanted to have as little overlap of players playing in multiple groups as possible. These are inspiring musicians who have played with the greatest musicians on the planet and continue to do so. I wanted people who were out there doing it, and that’s who we got! I’m so excited to have everyone we wished for.”

Nashville Jazz Festival

Oct. 25-26 at 3rd and Lindsley

To that end, more than 70 musicians are involved, and the overwhelming majority are locals. The exceptions he names are Atlanta saxophonist and composer Tia Fuller (performing with Marcus Finnie Band on Saturday night), Nashville-raised New York resident and pianist Tyler Bullock, and guitar wiz Cory Wong, who splits his time between Nashville and Minneapolis.

“We will hopefully expand and make it bigger and better in the future,” Coffin says. “David Rodgers and I have worked really well together, and I think it’s a fantastic lineup of great music with a lot of cultural and musical diversity — which is what this music is all about. But it was a very conscious decision to make it Nashville-centric. There is so much talent here now. More than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived here since 1991.”

Rodgers says the festival lineup reaffirms the musical mission the workshop undertakes year-round. The NJW Rising Stars Ensemble and Vanderbilt University’s Blair Big Band share the bill with the aforementioned renowned artists. Ten percent of each ticket sale goes directly to the workshop’s scholarship fund.

“We need folks to continue to step up and to help sponsor the festival, which in turn will help sponsor scholarships and the like for younger players who need assistance as they climb,” says Coffin. “This is all about the community of musicians of all ages. We can’t thank Ron Brice at 3rd and Lindsley enough for supporting this and so much other live music in town.”

“The rise of this festival is a reflection of the growing audience interest and appreciation for jazz in Nashville,” Rodgers says. “Many of the city’s greatest musicians — regardless of genre — are rooted in jazz. They’re improvisers, composers, arrangers and virtuosos who bring that creative language into everything from pop to country to gospel to film scoring. Jazz is inextricably linked to musical innovation. What we’re seeing now is a new wave of listeners discovering that connection. People [are] realizing that jazz isn’t just a historical art form — it’s alive, evolving and thriving right here in Music City.” ▼

TIA FULLER

CORY WONG

JEFF COFFIN

DANCING IN THE DRK

BY LIV RAPIER AND BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

AS OF THE LATE SUMMER, Drkmttr has served Nashville for a full decade, pivoting to meet needs and expanding its offerings gradually but never straying from its core mission of being a welcoming, affirming space for all ages to experience music and art. This year, the venue has had to navigate challenges like being a nonprofit at a time when federal grant funding for the arts has been cut dramatically, on top of the regular challenges of running an indie venue. While Sunday’s vendor market had to be canceled due to inclement weather, Friday and Saturday at the second annual fundraiser Drkmttr Fest II featured a boatload of fascinating music from near and far.

Friday’s festivities started around 6 p.m., and the crowd skewed on the lighter side at first. But they showed out, sporting unconventional haircuts, low-rise pants and chunky boots, taking advantage of the food trucks outside the venue and free earplugs offered inside. A few minor snags resulted in schedule adjustments, but everything worked out nicely as the room began to fill up by 8:45 when Nashville rock standouts Venus & the Flytraps began their set. Ceci Tomé and Brenna Kassis went all-in on the curly-haired headbanging and bittersweet hooks, with songs from their second EP Venus in Love prominent in the performance that ended with their most popular single “Worse Together.” The duo’s debut album Demonette is out Oct. 28, at which time they’ll be on a run of dates opening for Sir Chloe.

Washington, D.C., trio Ekko Astral describe their socially engaged music aptly as “mascara moshpit,” a blend of post-punk’s downcast vibe and grunge or riot grrl’s aggressive energy and

pop sensibility. Though they’ve reached a point in their career when they’re touring with wellknown bands like IDLES and PUP, they haven’t forgotten how important it is to have a thriving indie music ecosystem. “There’s something about the DIY community and the fact that Drkmttr can go on for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years,” said lead singer Jael Holzman. “Shit like this is what keeps a community together.” At the end of their set, the band played their next single “Horse Glue,” set for release Oct. 24.

One of the cool things about the DIY world that you don’t see so much in corporate venues: Throughout the night, artists took different approaches to their setups. Friday headliner The Mall, the synth-punk vehicle of St. Louis’ Mark Plant, served up a solo performance with all their gear on a table at the center of the venue floor. Where this kind of music often features crooning vocals, Plant yells their often-grim nar-

puter,” which both appear on his 2020 album

Th Moof

Between sets, Drkmttr co-owner Olive Scibelli and Trans Aid Nashville committee member Alex Danner stepped up to the mic. Each spoke on the significance of Drkmttr as a safe space amid growing turmoil. “But the real tea is, our ancestors and our heroes and all of these freedom fighters and liberation movements that we all look up to that give us hope,” said Danner, “they didn’t have anything that we don’t have in this parking lot right here.”

ratives about contemporary life into the mic as lights flash wildly and layers of synths and beats cascade over the crowd like a pummeling massage, and it made for a fitting end to Day 1.

The Day 2 party started early Saturday afternoon with a drone session featuring Nashville’s own Luke Schneider and Bruce Ervin. As the sun inched toward the horizon, also-local quartet Sourtooth blasted their broody post-hardcore ballads, followed by experimental beats from Bl_ank. The solo project of electro-acoustic percussionist and onetime Nashvillian Will Hicks, Bl_ank offers another superb example of DIY artistry celebrated at places like Drkmttr. Hicks quickly settled into his signature performance mode, playing live drums with precision speed and ferocity along with pre-recorded synths and mechanical sound effects. Wiping sweat from his forehead, Hicks gracefully kept his stamina as he pulled out pieces like “+=+” and “Com-

After a long round of applause, Chicago multi-instrumentalist Nnamdï strolled onstage by himself, and a loud guitar strum blended with the ear-piercing yet nostalgic THX Deep Note. That resolved into his fast-paced hip-hopmeets-bedroom-pop jam “Armoire,” which he seamlessly transitioned into the disjointed but groovy rocker “Dibs.” “It’s very cool to see people give a shit about stuff,” said Nnamdï. Though he mostly stuck to songs from his most recent full-length, 2022’s Please Have a Seat, he dipped further back into his discography a few times for tunes like “Wasted” from his 2020 release Brat, which deserves a summer of its own.

As the sky reached a deep pitch black, Sophie Allison approached the stage as Soccer Mommy Sporting an all-black outfit and her signature bleach-blond money piece, the local indie-rock hero and her band immediately captured the crowd’s attention with the tranquil opening strums of “Circle the Drain.” Songs from her 2024 album Evergreen were a big feature, like the heavier, guitar-driven “Driver” and the lilting love ballad “Abigail,” an ode to Allison’s purple-haired Stardew Valley wife. Fulfilling her promise in our recent interview to visit lots of corners of her catalog, she sprinkled deep cuts and fan favorites like “Cool” (from 2018’s Clean) into the set list. Appropriate for the day of the latest No Kings rally, Allison and company wrapped with “Your Dog,” drawing the crowd in to shout along: “I don’t wanna be your fucking dog!” ▼

THE MALL

NNAMDÏ

SOCCER MOMMY PHOTOS: CLAIRE STEELE

PHOTO: H.N. JAMES

Saturday, October 25

AUSTIN GIORGIO THU, 10/23

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, October 25

HATCH SHOW PRINT

Block Party

Sunday, October 26

HATCH SHOW PRINT

SONGWRITER SESSION

Billy Montana

ZAPATO3 THU, 10/23

TERRAIN FRI, 10/24

STAND ATLANTIC FRI, 10/24

WONKYWILLA (TAPE B AFTER PARTY) FRI, 10/24

CONFETTI SAT, 10/25

Sunday, November 2

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Pete Finney

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, November 8

BLUEGRASS AND BEYOND

Pitney Meyer

3:00 pm · HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP

11:00 am · FORD THEATER

Jim Hurst Band

1:00 pm

Family Block Party

9:30 am · HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP

Sunday, October 26

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Maddie Denton

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, November 1

SONGWRITER SESSION

Donna Fargo with Lauren Mascitti

NOON · FORD THEATER

WITNESS HISTORY

Local Kids Always Visit Free

Plan a trip to the Museum! Local youth 18 and under who are residents of Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties always visit free, plus 25% off admission for up to two accompanying adults.

BRADY RILEY SAT, 10/25

BILLY RAFFOUL SUN, 10/26

TAYLOR ACORN WED, 10/29

BLACK FLAG WED, 10/29

ASIRIS THU, 10/30

LOATHE FRI, 10/31

HARVEY STREET FRI, 10/31

ARTIFAKTS SAT, 11/1

HENRIK SOLD OUT SAT, 11/1

ALIEN EARTH

Yorgos Lanthimos’ shocking black comedy Bugonia might piss you off

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

GREEK AUTEUR Yorgos Lanthimos is steadily proving himself to be among cinema’s masters of pitch-black comedy.

He did it in particular with period pieces The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023), both of which earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. His latest, Bugonia — his fourth collaboration with generational talent Emma Stone and his first with screenwriter Will Tracy — isn’t quite as ornate or sophisticated as those films. Instead, it’s more of a piece with his earlier features The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017): wry, modern and gruesome, dreamlike and occasionally surreal but with a patina of realism.

Stone here plays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of soulless Georgia-based pharmaceutical company Auxiloth. She’s impossibly fit and obnoxiously type-A — the final boss of girl bosses, waking at 4:30 each morning to engage in a suite of anti-aging tactics before virtue-signaling her way through phony diversity initiatives and photo ops. Jesse Plemons, in what is perhaps his most dynamic performance yet, plays Teddy — a grimy, disheveled conspiracy theorist and low-level employee at Auxiloth. Teddy and his hapless cousin and “colleague” Don (newcomer Aidan Delbis) decide to kidnap Fuller, convinced she’s an extraterrestrial with designs on conquering earth.

OUT ON A LIMB

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and the unrelenting weight

of parenthood

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

CULTURAL CRITIC Greil Marcus once gushed about all the emotion, pain and drama you get just by looking at Bill Pullman’s face. “In each of his best roles,” Marcus wrote, “there comes a moment when his face and the weight pressing on it … become the whole of the drama. The face concentrates motives and events so suggestively that it becomes its own landscape: a window onto an America defined not by hope but by fear, not by judgment but by paranoia, not by mastery but by sin, crime, and error.”

I thought about Marcus’ words when I saw Rose Byrne’s face in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. First introduced in a tight close-up, Byrne’s drained mug immediately establishes just how much weight is holding down her sad, desperate ass. And the weight never lets up.

Byrne gives her most woman-on-the-verge performance to date as Linda, a therapist who is also the mother of a sick little girl (Delaney Quinn). But trust me when I say Legs is not about the kid. For most of the movie, we never see the girl’s face. But we definitely hear all of her incessant questions, loud tantrums and general kid noise. In this world, kids are seldom seen but always heard. This unnamed child’s disembodied voice serves almost as Linda’s nagging-but-adorable inner monologue, flooding her mind with anxieties and insecurities.

Legs is the latest intense but sympathetic mother-

Teddy is misguided, unstable and dangerous, fixated on the sorts of nonsensical contemporary conspiracy theories that many young men find themselves plunging down rabbit holes after. But there’s plenty he’s right about. He’s right that rampant corporate greed is eating away at our social fabric. He’s right that ostentatious overtures at progress by people like Fuller are largely hollow. He’s right that the bees are dying. As Teddy puts it, ideologically speaking, he went grocery shopping while hungry and bought everything in the store — “alt right, alt lite, leftism, Marxism” — before settling on “the truth”: that Fuller and her fellow Andromedons are to blame for all of it.

Adapted from relatively little-seen 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!, Bugonia is, according to fellow Scene film critic Ken Arnold, “probably the best attempt at remaking a Korean film I have seen yet.” Like its Korean counterpart, Bugonia centers on a protagonist who is seemingly in the throes of psychosis, brought on in part by his mother’s comatose state — a result of experimental treatments by Auxiloth. (Unlike the Korean film, this one features an incredible Green Day needle-drop.)

Throughout Bugonia, Lanthimos and his cinematographer, frequent collaborator Robbie Ryan, alternate between wide-angle establishing shots and tight, almost claustrophobic closeups. It’s also a movie on a much smaller scale than Lanthimos’ other recent efforts. Most of the action takes place in Teddy’s home, and aside from Fuller and her two captors, the only significant characters are local cop Casey (played by comedian and podcaster Stavros Halkias) and Teddy’s invalid mom Sandy (Alicia Silverstone). According to the conspiracies Teddy buys into, what happens with Fuller will impact the whole of human civilization — but his entire universe is contained in his weathered rural home. Bugonia’s themes aren’t small, however. Its

hood-as-horror-show to hit theaters. (Think The Babadook without the supernatural symbolism or We Need to Talk About Kevin without the nihilistic self-loathing.) Much like her husband Ronald Bronstein — who has co-written nerve-rattling urban dramedies with the Safdie brothers (Bronstein and Benny Safdie also serve as producers here) — actress/writer/director Mary Bronstein sends her already-stretched-thin protagonist on a lonesome journey that gets more bizarre and surreal when she starts flirting with self-destruction.

After her bedroom apartment is flooded due to a hole in the ceiling, Linda and her daughter find temporary lodging at a motel. When her daughter is asleep, hooked to a feeding tube, Linda sneaks out to guzzle wine and listen to music on her iPhone. She strikes up an acquain-

tanceship with a leery neighbor (rapper A$AP Rocky), who hooks her up with dark-web drugs. Instead of having her protagonist dive into a salacious, far-fetched fling, Bronstein is more focused on showing how even sketchy folk can get dragged into this woman’s quiet, personal chaos.

Bronstein really leans into how taking care of an ill and possibly autistic kid is a thankless job that no one wants to help you with. With her away-on-business husband (Christian Slater, playing another nagging, disembodied voice) available only via phone, Linda looks to one of her therapist co-workers (Conan O’Brien) for advice and, hopefully, emotional support. I gotta say, it’s weird as hell seeing relentless ginger clown O’Brien take on the role of an uptight shrink who is clearly put off by his colleague’s

action isn’t small. It’s full of shocking surprises, steady laughs and captivating moments from Plemons and Stone, powered by screenwriter Tracy’s tight dialogue. (Tracy’s got an enviable résumé, having written for The Onion, Last Week Tonight and Succession before penning the scripts for The Menu and Bugonia.) It’s all about the payoff, which of course you won’t find spoiled here. This director takes risks, and risks are bound to confuse, annoy or plainly piss off plenty of moviegoers. One audience member at the end of my screening turned to a friend and said, “Holy fuck,” with no further follow-up. This is a film that takes big swings. Some very big swings. But when Lanthimos is the one holding the bat? I say swing away. ▼

mood swings and not-so-subtle advances. He always looks just as confused and uncomfortable as we are. But he’s still the closest thing this movie has to a helpful, upstanding human being. Nearly everyone Linda comes in contact with — from a doctor (played by Bronstein) who keeps pressuring her to feed her finicky kid to the repairmen who take their sweet time fixing that hole — is selfish and clueless to an almost-absurd degree. Then again, this could be Bronstein conveying how parents usually see anyone who refuses to sympathize with their plight as an instant asshole.

Linda’s clients aren’t a big help either. Continually coming in with petty grievances, these people are so oblivious and self-centered, it doesn’t hit them that the one they look to for guidance is a visible mess. Linda also meets her lousy-parent match in paranoid new mom Caroline (Danielle Macdonald).

As the child of a single mom who also took care of a mentally disabled kid, I am reminded by Legs that parenthood, especially for those who don’t have a proper support system, can be a hellish uphill battle. Throughout the movie, Linda keeps gravitating back to that hole in her ceiling, a dark void that — in her mind — occasionally emits flickering pieces of light. Needless to say, that hole is a metaphor for her whole life, as she tries to snag brief, glowing moments of respite — like the childlike look she displays while wolfing down a roll of cheese from a pizza — amid her endless daily grind of being a parent.

As If I Had Legs I’d Kick You establishes, parenthood will have you looking all fucked-up in the face. But it’s worth it if the child you’re sacrificing everything for smiles back at you.

Bugonia R, 120 minutes

Opening in 35 mm Thursday, Oct. 23, at the Belcourt; expanding wide Oct. 30

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You R, 113 minutes Opening Friday, Oct. 24, at the Belcourt

Ultimate Sports Bar & Brew Experience

61 Close contemporary

1 Customizable, all-in-one internet digest

8 Shoots for the stars

15 Game played on an 8x8 board

16 “Thumbs down from me”

17 Meditation chant, in a sense

18 Sought-after

19 Variety of bark?

20 Something you might change on a bed

22 ___ Ulrich, Metallica drummer

23 Gave a sneak preview of

25 Tennis do-over, in a way

27 Counterparts of countesses in British peerage

28 Equine hybrid

29 One in Bonn

30 Sch. with a satellite campus in Calexico

31 Terse reply to “Why?”

32 Thingum

34 Superman portrayer Christopher, in so many words

37 Heart-pumping stuff?

40 Goal to shoot for

41 ___ Kong

45 Steeplechase unit

46 Bar from the bank?

48 Borderer of the Indian state of Sikkim

49 Passport or driver’s license, in a manner of speaking

51 Who wrote “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” 1945

52 First person?

53 Spread some dirt

55 Gershwin brother

56 Muscle car whose name evokes a U.S. road trip

58 Action star Jet, in a nutshell

60 “Don’t worry about the check”

62 O-O and O-O-O, in chess notation

63 Like some shoes at a cobbler’s DOWN

1 Takes turns

2 One might say “Big savings all week!”

3 Rosh Hashana horns

4 Like some nouns: Abbr.

5 Gets away from

6 Nickname for the medieval Spanish knight Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar

7 Mideast capital

8 Victorious military underdog in the Bible

9 Sports bet based on total points scored

10 Sister of Helios, in Greek myth

11 Barrier to entry, perhaps

12 Chewed out

13 Slothfulness

14 Fortuitous gift

21 Holdings of winnings

24 Curved lines on sheet music

26 France’s third-largest city, after Paris and Marseille

28 Quality to which a unique sixcharacter code is assigned, in graphic design

31 Arcade staple with a joystick

33 Multiple-choice catchall

35 Inside of

36 Large chemical container

37 Credit cards, so to speak

38 Constellation whose name is Latin for “lizard”

39 U.S. History or Calculus BC, e.g.

42 Kind of illusion

43 Do some storytelling

44 Ascertained bit by bit

47 Garden guardians

48 Italy’s third-largest city, after Rome and Milan

50 Words before a contingency plan

51 Invader’s tactic

54 Play-fight

57 Its youngest host was a 7-yearold Drew Barrymore in ’82

59 “If u ask me …”

PUZZLE BY ADAM WAGNER

PUBLICATION NOTICE IN THE CHANCERY COURT OF HARDEMAN COUNTY, TENNESSEE DOCKET NO. 20232

TOMEKA COLEMAN, PLAINTIFF,

VS. HOWARD EUGENE COLEMAN, DEFENDANT, TO: HOWARD EUGENE COLEMAN

In this Cause, it appearing from the Complaint which is sworn to, that the whereabouts of the Defendant, HOWARD EUGENE COLEMAN, is unknown and cannot be ascertained by the diligent search and inquiry made to that end. HOWARD EU-GENE COLEMAN is there-fore, hereby, required to appear and Answer the Complaint filed in this Cause against him/her in the CHAN-CERY Court of HARDEMAN County, Tennessee, within thirty days of the last publica-tion of this Notice and served a copy of Answer on Howard F. Douglass, P.O. Box 39, Lexington, Tn., 38351, Attorney for Plaintiff, within said time. If you fail to do so judgement by default will be taken against you for relief demanded in the Complaint at hearing of the cause without further notice. It is further Ordered that this Notice be published for four consecutive weeks in the Nashville Scene. This the 17th day of September, 2025.

Kimberly P. Paras, CLERK & MASTER

NSC 9/25, 10/2, 10/9 & 10/23/25

NOTICE OF SERVICE BY PUBLICATION

TO: CELENA A. SZOSTECKI, Defendant IN RE: JEFFERY TERRELL FOSTER, Plaintiff v. CELENA A. SZOSTECKI, Defendant

IN THE CHANCERY COURT FOR KNOX COUNTY, TENNESSEE DOCKET NO. 210935-1

In this cause, it appearing from the Motion for Service of Publication and the affidavits of the process server that the whereabouts of CELENA A. SZOSTECKI, Defendant, are unknown to Plaintiff so that the ordinary process of law cannot be served on CELENA A. SZOSTECKI, Defendant, and said Defendant, CELENA A. SZOSTECKI, is hereby notified that you are required to file with the Chancery Court of Knox County at Knoxville, Tennessee, your defense or answer to the Complaint filed against you in said cause. A notice shall be published for four consecutive weeks in The Nashville Scene in Nashville, Tennessee. Within 30 days of the fourth publication of this Notice, a true copy of your defense or answer to the Complaint filed against you must be filed in this case and served on Jedidiah C. McKeehan, McKeehan Law Group, LLC, 1111 N. Northshore Drive, Suite P295, Knoxville, Tennessee 37919.

In case of your failure to do so, judgment by default may be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Complaint.

This the 22nd day of August, 2025.

ORDER ENTERED August 22, 2025, by John F. Weaver, Chancellor Published in The Nashville Scene for four consecutive weeks – 10/9, 10/23, 10/30, 11/6/25

ORDER ENTERED August 22, 2025, by John F. Weaver, Chancellor Published in The Nashville Scene for four consecutive weeks – 10/9, 10/23, 10/30, 11/6/25

Sr Internal Auditor (SGRY, LLC/Brentwood, TN). REQ: Bach (US/frgn eqv) in Biz Admin, Acct, Fin, or rel & demo prog exp in int audit, public acct, or rel fin/IT audit function in complex, multientity envmt. Also req undstng of audit principles, practices, controls, & concepts; exp wrkng w/ detailed wrkpprs & able to review audit pprs; detailed knowl to prep & review substantive & controls testing for AP, Cash, AR, ZBA/Hindsight Analyzes, Revenue, PPE, & Internal Controls; able to summarize audit findings & prep formal audit rpts; knowl of healthcare indus; extensive knowl wrkng w/ SOX audits; exp wrkng w/ ext auditors for reqs, obtaining supp docs from biz owners, & docs of testing/controls; exp reconciling fin figures for complex acct areas; adv comp skills in MS Office; exp w/ HST Pathways, Meditech, Solomon, Lawson, Great Plains, Oracle, ENVI, Doclink, FAS/Best (Sage), ServiceNow, ADP, UltiPro, Workiva, & Blackline. Domestic travel reqd up to 10% to perform audits at co locations. Send CV to Dahynelia.Grayson@surger ypartners.com

Consulting IT Architect (HCA Management Services LP, Nashville, TN)(Multiple): Rqs Bach (US/frgn eqv) in CS or rel; 5 yrs IT exp; 5 yrs exp in Prod Mgmt; 5 yrs exp in Healthcare; exp w/IoT device integrations; exp w/sys dsgn & Clinical workflow; knowl of HL7 & FHIR; knowl of Apache Kafka or sim queuing engines; exp w/prog anlys tech; exp w/HTML, CSS, SQL & NoSQL DB; exp w/UNIX OS; und of Azure, AWS or Google. Email resume to Elaine.Healy@hcahealthcar e.com.

device integrations; exp w/sys dsgn & Clinical workflow; knowl of HL7 & FHIR; knowl of Apache Kafka or sim queuing engines; exp w/prog anlys tech; exp w/HTML, CSS, SQL & NoSQL DB; exp w/UNIX OS; und of Azure, AWS or Google. Email resume to Elaine.Healy@hcahealthcar e.com.

Assoc Cnsltnt, Wtr Rescrcs Engrng –(Brentwood, TN), WSP USA Inc.: Undr gnral sprvsn, cllct & compile envrnmntal data frm smpls of wtr, sldge, & othr matrices for anlys. Reqs: Bach (or frgn equiv) in Engrng Sci, Cvl Engrng, or rltd + 1 yr of exp as a Civil Engineer, Water Engineer, or related. Apply to: jobs@wsp.com, Ref: 8211.

CONSUMER

CELLULAR - THE SAME RELIABLE, NATIONWIDE COVERAGE AS THE LARGEST CARRIERS.

No long-term contract, no hidden fees and activation is free. All plans feature unlimited talk and text, starting at just $20/ month.

For more information, call 1-866-282-5303

(CAN AAN)

MOBILEHELP, AMERICA’S PREMIER MOBILE MEDICAL ALERT SYSTEM.

Whether You’re Home or Away. For Safety and Peace of Mind. No Long Term Contracts! Free Brochure! Call Today!

1-877-667-4685 (CAN AAN)

SUNSETTER. AMERICAS NUMBER ONE AWNING!

Instant shade at the touch of a button. Transform your deck or patio into an outdoor oasis. Up to 10-year limited warranty. Call now and SAVE $350 today!

1-855-480-7810 (CAN AAN)

HOME BREAK-INS TAKE LESS THAN 60 SECONDS.

Don’t wait! Protect your family, your home, your assets NOW for as little as 70¢ a day!

Call 1-833-881-2713 (CAN AAN)

YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

LOCAL

Opry

Gaylord

Twin Peaks

Chili’s Grill & Bar

LongHorn Steakhouse

ENJOY THE OUTDOORS

Cedar Hill Park

Centennial Park

Treetop Adventure Park at Nashville Shores

WESLEY FINANCIAL GROUP, LLC TIMESHARE CANCELLATION EXPERTS

Over $50,000,000 in timeshare debt and fees cancelled in 2019. Get free informational package and learn how to get rid of your timeshare! Free consultations. Over 450 positive reviews. Call 888-960-1781 (CAN AAN)

DO YOU OWE OVER $10,000 TO THE IRS OR STATE IN BACK TAXES?

Get tax relief now! We’ll ght for you!

1-833-441-4783 (CAN AAN)

AFFORDABLE TV & INTERNET

If you are overpaying for your service, call now for a free quote and see how much you can save!

1-833-423-2924 (CAN AAN)

Swimming

Clubroom