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ROUND AND ROUND
Neighbors, lobbyists, politicians and corporate interests battle over the future of racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway BY ELI MOTYCKA
NEWS
Waymo Questions Than Answers
Self-driving taxis are here, so what now? Our managing editor ordered a ride and pieced together this FAQ.
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog Talking Preservation With Metro Historical Commission’s New Director
As the office reaches 60 years, Nashville native Caroline Eller discusses taking over for longtime leader Tim Walker BY LOGAN BUTTS
114th Tennessee General Assembly
Gavels Out of Session
Republicans’ immigration crackdown and school voucher expansion were among the defining issues at the state Capitol in 2026 BY JULIANNE AKERS
COVER STORY
Round and Round
Neighbors, lobbyists, politicians and corporate interests battle over the future of racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway BY ELI MOTYCKA
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The Greatest Year in Nashville Restaurant History
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The Scene’s live-review column checks out Robyn Hitchcock at The Basement East BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM
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Heavy-Handed
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WAYMO QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
Self-driving taxis are here, so what now? Our managing editor ordered a ride and pieced together this FAQ.
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
ON APRIL 7, tech giant Alphabet officially rolled out its self-driving car company, Waymo, here in Nashville. Since then, the company’s electric Jaguar I-PACE SUVs — easy to spot, thanks to their many exterior cameras and radar sensors — have been all over the city, occasionally making headlines due to awkward traffic incidents. With Waymo planning to expand via Lyft later this year, our managing editor recently did some research and took a ride in order to bring you this FAQ.
DID YOU RIDE IN ONE?
I did. And man, it was a surreal experience: The empty driver’s seat with a steering wheel rotating on its own is plain creepy. I took a car from downtown to Wedgewood-Houston to stay within the limited service area, which currently does not include highways. The car successfully navigated by crosswalks and party vehicles, took a busy left turn and observed the speed limit.
HOW DO THESE THINGS WORK?
Waymo’s fleet of vehicles are rigged with a lot of cameras and radars to detect their surroundings, creating a 360-degree view around the car. I saw the technology at work during my ride: When stopped at one busy intersection, ghostly images of other cars and even a motorcycle appeared on the GPS screen. The company (owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company) says the vehicle software uses all that data and, with artificial intelligence, calculates responses to what’s happening on the road.
WAIT, AI? LIKE CHAT GPT?
Not exactly. While there are similar “neural network” processes involved, the car is not a chatbot. The AI is dedicated to navigating traffic. In 2017, The Atlantic peeked behind the curtain to see how, in addition to crunching real-world data, engineers simulate as many as 8 million miles of traffic per day in a simulation software.
IS IT SAFE?
As impressive as the tech is, I think it’s too early in deployment to say yes. I was pretty nervous during my uneventful trip, especially when surrounded by so many pedestrians and transpotainment vehicles. I felt more comfortable on the straightforward Eighth Avenue and the emptier side streets of WeHo. The car didn’t navigate traffic much differently than any human driver I’ve ridden with, though something about the turning felt more awkward and rigid.
According to Waymo’s numbers, its vehicles are involved in “92 percent fewer” injurycausing accidents. Skeptics point out that the safety record is based on the relatively low
number of miles traveled by self-driven cars, though you could counter that the slow rollout itself is a safety measure. Still, it’s not like their mere presence has improved safety. Waymo skeptics at Streetsblog note that San Francisco and Phoenix have not seen decreases in traffic injuries and deaths since the self-driving fleets launched.
I STILL DON’T TRUST IT.
You’re not alone! After I shared footage of my Waymo ride, my own mother asked if I was crazy and told me to “never do that again.” I am 36 years old. Beyond my family, only 13 percent of respondents to a 2025 AAA survey said they trust autonomous vehicles (AVs). A less scientific poll of The Tennessean’s readership found a 50/50 split on how locals feel about these cars.
Headlines don’t help. In January a Waymo hit and injured a child in Santa Monica, Calif. In Austin, they’re illegally passing stopped school buses. Locally, WSMV spoke to an anonymous test driver who experienced near-collisions and witnessed erratic AI behavior while riding through Nashville streets. It was enough to make him quit.
WHAT IF I GET HIT BY ONE OF THESE THINGS?
The vehicles are required to be insured, and if the AV caused the accident, the company can be held liable the way a driver would be. If you’re injured, find a lawyer!
AND IF I SEE ONE STALLED IN THE ROAD?
Metro’s resident-service system hubNashville has a page dedicated to these complaints. They’ve already received more than 50 complaints since Waymo launched on April 7, according to the Nashville Banner.
TO GET BETTER BUSES.
Blame the state of Tennessee. Lawmakers passed a bill in 2017 that local jurisdictions can’t regulate autonomous vehicles. Nashville couldn’t stop the rollout, though Metro can still fine these cars for traffic infractions. (A Waymo representative says the company does consider local regulations when choosing a new market.)
As for public transit improvements — yeah, that’s part of the skepticism. Even if autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers, they don’t reduce the number of human-crushing cars on the road to the massive degree that increased bus ridership would. In fact, San Francisco officials speculate that demand for these robo rides will lead to higher traffic congestion.
WILL I GET TRAPPED IN ONE FOREVER?
Not forever ever, but there have been instances of Waymos halting in heavy rainstorms and power outages. In Nashville, we’ve already seen the cars get stuck in construction sites and in 12South. (That last one could happen to anyone.) Nashville is prone to some intense weather, including tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and ice storms. Waymo comms says the company abides by local guidance when it comes to driving conditions, in addition to the company’s own safety policies. I saw some evidence of this on Saturday during the Music City Marathon: The app informed me certain routes and pickup locations were inaccessible due to road closures. And you’re not entirely disconnected from humanity. There are remote assistants who help vehicles get out of tricky situations — though it appears they can’t operate the vehicles. Many are based in the Philippines, which has raised safety concerns for federal lawmakers, such as the responsiveness of such distant associates. ▼
Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Friday signed legislation aimed at easing barriers to opening new childcare centers. Spearheaded by District 6 Metro Councilmember Clay Capp, the two pieces of legislation will remove a 1,000-foot buffer requirement between daycare facilities and also remove a requirement for childcare providers to secure a special exemption from the Board of Zoning Appeals. Another piece of legislation related to family childcare centers from District 20 Councilmember Rollin Horton is set to pass in May, O’Connell said Friday. As O’Connell puts it, this legislation would move childcare permits “to the front of the line” — a setup he compared to affordable housing incentives.
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles’ appearance at a Belmont University College Republicans event on Monday was met with student protests over Ogles’ recent Islamophobic remarks. Ogles’ appearance comes nearly a year after Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District rep called for a federal investigation into the university for its HUB (Hope, Unity and Belonging) office resembling campus DEI initiatives. Ogles also defended himself against the “anti-Muslim” and “anti-queer” labels aimed at him by students, saying that he is “absolutely not” either and supports others’ lifestyles, even if he does not share them. Ogles has struggled to raise money amid mounting legal debt and a looming reelection campaign. He is expected to face Democratic Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder on Nov. 3.
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn — who’s currently running for governor — recently took to Twitter/X to make sure liberals know they’re not welcome in Tennessee. “In Tennessee, we welcome new families and businesses as long as they check the blue state policies at the state line,” she wrote, later telling media: “Tennesseans want government to get out of their way, and they firmly reject radical leftist policies.” Writes Scene opinion columnist Betsy Phillips, “Blackburn is in for a surprise when she sees what the Tennessee state government is getting up to, because it loves getting in Tennesseans’ way.”
WHO LET THESE THINGS ON THE ROAD? I THOUGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
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TALKING PRESERVATION WITH METRO HISTORICAL COMMISSION’S NEW DIRECTOR
As the office reaches 60 years, Nashville native Caroline Eller discusses taking over for longtime leader Tim Walker BY LOGAN BUTTS
EARLIER THIS MONTH, Caroline Eller was named executive director of the Metro Historical Commission, succeeding longtime executive director Tim Walker, who stepped down after nearly two decades in the role.
Nashville native Eller has been with the MHC since 2017, learning under Walker as a historic preservationist. She also has experience working in historic preservation across the state, including with the Tennessee Historical Commission, the East Tennessee Development District, Historic Nashville Inc. and Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research.
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As the commission nears its 60th birthday in May, it faces an onslaught of hurdles, including the fight to preserve historical properties like Fort Negley and Two Rivers Mansion in a constantly changing city. We spoke with Eller about those issues, her experience in the field, historical sites that she holds especially dear and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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What have you learned in your time with the MHC under former executive director Tim Walker? We, as the Historical Commission, must set the example for others in Nashville in terms of caring for historic properties. Our offices, which are located in Sevier Park in Sunnyside Mansion, are an 1852 residence that has been renovated in the last few years into our office space. I think that was a major project that Tim was very happy to see come to fruition — thankfully, with funding provided by the city — because for many years, that particular resource had been neglected. We just weren’t able to sort of practice what we preach. I think that was such a critical point of being able to show others, by example, the type of preservation that can be achieved in Nashville.
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What I learned from Tim is that we must advocate for preservation, sometimes in less direct but certainly impactful ways. And that goes back to our educational mission and establishing good partnerships across the community. We’re certainly known for providing technical guidance as well, but it’s very important to build and maintain the trust with the public, and we have to be willing to shift and adapt to the needs of a growing city, to make Nashville what the community wants it to be.
there.” And then it’s important that we take that next step to encourage the community to want to protect that history. … To me, the history really is the soul of our city.
How has your work with other historical commissions outside of Nashville helped prepare you for this role? [My time with] the East Tennessee Development District was really key in understanding how rural historic preservation works in Tennessee and in these communities. We forget sometimes that we are in Metro, we are Nashville, in Davidson County, and we get very focused on those urban and suburban areas. But I think — looking forward to the future, as we see the city grow — rural historic preservation is going to become key. And that’s something that I would bring to the table from past experience.
At the State Historic Preservation Office, I had the privilege of working with both state and local programs and partners. … It’s very important to maintain those connections between local and state, especially in a small field like historic preservation.
we have a very comprehensive approach to historic preservation.
A pet project of mine that’s very near and dear to my heart is the Davidson County Cemetery Survey project. That’s something that has been grant-funded for about the last five years through grants awarded by the Tennessee Historical Commission, and that’s allowed us to go out and survey the county’s historic cemeteries, and we have records on almost 700 sites at this point. What we’re working towards with that project is the development of the first county-level cemetery preservation plan in the state of Tennessee.
We are working currently to develop an archaeology ordinance for Metro properties that will help guide projects and ensure that there’s proper guidance given for how to deal with archaeological resources in the area. And we do have an on-staff archaeologist who is assisting with the development of that ordinance.
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Why do you believe historical commissions are so integral to a city, especially one that’s changing as much as Nashville is? We’re the municipal agency that’s tasked with essentially recording and sharing the history of Nashville and Davidson County. So in my mind, that means we’re sort of holding the mirror up to the city and saying, “This is who we are at heart. Here’s how we got
What are some of your goals for the commission? It’s very important that we not try to carry this burden on our own, that we continue to maintain and support strong partnerships with our local preservation nonprofit organizations. And that would include the Nashville Historical Foundation, which is our nonprofit arm, as well as Historic Nashville Inc. and the Preservation Society of Nashville. There’s some really great energy and excellent people who are engaged with all of those various groups, and it really does take a village to ensure that
Are there any sites that are special projects for you? 88 Hermitage, which is a Metro and historic property that is a former African American school for the blind. It’s a beautiful property. It’s located on the edge of downtown, just immediately to the east, beside Rutledge Hill, and it’s underutilized. It’s been sitting there vacant for many years. It was previously owned by the state and passed over to Metro a few years ago. … I think that’s something that, as the city considers creating a city history museum, looking at that location would be ideal to me. I would love to see that building take on some new life within the next few years. ▼
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CAROLINE ELLER
114TH TENNESSEE GENERAL ASSEMBLY GAVELS OUT OF SESSION
Republicans’ immigration crackdown and school voucher expansion were among the defining issues at the state Capitol in 2026
BY JULIANNE AKERS
THE 114TH TENNESSEE GENERAL Assembly wrapped the final session of its two-year term on April 23. This marks the final session of Gov. Bill Lee’s tenure in office and the last for retiring Lt. Gov. Randy McNally.
The week before the session wrapped, lawmakers completed their constitutional duty of approving the state’s $58 billion budget. After several months embroiled in thorny debates over immigration, school vouchers, health care and culture-warevoking legislation — including the “Charlie Kirk Act,” which is designed to limit protests on college campuses — the state’s Republican supermajority was still largely able to sail through with the passage of most of its top-priority legislation this year.
For more coverage and analysis of the 2026 legislative session, visit nashvillescene.com/state-legislature and stay tuned for next week’s issue.
Undoubtedly this session’s most defining issue was immigration. In January, Republicans announced a massive legislative package — crafted with the help of the White House and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller — cracking down on immigration. Many of these bills passed along party lines, including legislation requiring local governments to work with ICE and criminalizing the act of simply existing in the state as an undocumented immigrant.
Legislation to expand the state’s school voucher program — the Education Freedom Scholarship program, which was created last year — narrowly passed, with several Republicans voting against the measure. Under the expansion, the program will provide a total of 35,000 vouchers for the 2026-27 school year, falling short of the governor’s initial proposal of 40,000. Republicans successfully tacked on an amendment that allows public schools to receive funding for students who disenroll because of EFS only if they provide Social Security numbers associated with said students — a retooled version of a previously proposed measure that would have required public school districts to provide proof of citizenship or legal immigration status of students who leave to attend private schools as a part of the voucher program. Attempts at increasing transparency and accountability for the program died in committee.
When it came to health care, Republicans moved forward with legislation targeting the LGBTQ community. The legislature passed a bill to require insurance companies and health care providers to submit data on transgender patients and their treatments to the state health
department. TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, does not cover gender-affirming care, but a bill that codified prohibition of such care passed and was signed by the governor. Efforts from Democrats to offer medical debt forgiveness and universal pre-K programming failed. On the bipartisan front, a bill from Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) and Rep. Esther HeltonHaynes (R-East Brainerd) that would allow insured Tennesseans to purchase a 12-month supply of birth control has also been signed by the governor.
State Republicans also plowed forward with efforts to intervene in Tennessee’s Democraticrun city governments, including plans to further the state’s authority over the The Boring Company’s Music City Loop project and a takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
At a press conference following the close of session, Lee reflected on his last eight years as governor and his final legislative session.
“I was hopeful in [2019],” Lee said. “I’m grateful today — grateful not just for the work and the things that we accomplished, but grateful for the relationship that the governor’s office has with the General Assembly, and together what we have accomplished on behalf of the people. It’s not like this in every state, and I recognize that. I am grateful for the partnership of these leaders and who they represent.”
State Democrats gathered for a separate press conference Thursday night, where they expressed their discontent with this year’s session failing to pass bills addressing affordability in Tennessee, instead approving legislation preempting local governments. Democrats also criticized Lee’s leadership.
“Let’s put a bow on Gov. Bill Lee’s eight years in office and just go ahead and call it what it is: an utter and despicable failure,” said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville). “Nothing that has been done in the last eight years is worth bragging about. His legacy will be blowing up our state budget and destroying public schools. That’s it.” ▼
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ROUND AND ROUND
Neighbors,
BY ELI MOTYCKA
TIRE STACKS REFLECT in Tinsley Myers’ mirrored aviator sunglasses on a Thursday in April as she stands next to her pearl race car. Like Tinsley, the car is small but tough.
“We took a hard hit on the wall at Highland Rim yesterday,” says 10-year-old Tinsley, putting on a huge smile and pointing to some exterior damage. “It scratched the windshield up, took the whole door off, the brake line was pinched — my dad stayed up till 5 in the morning to get it ready to race here.”
She walked away with a jammed thumb.
The Myers family traveled up from Zephyrhills, Fla., 20 miles north of Tampa, for back-to-back races at Greenbrier’s Highland Rim Speedway and the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. Tinsley currently holds a top 10 ranking in the Bandit division — one of the younger racing age groups, along with Outlaws, Young Lions, Masters, Chargers, Semi-Pro and, finally, Pro. (Yes, some of the divisions are entirely reserved for racers not even old enough for a driver’s license.) On this particular weekend, the Fairgrounds Nashville is hosting the INEX Spring Nationals series.
“I’ve been racing since I was 2,” Tinsley tells the Scene. “I like the speed, I like everything about it.”
Though Tinsley has never raced in Nashville, her family knows the Nashville track by reputation.
“Back in the day, if you couldn’t win here, you weren’t gonna get anywhere,” adds Travis, her dad and mechanic. “This was the track to win to get recognized by owners and sponsors. Anyone who has ever been in the NASCAR Hall of Fame has raced here.”
The racing pit is packed with canvas tents, trailers, tool chests and prized cars. Each team assembles a mobile garage for last-minute tweaks and preparation. Earplugs litter the ground, and — everywhere — there are tires.
“I like to watch Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, of course,” says Jagger Stone, 12, a mulleted stock car driver up from Texas for the race weekend. “I’m trying to go to NASCAR one day.”
Racing has steadily declined in popularity since superstar drivers like Richard Petty, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. helped mainstream NASCAR in the 1990s and 2000s. Viewership is down and teams are losing money. Marcus Smith took Speedway Motorsports Inc. — the national track operator founded by his late father Bruton Smith — private in 2019 at $19 dollars a share, less than half of its highs from the late 1990s and mid2000s. Once estimated at $1.5 billion, the Smith family fortune is directly tied to NASCAR’s financial viability.
Public tax disclosures just before Marcus
took Speedway Motorsports private show an entertainment corporation trying to avoid a NASCAR tailspin by embracing profitable growth sectors like corporate events and track rentals, repurposing seating at existing facilities to squeeze the market’s higher end with luxury experiences for shrinking crowds.
The Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is a part of this NASCAR future. After NASCAR pulled Nashville’s Cup Series race in 1984, Speedway Motorsports — acting through wholly owned Tennessee subsidiary Bristol Motor Speedway — arrived almost 40 years later to broker a new deal. Since 2021, SMI has run the Cup Series’ Cracker Barrel 400 at the Nashville Superspeedway in rural Wilson County, but eyes Nashville as a crown-jewel site. A terms sheet presented to Metro Nashville’s Fair Commissioners Board in 2022 offered the most recent public glimpse at the plan, negotiated under former Mayor John Cooper in close coordination with Butch Spyridon at the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. The deal emphasized the site’s century-long history of spectacle racing (horses, then cars) and gave SMI about 80 race days a year, including one Cup Series race every other year. As with the city’s deal with the Tennessee Titans for a new stadium, Metro would issue revenue bonds to revamp the neglected grandstand and track with help from city and NCVC grants, combining for a sticker price north of $100 million.
The proposal stalled with fair commissioners for months, bogged down by public backlash and financial scrutiny. The staggering $2.1 billion shelled out for a new Titans stadium weighed heavily on the city’s psyche. Neighbors raised concerns about noise, parking and air pollution. Supporters tried, with some success, to revive the successful “Save Our Fairgrounds” coalition that enshrined fairgrounds auto racing in the Metro Charter 11 years earlier. Scheduling by the district’s term-limited Councilmember Colby Sledge punted the deal far enough into 2023 that it became a problem for the next council, forcing NASCAR to woo a new administration.
Billionaire resentment helped vault wonky downtown Councilmember Freddie O’Connell into the mayor’s office in September 2023. A new track deal has not formally surfaced since then, though at one point a Fox 17 article briefly linked to an outline provided by embattled Fair Board Commissioner Jasper Hendricks, who told media in August 2025 that the city could expect updated terms imminently. The outline, which soon disappeared from the public eye, shifted more financial obligations onto SMI, reduced bond liability for the city and better accommodated Nashville SC’s home of Geodis Park, the track’s formidable neighbor, owned by billionaire John Ingram. Each side points to different polling that alternately shows support for, and against, a NASCAR future. Labor unions LiUNA and SEIU support renovations, which promise more and better paying jobs for another high-end tourist draw.
A carefully orchestrated response from
NASCAR opponents — a broad umbrella of wary neighbors, environmentalists, citizen activists and paid consultants who enjoy backing from Ingram and Nashville SC — have since orchestrated a series of legal obstacles that threaten to kill a new lease before it materializes. An ethics complaint filed in September took aim at Hendricks’ close relationship with NASCAR and impeached his credibility as a key decision-maker for taxpayers.
At the recommendation of Sledge’s successor, Councilmember Terry Vo, a new racing skeptic has joined the Fair Commissioners Board after an extended vacancy under O’Connell. The mayor’s office is mostly mum about the topic, saying recently that conversations with SMI are ongoing but not yet conclusive.
After a partially successful court challenge from retired race car driver Neil Chaffin, a new proposed referendum might soon ban auto racing altogether at the fairgrounds, functionally undoing the 2011 campaign. This existential threat has essentially frozen the NASCAR conversation until, pending signature collection, the issue goes to Davidson County voters, possibly as soon as Nov. 3. Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal dismissed several of Chaffin’s issues with the proposed amendment, but ruled on Friday that NASCAR opponents must change the proposal’s title — “Updating the Functions and Duties of the Metropolitan Board of Fair Commissioners (Fair Board)” — to more specifically describe the amendment as a racing ban on the ballot. Kopp and Solomon introduced a new title for the proposed amendment on Monday.
More than language will be on the ballot. Nashville has reliably embraced entertainment in all its forms, from the NFL Draft to the CMA Fest. With an audience skewing more conservative, whiter and male, NASCAR also presents questions about what kind of leisure the city hosts, for who, when, at what cost to taxpayers and — most critically — where. Classism can be heard from opponents who, at times, have referred to NASCAR fans as hillbillies and rednecks. Racing supporters often paint NASCAR’s diverse opposition simply as “soccer people” trying to elbow them out. Every race day, cars put on a thrilling and deafening show, while also spitting fumes into a densely populated neighborhood. Deferred maintenance has piled up, and dwindling crowds struggle to fill the fairgrounds’ pouredconcrete grandstand. Humble residents and billionaire money sit on both sides. Though he might prefer that the whole situation just disappear, O’Connell — like Cooper and Karl Dean before him — must soon decide whether NASCAR fits into the city’s view of itself.
SUDDENLY THINGS BEGAN moving fast for Brittany Tabor. Returning from her honeymoon, Tabor saw texts from Councilmember Terry Vo and missed calls from the mayor’s office. Months after she submitted her application materials at Vo’s recommendation, the office wanted to know if Tabor was still interested in the vacant Fair Commissioners Board seat previously held
by NASCAR critic Jason Bergeron before his resignation in 2022, when he cited strong-arm interference from Cooper. Sheri Weiner briefly filled the seat (and chaired the board) until she moved to the Metro Council in September 2023.
The board’s fifth spot remained empty for O’Connell’s first two years in office, during which time multiple candidates passed on the opportunity, according to the mayor’s office. Tabor quickly learned why. She was stepping into a drama several layers deep involving powerful people with a lot to gain.
“As soon as I stepped out of my subcommittee confirmation hearing, they were waiting in the hallway,” Tabor remembers. “Two guys immediately introduced themselves without any clarifying information. I thought they were fairgrounds employees who came to support me.”
The successful April 7 interview set up her formal confirmation at the next Metro Council meeting. The two men, Matthew Kuhn and Joseph Woodson, turned out to be NASCAR lobbyists; shortly following the hallway run-in, Tabor got a long voicemail from Kuhn, who said he had built a good relationship with the board’s other four members and fully expected her to sail through official confirmation.
“I would love to get you up to speed,” Kuhn told Tabor on April 16.
Councilmembers confirmed her a few days later, finally restoring the board’s five-person roster. In many ways, Tabor is a model of the civic-minded resident required to staff the city’s hundred-plus volunteer boards and commissions. During her initial hearing, the pro-racing crowd flagged Tabor’s history as part of Stand Up Nashville’s “Sunshine Squad,” a coordinating group for people willing to give public comments about city issues. The economic justice nonprofit brokered a community benefits agreement with Nashville SC in 2018 and has been vocally anti-NASCAR for years.
“I’ve volunteered maybe three times in the
last 18 months,” Tabor explains. “It’s not paid, it’s just people who care about what’s going on in local government.”
Tabor’s new Woodland-in-Waverly home sits about a mile from the track. After Tabor’s appointment, her neighbors began sharing their thoughts too. One woman across the street sent peer-reviewed studies about the harmful inhalation effects of brake dust. They brought up noise pollution, exhaust fumes, traffic worries and burned rubber particles pluming through the neighborhood. She says, for her vote, any proposal would have to seriously mitigate sound pollution and racing’s adverse environmental effects, and eliminate financial liability for taxpayers if NASCAR suddenly walks away.
“The wrong project could be this neighborhood’s problem and this district’s problem, but it could also be a Nashville problem,” Tabor says. “ The fairgrounds racetrack is super old, it’s falling apart, it needs repairs — something has to happen with it. What that will be depends on what kind of proposals we get and what happens with the charter amendment. As it stands right now, auto racing specifically has to happen at the fairgrounds.”
When a journalist needs information about this topic, most calls get answered by the third ring. Matthew Kuhn and Joseph Woodson are foot soldiers in the army of strategists, lobbyists and consultants billing hours on both sides of the issue. Kuhn works at Hall Strategies — one of Bristol Motor Speedway’s primary local firms, led by longtime media and government relations whiz and former Ingram Group partner Joe Hall. The track operator — owned wholly by Speedway Motorsports Inc. — also counts Woodson (a one-man show at Woodson Results), Nadira Freeman, Jerry Maynard, Maxwell Johnson and veteran lobbyist James Weaver as its registered representatives this year. While Weaver was chair of the Fair Commissioners Board in 2010 — before a NASCAR deal was a publicly discussed prospect — he supported shuttering the neglected track in a Tennessean
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
ERICA LANIER OUTSIDE HER HOUSE
op-ed. The public countered with the successful “Save Our Fairgrounds” referendum a year later. Weaver is also registered for Bristol at the state legislature, alongside lobbyists Dustin Goforth and Nicole Osborne Watson. Bristolfriendly East Tennessee lawmakers have angled for a NASCAR deal in Nashville, and the legislature briefly pushed a law that would have lowered the required Metro Council voting threshold to pass a racing deal in 2023. (Courts later struck down the law, calling it a direct violation of Nashville’s home rule protections.)
Pro-racing conversations frequently spring from the 2011 referendum that put auto racing into the Metro Charter. They also helped launch Darden Copeland’s career in paid campaigns. Back then, Copeland, along with bulldog attorney Jamie Hollin, helped convert a true local groundswell of pro-racing support into a successful grassroots electoral effort that briefly redirected city politics under two-term Mayor Karl Dean. Copeland is still a passionate racing proponent working on a self-described “tiny retainer” toward a NASCAR deal. Copeland plainly points to Ingram — who hired Copeland in 2017 to help with soccer stadium negotiations — when referring to today’s multipronged anti-racing efforts, and places the next move squarely with Mayor O’Connell.
“It’s up to the mayor to move this deal along,” says Copeland. “You have to make a decision because you got elected, or you have to put John Ingram and Marcus Smith in a room together to work it out. If you can’t do either of those you should reconsider your upcoming reelection announcement.”
Hollin remains publicly supportive of a NASCAR deal but did not respond to the Scene’s requests for comment.
While the racing camp doesn’t hesitate to name their out-of-state corporate client, racing opponents clam up when it’s time to follow the money. Conversations tend to lead back to Nashville SC and, by extension, controlling owner Ingram — not to mention U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, a minority investor in the team and the state’s junior senator since 2021. Some also name real estate magnate Joe Barker and MarketStreet Enterprises, which developed stadium-adjacent properties and is pursuing a major mixed-use play on Bransford Avenue. (Barker did not return the Scene’s request for comment.) Truly community-based opposition is important to campaigners, because the immediate neighbors around WedgewoodHouston, Berry Hill, Chestnut Hill and Eighth Avenue would most directly feel the effects of a more active track.
“I respect the people who do attend, and I’m glad they find entertainment in that, but these races are no longer heavily populated,” says Erica Lanier, an active race track critic who lives next to her elderly mother on Neal Terrace. “I always ask them, ‘Would you want this in your neighborhood?’ We want the same respect as wealthy neighborhoods. It’s a quality-of-life issue and a property value issue, especially for my two daughters, when we talk about preserving generational wealth.”
Lanier co-signed the ethics complaint filed last fall against Fair Commissioner Jasper Hendricks. Metro’s Board of Ethical Conduct forced Hendricks to detail his personal affinity for NASCAR and relationship with Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing and Speedway Motorsports, including attending the NASCAR awards gala. Lanier identifies only as a concerned neighbor.
ON A SUNNY Wednesday afternoon in mid-April, a galoshed Tucker Karnes directs volunteers around Browns Creek some 50 yards from the Fairgrounds Speedway walls. The waterway cleanup is one of several community events hosted by Citizens Against Racetrack Expansion (CARE), the legal entity that’s led organized opposition to a NASCAR deal since the Cooper push in 2023.
Beyond Karnes’ name, email and phone number, CARE’s only identifiable information leads to a P.O. box at the West End UPS Store. Karnes works for powerhouse PR firm Cooley Public Strategies, whose principal Dave Cooley set up shop after a career in city and state politics under Phil Bredesen. When the Scene asks about Cooley’s client, Karnes demurs, directing comments to Zach Hunt — another anti-racing consultant who is frequently tied to Ingram interests. Hunt’s firm, The Strategy Group, did confirm that Nashville SC is a client and offered the Scene a statement that reads, in part:
“We believe, and most Nashvillians concur, that the aging speedway site would be better utilized for affordable housing, green space, and cleaning up Brown’s Creek. Meanwhile, like many Nashvillians, we’ve been alarmed to see millions upon millions of dollars being spent by out-of-state special interests who seem intent
on denying voters the opportunity to decide the future of the fairgrounds while creating an unbearable experience for neighbors. Our position is simple: We stand with neighbors and Nashvillians. Let the voters decide this matter.”
Attorney (and former Scene writer) John Spragens helped guide the ethics complaint against Jasper Hendricks through Metro’s protracted bureaucratic process, and lived blocks from the fairgrounds for about a decade. When asked about his own compensation, he also declines to answer. Formal anti-racing paperwork includes other names like Music Row strategist Mike Kopp and Saul Solomon, a former Metro finance director. At the creek cleanup, former school board member and public affairs consultant Will Pinkston finds shade near a pickup truck full of trash.
“I represented this part of town on the school board, and the fairgrounds has always been close to my heart — not because of auto racing, but because of what it has the potential to be,”
Pinkston tells the Scene. “The speedway outlived its useful life in 1984 when NASCAR abandoned the city. The fairgrounds used to be on the outskirts of town, and it’s now in the center of the city. Any rational person is gonna look at the racetrack and say, ‘Hmm, is it possible there’s a better use of 25 acres in the center of the city than NASCAR?’ And conclude, ‘Yes, a regional park, a transit hub, affordable housing.’ Something that makes sense.”
Pinkston says he’s doing the work purely as a concerned neighbor, uncompensated in any way. He encourages people to see past the billionaires on both sides; fundamentally it’s a question of public resources and public space.
Both teams use sports language to describe the ongoing power struggle over a few
acres off Craighead Street. This consultant is “quarterback,” another is “point guard” — the NASCAR deal has already flooded the lobbyist and strategist world with enough money to sort the city’s top fixers, already a competitive bunch, into teams, pitting them against each other with pride (and bonuses) on the line. The winning side would be able to claim the ultimate victory: They know how to work corporate interests, public sentiment and two levels of government, and truly have a finger on the pulse of a rapidly changing city.
Opponents will score a major victory soon by shifting their campaign from negative to positive. Rather than blocking a NASCAR deal, they will soon have the opportunity to rally residents for something — a different vision for key central green space that has flourished with activity in recent years. A street grid upgrade and renovated convention center make the fairgrounds unrecognizably different from just 15 years ago. The towering Geodis Park regularly attracts thousands to bustling game days to watch a winning soccer team currently at the top of the MLS table. On a typical afternoon, residents walk dogs through the abutting greenway and meet for kickball at the park. The paused charter amendment — still caught in procedural steps, likely headed back to the Charter Revision Commission for approval soon — has allowed O’Connell to sit on the sidelines and wait. A direct campaign also takes the racetrack decision from the Fair Board commissioners and Metro Council, giving it to voters. Intersecting elements of culture, sport, entertainment and demographics make the NASCAR question more than just a business deal: It’s a referendum on what is future and what is past. ▼
BROWNS CREEK CLEANUP
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
APRIL LINE UP
4.1 Brinley Addington, Jerry Flowers, Jordan
4.2 Jenna Paulette, Sammy Arriaga
4.4
Roberson
4.19 Dixieland Delight: Hotter Than a Hoochie Coochie 90s Country Tribute
4.21 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Preston James, Meg McRee, Patrick Murphy
4.22 Adam Hood, John Baumann
4.23 Flat River Band
4.24 Melodies For Miracles: A Benefit for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital w/ George James, Chloe Lawson, Shelby Lee Lowe, John Pate, Dan Minogue, Sofia Nargentino, Tae Wright
4.25 Jeff Hyde
4.30 Bryan White
MAY 1-JUNE 19
ART [SHIT IS DEEP]
JENNIFER CRESCUILLO: DEEP SHIT
FRIDAY / 5.1
MUSIC
[IN THE GARAGE] THE NUDE PARTY
Let’s face it — coming up with a viable modern take on country-rock isn’t easy in a post-rock, Americana-friendly era. Some tastemakers have touted rock band The Nude Party’s new full-length Look Who’s Back as a return to the days of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, which makes a certain kind of sense. The band references The Byrds’ 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo in a song titled “Sweetheart of the Radio,” and the song is a good one. Still, I don’t hear Look Who’s Back as very different from The Nude Party’s self-titled 2018 debut, which garnered them good reviews and a place in the Americana firmament. When you compare their 2018 track “Feels Alright” to Cargoe’s 1972 power-pop classic “Feel Alright,” maybe you’re just noting the difference between two different eras, but Cargoe — who released one superb album and disappeared into obscurity — didn’t have Americana to fall back on. The Nude Party’s version of countryrock has a lot to do with their take on circa-1972 THE ECSTATIC PAGE 18
NASHVILLE BALLET: SHERLOCK PAGE 18
PORTARA ENSEMBLE: DANGEROUS — EL SUEÑO
FILM
As much as I’d like to dedicate this entire Critic’s Pick to the strength of its title, attention must also be paid to glass artist Jennifer Crescuillo. She is one of the most interesting artists working in Nashville, and Deep Shit is a highlight of an already strong year of women-led art events. For this solo exhibition at Elephant Gallery, Crescuillo will showcase her unique kilnfused glass objects, which are delicate and mighty all at once. Her artist website sums them up succinctly: “Art objects for the home of the weirdo and those with distinct taste.” My faves — and this will come as no surprise to regular readers — are her “Notty Boys Candlesticks,” which look a little like melted red wax that’s been sculpted into dirty candle holders, but are actually cast glass. I love when artists play with material and expectation. From her exhibition statement: “Deep Shit is a digestion of the world today. The sad, the happy, the futures we wish we were living, the present we find ourselves in. We’re in Deep Shit on many levels.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER OPENING RECEPTION 6-9 P.M.; THROUGH JUNE 19 AT ELEPHANT GALLERY 1411 BUCHANAN ST Visit
calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
rock ’n’ roll, which means they’re garage rockers at heart. I find each of the band’s four full-lengths entertaining and funny — living in a post-rock world has its benefits. Tobacco City opens Friday at The Basement East. EDD HURT 8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
[HORSIN’ AROUND]
MIDNIGHT MOVIES: SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
This weekend, the Belcourt’s Midnight Movies series will show not one but two Californiabased darkly comic satires with surreal sci-fi twists. Before writer-director-musician Boots Riley’s upcoming film I Love Boosters hits theaters in a few weeks, the Belcourt will take you back to his 2018 directorial debut Sorry to Bother You, a comedy that’s Black in every sense of the word. LaKeith Stanfield, who was already a veteran of absurdist, Afrofuturistic joints (Atlanta, Get Out), plays an Oakland man who becomes a successful telemarketer thanks to his exemplary “white voice” (provided by David Cross). Things get even crazier when he rises through the ranks and discovers a batshit conspiracy (hatched by a hedonistic CEO, played with unsurprising amorality by a pre-scandal Armie Hammer) that even shocked the hell outta me when I first saw it. Released during that glorious year when filmmakers of color (from Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther to Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman) were dropping some eyeopening, politically/culturally relevant African American cinema, this one is — like the other late-night flick playing this weekend (which you can read about further down in this section) — the most punk of the pack.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC
[UNTOUCHABLE FACE] ANI DIFRANCO
Fresh off a headlining performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival last weekend, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco brings her Spirit of Love Tour to the Ryman Auditorium Friday night. While the DIY pioneer has played the historic venue numerous times in her career, it will be her first show there in 14 years and her first in Nashville in a decade. A feminist icon who launched her own label — Righteous Babe Records — in 1990, DiFranco has released 23 albums and authored a number of books, including her 2019 memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream, which was a New York Times bestseller. Her latest book The Spirit of Ani — a collaboration with cultural anthropologist Lauren Coyle Rosen that discusses DiFranco’s
creativity, spirituality, personal experiences and evolving consciousness — was published on March 3. At Friday’s show, DiFranco will perform material from across her celebrated career. She will be accompanied by Todd Sickafoose on bass and keys, Jharis Yokley on drums and Eric Heywood on pedal steel and guitar. Singersongwriter Valerie June will open the evening with backing from a pair of Memphis-based musicians — violinist Alice Hasen and cellist Tamar Love. DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
[THE ENERGY AND THE ECSTASY]
DANCE
THE ECSTATIC
With The Ecstatic, OZ Arts brings us yet another exciting U.S. premiere, and a really intriguing collaboration between South Africa’s Impilo Mapantsula dance collective and the Brooklyn-born (now based in Basel, Switzerland) choreographer Jeremy Nedd. This dazzling work takes its inspiration from two very different sources — the blistering-fast footwork of South Africa’s pantsula dance form and the Pentecostal praise breaks often found in African American churches. Of course, pantsula is much more than just dance. Originating in Black townships during the systemic oppression of apartheid, pantsula emerged as a true act of resistance, and “a powerful means of expressing identity, resilience and political defiance.” It’s an exhilarating style, particularly when paired with exuberant Pentecostal praise breaks that “blur the lines between ecstatic and cathartic.” Impilo Mapantsula is led by the celebrated South African choreographer and performer Vusi Mdoyi — a pioneer of the pantsula movement who has worked extensively with the Step Afrika! dance company. This marks the only opportunity for American audiences to experience The Ecstatic in the U.S. this year. Don’t miss it, Nashville. AMY STUMPFL
DANCE
[THE GAME IS AFOOT] NASHVILLE BALLET: SHERLOCK
Sherlock Holmes may well be the literary world’s most famous detective. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, Holmes has inspired countless adaptations, including everything from television and film to comic books, board games, plays and even a couple of musicals. This weekend you can experience the iconic character through the lens of dance as Nashville Ballet closes its 40th anniversary season with Penny Saunders’ Sherlock. Presented as part of the company’s acclaimed Attitude series, Sherlock gives us an exciting new co-production with Grand Rapids Ballet and Ballet Idaho. The piece promises a rich blend of design elements, from noir-inspired lighting and evocative scenery to a soundscape that incorporates vintage 1940s radio broadcasts from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Rounding out the program are two uniquely compelling works — Donald Byrd’s Wake the Neighbors (set to a powerful score by Kris Bowers) and the world premiere of Maria A. Konrad’s Lumina, which was inspired by Gustav Klimt’s celebrated portrait of Viennese socialite and salon hostess Adele Bloch-Bauer. AMY STUMPFL
MAY 1-3 AT TPAC’S POLK THEATER 505 DEADERICK ST.
[CRAFT WORK]
SHOPPING
SPRING TENNESSEE CRAFT FAIR
The Tennessee Craft Fair is still going strong after 55 years. That means the first iteration was way back in 1971 — the same year The Doors released L.A. Woman and All in the Family debuted on CBS. But longevity isn’t its only accomplishment. The annual event has consistently brought in top vendors from across Tennessee, as well as the seven states that border it. The weekend-long marketplace takes over Centennial Park, giving locals and tourists a chance to buy a wide array of crafts, from jewelry and ceramics to photography, fiber, glass and mixed-media works. And did we mention the children’s activity tent
and food vendors? For more details, visit tennesseecraft.org. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
MAY 1-3 AT CENTENNIAL PARK
2500 WEST END AVE.
SATURDAY / 5.2
ART [FACE TO FACE]
HANNAH LANGER: FACING FORWARD
Hannah Langer was born in China before being adopted by an American family and growing up in Massachusetts. The artist has spent her life tracing her story through official documents and records, certificates, stamps and signatures. Facing Forward turns archive into aesthetics with a display of works based on bureaucratic and administrative ephemera scattered with hidden ceramic seeds created by the sculptor. Langer’s installations are meditative and mysterious as viewers instinctively attempt to weave together a narrative between the artist’s stained and painted documents, typewritten and decorated with Chinese characters. These are complemented by nest-like constructions of sticks and debris that hide the artist’s lovely, textured ceramic objects. All of these combine for a unique spring display: installation art as memoir, as poetic as it is plaintive. JOE NOLAN
OPENING RECEPTION 1-9 P.M.; THROUGH MAY 23 AT COOP GALLERY
507 HAGAN ST.
[ONLY A FOOL GETS KILLED
FOR A CAR]
FILM
MIDNIGHT MOVIES: REPO MAN
The 1984 anti-noir Repo Man is the second Golden State-set cult whatzit that’ll be making a midnight appearance at the Belcourt this weekend. With his directorial debut, maverick
Englishman Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy) gives us his own snotty, skeevy, occasionally silly view of the City of Angels, featuring a snarling soundtrack (Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, etc.) that most likely introduced your parents to the L.A. punk scene. A pre-Breakfast Club Emilio Estevez stars as an aimless youth who joins a crew of auto reposessors (he gets mentored by a coke-snorting Harry Dean Stanton) who pick up cars around a town that’s both strange (anyone seen that Chevy with the aliens in the trunk?) and soul-numbingly generic (good luck buying any brand-name shit around here!). Programmer Zack Hall will be around to not only give a pre-screening intro to this gleefully gonzo flick, but also have his Press Play Video pop-up set up in the parking lot at 10 p.m.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
SUNDAY / 5.3
[IN THE DEEP]
MUSIC
ICHIKO AOBA
Seeing a show at The Caverns feels like being inside a whale. So it’s the perfect spot to hear Japanese musician Ichiko Aoba, whose latest album was inspired by creatures she encountered diving in the waters off a remote island. Luminescent Creatures, released in February of last year, features Aoba’s ethereal voice and minimalistic acoustic style. She plays guitar, piano, clarinet, accordion and flute, exploring liminal worlds through softly textured ambient folk. Peaceful and meditative, Aoba forms a raw openness using strange and thrilling effects. Since I do not speak Japanese, I have no idea what she is singing about. Sounds
ICHIKO AOBA
PHOTO:
ritualistic. Or she could blissfully be checking off her grocery list. Like any artist who creates a strong sense of place, she brings her listeners along for the deep dive. TOBY ROSE
6 P.M. AT THE CAVERNS
555 CHARLIE ROBERTS ROAD, PELHAM
[DANGER!]
MUSIC
PORTARA ENSEMBLE: DANGEROUS — EL SUEÑO AMERICANO
If you somehow missed out on Portara Ensemble’s inspiring Dangerous concert back in 2023, you’re in luck. The dynamic 32-voice chamber choir is back this weekend with a second installment — Dangerous: el sueño americano. According to artistic director Jason Shelton, this new Dangerous show will “share stories and songs of people from diverse backgrounds, who all have something in common — the American dream.” The program showcases composers from around the world, including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Armenia, Ireland, the Philippines and the United States. Nashville poet and author Ciona Rouse will be on hand to share Warsan Shire’s “Home” — a powerful poem that explores the desperation and danger that often drives the refugee experience. Guests can sample tasty bites from immigrant-owned food trucks after the concert. And best of all, ticket sales from the performance will benefit the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, a collaborative organization that works to “build power, amplify voices and organize communities to advocate for their rights.”
AMY STUMPFL
4 P.M. AT VINE STREET CHRISTIAN CHURCH
4101 HARDING PIKE
MONDAY / 5.4
FILM [NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS] MUSIC CITY MONDAYS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Nerds everywhere can rejoice, because May the Fourth is once again upon us. For this year’s celebration — in tandem with Music City Mondays, thanks to that iconic John Williams
score — the Belcourt is screening the best Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. With the Marvel-ification of all our biggest film franchises, you rarely see a blockbuster this dark anymore. And I don’t just mean plot-wise — although one of the leads gets frozen into a block of carbonite, and another learns that the series’ terrifying villain is his father as he gets his hand sliced off. The atmosphere is thick with a palpable sense of dread; every misty, shadowfilled corner seems to be home to a frightening creature. This isn’t Disney’s galaxy far, far away. Make it a double by catching the earliest of the Belcourt’s three screenings and then heading south to see the original, A New Hope, at 7 p.m. at The Franklin Theatre. Just be on the lookout for any slug-like crime lords. LOGAN BUTTS
2:30, 5:15 & 8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE
[TELE-VISION]
MUSIC
FENDER PRESENTS: TELE TOWN
In the 75 years since the Fender Telecaster went on the market, there have been lots of great updates to the formula, but Fender landed on something special right out of the gate. An early variation was the first solid-body electric guitar to be mass produced, yet it remains the bedrock of the company’s offerings and the fundamental idea of “an electric guitar.” Its frills are minimal, but the variety of tones you can get out of a Telecaster is staggering, and it’s been a go-to for players as diverse as Steve Cropper, PJ Harvey, Bruce Springsteen, Jonny Greenwood, Prince (OK, so his was a Hohner brand copy), Susan Tedeschi, Pops Staples, Joe Strummer, Syd Barrett — and on and on. Telecasters lean toward a crisp and twangy sound that made them a hit with country musicians, and country and country-adjacent players make up a majority of the performers set to join in Monday’s celebration at the Ryman. Musician and historian Zac Childs will host the program, and Nashville picker Derek Wells will lead the house band. Wells also curated the lineup of guests, which includes country stars Brad Paisley, Ricky Skaggs and Brothers Osborne; session hero Brent Mason; multifaceted Nashville fixture Guthrie Trapp; and country
and rock legend James Burton. Proceeds are slated to benefit a group of Nashville charitable organizations. STEPHEN TRAGESER
7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
TUESDAY
/ 5.5
FILM [BIG MISTAKE. BIG. HUGE] STAFF PICKS: PRETTY WOMAN
With all due respect to my beloved 1930s and ’40s screwball comedies — not to mention ’70s American New Wave dramedies — the big bang of the modern rom-com as we know it is undoubtedly 1989’s When Harry Met Sally. The late Rob Reiner’s instant classic, with an uberinfluential script from Nora Ephron, formed the outline, and all others had to pay their respects going forward. But the performance that all of our favorite rom-coms have been chasing after for 36 years is that of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Garry Marshall’s 1990 mega-hit was a showcase for Roberts’ ascendence to A-List status. The rare lead acting nomination at the Oscars that could be described as bubbly (man, do I miss when roles like this could be nominated for Best Actor or Actress), Roberts’ performance as Vivian Ward created a template that Netflix is still desperately trying to re-create with countless straight-to-streaming efforts today. LOGAN BUTTS
8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC
[TAKE TIME, TAKE TIME] COURTNEY
BARNETT
Australian indie rocker Courtney Barnett emerged with a bang in 2013, issuing her debut The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas and swiftly earning critical-darling status for the stream-of-consciousness lyricism in tunes like “Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser.” Follow-up releases Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit in 2015 and the Kurt Vile collab Lotta Sea Lice in 2017 further cemented her low-key-rock-star status and set the pace. Barnett is slow and steady with her release schedule — an LP every few years, with special
projects and releases peppered in from time to time — but the wait is always worth it. This year’s Creature of Habit, her first since 2021’s appropriately titled Things Take Time, Take Time, is a strong 10-song collection. Leadoff single “One Thing at a Time” has shades of her old pal Kurt Vile in its noodly riffage, while “Great Advice” is an upbeat, askew, two-and-ahalf-minute ripper that calls to mind Barnett’s early-career efforts. The left-handed Aussie will likely sound great when she returns to the Ryman Tuesday for her fourth appearance at the Mother Church in the past decade — slow and steady. Truman Sinclair will open. D. PATRICK RODGERS 7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N
WEDNESDAY / 5.6
TV/FILM
[IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN] TWIN PEAKS : SEASON 2
Season 2 of Twin Peaks is often maligned. True, it’s marred by the breakup of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s creative partnership, and goes on some strange, uncompelling detours in the middle, after Lynch left the show. (Ahem, James Hurley’s subplot with femme fatale Evelyn Marsh.) But Season 2 is still where some of the show’s most iconic characters and moments hit. I have a soft spot for nun-turned-nihilist Annie Blackburn, and the orchid-loving recluse Harold Smith’s final scene will haunt you, while Major Briggs’ tearjerker dream monologue to his son Bobby will make you want to call your dad as soon as possible. It is happening again soon at the Belcourt, as the local theater brings back the Twin Peaks showcase series to present Season 2 on Wednesday nights in May and June. From themed drinks to a cameo from local comedian Cortney Warner as David Lynch’s ghost, the theater pulled out all the stops for Season 1, so round two is sure to be a treat. Check belcourt. org for showtimes. ANNIE PARNELL
WEDNESDAYS THROUGH JUNE 10 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
COURTNEY BARNETT
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
THE GREATEST YEAR IN NASHVILLE RESTAURANT HISTORY
Seven Nashville classics that opened in 2012 — including Rolf and Daughters, Etch and Lockeland Table — are still playing the hits
BY MANY METRICS, we should be living in the most successful era ever when it comes to Nashville restaurants. Dozens of new spots have opened in the first quarter of this year alone, and diners can now choose among new outposts from world-renowned chefs like José Andrés and Philippe Chow, or from our own locally grown, Michelin-star-bestowed talents. Heck, Nashville now has so many luxury steakhouses that the primary difference between two of them is substituting the apostrophe in Hal’s for the second L in Halls.
While these developments are great for tourists and conventioneers, will these new dining destinations possess staying power? I contend that the influx of “Ocean Prime + Proper & Beignets & Brews” matters less to the city’s identity than seven specific restaurants that opened in 2012 — establishments that remain vital to Nashville’s culinary history.
Ahh, 2012 … when we were all playing Angry Birds on our iPhone 5s and watching a funny new show called Veep, thinking it was more absurd than reality. The farm-to-table movement was beginning to reshape the industry — a bonus for Nashville restaurants, since we live in such an agriculturally rich region. It was also the year that seven pivotal local restaurants served their first meals: Etch, Rolf and Daughters, Lockeland Table, Hattie B’s, The Southern Steak & Oyster, Urban Grub and Biscuit Love. Each of
BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN
these new enterprises was a culinary pioneer in the neighborhoods where they settled.
Few knew where Germantown’s Taylor Street was before chef Philip Krajeck started serving his outrageous pork ragu, which has never left the menu at Rolf and Daughters. The Southern and Etch both bet that the Schermerhorn Symphony Center would continue to draw diners downtown after its post-flood reopening in 2011. Hattie B’s brought hot chicken to the masses by using deep fryers instead of individual skillets and thrived despite the lack of — gasp — parking in Midtown. Hal Holden-Bache and Cara Graham converted a former grocery/salon/photography studio into Lockeland Table, an East Nashville gathering spot that feels like a timeless part of the neighborhood. Jay Pennington combined the cuisine of his three previous ventures — South Street, Local Taco and Bound’ry — to create Urban Grub on the former site of a 12South car wash. And wherever Karl and Sarah Worley parked their first Biscuit Love truck for the day, outstanding food and great kindness followed.
But why 2012? How was the city blessed by so many important restaurants that are still surviving and thriving today?
The easiest answer is that the owners/operators of these spots were extremely shrewd and fanatically focused on success. Doug Hogrefe — a partner at 4Top Hospitality, which owns Etch
— hedged his bets through clever negotiation.
“When we were negotiating the lease for Etch, I was so worried about the location being a flop that I backloaded the rent to get the first few years of occupancy costs as low as I could,” says Hogrefe. “So we opened paying less than $15 a square foot in base rent. We are still paying a number that would be laughed out of the room in 2026.”
The Southern owner Tom Morales was smart enough to realize that Etch chef Deb Paquette would bring fans from her former stops at Cakewalk Cafe and Zola to SoBro, a neighborhood that was unaccustomed to fine dining.
“We saw a culinary desert downtown,” Morales explains. “Plenty of meat-and-threes, but nothing that could rival Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans. As one of the first new restaurants to open, our main issue was educating locals about our location. What we thought would be an issue of not being on Broadway turned into an advantage. With Deb and Etch next door, we really bookended the corner well. Our different styles complemented each other, and we have had a great relationship.”
Krajeck had recently arrived in Nashville from a successful stint in the kitchen at Fish Out of Water at the WaterColor Inn & Resort on Florida’s scenic 30A. He discovered an atmosphere that was primed for success.
“In 2012, Nashville still felt pretty small from
a restaurant perspective,” says Krajeck. “There were a few places like City House, Margot and Catbird Seat that were locally rooted and had strong opinions about food. You could feel the city starting to open up. Farmers were getting more ambitious, chefs were building closer relationships with producers, and diners were becoming more curious. It felt [like] if you worked hard and believed in what you were doing, there was room to carve out something new.”
Nick Bishop Jr. had already dipped his toe in the Nashville hot chicken arena with his father Nick Sr. by adding the fiery fowl as a daily special at their Franklin meat-and-three, Bishop’s — but that didn’t guarantee success for Hattie B’s.
“While the first six months of our Midtown opening were pretty lean — serving family and friends and hitting the streets to bring people in — it allowed us to truly connect,” says the younger Bishop. “We fed the neighborhood in those early days: Vandy students, the dudes at Fly South, the bartenders at Broadway Brewhouse, and the nurses at Baptist Hospital.”
Even as the Bishops beat the streets to attract new customers, Nick Jr. liked what he saw in the local restaurant environment. “2012 was a cool time to open in Nashville,” he says. “The scene was friendly, not competitive; we were all supporting each other. You could pick up the phone and call Josh [Habiger, then chef at The Catbird Seat] just as easy as you could call Karl [Worley].
LOCKELAND TABLE
ROLF AND DAUGHTERS ETCH
Nashville is an entertainment city, but it’s a hospitality city at its root.”
Krajeck echoes this sentiment. “When we opened Rolf and Daughters, it immediately felt collaborative. We were all eating at each other’s restaurants, sending guests across town, sharing staff, and figuring things out together. It didn’t feel competitive. It felt like everyone was invested in the idea that Nashville could become a stronger dining city.”
Another advantage that Hogrefe saw was a slower restaurant news cycle that allowed restaurants to build a foundation before the next “shiny object” arrived. “After we opened, it was quite a while until there was another big downtown restaurant opening — maybe Husk?” he says. “So we had months and months of being written about locally, nationally and internationally. Now? You have about five days of getting press until seven more restaurants open. It’s tough out there.”
Hogrefe is aware of how fortunate Etch was to open when it did and where it did. “I just read an article about buildout costs for a lot of the new restaurants, particularly in Wedgewood-Houston, [which] are close to $1,500 per square foot,” he says. “That would have put Etch, even before our 1,200-square-foot expansion, at $6 million.
We spent $650,000 in 2012. And that number raised a lot of eyebrows!”
While The Southern remains a cornerstone of Morales’ legacy — now managed by his daughters Kendall and Lauren Morales — he remains vocal about the threats facing independent eateries.
“The major changes I have witnessed are the corporate chain invasion and COVID,” he says.
“The demographic of people coming downtown has changed; locals stay away unless an event draws them in. Parking prices have escalated, further discouraging travel downtown. COVID emptied the buildings, devastating your lunch business due to work-from-home. Occupancy has still not returned to pre-COVID normal levels. As the huge money players have entered the market, our property taxes have increased disproportionately, eroding our profitability.”
Restaurant owners are petitioning state and local leaders to investigate fundamental tax reforms to protect these essential businesses. Ultimately, however, the choice rests with the consumer. If we want to maintain these and other crucial independent restaurants in Nashville, we must support them with more than just social media posts. We must put our money where our mouths are. ▼
POSSIBLE.
HATTIE B’S
THE SOUTHERN STEAK & OYSTER
URBAN GRUB BISCUIT LOVE PHOTOS:
EARTHQUAKE WEATHER
Tinney Contemporary’s Suspect Terrain puts landscape painting on shaky ground BY JOE
NOLAN
I’M KIND OF a sucker for all the bright bouquets of botanical art we inevitably see in galleries every spring. It’s a predictable programming choice, but it really does scratch the itch for vibrance and color, especially after enduring months of dark and cold. One of the highlights of the spring art season is Suspect Terrain, which speaks to the idea of a primavera landscape display while also turning that idea on its head. It’s a group show of three artists who replace bursting blossoms and growing gardens with references to pop and consumer culture. That replacement undercuts the idealized visions of historic landscape painting, and even calls into question what landscape painting can be as a living category of contemporary art.
Suspect Terrain at Tinney Contemporary brings together Ripley Whiteside, Morgan Ogilvie and Caitlin Blomstrom, three Nashville-area painters who share a preoccupation with unstable ground: ecological, psychological or perceptual.
Whiteside finishes these works with varnish and wax before pressing blocks of Styrofoam into the surfaces. The impressions they leave create a vintage look for these period-provoking pieces. The Styrofoam itself is sort of a punch line about how the consumer-industrial complex has spoiled these natural spaces with development and forever garbage.
Blomstrom is a Nashville-based artist, curator and arts administrator whose oil paintings recontextualize quiet, mundane encounters into compositions that upset the expectations of landscape painting, rendering the everyday simultaneously familiar and uncanny. Works like “Skeletons for Lumin” are inspired by the giant inflatable Halloween lawn monsters you can buy at Home Depot. But in the context of Blomstrom’s small linen-covered panels, these bony portraits read like memento mori wandering into the midst of these renderings of the bucolic ideal.
is no dream (door ajar)” pictures an open door clanging against a security chain from a frame of Rosemary’s Baby. These works argue that psychological landscapes are landscapes too, and that suspense, dread, wonder and terror can loom on the other side of a doorframe as well as beyond the dark tree lines of a painted horizon.
The closest Ogilvie comes to a traditional landscape is on a large rectangular canvas, where she offers her impasto take on the mountain peak in the star-spangled Paramount Pictures movie studio logo. It’s not a landscape Thomas Cole would have understood, but Andy Warhol would have loved it.
Whiteside’s paintings, drawings and prints engage with the dynamics of ecology in motion, haunted by the premise that we cannot fully comprehend our impact on a rapidly changing natural world. It’s a smart take on a big subject, and Whiteside often uses watercolor and ink to capture the vast and complex questions he explores in his studio.
Blomstrom’s two paintings of Temple Cemetery are similarly focused on the dark side of the idealized natural, picturing the historic 9-acre green space — and Tennessee’s oldest Jewish cemetery — in the shadow of looming urban sprawl. Even death may not save these Nashvillians from the turbulence of runaway growth.
Suspect Terrain is not your usual springtime art exhibition — and that’s why it’s a must-see. It’s full of work by talented painters, but it’s also a display brimming with irreverence and a rascally sense of play. Art is always in danger of taking itself too seriously, but Suspect Terrain sends up the historical canon and the idealized narratives it’s built, then refuses to play by the rules when it comes to the tropes that define landscape art as a genre.
The exhibition avoids the clichés of spring season art programming, but somehow still manages to deliver a display full of colorful personalities and vibrant ideas. It’s a show that knows exactly where it stands — even as it keeps viewers off balance. ▼
The artist lives and works in Nashville, and teaches painting and drawing at Belmont University. In Suspect Terrain, Whiteside copies the paintings of the Hudson River School painters who helped define American art in the early 19th century. Thomas Cole was the group’s founder, and Whiteside’s “After Thomas Cole’s Catskill Creek” takes its inspiration from about a dozen paintings Cole made of the eponymous waterway.
Likewise, “After Frederic Church’s Hudson Valley, New York at Sunset” offers Whiteside’s own take on the landscape that inspired one of the earliest art movements in the United States.
Ogilvie’s deliciously loose and gooey paintings are typically populated by misunderstood female antiheroines drawn from film and cultural history — think Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Rosemary from Rosemary’s Baby. The artist is a Nashville native currently living and working in Franklin. She regularly pictures iconic unreliable female narrators whom she explicitly declines to rescue. Her contributions to Suspect Terrain take a different approach and trade figures for thresholds. A series of close-ups of cracked-open doorways borrows from films that have become landmarks in contemporary cinema and mass psychology. “There’s no place like home” pictures the doorway Dorothy opens to enter Oz in one of cinema’s most magical moments. “This
Through May 30 at Tinney Contemporary
Suspect Terrain: Caitlin Blomstrom, Morgan Ogilvie & Ripley Whiteside
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally
&
Midnight Riders - Allman Brothers Tribute band with Sam Hunter
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring James Otto, Jeff Trott, Marla Cannon-Goodman with Abby Anderson
The Eaglemaniacs: The Music of Don Henley and The Eagles with Beck & Call
Bluebird on 3rd featuring Matt McKinney, Brinley Addington, Ben Roberts & Kamryn Palmer + Josh Gallagher
The Time Jumpers
Tim Miner & Friends
Cinco De Mayo Fiesta featuring Benjy Gaither, Tabitha Fair, Chip Davis, Zach Gonzaelez & Chris Rodridguez
Big Damn Music Jam featuring The Woods, Carlyle Griffin, Eddie Mor, Justin Andrews, Shane Pons & Emma Zinck FREESHOW
w/ Abigayle Oakley [7pm]
Josh Womack’s Turquoise Gate w/ The Tennessee
Vomiteers, A Tribute to the music of Col. Bruce Hampton [9pm]
Slap Dragon [9pm]
Zoe Ny & Tori Miller w/ Izzy Mahoubi [7pm]
Nashville Heavy Showcase w/ Dark Hound, True Villains and Doctor Atomic [7pm]
FREE
Fabrizio, Hannah Marie Kelley, & Hog Slop String Band [7pm]
Saints of Saturn w/ Moondance
SHOW! Austin Mackay [6pm]
MUSIC
DUSTY STREETS and sweaty dive bars populate Middle of Nowhere, the latest album from country superstar Kacey Musgraves. The longtime Nashvillian conjured many of the tracks during a post-breakup return to her small-town Texas roots.
“Out there on the edge of the world, way past common sense,” she sings at the top of the title track and album opener. “Past the Dairy Queen, the county line / Where there ain’t any fences.” She sets the stage for a lot of lonely wandering through rural Texas towns like Golden, the partial namesake for her 2018 country-pop opus Golden Hour
Golden Hour was Musgraves’ true cross-genre breakthrough. She had already made a name for herself with the bold country two-pack of 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park and 2015’s Pageant Material, winning Grammys and landing near the top of critics’ year-end lists. Both albums were co-produced by award-winning country crafters Luke Laird and Shane McAnally.
But starting with Golden Hour, Musgraves has primarily worked with producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian to expand her sonic palette. You can hear the results in Golden Hour’s varied soundscape (which draws on R&B-schooled pop and dance music), the cinematic pop of 2021’s Star-Crossed and the therapized folk of 2024’s Deeper Well
Middle of Nowhere melds the two sides of Musgraves’ musical profile. She’s brought Laird and McAnally, as well as frequent collaborators and ace Nashville songwriters Josh Osborne and Brandy Clark, back into the fold alongside Fitchuk and Tashian. The result is an album filled to the brim with influences from Musgraves’ Texas upbringing — zydeco, Western swing, Musgraves’ beloved neotraditional country, even Mexican music traditions like norteño. Many of the album’s standout tracks, like ubercatchy lead single “Dry Spell” and its smoky sequel “Mexico Honey,” feel designed for line dancing until the sun comes up.
“Dry Spell,” Musgraves’ hilarious jaunt about feeling desperately “lonely with a capital H,” has done the unthinkable — it’s brought the outspoken iconoclast back to the country airwaves. Like her spiritual brother Sturgill Simpson, Musgraves has generally found herself further and further outside the country music mainstream as her star has ascended elsewhere. But “Dry Spell,” despite its myriad double entendres and eggplant-starring music video, has been steadily climbing the country charts.
Country radio might come calling again for “Horses and Divorces.” The mea culpa collab with Miranda Lambert sees the two luminaries squash their years-long beef — thanks in part to a shared love of horses, commiseration over their divorces and having grown up in neighboring rural Texas towns.
Middle
NOWHERE FAST
of Nowhere melds the two sides of Kacey Musgraves
BY LOGAN BUTTS
The country-legend supporting turns continue on “Uncertain, TX,” a screed that has small-town fuckboys squarely in its sights and features Musgraves’ idol Willie Nelson. Bluegrass breakout Billy Strings shows up on the plucky ballad “Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy,” and Colorado folkster Gregory Alan Isakov stops by on the dreamy “Coyote.”
Musgraves has always had a bit of a cinematic flair to her albums — the descriptive details and earworm turns of phrase help you visualize the stories being told. But even more so than
Star-Crossed, which had an actual 48-minute companion short film, the songs on Middle of Nowhere often feel like being dropped into a Western hangout in medias res. The rodeo-inspired promotional materials — including the album cover, shot by her sister Kelly, which depicts Musgraves donning a cowboy hat, boots and a plain white tee while posed with a gigantic steer — make me think of old Howard Hawks Westerns. I wonder if the noted Studio Ghibli appreciator has watched Johnny Guitar? Much of the discourse about this album will
be centered on a “Kacey Musgraves is back in the country world” angle; she even noted this herself at an album preview at Studio 615 in March. How can it not be with this much twang involved? As I sat on the metal bleachers at the event — among the rodeo barrels, with Musgraves playing us the album front to back — I honestly thought the same thing. But that pop touch of her Fitchuk/Tashian era is there too. The combination of the two makes for her best album since Golden Hour ▼
Middle of Nowhere out Friday, May 1, via Lost Highway
DEEP CATHARSIS
Florence
and the Machine’s Everybody
Scream seeks solace and grounding in a world brimming with inequality
BY HANNAH CRON
IT’S DIFFICULT TO imagine what the current landscape of female indie musicians would look like if not for Florence and the Machine. Since the late Aughts, “Dog Days Are Over” has ushered in every summer. “You’ve Got the Love” still echoes in the aisles of half-empty grocery stores in every suburb. The biggest pop stars seek out Florence Welch for collaboration, and she could easily be credited with the popularization of modern baroque pop. The group’s contributions to the sound and popularity of indie rock today are immense. In 2015, Welch was the first woman to headline the legendary Glastonbury Festival in the 21st century — both a massive honor and an alarming example of how hard women must fight to play on the same stages men squander. Florence and the Machine have produced record after record to public and critical acclaim. The latest is Everybody Scream, fittingly released on Halloween.
Much of Everybody Scream reflects the violence and grief of womanhood, with many ref-
erences to witches, the groups of women throughout history that their societies could not understand. It grapples with the price of fame and artistry and wrestles with lost love and morality. The album was born out of a near-death experience Welch had while completing the band’s last tour, when she miscarried an ectopic pregnancy while onstage. “The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” Welch told The Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson ahead of the album’s release. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”
Everybody Scream’s title track is the embodiment of the band’s live show experience. It exists in conversation with the fan base gathered en masse — no longer a collection of individuals but a breathing, singular organism with a hive mind, equally capable of worship and destruction. The song was co-written with Mitski and Mark Bowen of Idles, whose experiences with the subject matter no doubt strengthen the power of the song.
Welch has a particular talent for saying the things many feel but few can materialize into words. There is no better example than “One of the Greats,” a highlight of the album if not the entire Florence and the Machine discography. The song investigates the question of who gets
not there. Maybe one can have everything — fame and love — just not without grief and loss (“You Can Have It All”). That is womanhood, the rawness of it all, to hold it all at once.
Florence and the Machine will bring the Everybody Scream Tour to Bridgestone Arena on Saturday. They’ll be joined by Irish country singer and Welch’s fellow ginger CMAT, whose 2025 record Euro-Country was celebrated with critical acclaim and sold-out shows including one at The Basement East. Very limited tickets remained as of this writing (and that includes ones available via Verified Resale). The stage is Florence Welch’s home, and it will be glorious to see her return to her rightful place there in Nashville this week. ▼
MUSIC: THE SPIN
AN ATOM LEFT TO CALL YOUR OWN
BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM
to be great — usually men — and if it’s worth the excessive cost. When the song debuted live on the BBC during Radio 1’s New Music Show with Jack Saunders, Welch revealed that, like many of her songs, “One of the Greats” began as a long-form poem, and it was recorded in a single take with guitar accompaniment from Bowen. It’s a study of patriarchy and a scathing take on the music industry at large, but it’s deeply humorous and self-reflective. As Welch sings, “It must be nice to be a man / And make boring music just because you can.”
Everybody Scream dances with darkness more than many of the band’s other records, save maybe 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, but Welch and company’s signature ethereality is present just the same. “Sympathy Magic” sounds like the perfect soundtrack for frolicking in a meadow; “Kraken” is wickedly playful and as mysterious as its namesake creature. “Music by Men” is an especially grounded moment in the record, breaking through the illusions and allusions with the hollowed refrain of a love faded away. It’s not always Men who are the problem — sometimes it’s just a man you thought you could trust, one you thought you loved. By the time the record ends, Welch has answered many of her own questions, or learned to accept that the answers simply are
AN EVENING WITH Robyn Hitchcock is never just a concert — especially in his adopted hometown. The London-born Nashvillian likes to take his audience on a winding, unpredictable journey through decades of eccentric songwriting, absurdist themes, existential surrealism and face-melting psychedelic folk. As part of a recent slate of shows in support of his forthcoming album The Confuser, out July 24, the onetime Soft Boys frontman traveled just down the road from his home to present a nearly two-hour performance at The Basement East on Thursday, joined by his just-as-unique special guests Emma Swift and Eric Slick Swift, a gifted songsmith from Australia who’s also Hitchcock’s wife, graced the stage first, stepping in at the last minute for local musical multitasker Jeremy Fetzer. Swift started with “Nothing and Forever,” the opening song from her September album The Resurrection Game, and made her way through selections from the record. As she sang solo into the mic, accompanied only by Rick Lollar’s reverb-drenched electric guitar, Swift displayed her signature modernized folk sound, subtly infused with strokes of indie rock and Americana. The Dylan aficionado finished off with a refreshingly smooth, lilty version of the classic “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and a mighty, aching rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” as made popular by Sinéad O’Connor.
Multi-instrumentalist and songsmith Slick performed next, putting his timeless indie-rock formula on display like it was no sweat. The Nashvillian by way of Philadelphia has had his hands in a few different projects in recent years, including his longtime drumming gig
Playing 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2, at Bridgestone Arena
with Dr. Dog and drumming on The Confuser. But he’s also doubled down on his solo music. Thursday, he rocked out on guitar while performing a slate of songs from his most recent LPs, including “Over It” and “Children” from 2020’s Wiseacre He also performed a few new tunes and a cover of XTC’s “No Thugs in Our House,” during which he nailed Andy Partridge’s roaring growls. Slick wrapped his set with an ode to his hometown, “Philadelphia Lights” from 2024’s New Age Rage The song ended with a call and response that drew in the whole crowd — and Slick getting tangled up in his microphone cable.
“In my mind I thought I was going to be like Prince and be so cool,” Slick joked. “But the reality is, I’m a klutz. My last name may be Slick, but it’s not true.”
As he approached the stage, Hitchcock appeared prepared to pull out all the stops. Throughout the night, he swerved between classics and deep cuts from every corner of his expansive discography — from solo projects to Soft Boys favorites to cult classics from the records he made with his later band The Egyptians. But first, he softly serenaded the crowd with a solo acoustic rendition of the titular song from 1984’s I Often Dream of Trains. Then he introduced his band, composed of bassist Todd Bolden and a couple familiar faces: Slick served as timekeeper, and Lollar returned on guitar. With little fanfare they kicked off the lengthy set, starting with “Kingdom of Love.” Hitchcock and company wove a tapestry of his greatest musical achievements, stitched together by his classic psych-folk sound and nasally Bob Dylan-esque vocals sprinkled with a hint of reformed post-punk decadence, which might put one in mind of The Church’s Steve Kilbey. About halfway through the set, Hitchcock reintroduced Swift, who joined him in a duet for a few songs. First came “Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)” — a song from 1988’s Globe of Frogs, whose recent reissue was also newly remixed
— featuring a perfectly blended excerpt of Roxy Music’s “More Than This,” then “Oceanside” and “Queen of Eyes.” When Swift departed, Hitchcock shifted gears into the profoundly psychedelic “Autumn Sunglasses” and teamed up with Lollar for a dual guitar break during the chorus of “Insanely Jealous.” Next, Hitchcock hit heavy with The Soft Boys’ “I Wanna Destroy You,” which he unapologetically directed at one person in particular.
“This is a horrible sound, for a horrible song, for a horrible person,” Hitchcock explained. “This song goes out, unquestionably, to Donald J. Trump.”
After a few more originals from solo albums, Hitchcock turned to a suite of classic covers, which he explained had a common theme: Each was originally performed by a British person who is now dead. He swept through “Soul Love” by David Bowie, Pink Floyd’s “Watch Emily Play” and one last duet with Swift on The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence.”
Then came an electric-guitar-heavy version of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” indebted to Jimi Hendrix’s rendition, which he argued still fits into his “dead and British” theme. “We’ve got one more to do by another dead person, but he was actually from over here,” Hitchcock joked, referring to Hendrix. “But he did get going in Britain and he died over there. So, you know, we can kind of claim him.”
After the song, Hitchcock’s band left the stage. But before leaving for good himself, Hitchcock unplugged his Telecaster — whose lime-green polka dots perfectly matched his button-up shirt — and descended the stage steps, joining the audience for one more song: an unamplified, mic-less rendition of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” He encouraged the crowd to join in, and they did, nearly overpowering Hitchcock’s own vocals. A fitting end to the night ensued: We all joined in finishing the song with a collective “gong” sound, replicating the song’s final massive E major chord. ▼
Saturday, May 2
SONGWRITER SESSION Wil Nance
NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, May 2
MUSIC AND CONVERSATION
Woody at Home
Exploring Woody Guthrie’s Home Recordings with Special Guest Jesse Welles 2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Sunday, May 3
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Sav Madigan 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, May 9
SONGWRITER SESSION Caroline Jones NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, May 9
BOOK TALK AND PERFORMANCE Won’t Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America with Erin Osmon and Stephen Wilson Jr. 2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, May 9
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm HATCH SHOW PRINT
Sunday, May 10 HATCH SHOW PRINT Family Block Party 10:00 am HATCH SHOW
WITNESS HISTORY
Locals 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.
PHOTO: VICTOR J. REED
THE MAN WITH THE LIGHTBULB HEAD: ROBYN HITCHCOCK
HEAVY-HANDED
RZA gets his John Carpenter on in the tonally inconsistent One Spoon of Chocolate
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
NEARLY 14 YEARS AGO, in these very pages, I gave an OK review to The Man With the Iron Fists, the directorial debut from Wu-Tang Clan founder/rapper/Sinophile RZA. He also starred as the titular character, a runaway slave turned literally heavy-handed badass, doing all kinds of kung-fu foolery with Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista and a knife-wielding Russell Crowe. (I said it’s “stylish but shallow,” yet “succeeds at being high-flying, high-kicking pulp.”)
Since RZA’s ensuing directorial efforts — the 2017 musical drama Love Beats Rhymes and the 2020 hood heist flick Cut Throat City — had him delving into different genres, I thought his days of helming throwback chopsocky junk were behind him. (He also starred in and co-wrote The Man With the Iron Fists 2, which went straight to video in 2015.) But we’re back at the grindhouse of his mind with One Spoon of Chocolate, RZA’s Blackafied take on the vengeful vigilante films of the 1970s.
The first film to be distributed by RZA’s company 36 Cinema (old pal/revenge-pic connoisseur Quentin Tarantino is listed as one of the movie’s executive producers), Chocolate has the writer-director taking us back to those glory days of racist, sketchy white people being yoked up and wiped out on screen by everyone from Coffy to Billy Jack to Travis Bickle. RZA stays behind the camera on this one, giving all the screen time to Shameik Moore — the voice of the Spider-Verse’s Miles Morales — as Iraq War vet/ex-con Randy (aka Unique). After doing some therapeutic time at a New York halfway house, he convinces his parole officer (Blair Underwood) to let him move to Ohio to live with his cousin (RJ Cyler).
Little does he know that his kin’s town (named Karensville — cute!) is run by a snarling, powermad sheriff (Michael Harney) and his buff, unhinged son (Harry Goodwins), who also leads a crew of baseball-bat-wielding Chads who mostly speak in racial slurs.
These good ol’ boys don’t take too kindly to this city boy and his tendency to easily whoop the ass of anyone who steps to him and his cuz. After a couple of run-ins (a scuffle at a public basketball court and a conveniencestore attack that sends one of the white guys to the hospital) that leave this pale posse bruised and broken, the butt-hurt brood then goes on the hunt for this troublemaker. Unique ends up hiding out at the home of his cousin’s girl’s bestie (Paris Jackson — yes, Michael’s kid!), where he trains, welds some weapons (of course one of his fists ends up covered in metal), and prepares to retaliate with help from an ultimate-survival handbook, given to him by a coked-up, guitarstrumming salesman (Nashville’s own Jason Isbell!).
If Fists was RZA making his own Shaw Brothers Studio release, Chocolate sees him getting his John Carpenter on. The menacing, synth-crazy background music (from veteran horror composer Tyler Bates) and lens flares that pop up during the shadowy, desolate night scenes bring to mind the stylized, savage nocturnal actioners the Halloween helmer did in his prime. This is truly the work of someone who grew up on Assault on Precinct 13/Escape From New York double features.
If RZA stayed on this route, you could
appreciate Chocolate for being the brazenly crude (but entertaining as hell) drive-in movie it so wants to be. But Bobby Digital decides to get serious in the film’s second half, suddenly and solemnly shifting the tone and actually throwing pathos and gravitas into a movie that was batshit-bonkers up to this point. It’s like that ’60s Black-pride drama Nothing but a Man, but with bone-crushing fight scenes.
Set during an undisclosed, smartphonefree era (I’m assuming it’s the ’90s since Moore wears one of those garish leather road-sign jackets we used to wear back then) and allegedly based on true events, Chocolate is RZA going for that elevated-exploitation bag. But it doesn’t work — the last thing self-referential, B-movie trash should do is start taking itself seriously halfway through. It’s a movie with cartoonishly evil villains, topless women, gory scenes of illegal organ harvesting, a loud coke orgy and a ridiculous sex scene that looks like it was deleted from the final cut of Booty Call. Why ruin all that dumb, fun madness with melancholic moments of Black misery?
The film’s tiki-torch types might eventually get theirs, but you’ll have to wait a while (and plow through some soul-numbing shit) before you see it. And that’s not to mention a preachy, histrionic, hella-unsatisfying final scene that may infuriate Black folk more than inspire them.
Even though I give RZA points for attempting to create cinematic rotgut for lovers of both White Elephant and Termite Art, Chocolate is one of the most biting-off-morethan-it-can-chew movies I’ve ever seen.
One Spoon of Chocolate R, 112 minutes
Opening Friday, May 1, at the Belcourt and Regal and AMC locations
with songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda
“rumbling ghost” 19 Make haste, to Shakespeare 20 Beachgoer’s consideration, in brief
22 Coffee grown on the Big Island
23 Flat feet
27 Descend into acrimony 30 Lower class?
31 “Let’s!”
32 Lose yourself?
33 Pet renowned for its agreeableness
41 Not that
Bottle Caps flavor
43 One inside the Trojan horse 47 “Feel free to shoot it over”
50 “The Departed” actor 52 West Coast gas brand
53 In which to see the first light of day
Actress Rapp of “Mean Girls”
Starr on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
___-bear
Solar revolutions
54 Cry from Miss Piggy 57 Coastal inlet 58 Make a rude gesture ... or a hint to answering 17-, 23-, 33- and 50-Across 62 Bit
Revs (up) 2 Quick touch on the nose, cutesily 3 See 4-Down
Double 3-Down 5 Like a motley crew 6 In a sharp manner 7 Zany behavior
8 Dish that’s often fermented before eating
9 Green-lights
10 Wag
11 What might come with a bottle of rum?
12 The real Slim Shady
13 The same level of difficulty
18 Take a turn, in tabletop gaming
22 “I’m Just ___” (Best Original Song nominee from “Barbie”)
23 Aid for disaster relief, say
24 Hold it!
25 Big name in laptops
26 “Moi? Never!”
27 Work contract-to-contract
28 Genre for Dashboard Confessional
29 Up to, informally
32 OB/GYNs, e.g.
34 James in the Blues Hall of Fame
35 De-ice
36 It’s found in a Nook
37 Vape pen
38 Abbr. on a remote
39 Street name associated with nightmares
40 Actress Issa
43 Intelligence
44 Untouchable
45 Spot for a pinball machine
46 It comes after pi
47 Some online discounts
48 Get along well
49 Important route
51 Biblical untouchable
54 Cry from Miss Piggy?
55 Desire
56 Billy who had a #1 hit with “Mony Mony”
58 British actor and broadcaster Stephen
59 Spike in Hollywood 60 ___ moment
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