Scant progress on gun safety follows tragic legacies of Nashville school shootings
BY ELI MOTYCKA
Leaders Show Health Care Priorities
The legislature made small but impactful changes related to vaccines, caregivers and WHO BY HANNAH HERNER
Unconstitutional Bills Serve as Supermajority Tactic
Bills targeting undocumented students and same-sex marriage seen as ‘opportunities’ to reverse precedent
BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
Revenues Declining as State Passes Budget
Republicans praise conservative budget while Democrats point to flaws in the numbers BY NICOLLE S. PRAINO
CRITICS’ PICKS
Lucy Foley, Marty and Matt Bohannon double album release, Hamilton Leithauser, UPKEEP Harry Kagan: Life Is a Carnival, Mother’s Day events and more
FILM
Tempting Providence
Secret Mall Apartment follows a groundbreaking group of Gen-X settlers BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Small Town, Big Circus
Surviving Slavery
An enslaved family follows a treacherous path to freedom in rural Alabama BY PEGGY BURCH AND CHAPTER16.ORG
CULTURE
Do You Want to Play a Game? Behind the scenes at The Adventure Factory in Smyrna BY
MUSIC
Look Back, Angry or Not
The history of The Damned paints a fuller picture of punk BY P.J. KINZER Play On Kristina Murray’s persistence pays off on Little Blue BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
The Scene’s live review column checks out Lucy Dacus at the Frist BY HANNAH CRON
Clown in a Cornfield fills the big shoes of previous slashers BY KEN ARNOLD
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
MARKETPLACE
ON THE COVER:
Tennessee State Capitol; photo by Hamilton Matthew Masters
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O’CONNELL OUTLINES HOUSING PUSH
Offering vision but few details, mayor shifts focus to housing as reports pile up about supply shortfall
BY ELI MOTYCKA
ON A RAINY THURSDAY morning, hundreds filed into the Grand Reading Room of the Nashville Public Library downtown to hear the annual State of Metro address from Mayor Freddie O’Connell.
High marble ceilings and wood paneling help the Church Street building exude a grandeur rarely felt in city facilities. All types of residents patronize the city’s flagship library. Caregivers lead children through an ample kids’ books section while stacks host citizen researchers and students from nearby Hume-Fogg High School. Dozens of people also seek shelter here for the day, toting belongings, waiting to avail themselves of the city’s clean restrooms and public computers.
Multiple recent reports either commissioned or conducted by Metro have confirmed what might be obvious for anyone familiar with Nashville’s streets or housing market: Access to permanent, private shelter has become profoundly unequal and increasingly unattainable as Davidson County’s housing supply struggles to keep up with steadily rising demand. In last week’s address, after a loping introduction that paid respects to city departments, Metro Nashville Public Schools, basic urban services and the library system itself, O’Connell touched on the countywide transportation infrastructure plan gradually gaining momentum, made possible financially by referendum in November. It was a tentative victory lap for O’Connell’s stated priority upon taking office.
Then he began describing a malfunctioning city.
“People want to be here, and we want to make it easier to stay,” O’Connell said. “That’s much of the work we’re going to be leaning
MORE THUNDER: MOUNTAINTOP DEVELOPMENT RUMBLES AHEAD AMID SETBACKS
The long-simmering River Gorge Ranch is building slowly in East Tennessee
BY MICHAEL RAY TAYLOR
LAST WEEK , Sicily’s Mt. Etna erupted with “thunderous booms,” as it’s done all spring. The same could be said of Tennessee’s Aetna Mountain, which undergirds John “Thunder” Thornton’s River Gorge Ranch development near Chattanooga. The local noise is produced not by lava, but by blasting in a new quarry on the mountain’s flank, extracting limestone for roadbeds; by machinery paving those roads; and by the whine of
into even harder starting today. The median home price has risen to almost $500,000. That’s more than five times greater than the region’s median income. So Nashville, it’s time to move on housing.”
He moved on to the various city planning studies that have attempted to guide city growth. The mayor will now grapple with the “tension between growth and preservation” that has emerged from outdated zoning and housing codes. And of course, neighbors who are determined to insulate pockets of Nashville from change.
“We can’t afford to preserve the high cost of housing,” O’Connell stated. “We, as a community, will need to find room and funding for 90,000 homes over the next decade if we want to have
construction equipment building the first few dozen of as many as 2,500 projected homes in the mountaintop development. And none of that’s to mention a 13,000-square-foot restaurant, scheduled to open this summer.
Thornton’s company Thunder Air filed a lawsuit against two local residents who claimed the mountain was a “Swiss cheese” of mines. The company lost the suit last year, with a judge awarding the residents more than $200,000 in attorneys’ fees. While the entire development sits above 150 years’ worth of mining, the developer insists the surface is safe for building because of thick layers of sandstone between homesites and old mines. (Some lots cover former strip mines, active on the surface as recently as the 1980s. The developer removed from sale a few lots found to contain strip-mining spoils.)
But as the Scene reported a year ago, other problems persist for owners of the 615 lots sold to date. Then as now, buyers await public water. In April of this year, a social media post to lot owners proclaimed,
any hope of enough people having secure, stable housing at any income level in this city.”
He cited Metro’s recently released Unified Housing Strategy as a guiding document. The mayor also recommended a standard investment of $16 million in the Barnes Housing Trust Fund, which facilitates affordable housing projects, and a few other items meant to alleviate living conditions for currently unhoused people. To really tackle such a unit shortfall, major zoning changes and private market participation must follow.
The Scene caught up with O’Connell in a oneon-one interview after his speech to find out more about the mayor’s plans to alleviate the housing crisis.
“I know from having been on the Metro
Council in a district that I think was generally comfortable with increased density that you can fit thousands and thousands of new homes into places where you don’t have to displace anybody,” O’Connell, who represented parts of downtown and Germantown for eight years, told the Scene the day after his address. “There are places on transit corridors on the periphery of neighborhoods that would not require a lot of difficult decisions. It just means a level of comfort at the district councilmember level, and at the community level, to say, ‘Can we have this conversation responsibly and effectively?’”
The thinking tracks with existing plans, like NashvilleNext, that recommend built-up arteries on the outskirts of Nashville’s single-family neighborhoods. That logic syncs well with the pedestrian, bike and bus transit the mayor envisions for Nashville’s future. It has also led to massive apartment buildings on the perimeter of expensive enclaves like 12South and Lockeland Springs and a lack of so-called “middle housing” that brings multifamily medium-density residences — like quad-plexes and courtyard apartments — to neighborhoods. O’Connell drew contrast to a suite of bills known as NEST brought before the Metro Council last year as an early effort to welcome density to much of Nashville.
“We strongly advise the people that were taking that approach that that was not an approach that we felt would be well received by the general public,” O’Connell said. “I’ve been far more impressed by the way the Planning Department has used data to help highlight need and to approach the conversation about housing from a more thoughtful perspective.”
Hannah Herner contributed reporting. ▼
THE VIEW FROM THE PORCH OF A FAMILY WHO BECAME THE FIRST TO MOVE INTO A RIVER GORGE RANCH HOME
PHOTO: HAMILTON
MAYOR FREDDIE O’CONNELL DELIVERS HIS STATE OF METRO ADDRESS
in an update purported by the sender to be “directly from the developer”: “We will have a water supply source. They are constructing a 16-inch water main up the mountain to provide city water.” One longtime area resident who requested anonymity calls the path “an ugly trench up the mountainside.” The route crosses rugged land that was once part of a state wildlife preserve, purchased at auction by Thornton when he assembled the first pieces of RGR.
“We’ve already invested over $5 million and laid over six miles’ worth of water lines,” says Dane Bradshaw, president of Thunder Enterprises. The only problem with connecting to a water source is that the new pipeline ends at the border of Black Creek, an earlier development on the Chattanooga side of the mountain. Until this real estate competitor gives Thunder an easement across Black Creek land, the taps remain closed.
Bradshaw explains that Tennessee American Water, the company that will serve RGR, is negotiating with Black Creek for the easement. “A lot of that is a timing thing in terms of the engineering where the water lines go, because of where Black Creek’s future phase has to go,” he says.
A Tennessee American spokesperson confirms the company is “in discussion” for the rights. If the discussion is fruitful, the next round of pipe construction can begin, with Bradshaw predicting that homes and the restaurant might have water as soon as “late summer.” A planned 1 million-gallon water tank will be delayed a few years, Bradshaw says, because the first group of homes can be served by direct lines.
In March, the developer made an offer to the construction companies building nearly finished homes: a “well reimbursement option,” with the developer paying for private wells to be drilled. One of these wells came in a few weeks ago, its water brought up from deeper than some old mines. “Abandoned mines with associated
acid mine drainage (AMD) discharges are among the greatest threats to ground and surface water quality in many areas of the United States,” according to the nonprofit Ground Water Protection Council.
The lot’s owner did not respond to a request for comment on water quality.
New roads wind through the development, but road approval remains in limbo from a county government disagreement over how the county can legally inspect or approve private roads. The single road now open to the public, a switchback up the mountain to the main entrance, developed several small slumps along its borders after recent rains, as photographed by Max Dahlquist, a geology professor at Sewanee. Bradshaw says these are rock buttresses, created to allow runoff from saturated soils through drains, adding, “There have been zero issues with the road itself.”
“It’s a mess,” says one person familiar with RGR construction, who spoke anonymously for fear of job retribution. This source says the required bonds put up by the developer fall far below the estimated cost for road and infrastructure construction for the site. “None of those roads have been tested. None of the asphalt was tested. The bond’s not good enough. Last I heard it was $4.1 million total for three bonds that won’t even cover the water line they’re putting in, let alone power.”
Bradshaw insists that the roads in Jasper Highlands, Thornton’s previous mountain development, were the first in Marion County to be built with four inches of asphalt, and that the RGR roads will be built beyond county specs.
“We don’t cut corners, we don’t cheat, we don’t steal, we don’t lie, and we don’t have well-placed friends,” he says. “What we do is we put our head down, and we work our butt off every single day. We do the right thing.”
Coming in our May 22 issue: a look at RGR and the good ol’ boys running Marion County. ▼
PITH IN THE WIND NASHVILLESCENE.COM/NEWS/PITHINTHEWIND
The Tennessee Highway Patrol and federal immigration officials descended upon Nashville’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Authorities made around 150 traffic stops, detaining an unknown number of people and quickly busing some to out-of-state immigration centers. With a wide net and frenetic pace, the federal agencies detained between 40 and 100 people, some drivers and some passengers, and hauled them to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office off Brick Church Pike THP said the operation targeted “areas with a history of serious traffic crashes and suspected gang activity,” and resulted in “a few” warrant-related arrests. “As we learn more, I want to be clear,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell in a statement Sunday. “No MNPD personnel were involved in last night’s enforcement action.” Read more of the story — in partnership with the Nashville Banner — at nashvillescene.com.
SLUMPS ALONG THE ROAD
WITNESS HISTORY
Post Malone wore this vintage Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors jacket in the 2024 music video for Dwight Yoakam’s “I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom),” which features the pair riding horses down Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard.
From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music
artifact: Courtesy of Post Malone artifact photo: Bob Delevante
THIS YEAR AT THE CAPITOL
The good, the bad and the ugly from the 2025 session of the Tennessee General Assembly
ON APRIL 22 , state lawmakers wrapped the first regular session of the 114th Tennessee General Assembly, bringing an end to roughly three months of legislative business marked by protests, culture-war battles, stalled bills and, yes, some legislation being passed.
In a rapid-fire special session that preceded the year’s regular session, the House and Senate passed Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Act, creating 20,000 scholarships for students’ private school tuition and other educational expenses. That’s despite the state’s Republican supermajority being split on the governor’s vouchers plan, with 28 members of the Grand Old Party voting against.
Once the regular session got going, state lawmakers passed legislation dissolving the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, preventing the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation from classifying a property as a wetland unless it is federally classified as so, invalidating out-of-state driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, and prohibiting government departments and public universities from having offices of diversity, equity and inclusion. Republican leaders also passed legislation requiring educational institutions housing minors overnight to segregate bathrooms “by immutable biological sex.” One bill that would have allowed public schools to deny enrollment or charge tuition to undocumented students got an inordinate amount of attention and inspired extensive protests, leading to the arrest of 80-year-old advocate Lynne McFarland. That ultimately did not pass, but it might return next year.
So what, you might find yourself asking, did the state legislature do to help regular Tennesseans? Well, lawmakers did the only thing technically required of them by the Tennessee Constitution: They passed a state budget. A $60 billion budget, to be exact, and one that includes $46 million in disaster relief funding, $78 million (taken from TennCare Shared Savings) for rural hospitals’ uncompensated care and an additional $35.6 million for the state’s Rainy Day Fund. The budget also allows Tennessee State University to utilize funds for operations that had previously been approved only for capital projects — something Democratic Rep. Harold Love of Nashville had pushed for this session as a means of helping the university right-side its finances.
In this week’s issue, we dive into the many pieces of legislation that Tennessee’s elected leaders passed — and didn’t pass — in the 114th session of the General Assembly. —D. PATRICK RODGERS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Scant progress on gun safety follows tragic legacies of Nashville school shootings
BY ELI MOTYCKA
WEEKS INTO THE new year, tragedy struck at Antioch High School. A 17-year-old student fired 10 shots in the school cafeteria, killing himself and a classmate and wounding another. Vigils across the city brought together students, families and community members in shared grief, particularly in the memory of 16-year-old victim Josselin Corea Escalante. Immediate law enforcement efforts traced the weapon — a 9 mm handgun — to a 2022 purchase in Arizona. They also tracked online behavior by the student, Solomon Henderson, that showed a fixation on mass killers and regular interactions with violent extremist ideology.
Metro Nashville Public Schools Director
Adrienne Battle announced a plan to install metal detectors in certain MNPS schools, including Antioch High School. During the state legislative session, hundreds showed up to the Capitol to protest lax Tennessee gun laws and lawmakers’ perceived indifference to local mass shootings. The chamber concerned itself with other matters. Immediately following the shooting, Gov. Bill Lee convened the legislature for a special session designed to marshal through an aggressive expansion of the state’s school voucher program. In the following months, debates raged on and political machinations
churned, but firearm legislation took a backseat, preserving the state’s status quo.
Efforts by the Democratic minority to curtail certain aspects of firearm access failed. So did pushes by Republicans to further loosen what little state regulation exists on guns.
Corporate interests scored a major victory with House Bill 873, a bill that takes away the ability to sue a weapons manufacturer for negligence and further extends legal protections for guns and ammunition. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) and Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald), stands apart from a dozen other bills that died somewhere in the Capitol’s many committees and subcommittees.
Lawmakers abandoned MaKayla’s Law on
April 1. Carried by Rep. Bo Mitchell (D-Nashville) in the House and Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) in the Senate, the legislation would have held gun owners liable for reckless endangerment should an unsecured firearm be used by a child under 13 to cause injury or death.
Just those circumstances led to the shooting death of 8-year-old MaKayla Dyer of White Pine, a small town outside of Knoxville. MaKayla’s neighbor, an 11-year-old boy, shot and killed her with his father’s shotgun after MaKayla refused to let him play with her family’s puppy.
Even before her election last year, first-term Rep. Shaundelle Brooks (D-Nashville) was no stranger to the state Capitol. In previous years, she saw hearings and debate from the gallery, where Brooks followed various attempts to
address gun violence in the state. Davidson County voters elected Brooks in November in part for her strong bona fides advocating for better gun laws, and in one of her first moves as a legislator, Brooks carried a gun dispossession law intended to take firearms out of the hands of people convicted of domestic assault or subject to a legal order of protection. Despite an impassioned effort from Brooks, who lost her son Akilah DaSilva in the 2018 Waffle House shooting perpetrated by white supremacist Travis Reinking, the bill stalled in subcommittee.
Two Republican-backed gun bills also failed to pass muster in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The first, carried by Sen. Adam Lowe (R-Calhoun) and House Rep. Rusty Grills (R-Newbern), would have renamed handgun permits to “firearm permits” and allowed Tennesseans with such privileges to carry any firearm. The second, from Sen. Joey Hensley and Rep. Kip Capley (R-Summertown), would have lowered the legal standard for using deadly force to protect property. It also attempted to place brandishing a weapon or displaying a weapon as outside the legal definition of deadly force.
Black and red ribbons faded by two years of sun still adorn mailboxes in Nashville, a lasting memorial for the victims of the 2023 Covenant School shooting. Over the weekend, Glencliff United Methodist Church invited gun owners to surrender firearms as part of a “Guns to Gardens” project.
“Anyone may bring unwanted and unloaded guns to be dismantled and later made into garden tools, jewelry and art,” says Glencliff Pastor Ingrid McIntyre in a statement sent to the Scene. “Our group of community partners is concerned about the high level of gun violence in America and the harm that is being done through suicide, injuries, policy, accidents and other gun violence. If you feel that it is no longer safe or desirable for you to have a gun in your home, this is a responsible way to dispose of unwanted guns.” ▼
RELATIVES OF ANTIOCH HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM JOSSELIN
COREA ESCALANTE ADVOCATE FOR GUN REFORM AT THE TENNESSEE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, JAN. 27, 2025
STUDENTS ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE THE TENNESSEE STATE CAPITOL TO CALL FOR GUN REFORM, JAN. 27, 2025 PHOTO:
LEADERS SHOW HEALTH CARE PRIORITIES
The legislature made small but impactful changes related to vaccines, caregivers and WHO
BY HANNAH HERNER
HEALTH-RELATED LEGISLATION did not draw as much public interest and protest this year as it has in previous sessions of the Tennessee General Assembly. But a few bills that passed show lawmakers’ interests and make incremental changes.
Rep. Michele Carringer (R-Knoxville) brought a bill that would require medical providers accepting TennCare to treat patients who are unvaccinated, citing “medical discrimination against families choosing not to vaccinate in Tennessee.” The bill raised concerns on both sides of the aisle that babies who are not yet vaccinated or children who are not fit for vaccination could be affected. Carringer claims there is “no way to avoid” sickness. During the legislative session, Middle Tennessee’s measles count reached at least six cases, as confirmed by the Tennessee Department of Health.
A bill from Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis), which would direct the Department of Health to provide a process by which doulas can be certified to be covered by TennCare, was rolled to the
2026 session. But Lamar was successful in partnering with Rep. Caleb Hemmer (D-Nashville) to pass legislation that would require hospitals to provide information on postpartum warning signs.
At the end of the session, Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law that allows physicians to refuse care to individuals if it violates — per the legislation’s language — their “conscience.” The legislation, called the Medical Ethics Defense Act, was linked to abortion care, gender-affirming care and euthanasia in committees, and was written by conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom. Lee also signed a bill that clarifies the definition of “serious risk
LITIGATING LEGISLATION UNCONSTITUTIONAL BILLS SERVE AS SUPERMAJORITY TACTIC
Bills targeting undocumented students and same-sex marriage seen as ‘opportunities’ to reverse precedent
BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF legislation is often debated on Capitol Hill — but sometimes passing bills that are blatantly unconstitutional is the point, especially in a supermajority.
That was especially clear during the recent debate over House Bill 793/Senate Bill 836, Republican-sponsored legislation that would allow local school boards to deny enrollment or charge tuition to undocumented children. While the bill passed the Senate, it was held up in the House after its sponsor, House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), voiced last-minute concerns that it could result in the loss of billions of dollars of federal funding.
The bill stands in opposition to the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe which upheld the right to public education for all students regardless of their im-
migration status. Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) called that decision an “abomination” during the March 26 House Education Committee, and argued that the ruling happened because the then-liberal-majority high court “completely misread the Equal Protection Clause.” When asked by committee Chair Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) if the bill would immediately be challenged in the courts, Lamberth signaled yes.
“I would certainly hope not, but it is definitely a possibility if someone were to bring suit,” Lamberth said, calling the bill “very fair.”
“I believe the Supreme Court is going to have to take a long look at not only Plyler v. Doe, but I think it’s going to trigger the federal government to look at federal immigration policy,” Cepicky said. “If Plyler v. Doe would happen to stand, maybe the federal government will finally step up and say, ‘We’ll send the states the money to be able to fund these students.’”
“Unfortunately, we see litigation being passed, not just legislation,” says Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis). “It is a tactic of my colleagues, and you see, with the [state] attorney general’s budget being more than doubled in the last couple of years, they are defending more and more lawsuits.”
“We’ve asked for numbers, disaggregated numbers, to show how much these lawsuits are costing taxpayers, and unfortunately, that data never seems to be available,” Akbari continues. “My real concern is that there are real people who are impacted by these political ploys to overturn existing law.”
of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function” under Tennessee’s abortion ban. The bill did not add any exceptions, but instead lists the conditions under which an abortion could be considered legal under Tennessee law.
A failed bill from Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes (R-East Ridge) and Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville) would have allowed abortions in cases of lethal fetal anomalies — fetuses with complications so severe that they could not sustain life outside of the womb. A bill from Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) that would have heightened civil penalties for companies or people who distribute mifepristone for the purpose of a medication
CAMERON SEXTON, APRIL 22, 2025
“It starts with there being a problem — in order to solve the problem, you have to attack what we consider to be an erroneous Supreme Court precedent,” Bulso tells the Scene, adding that he believes there’s an “opportunity” to overturn the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage. “If looking for other precedents that at some point, at an appropriate time, would need to be challenged, that would certainly be one of them.”
Bulso’s 2025 Tennessee Covenant Marriage Act, which in part recognizes marriage as being only be-
abortion stalled during the session as well. Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) introduced a bill to protect the existing rights to in vitro fertilization and hormonal birth control, which failed. But a similar effort from Sen. Becky Massey (R-Knoxville) and Rep. Iris Rudder (R-Winchester) was successful, enshrining access to fertility care and contraception into law. Another bill involving IVF — which would have, in part, limited the genetic testing of embryos — failed after lengthy debate.
At least two bills took aim at the World Health Organization following President Donald Trump’s condemnation of the agency. Gov. Lee signed a bill that cuts out the WHO from the process of responding to a pandemic. A second bill, which prohibits the “enforcement and recognition of requirements or mandates issued by the World Health Organization, United Nations, or World Economic Forum,” also passed.
A bipartisan bill providing a path for families to be paid under TennCare to care for their families passed this year. The bill aims to address a caregiver shortage for people in the state’s home- and community-based services programming for seniors and those with disabilities. Similarly, a successful bill would create an advisory task force to continue study of reimbursement rates for the providers serving those on state support, including the CHOICES program for seniors and those with disabilities, in an effort to adequately pay direct support staff across the state. ▼
tween one man and one woman, floundered during the session. But it could be taken up again next year.
“Sometimes we file bills that may be considered unconstitutional under current case precedent, but perhaps the court should and might revisit some of those decisions,” says Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), noting the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, which then triggered Tennessee’s nearly total abortion ban.
Other bills aren’t aiming at reversal from the high court, but are sponsored in part to establish a precedent to begin with — such as 2023’s HB 1/SB 1, which effectively banned gender-affirming care for minors and went into effect in July 2023.
Johnson sponsored that bill in the Senate, and Lamberth sponsored it in the House. The law is now at the center of United States v. Skrmetti, which was argued before the Supreme Court in December. A decision is expected this summer.
“Now it’s pending before the United States Supreme Court, so they’re going to decide on this issue, and we will be the test case for the entire country,” says Johnson, adding that he was “humbled” and “honored” by the “somewhat overwhelming” experience of watching the court debate a law that he championed.
“Only recently are you seeing the legislative process being abused to limit people’s rights and to limit their liberties and freedoms,” House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) tells the Scene. “And so that’s really troubling.” ▼
SEN. LONDON LAMAR
PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
SPEAKER
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
MAY 12-31
ART [PRESENCE]
THE ABILITY TO SEE GHOSTS
A new group show curated by the late, great Alicia Henry focuses on creative presence and presentation at Zeitgeist Gallery. A beloved local artist and educator, Henry enjoyed lavender flowers. The purple plants come complete with a myth that says inhaling the fragrant flower allows one to see ghosts. The Ability to See Ghosts includes Henry along with three of her artist friends: Gloria Holwerda-Williams, Jinnie Seo and Christina Haglid. It’s a super smart display of sculpture, painting and mixed-media works that constitute a broad creative conversation about personal energy — physical and spiritual — and the way we all reveal those energies in the work that we do. The best aspect of the show is that it’s a sharp-looking display by a group of close friends, and gallerygoers will be happy to drop in on all they have to say and show.
JOE NOLAN
THROUGH MAY 31 AT ZEITGEIST
516 HAGAN ST.
THURSDAY / 5.8
[BEFORE MIDNIGHT]
BOOKS
LUCY FOLEY
Foley hive, rise up! If you like to read mysteries and thrillers, you know who Lucy Foley is. For everyone else, that tattered paperback you’ve seen all your friends carrying around is The Paris Apartment, Foley’s last book. It was named one of the most anticipated books of 2022 by a number of outlets, and I dare you to find a mystery lover who didn’t read it. Personally, I prefer listening to Foley’s book on audio because the narrator’s accents are so great. I like to imagine Foley’s books as a fancy British (or French!) murder-mystery party: It’s a big party at an upscale locale; someone gets murdered, and everyone has until sunrise to figure out who did it. Foley sometimes riffs on current events and will have an influencer or tech bro in her cast of characters, making for a fun read. Now Foley is back with a new book called The Midnight Feast, and she’s coming to Parnassus to celebrate it. The event is sold out, but there is a wait list, and as attendees drop out, you have a chance at getting their spot — so sign up for that list. For everyone lucky enough to have snagged a ticket before they sold out, I’ll see you there. KIM BALDWIN
6:30 P.M. AT PARNASSUS BOOKS
3900 HILLSBORO PIKE
listen over the past two-and-a-half decades. Great songs, impeccably delivered. Catch him Saturday at The Blue Room, where Greg Freeman will appear in support. D. PATRICK RODGERS
8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS
623 SEVENTH AVE. S
ART [TILED UP]
HARRY KAGAN: LIFE IS A CARNIVAL
There’s something undeniably cool about making a sketchbook out of ceramic tiles. Maybe it’s the way it disrupts a typically ephemeral form by turning it into something that’s sturdy enough to build a house out of. For artist Harry Kagan, the idea of putting his art onto tiles came to him through “a vision of San Pasqual in a kitchen in Mexico.” Never one to shy away from a vision, Kagan began to amass his collection until he made 365 tiles, which act as the pages in a sketchbook. “The images glazed onto these tiles,” he writes in his artist’s statement, “consist of designs and characters and faces that I wanted to immortalize: from street signs, QSL cards, advertisements, cartoons, old video games, ancient petroglyphs and pictographs, my own head.” When the pieces are arranged and viewed together, the magnitude of the project acts as an invitation for the audience to put their own stories together. He’s staging the show for one week only at Sunnyside Projects, one of Nashville’s best-looking underthe-radar art venues. Please note: As a resident of Old Hickory myself, let me warn you about the confusion that’s often caused by one of Nashville’s longest roads sharing a name with one of its smallest neighborhoods. If you’re not familiar with the area and you’re finding your way via Google Maps, make sure you get an address with a 37138 ZIP code. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
OPENING RECEPTION 5-9:30 P.M.; THROUGH MAY 18 AT SUNNYSIDE PROJECTS
2209 OLD HICKORY BLVD., OLD HICKORY
SUNDAY / 5.11
MUSIC
[STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS] PAUL SIMON
The first time I saw Paul Simon live was in 2018 during his farewell tour at London’s Hyde Park in front of 60,000 people. He had retired from touring due to severe hearing loss, so you could imagine my excitement when, seven years later, he announced a tour across intimate venues in the U.S. The legendary singersongwriter will bring his A Quiet Celebration Tour to the Ryman Auditorium for three nights, though I was able to catch him at an earlier stop. The show opens with Paul Simon and his band performing his 2023 album, Seven Psalms, in its entirety. The album runs for 33 minutes, and it’s a meditation about faith and mortality that captures the human condition in a way that only Simon can do. After a short intermission, Simon returns with his band to perform some tracks from his extensive catalog, including deep-cut songs that he rarely performs live. After global acclaim for his work with Art Garfunkel and his own prolific solo career,
Simon must find it difficult to narrow down a set list. But he certainly didn’t disappoint when I saw him, as he performed classics like “The Boxer,” “Graceland” and “Slip Slidin’ Away” before ending with a profound performance of “The Sound of Silence” — which fittingly left the audience speechless. ADAM DAVIDSON
MAY 11, 13 & 14 AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N
[TRAVELIN’ MOOD]
MUSIC
JON CLEARY & THE ABSOLUTE MONSTER GENTLEMEN
Jon Cleary’s new full-length The Bywater Sessions is a party record, which means the English-born and New Orleans-residing pianist and singer modernizes the Crescent City R&B of greats like Professor Longhair and Lee Dorsey while keeping the grooves intact. Cleary started out on guitar before switching to piano in his early teens. After moving from his home of Cranbrook, Kent, U.K., when he was 18, Cleary honed his chops playing with New Orleans musicians like Dr. John, Snooks Eaglin and Ernie K-Doe before releasing his first album, Alligator Lips and Dirty Rice, in 1989. Cleary carries on in the tradition of pianists like James Booker throughout The Bywater Sessions, and when he slips into salsa rhythms in “Fessa Longhair Boogaloo,” he turns the album into a party record that stretches your boundaries. I also love his version of Dorsey’s 1961 song “Lottie Mo,” which syncopates the original tune in ways that will get your feet moving. The Bywater Sessions includes great cover versions that Cleary and his band, The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, transmogrify in various ways. Still, it’s Cleary’s own “Unnecessarily Mercenary” — a piece of slick, hard-assed wisdom delivered in a postAllen Toussaint style — that makes me love the album. EDD HURT
7 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY
818 THIRD AVE. S.
COMMUNITY
[MOTHER!] MOTHER’S DAY ROUNDUP
Mother’s Day is coming this Sunday, and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with homemade cards and painted macaroni necklaces, there are plenty of other ways to honor all the special moms in your life. You might start with the spring market and Mother’s Day brunch at Union Station, which not only features a yummy brunch at Stationairy with live music, but also includes a local artisan market and even a build-your-own flower bouquet station. Next head over to the Frist for Family Sunday, where you can check out special kid-friendly programming and create your own masterpiece in the Drop-In ARTlab. Moms with little ones might also enjoy the Mother’s Day Hootenanny with Farmer Jason at Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary on Saturday. Plus, the Nashville Zoo will be hosting live performances from the Nashville Opera throughout the day on Sunday. Looking for something a bit more sporty? Nashville Shores opens for the season this weekend, and moms climb for free on Sunday at The Adventure Park at Nashville.
Dog moms can celebrate the day in style with their pups at Schulman’s Neighborhood Bar, complete with Tito’s cocktails, treats and plenty of “pup swag.” And for the scoop on where to get afternoon tea, read contributor Margaret Littman’s feature in this week’s Food & Drink section. AMY STUMPFL
MAY 11 AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS
TUESDAY / 5.13 MUSIC
[MAN IN THE BOX]
ALICE IN CHAINS
Sinners, the bold new genre-bending blockbuster from Ryan Coogler, is steeped in the history of American music. Blues music is a major part of its plot, several members of the film’s ensemble cast are themselves folk and R&B musicians, and the composer, Ludwig Göransson, originally broke out as a record producer for rapper Childish Gambino. None of those things screams “grunge music.” But during the making of the film, Coogler was introduced to the genre by a collaborator and became consumed with it, so much so that he invited Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell to contribute to the movie’s original soundtrack. In a viral social media post, Coogler explains how the soul on display in grunge music reminds him of blues and hip-hop, and it’s why he eventually included Cantrell on the soundtrack. Although Cantrell himself often asserts AIC is a heavy metal band, he and the late Layne Staley certainly shared the same sense of palpable pain in their voices and lyrics as fellow Seattleites Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell. Despite putting out just one album in the past 15 years, Cantrell and the rest of the crew can still put on a show. Chained Saint opens. LOGAN BUTTS 8 P.M. AT THE PINNACLE 901 CHURCH ST.
MUSIC
[COUNTRY RADICAL] ROSANNE CASH & JOHN LEVENTHAL
Rosanne Cash’s 2024 release The Essential Collection brings together 40 tracks by a countryidentified artist who has done as much to push the music into the future as anyone. Cash’s 1980s albums stand tall with the best music of that decade, and she took country’s themes into pop territory in ways that were as radical as they were listenable. Listening to Cash’s big ’80s hits today, you hear how accessible they are, and you also marvel at her immaculate singing. The Essential Collection builds upon her 1989 compilation Hits 1979-1989, and both include Cash’s 1989 version of The Beatles’ “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party,” a cover that reveals the acumen of a singer who loved John Lennon and The Carter Family with equal fervor. I think Hits 1979-1989 and 1987’s King’s Record Shop are as essential to the gestalt of the ’80s as, say, Prince’s Sign o’ the Times or Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ Trust. One of Cash’s gifts to the world is how effortlessly she combined New Wave, country and pop on her early albums. On May 13, at the CMA Theater, Cash and her husband, producer and songwriter John
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May 31
From pla hif’N committe
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground icons, household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
MAY LINEUP
5.3 Y’ALL FM 90’s Request Line Live! w/ Shelby Lee Lowe
5.4 Livin’ the Write Life
5.7 Eric Paslay’s Songs in a Hat w/ Steve Moakler, Cyndi Thomson
5.8 Natalie Hemby: Truth About A Song
5.11 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Ronnie Bowman, & Special Surprise Guest
5.13 Chief’s Outsiders Round w/ Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek w/ Drew Dixon, Michael Leatherman, Caleb Mills, Steve Thomas
5.31 Craig Campbell: Almost Greatest Hits May 8
5.15 Thomas Csorba, Kiely Connell, Stephanie Lambring
5.16 Aaron Nichols & The Travellers: Chris Stapleton Tribute
WRITERS’ ROUNDS AT CHIEF’S
5.17 End of the Line: Performing Songs from “Idlewild South” & “Live at the Ludlow Garage” 5.22 James House: “Stronger Than The Dark” Album Release Show
5.24 Doug Stone Farewell Tour
5.26 Buddy’s Place w/ Kayley Bishop, JP Burr, Striking Matches
5.28 Ethan Anderson, Michael James Arnold, Derek James, PJ Repetto
5.29 Andy Griggs
TEA TIME
Mother’s Day is as good a time as any to check out the city’s tea rooms BY MARGARET
SOME OBVIOUS CHOICES are obvious for a reason — because they’re good ideas. An example is taking Mom or Grandma to afternoon tea for Mother’s Day. The beauty of afternoon tea, with its multiple trays of savory and sweet little bites, and tea that takes time to steep in a charming teapot, makes it an inherently leisurely pursuit. Tea time is intended to encourage you to linger, to sit and talk, and for that reason alone, it’s a special occasion, different from grabbing a cold brew at the coffee shop. Dress for afternoon tea, perhaps in a
seersucker suit or a floral dress, and you’ll make an outing of it.
In honor of Mother’s Day, we’ve rounded up 11 of the area’s best purveyors for afternoon tea, with options for moms of every persuasion. Afternoon tea knows no gender, so while we say “mom,” it is fair game for dads, sons, uncles — whoever you want. And while we’re highlighting these places now, many are available year-round, not just for Mother’s Day.
One more note: While Americans sometimes use the terms interchangeably, there’s a
LITTMAN
difference between afternoon tea and high tea.
Afternoon tea, sometimes also called low tea, is filled with light finger sandwiches, scones, pastries and other sweets. High tea is usually served in the early evening, and features heavier fare, like meat and potatoes. We’re focused on afternoon tea, although some of the tea rooms do call it high tea.
FOR THE MOM WHO LIKES TO PEOPLEWATCH
Blue Aster serves tea in the buzzy lobby of the
Conrad Nashville hotel on Fridays through Sundays. Dress is Bridgerton-style costumes or just your favorite florals. You’ll receive a complimentary glass of Prosecco before feasting on a tiered tray of scones with clotted cream and preserves, desserts and, of course, a large selection of teas from which to choose, all served on the finest of china. Cost is $85 per person, and you can upgrade to Champagne if you feel celebratory.
FOR THE MOM WHO APPRECIATES WATCHING THE BUDGET
The Café at Thistle Farms in West Nashville offers an afternoon tea option six days a week, and it’s one of the bargain tea times around town at just $30 per person. Tea includes the standard sweets and finger sandwiches, plus a wide selection of teas. You can add on quiche, soup and other light eats for a nominal cost. Reservations are required and should be made online. The tea time event is intended for 10 or fewer people. For larger groups, ask about private events.
FOR THE FAMILY WHO WANTS TO TAKE A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY
Head to Kingston Springs Fridays through Sundays for afternoon tea in a cozy garden. The Yorkshire Deli describes itself as farm-to-table meets British tearoom. Tea prices range from $30 to $55 per person, depending on which option you choose. It is served at 3 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Book ahead by emailing theyorkshirefarmdeli@gmail.com.
FOR THE MOM WHO LIKES THINGS COZY
Troll House Cottage in Donelson offers all the Alice in Wonderland/troll/fantasy-style vibes. You’ll tuck into this wallpapered little 1927 cottage and feel like you’re in a fairy tale, without all the evil stepsisters and stepmothers.
PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
TROLL HOUSE COTTAGE
YORKSHIRE DELI
that
— High Garden brand teas — along with the sweet and savory baked goods. Cost is $50 per person, and a 50 percent deposit is required at the time of booking. You can apply the deposit to a change in date if needed.
FOR THE MOM WHO LIKES TO SEE AND BE SEEN
Cheekwood’s Café 29 offers a popular afternoon tea. There are the regular Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer, plus a special Mother’s Day event. You must reserve tables for two or four people in advance, and cost is $50 per person for members, $50 per person plus admission for nonmembers. The menu includes seasonal teas, savory bite-size sandwiches and freshly baked sweets.
FOR THE MOM WHO LIKES TO PUT ON HER SUNDAY BEST
Franklin’s Southall is an oasis of bucolic scenery, which you’ll be able to take in if you nab a table for this Mother’s Day-weekend-only tea at Southall restaurant January. The menu includes a twist on traditional afternoon tea offerings, such as heirloom-tomato-and-white-cheddar quiche, olive-and-mascarpone cream puff with chive gougère, tuna Niçoise lettuce cups, everything-bagel scones and sweet potato madeleines. This one is available on May 10 and 11 only, and the cost is $115 for adults and $45 for children. Reservations should be made online.
FOR THE MOM WHO LOVES A CLASSIC
The Hermitage Hotel offers afternoon tea in its iconic grand lobby and veranda Friday through Sunday at 2 p.m. for an experience that’s more Southern than British. It includes a glass of bubbly and that rarest of offerings
— complimentary valet parking. (If you are a planner, mark your calendar now for July, which is when seats for the hotel’s holiday Nutcracker Tea open. It’s a seasonal afternoon tea must.)
FOR THE MOM WHO LIKES EFFICIENCY
Southern Tea Room in The Factory at Franklin offers a 75-minute tea, with all the fancy china, handkerchiefs and attention to detail of other tea rooms, but at a less leisurely pace. A tea light warmer keeps your teapot and the tea inside warm throughout your outing.
FOR THE MOM WHO IS ALL ABOUT THE BEVERAGES
Triple Crown in Franklin offers tea, coffee or hot chocolate service. It’s served in a pretty teacup and a pretty teapot with a butter spritz cookie, but without the multi-tiered trays of baked goods. This is an option for someone who just wants to linger over a cup of tea (or coffee or hot chocolate), chat and relax, without all the pomp and circumstance. Cost is $18 for two people, and reservations are not required.
FOR THE MOM WHO APPRECIATES A VIEW
Holston House hotel is bringing back its Heirloom Rooftop tea Sundays this summer. Cost is $75 per person and includes new takes on classics, such as sweet onion and gruyere scones.
FOR THE MOM WHO WANTS A GETAWAY
JW Marriott Nashville offers its tea event in The Duke, a hidden lounge on the hotel’s lobby level. Spill the Tea is new this year, and the menu includes Waldorf chicken salad, Earl Grey truffles and cold brew coffee crème brûlée. It takes place at 1 p.m. on Saturdays in May, and cost starts at $75 per table. Make reservations online. ▼
Troll House serves
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SURVIVING SLAVERY
An enslaved family follows a treacherous path to
freedom in rural Alabama
BY PEGGY BURCH
IN RED CLAY, Charles B. Fancher explores the fraught ties — sometimes intimate but always potentially violent — between enslaved people and plantation owners at the close of the Civil War and the dawn of Reconstruction. Inspired by research into his own family history, Fancher delivers a briskly paced, deftly plotted tale, set on a remote Alabama plantation called Road’s End near the fictional town of Red Clay, Ala.
The book opens in 1943 at the funeral of Felix Parker, whose parents were the enslaved valet and cook of the planter John Robert Parker. A mysterious elderly white woman shows up at Felix’s service, then presents herself at the family’s house, explaining to his granddaughter that she and Felix knew each other as children, because once, “my family owned yours.” The women agree to share what they know about his life, a device that frames the story.
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That story begins in 1864, when 8-year-old Felix is taken by the plantation owner on what’s presented as a trip to town but ends in a shocking death, leaving the boy with a terrible secret that would devour the white family’s wealth if he failed to keep it.
Felix’s parents have already sacrificed too much to the owner’s financial needs. Their two older children, a 15-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl, have been sold “like a litter of hound dog pups” to a Mississippi landowner, and Fancher skillfully creates the suffocating atmosphere under which the bereft parents live in close quarters, forced to feign duty and respect, with the people who caused their suffering.
FRIDAY, MAY 16
with ANN PATCHETT at MONTGOMERY BELL ACADEMY
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SATURDAY STORYTIME with ALLIE MILLINGTON at PARNASSUS When You Find a Hope
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6:30PM
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SUNDAY, MAY 18
with ANN PATCHETT at NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY The Emperor of Gladness.
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with ANDY BRENNAN at NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY Class Clown
The horrors of slavery have inspired numerous important novels over the years — from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, to Margaret Walker’s Jubilee (1966), Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad (2016). In all, the fear of violence disfigures victims and deforms the hearts of their warders. In Red Clay, Fancher dissects the ways John Robert Parker and his two sons adapt to and excuse their own cruelty. Claude, the son who takes over the plantation after his father’s death, is initially an “average” man, “neither an egalitarian nor an abolitionist,” who also “saw no reason to be disrespectful or unpleasant to anyone.” That will change.
The mysterious woman at the funeral is Claude’s sister, Adelaide, who humiliated Felix when they were children by feeding him table scraps out of her hand. Because of her childish intuition that he’s not telling all he knows about the death he witnessed, he’s sent to field labor. Fancher weaves a complex mix of good and evil into Felix’s ties to the planter’s children. Claude rescues Felix from the field and makes him a car-
penter’s apprentice, providing him with a skill that gives him a lifetime of financial stability. But in the bewildering atmosphere of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, when Claude becomes a threat, it’s Adelaide who steps in to help.
Fancher’s attention to the sensory details of agrarian life is among the pleasures of reading Red Clay. Felix’s mother makes sumptuous meals, a breakfast of “fried ham, a platter of steaming soft-scrambled eggs, and a bowl of hot grits with a dollop of yellow butter melting in its center,” and a Thanksgiving turkey “scenting the air with the aromas of herbs, spices, nuts, and fruit.” Felix goes to sleep to the sounds of “an owl hooting, field mice scurrying across the roof, and from somewhere down the row of cabins, a home-brew-fueled argument between two men over a woman they both wanted.”
Fancher, who began his journalism career at WSM-TV in Nashville, worked as a reporter and editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press, then as a communications executive
and faculty member at Howard and Temple universities. Fancher’s great-grandfather, who was born into slavery in Alabama but whose family flourished after the Civil War, inspired the character of Felix. In an afterword, the author describes his mother’s picture of his ancestor as “a fellow with a roguish streak, including a taste for good liquor and an eye for the ladies.” They are traits that survive in Felix.
For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼
By Charles B. Fancher
Red Clay
Blackstone Publishing 328 pages, $28.99
MUSIC
LOOK BACK, ANGRY OR NOT
The history of The Damned paints a fuller picture of punk
BY P.J. KINZER
AS THE WELL-KNOWN story goes, Malcolm McLaren — the eccentric manager of influential U.K. punk band the Sex Pistols — offered future Pistols frontman John Lydon an audition for the group he was assembling based on Lydon’s attire: a Pink Floyd shirt with “I Hate” scribbled on it. This anecdote is often used to bolster a lazy narrative that I’ve heard over and over: Punk was born in a vacuum and bubbled up in 1976 from the Bowery in Manhattan and London’s King’s Road, a mutant child who refused to have a past, a future or even a proper music lesson. Occasionally, this take includes respectful nods to punk’s Detroit godfathers like the MC5 and The Stooges, or the pop chart successes of the New Wave acts that came later. But while punk might reject a lot of what came before, it doesn’t ignore it.
The Damned are peers of the Pistols, who long outlived U.K. punk’s initial cherry-bomb flash, and their latest tour stops in Nashville this Friday at Brooklyn Bowl. (While the original incarnation of the Pistols imploded in 1978, the latest version is also touring this year. You might have read Lydon isn’t happy about it; he’s also on the road with his own post-Pistols group Public Image Ltd.) Unlike some of their contemporaries, The Damned were never shy about their love of ’60s musical influences.
Released in October 1976, The Damned’s debut single “New Rose” opens with singer Dave Vanian asking, “Is she really going out with him?” as an homage to The Shangri-Las’ 1964 classic “Leader of the Pack.” Then drummer Rat Scabies fires off a hypnotic beat on his toms lifted right out of the surf-rock lexicon (see: The Surfaris’ “Wipe Out” and The Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run”). Next, then-guitarist Brian James — who sadly died at age 70 in March — bursts into a frenetic rockabilly riff. And on the flip side of the single is “Help,” a high-octane cover of the Lennon-McCartney tune.
The recording sessions for the band’s debut Damned Damned Damned crystallized key components of the sonic signature of influential indie Stiff Records, and were produced by singer-songwriter and bassist Nick Lowe. He helped The Damned connect to the blues-boogie pubrock sensibilities of bands like Dr. Feelgood, Eddy and the Hot Rods, and his own group of the time, Brinsley Schwarz. After Damned Damned Damned came out, The Damned made a single with producer Shel Talmy, best known for his work more than a decade earlier with The Kinks and The Who. You can easily mark those bands’ proto-punk sensibilities, and the same goes for glam. The Damned were the support act on what turned out to be glam icons T. Rex’s final U.K. tour before frontman Marc Bolan’s untimely death in a car crash, and T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong” became a staple of The Damned’s repertoire.
Ironically enough, Damned co-founder Captain Sensible, who has played bass and guitar for the band at different times, discusses their particular appreciation for Pink Floyd in the liner notes for Earmark Records’ 2002 reissue of The Damned’s second album, the often-passedover Music for Pleasure. The Captain notes that Pete Barnes, who handled The Damned’s song publishing, also handled the catalogs of both Pink Floyd and its reclusive founding frontman Syd Barrett, who left early on. Sensible saw the Floyd both before and after Barrett’s departure, and greatly preferred the earlier version, saying in the notes that the group became “a bucket of shit” when guitarist David Gilmour stopped trying to copy Barrett.
The Damned were eager to see if they could use this connection to get Barrett into the producer’s chair when it was time to follow up their debut. While the effort didn’t pan out, they did get Floyd drummer Nick Mason. Music for Pleasure also features avant-garde saxophonist Lol Coxhill, who made his name playing on the experimental solo work of Soft Machine’s Kevin Ayers, another prog-rock favorite of The Damned. Perhaps nothing links the band to
their acid-eating ancestors quite like their side project Naz Nomad and the Nightmares, formed in the early ’80s when Sensible had left The Damned for a time and they moved toward a goth-rock sound. The Nightmares’ sole album, 1984’s Give Daddy the Knife Cindy, was made to look like a soundtrack to a fictional low-budget midnight movie of the psychedelic era. It featured a couple of originals peppered among covers of ’60s garage-rock nuggets from the likes of The Seeds, The Human Beinz and The Electric Prunes.
Through dissolutions and reunions, nods to musicians from the primordial pre-punk era remained a constant for The Damned. To them, punk was less a rejection of the generation before and more an expression of disappointment with the self-indulgent navel-gazers that their forefathers had become — despite the U.K. having a more robust and connected grassroots network for outsider music in the ’60s and ’70s than even the United States. One thing is as true today as it was when The Damned played their first bar gig almost five decades ago: The last thing anyone needs is for rock ’n’ roll to get old and stodgy. ▼
Playing 8 p.m. Friday, May 9, at Brooklyn Bowl
PHOTO: SOLEDAD AMARILLA
TEMPTING PROVIDENCE
Secret Mall Apartment follows a groundbreaking group of Gen-X settlers
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
IF YOU NEED proof of how clever and creative previous generations of young people had to be in order to have fun before smartphones, social media and streaming TV (plus anything else that’s currently ruining human interaction), look no further than Secret Mall Apartment
The new documentary — which is just as tothe-point as its title — takes us back more than 20 years ago to Providence, R.I., where an inviting radio commercial for the new behemoth shopping center, Providence Place, inspires a
SMALL TOWN, BIG CIRCUS
Clown in a Cornfield fills the big shoes of previous slashers
BY KEN ARNOLD
WE’VE HAD A Lot of clowns in horror — from It’s Pennywise to House of 1,000 Corpses’ Captain Spaulding, Terrifier’s Art, Killer Klowns From Outer Space’s Jojo … the list goes on. But a new clown has joined the circus. Quinn (Katie Douglas) is the new kid on the block in Kettle Springs, Mo. She’s moved in right next to the burned-down Baypen Brand Corn Syrup factory, whose mascot, Friendo the Clown, is still the town’s beloved icon. It doesn’t take long for Quinn to make friends with local troublemaker Cole (Carson MacCormac) and his group. But after a prank gone wrong, the high schoolers of Kettle Springs find themselves hunted by someone dressed as Friendo.
crew of struggling young artist buddies to see if they can actually make the mall their new home-away-from-home. What begins as a weeklong survival test to see how long they could loiter without being kicked out by security turns into a daring project in which one of them finds an abandoned 750-square-foot “nowhere space” that’s screaming for an extreme makeover.
This was more than a dirty little secret tucked inside a mammoth shopping center for four years. For these smart-ass squatters, it was a
chance to work with — as developers called it — underutilized space. They had actually utilized space like this before they’d even heard that term: Many of them lived in or around Fort Thunder, the textile factory turned music venue/ artist space that was all theirs — until a developer told them to kick rocks.
So was this a hidden art installation, a fuckyou to gentrification or just a place to crash? For director Jeremy Workman (son of documentary-filmmaking royalty), what it was exactly isn’t
If you’ve read Adam Cesare’s book of the same name, you’ll find that the broad strokes here are more or less the same. Director Eli Craig — also known for 2010’s Tucker & Dale vs. Evil — has made an adaptation that
is mostly faithful, with some new elements sprinkled in for a more playful tone. There are new, creative kills, and some scenes from the book have been cut, likely due to budgetary or thematic-cohesion reasons. But
the point. Although he has all the footage the artists recorded using low-res mini cameras that can fit inside an Altoids tin, Workman — who’s always had a flair for crafting docs around brilliant, boundary-pushing weirdos (Who Is Henry Jaglom?, Magical Universe) — is more focused on talking to the aging, occasionally barefoot Gen-Xers who found inspiration in their town’s nooks and crannies. Chief among them is de facto leader/charming kook Michael Townsend, whose ambitious public installations include “The Tunnel,” an underground exhibit that takes place entirely in a water drainage tunnel. (Talk about nice work — if you can find it.)
If you already know how Providence Place is currently hanging in there during this era of online shopping (Google it!), you know that these young men and women weren’t just some ragtag provocateurs, getting one over on the eyesore that took over their home turf. They were groundbreaking informal settlers, risking it all by creating a clubhouse inside a place that was clearly made for more privileged clientele. Just like the survivors in the original Dawn of the Dead, the “residents” of Secret Mall Apartment found a nice spot to chill and be themselves — while shoppers were taking over the building, stumbling from one boutique store to another like brain-dead zombies. ▼
Opening Friday, May
the low budget never intrudes on the genre fun, thanks to bang-up performances from the ensemble cast of Canadian up-and-comers, who clearly weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
Friendo serves his purpose as a symbol of the old ways of small-town life, and as Craig noted during a Q&A at last month’s Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, the movie is all about the “Gen-X rage of not being able to take the power from the baby-boomer generation.” Though it doesn’t have the more direct anti-MAGA sentiment of Cesare’s novel, Clown still focuses on that generational divide, while delivering the genre thrills that fans of slasher films know and love.
Craig and Cesare, who have become close friends, have expressed interest in adapting the rest of the trilogy — Friendo Lives and The Church of Friendo — if this one is successful. It’s the perfect blend of classic bloodsoaked slasher fun and modern allegorical terror, and it has the potential to reach the grindhouse and indie horror crowds. ▼
