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Darts at the Villager Tavern • PHOTO BY ANGELINA CASTILLO
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Venice and the Ottoman Empire is a cross-cultural journey encompassing four centuries of two Mediterranean superpowers. Featuring more than 150 works, this exhibition about the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire explores their complex relationship in artistic, culinary, diplomatic, economic, and political spheres. Including objects only recently excavated from a sunken sixteenth-century Venetian ship, this exhibition of armor, paintings, pottery, textiles and more tells stories of art, culture, and exchange.
After Gregorio Lazzarini. Doge Francesco Morosini offers Venice the Reconquered Morea (detail), 19th century. Oil on canvas; 70 1/8 x 50 in. Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia—Museo Correr, Cl. I n. 2301
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Organized by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and The Museum Box
Education and Community Engagement Supporter
The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by
To register or for more details: tomatoartfest.com/events/recipecontest
Registered contestants drop their entry on August 2nd, 2025 from 10am – 12pm at MARGOT RESTAURANT & BAR . 1017 Woodland St.
The winning entry will get the Chef Hadley Long treatment and be featured on the menu at Margot Cafe & Bar TAF weekend.
CATEGORY IS “BEYOND THE RED: CREATIVE USES FOR HEIRLOOM TOMATOES”
This category challenges you to move “beyond the red” and unleash your creativity with these unique treasures!
INSIDE THE SHADY JOB PIPELINE HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Nashville has proven to be fertile ground for companies operating multilevel-marketing-type schemes BY NICK PIPITONE
IF YOU’VE SPENT any time searching for Nashville jobs online, you might have noticed a recent increase in ads for entry-level sales roles with vague descriptions and lofty promises. The ads evoke immediate skepticism for some. For others — especially those desperate for work — the lure of reasonably paying full-time work in a tough job market may be too hard to resist.
At first glance, the ads appear legit. They use familiar corporate jargon, referring to open positions as “community associates,” “brand ambassadors” or “entry-level managers.” They may promise an annual salary of up to $50,000, along with benefits such as health insurance, paid training, fast-track promotions and reimbursement of travel expenses. While many advertised openings like this may be legitimate, an increasing number of former workers have raised concerns about local companies allegedly operating multilevel-marketing-type schemes behind a thin facade of white-collar professionalism.
According to former workers, bait-and-switch job ads turn out to be commission-only gigs with little to no base pay or benefits. Companies with exceptionally high turnover rates dispatch a steady stream of recruits to Nashville-area doorsteps and kiosks in stores like Costco, where they pitch phone plans or solicit donations in high-pressure, face-to-face encounters.
Ex-workers describe 10- to 12-hour shifts, including Saturdays. They say they are often classified as independent contractors, which enables the companies to circumvent minimum wage and overtime pay requirements, even though the nature of the work — often with required meetings and strict schedules — more traditionally aligns with a full-time employment status.
These schemes aren’t unique to Nashville, and many former employees claim they’re usually tied to larger national networks through parent companies. Nashville, however, has proven to be fertile ground for these companies to flourish, thanks to its rapid growth and large population of young transplants. Plus, regulatory oversight is sparse, and media attention is rare. The most consistent warnings often come from grassroots online networks.
The problem extends to the U.K., where in 2019 Ben Jamieson founded the open-source intelligence investigative website Devilcorp.org, which tracks deceptive direct sales agencies. On the Devilcorp Reddit page, roughly 16,000 members raise awareness about schemes in the U.S. and the U.K. One of the primary objectives of Devilcorp is to expose deceitful firms, ensuring their critiques appear at the top of Google results when someone searches for them. Jamieson, who began tracking these companies after an experience with a shady direct sales interview, says these businesses rely on a steady influx of recruits to
replace those who burn out or eventually realize they’ve been duped.
The companies post nearly constant job ads and host mass interview days, sometimes cycling through 50 to 100 applicants in a single afternoon. “It’s a numbers game and a little bit like a slaughterhouse,” Jamieson tells the Scene. “The more people you interview, the more you’ll get out on the streets making money.”
When a company’s reputation finally sours, recruitment slows, and offices close. Owners may then regroup and re-emerge under a different name, or even move to a different city. In this relentless churn, workers are little more than disposable parts, used up, replaced and forgotten as quickly as they arrive.
With his wry sense of humor, Nashville-based comedian Ben Palmer has recently begun exposing some of these schemes. Palmer has created a series of YouTube videos about the industry that have garnered hundreds of thousands of views. While the videos are entertaining, they also help raise awareness, especially for younger adults whom deceptive firms often target.
“Comedy works well in this case because of how these companies operate,” says Palmer. “It’s already absurd.”
Palmer claims to have applied to hundreds of direct sales positions, both locally and nationwide. Recently, he was interviewed by Zeal TN Inc., a Nashville-based company that has faced heavy online scrutiny in recent years. The company bills itself as an “unconventional promotions agency raising awareness for nonprofits such as youth-focused groups.” In reality, it’s a professional fundraiser that solicits donations on behalf of nonprofits. According to former employees, it also operates similarly to many of the firms that groups like Devilcorp focus on.
According to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s business entity database, Zeal TN additionally operates under the names Nashville Associates and Tennessee Fundraising Executives. These assumed names each have their own bare-bones websites, but do not mention any connection to Zeal TN. Zeal TN sends employees to solicit donations across Tennessee — often in front of stores and restaurants — for nonprofits such as Law Enforcement Against Drugs & Violence (LEAD), which is based in New Jersey. In one job interview that Palmer recorded with Zeal TN and shared with the Scene, a manager openly admits that the company retains 60 percent of every dollar it receives in donations.
Former Zeal TN employees say the company frequently denies this. Zeal TN has even gone as far as to sue former employee Heaven Porter in 2023 in Davidson County for publicly claiming that the company was “swindling” people by taking a large cut of donations. The case was vol-
untarily dismissed by Zeal just 30 minutes before a scheduled hearing.
Recent tax records, though, confirm that Zeal TN does retain a significant portion of the donations it solicits, at least during one fiscal year with one client.
Zeal TN raised more than $3.2 million on behalf of LEAD in 2023 but retained almost exactly 60 percent of the donations, according to tax records. Zeal TN collected those funds via phone, mail and in-person solicitations and kept $1,950,915 — leaving just over $1.3 million for the nonprofit’s programs. Charity watchdogs generally advise that no more than 35 percent of donations be allocated to fundraising expenses.
“It is, unfortunately, extremely common for forprofit professional fundraising companies to keep the majority of the donations they raise on behalf of their charity clients,” says Laurie Styron, CEO and executive director of Charity Watch, an independent charity watchdog. “When people donate in response to a telemarketing call or a direct mail letter, they run a high risk of wasting most of their donations on middleman fundraisers.”
Styron says donors should avoid high-pressure tactics that promote impulsive giving. “Donating in response to a telemarketing call or direct mail letter is a no-go if you value your privacy and want your donation actually to accomplish something.”
Charities and their fundraisers often rent, sell, exchange or share their donor lists. Styron therefore advises checking a charity’s privacy policy before donating to avoid receiving an avalanche of fundraising letters and telemarketing calls after making a single donation to one organization.
“Donate directly to a charity versus through a middleman company if you want to avoid a big chunk of your donation going to a for-profit company,” she says.
Beyond the dubious business practices, what Palmer — the comedian and amateur sleuth — has most noticed in his undercover research is an overall creepy vibe. “Almost all of them have pump-up team meetings in the mornings where there’s a lot of chanting and hollering,” he says.
“It’s very cult-like.”
Zeal TN did not respond to multiple requests for comment. ▼
According to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Nashville will at some point see more ICE agents on its streets. Noem held a Friday morning press conference in Nashville billed by DHS as “Exposing ‘Worst of the Worst’ Criminal Illegal Aliens in Tennessee.” She offered no new evidence or clarity related to people already detained locally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many of whom ICE admitted had no criminal history. Noem also criticized Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell for his opposition to ICE raids in the city, and pushed back against questions about ICE enforcement actions taking place in predominantly Latino communities and concerns that ICE may be racially profiling — something she said was “absolutely false.” Noem at one point snapped at a reporter for Nashville Noticias — a Spanish-language news outlet — saying, “Don’t you dare ever say that again.”
Writes Scene opinion columnist Betsy Phillips, grandstanding Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles is now directing his ire at Belmont University. Ogles, who represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, demanding she investigate Belmont to see if the Nashville university is secretly practicing DEI As Phillips points out, Belmont is a school where rich Republicans like Lee Beaman love to put their philanthropic efforts. “If I’m a Nashville Republican donor with ties to Belmont,” she writes, “I’m sure asking myself today if I’m going to continue to donate money to people who are making it harder for me to do my business in the ways I want to.”
Lawyers have agreed to a settlement in a long-simmering multiplaintiff case brought by five former Metro Nashville Public Schools administrators against the district and Director of Schools Adrienne Battle. The plaintiffs allege that Battle retaliated against them, pushing them out of top district jobs after she took over the central office. Sources tell our colleagues at the Nashville Banner that the settlement with the five plaintiffs will total approximately $6.5 million.
Tennessee’s “abortion trafficking” law has been blocked following a Friday ruling from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The legislation passed during the 2024 session of the Tennessee General Assembly, making it illegal to “recruit, harbor, or transport” a minor for an abortion procedure or to obtain abortion pills without their parents’ permission. Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) and Nashville attorney Rachel Welty brought the lawsuit in June 2024 on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment right to free speech.
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
ZEAL TN INC.
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GILBERT INTERVIEWS
IBRAHIM IN THE MOUNTAINS NEAR THE IRAQI-TURKISH
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SATURDAY STORYTIME with PARNASSUS STAFF at PARNASSUS
SATURDAY, JULY 26
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This July, Waldo is hiding at local businesses. If you joined the hunt (or if you just love Waldo), celebrate with us! Featuring a special appearance from Waldo himself!
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30
6:30PM REGINA BLACK & ALICIA THOMPSON at PARNASSUS August Lane & Never Been Shipped
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6
TALKING TO ROSE GILBERT ABOUT HER PODCAST ON NASHVILLE’S KURDISH COMMUNITY
Four-episode WPLN series The Country in Our Hearts explores how Nashville became a home for Kurdish Americans
BY JULIANNE AKERS
NASHVILLE IS HOME to the largest Kurdish community in the U.S. — but the history of how that came to be is filled with tragedy and genocide.
The new WPLN podcast The Country in Our Hearts outlines the history of conflict in the region of Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as Kurdish people’s fight for land and the right to exist — much of it through the eyes of one Nashville family. WPLN reporter Rose Gilbert traveled to Kurdistan to create the four-episode series, and spoke with the Scene about her experience reporting on the community and what its members can tell us about issues in immigration at the federal level. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You traveled to Kurdistan as part of your reporting for the podcast. Can you talk about that experience and how it helped you build out this story in full? As a reporter, I think you always gain more from going to the place you’re reporting on, whether it’s an ethics meeting in Franklin or Iraqi Kurdistan. When you talk to people face to face, I think you build more trust. You get all the intangibles of body language and what the place looks like, what the place smells like, what the food tastes like there — all of those things. In this specific instance, I think traveling is very important because the struggle for land and au-
tonomy within an ancestral homeland is so much at the heart of Kurdish history. A lot of the people I’ve spoken to have expressed a really strong emotional connection to the land that their family’s from — talking about how much they enjoy eating the food grown in their parents’ or grandparents’ village, talking about how much they enjoy drinking the water from the stream that feeds their village. And there’s a lot of people who live most of their lives here in Nashville, but ask that their bodies be sent back to be buried in Kurdistan. I thought that was really important.
How do you think the medium of audio helped convey this story in ways that maybe you wouldn’t have been able to with a print story? The first thing that comes to mind is language. There were a lot of longer tracks of untranslated Kurdish in there, and that was an intentional choice, because Kurdish as a language has been, at different times, stigmatized, banned or even criminalized, because it is such an important marker of culture and identity. So including whole stretches of Kurdish was important to me and to the people I was talking to. There have been times where I’ve interviewed somebody who was more comfortable [or] more fluent in Turkish than they were in Kurdish, but they were like, “I don’t want anybody to hear me speaking Turkish. I want them to hear me speaking Kurdish or English, because those are my languages.” So there’s a real sense of identity tied up in language.
Being able to convey emotion in a more subtle way is something I’ve always really loved about audio. There was a gentleman I knew who was talking with his daughter about the story of how they fled, and there were just moments that you could hear how revelatory or heavy this was for her at the moment — not because she said something super long-winded or eloquent about it, but because of the quality of her voice.
You utilized old news footage and other archived materials to create the podcast. What was the process of finding those materials and sorting through it all?
Some of it was, like, you’d be reading primary sources or talking to people, and then doing research on those things. And then you’d find a specific figure who would come up and you’re like, “OK, I gotta learn more about this person.” And then you would fall down these rabbit holes. [The Associated Press] archive has incredible historical archives. ... Sometimes I’d be searching for videos in Kurdish or Farsi, and that would get better results, because the results that are in English are going to be results that are geared toward an English-speaking audience, which might not be as specific or go as far back as you want.
How do you think this podcast can help create a better understanding of all of our neighbors in Nashville and their different cultures? One of the goals of this project was the idea of helping our neighbors get to know each other a little bit better. And part of that is having non-Kurdish folks who aren’t as familiar with the story get to know the story better, but also even within the Kurdish community.
But also, there are parts of the story that are not specific to the Kurdish community. Right now, immigration and immigration policy is such a rapidly shifting subject. Having talked to a lot of immigration lawyers, a lot of people just feel like the rules are changing every day. A lot of the story is about looking back at a group of people who, although they went through incredible hardship, were ultimately, at least at first, welcomed in America and found kind of a safety and community here. Not to say it was easy, but America wasn’t the thing making it harder for them here. And then coming to the present day and meeting with a new group of people who are coming to a very different country under very different circumstances. So I think that that part applies to a lot of different immigrant communities in Nashville and America more broadly. ▼
ALL FOUR EPISODES
PHOTO: HELENE OSMAN
ROSE
ARAN
RESEARCHERS PREPARE FOR POTENTIAL MEASLES OUTBREAKS
Steady decline in MMR vaccinations leaves room for Tennessee cases
BY HANNAH HERNER
RESEARCHERS AT Vanderbilt University Medical Center had been working on antibody treatments for measles for more than a year when measles outbreaks began popping up in the United States.
“We’ve been working on measles for two years,” says Dr. James E. Crowe, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. “In the middle of that, there’s been a lot of vaccine hesitancy, and all of a sudden we have thousands of people being infected.”
Measles is one of 100 viruses that the team at VUMC is systematically making antibodies for by using single-cell sequencing — that is, isolating the cells that react well in fighting an infectious disease. It’s hard to predict when the next outbreak of an infectious disease will be, so they sought to get ahead of it.
“It confirms what we said,” says Crowe. “Any of these 100 could happen even if there’s a vaccine that works perfectly well, because if people don’t take that vaccine, you can have an outbreak, and that’s what’s happening.”
Once completed, antibody treatments could be used for people who aren’t vaccinated ahead of exposure, which could also be useful for those who cannot be vaccinated, like chemotherapy patients. They can also, at times, be used as a drug. The earlier someone is given antibody treatment, the better it works, Crowe says.
As of July 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 1,309 measles cases in the country so far this year, making it the highest single-year total since the U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000 — and that’s with more than five months left in the year. Texas has
seen the largest outbreak, with more than 700 cases. There have been three confirmed deaths in the U.S. this year.
In the context of the nation, Tennessee has remained relatively unscathed. The Tennessee Department of Health reports just six cases since the start of the year, none of them in Davidson County. All of the cases were in people who were not vaccinated, most of them were children between ages 5 and 17, and none of them were hospitalized.
The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine comes in two doses: one at 12 months old and one between ages 4 to 6. The two provide lifelong protection.
But Tennessee has seen kindergarten vaccine rates — including the MMR vaccine — plummet in the past decade. The Tennessee Department of Health measures by a threshold of 95 percent vaccination, which ensures protection of the entire population, including those who are unable to be vaccinated because of their age or other health conditions. In the 2023-24 school year, the state saw the immunization coverage rate for children enrolled in kindergarten in Tennessee decline 0.5 percent, which correlates with an increase of religious exemptions, according to a report from the Tennessee Department of Health. In Davidson County, 91.3 percent of students were fully immunized, with 42 of the county’s 121 schools reaching the 95 percent threshold.
Sickness can be especially serious in children, and more acute in those who are younger than 5 years old, says Dr. Joanna Shaw-KaiKai, interim chief medical officer at the Metro Health Department. When she talks to people who have vaccine hesitancy, she emphasizes the risk of complications, especially in very young people.
“It can go throughout the entire body and cause a systemic problem — so it can affect just about any organ in the body, including the central nervous system,” Shaw-KaiKai tells the Scene. “Unfortunately, you’ve heard of the deaths that occurred from complications of measles, and we definitely don’t want that to happen to anybody or any family when there’s preventive measure that’s highly effective and quite safe.” ▼
ONE DIRECTION NIGHT FRI, 7/25
KEITH WALLEN SAT, 7/26
MT JONES WED, 7/30
VANDOLIERS W/ NATE BERGMAN THU, 7/31
JULIA DIGRAZIA W/ SIERRA CARSON FRI, 8/1
HARBOUR W/ ABBY HOLIDAY FRI, 8/1
BRENDAN WALTER SAT, 8/2
JAVIER ESCOVEDO W/ TYLER KEITH THU, 8/7
OZOMATLI THU, 8/7
CHIDDY BANG FRI, 8/8
CONGRESS THE BAND SAT, 8/9
CHARLOTTE LAWRENCE W/ TAYLOR BICKETT TUE, 8/12
HAIDEN HENDERSON WED, 8/13
JAKE MINCH W/ HANA BRYANNE TUE, 8/19
NASHVILLE MINIFEST WED, 8/20
WITNESS HISTORY
This Gibson F-5G mandolin has been used extensively by Wyatt Ellis, who was just fifteen years old when he played his way into an IBMA Momentum Award for Instrumentalist of the Year in 2024.
From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music
artifact: Courtesy of Wyatt Ellis artifact photo: Bob Delevante
Federal budget cuts send ripples across Nashville’s arts community
BY LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
ON A TUESDAY in early April, Nashville artist Mary Addison Hackett received an email from the Institute of Museum and Library Services telling her that her federally funded grant had been suspended. The language was blunt and bureaucratic: Her grant “no longer serves the interest of the United States.”
Hackett calls the letter a “gut punch.” She was involved with the Autistic Voices Oral History Project, an organization that gets federal funding from the IMLS, and was a target of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency
“The grant was for a project that was to learn about inclusive oral history techniques for interviewing people in the autistic community and preserving that culture,” Hackett tells the Scene by phone from her home studio in Donelson. “I was looking forward to improving that skill set, and I saw this as an opportunity to learn more about researching and give me those skills that would enable me to apply for various other grants.”
As a longtime working artist, Hackett is used to piecing together income through teaching, writing and grants. Her expansive practice includes painting, photography, documentary and performance art. Recently she’s used documentary techniques to investigate the intersection between photography, neurodiversity and mental health, which followed a late-in-life diagnosis on the autism spectrum. “Spoiler alert: I’m autistic,” she tells the Scene
Still, the loss of the IMLS grant was deeper than a single lost opportunity. Hackett understood it as a signal that government institutions and the policies that guide them were no longer interested in supporting the kind of work she does, or the kind of communities she’s part of.
“It was a huge disappointment,” she says. “And I think that’s a natural thing for people in the autism community — really looking forward to something, and then kind of a crash.”
Hackett commemorated the email in her typical diaristic, deadpan way — she baked herself cupcakes, wrote FUCK DOGE on the tops with white icing, and posted a photo of them on Instagram.
Across Nashville, artists and cultural organizations are facing a sudden rupture in federal support. Under Executive Order 14151 , signed on Jan. 20 as part of President Trump’s second-term agenda, programs tied to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility are being cut. Arts and humanities agencies — including the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities — are facing drastic budget reductions and potential dismantling. Entire categories of arts funding are being wiped out. And while this kind of attack isn’t new, artists say its scope and severity feel unprecedented.
For Nashville’s arts community, this moment feels like not just like a financial threat, but an
existential one — a threat that signals a shift toward a culture that no longer prioritizes the arts.
LESS THAN A MONTH after Hackett received the letter from ILMS, OZ Arts CEO Mark Murphy learned that the NEA was withdrawing the nonprofit arts organization’s $45,000 grant. Similar letters went out to organizations throughout Nashville. It’s a laundry list of the city’s cultural institutions — the Belcourt Theatre, Actors Bridge Ensemble and the Nashville Ballet all received the same letter, which was sent out to arts nonprofits across the country.
The language in the letter is similar to the one that Hackett received: “The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”
“The whole thing reeks of DOGE,” Murphy told the Scene in May. “I’ve been dealing with getting and managing NEA grants for almost 40 years, through the culture wars in the ’90s and through the previous Trump term and several presidents and congresspeople who said they wanted to gut the NEA. But nothing like this has ever happened.”
When NEA funding was under attack in the late 1980s and early ’90s, it was about specific content — Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, for example, attempted to bar the NEA
from funding “obscene or indecent materials.” His message was clear-cut.
What makes the current attack on arts funding different? What’s at stake is harder to identify. Entire concepts and categories of thinking are prohibited. Broad language about what does and doesn’t “reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage” makes it unclear what’s allowed. What exactly does “diverse” art look like?
Banning Bouldin’s contemporary dance nonprofit New Dialect has been a cornerstone of the local dance community since its inception in 2013. She worries that the language of NEA’s new priorities will create ripples throughout the culture, and that diminishing resources are just a side effect.
“The messaging from the new leadership within the agency is that priority will be given to projects that celebrate the 250th anniversary of America and that celebrate how great our history is, while also making it very clear that projects that are rooted in or center diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in any way are disqualified,” Bouldin says. “But how do you celebrate the history of how fantastic America’s arts are without centering Black artists?”
“It’s just an intense narrowing,” she says, “and it feels very strategic — narrowing to the point of elimination. … The arts are in trouble. We could lose them. This arts ecology in Nashville, and certainly this performing arts ecology, is at risk of extinction or collapse.”
“My sense is people are pretty resigned to the fate of federal arts funding being pretty bleak,” says Stephanie Silverman, the longtime executive director of nonprofit film center the Belcourt.
Silverman compares these budget cuts to suffering death by a thousand cuts — a prolonged agony delivered in small increments, which will result in a slow contraction of the community. “It feels like a sort of baked-in permission structure potentially to just not center the arts, to keep pushing them further and further down the importance pipeline.”
On the future of the Belcourt — an institution that has seen countless changes and restructurings in its 100 years — Silverman is crystal clear: “We are very fiscally stable. But the thing that worries me the most is the slow, painful death versus the drama of going away immediately, because that’s probably not going to happen. I think we’re in a moment of peril.”
AS MUCH AS LARGER organizations like the Belcourt and OZ are prepared to weather the storm of federal cuts, individual artists and smaller nonprofits are preparing for a sea change caused by the federal government’s priorities. Daniel Jones, who works as OZ’s manager of artistic programming, is the producing artistic director of Kindling Arts, a performing arts nonprofit with an annual budget around $160,000. This spring, he learned that Kindling’s
NEA Challenge America grant had been revoked. The program, meant to support small organizations serving underserved communities, was canceled entirely.
Kindling’s grant would have funded “an interdisciplinary performance development lab for artists exploring the evolving identity of the modern South,” according to a January release from the NEA. More than 270 small organizations had been awarded a total of $2.7 million before the program was scrapped.
Almost concurrent with finding out his Challenge America grant had been canceled, Jones got news that Kindling was one of 80 organizations that would receive replacement funds from The Warhol Foundation, in partnership with The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. But for Jones, that doesn’t solve the bigger problem — he sees the Warhol grant as a Band-Aid on a serious wound.
“The arts in this country have been severely underfunded for a long time,” Jones says, “whether through government funding, corporate sponsorship, individual donors, et cetera. And right now, everyone who is stepping forward — these private foundations and institutions that are pulling together their money to fund some of the things that would be lost — they’re doing it in the state of an emergency.”
When the Scene spoke with Jones in early July, Kindling had just received award notices from the Tennessee Arts Commission, which gets
PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
BANNING BOULDIN, NEW DIALECT
DIRECT POSITIVE SILVER GELATIN PRINT BY MARY ADDISON HACKETT
some of its funding through the NEA. The NEA also helps fund South Arts, an Atlanta-based nonprofit regional arts organization that empowers artists, organizations and communities, and increases access to arts and culture.
“It’s clear that there’s not as much funding as there was last year in the Tennessee Arts Commission pool,” says Jones. “So the fact that that is under threat is concerning, and we just received those award notices last week. And also to not have the South Arts grant opportunity is really not a good situation.”
OZ Arts’ Murphy has an image that handily breaks down the small percentage of the federal budget that goes toward the arts.
“I remember during the culture wars,” he says, “I used to use the example that if the federal budget was the front page of a newspaper, the NEA would be smaller than a comma.”
At the Belcourt, Silverman echoes the sentiment with gallows humor.
“I guess the good news,” Silverman says with a laugh, “is that because the U.S. has never really supported institutions very generously, it’s not that debilitating for us on a grants level. But what is troubling is that, when you are a capitalist country, what you value is what you budget for. And so to see the arts and the humanities and so many things that make life fundamentally richer just zeroed out without any analysis about the law, the real impact of that is heartbreaking.”
“There’s a resilience that comes from a scarcity of resources,” says artist Virginia Griswold. She’s speaking to the Scene during a break from leading children’s art classes at the small nonprofit Buchanan Arts, where she works as the executive director. “There’s a baseline of being sort of accustomed to making do with very little.
“But at the same time,” she continues, “there’s this dreaming that has to happen concurrently with that. You can’t get too complacent, too used to not having enough, to the point where you stop thinking about what’s possible or what could be if you did have all of the resources available. And psychologically, that’s a tough place to be.”
That psychological tension — between having dreams but not resources — leads some Nashville artists to abandon the traditional arts model altogether. Performer and choreographer Asia Pyron, who founded and directs the dance ensemble PYDANCE, has seen her faith in the system erode.
“I don’t really believe that the government has been very trustworthy in terms of arts funding,” Pyron says. “And because of that, I don’t see why we should be going back to the same process after this. I think Nashville was already experiencing a lot of this before this happened to all of America.”
Pyron points to a chaotic series of recent events at the Metro Arts Commission — the body that distributes grants from the city to local artists and arts institutions. Over the past two years, Metro Arts has seen significant turnover, a bungled grants process and other persistent issues.
“Nashville and Metro Arts are already very
“When you are a capitalist country, what you value is what you budget for. And so to see the arts and the humanities and so many things that make life fundamentally richer just zeroed out without any analysis about the law, the real impact of that is heartbreaking.”
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much struggling with delivering funds to artists,” says Pyron. “Promises were not kept. Grant cycles were not finished.”
Pyron doesn’t think a nonprofit model is sustainable, and she’s avoided getting PYDANCE 501(c)(3) certification as a result. Instead, she relies on financial support through community partnerships.
“If this has been shown to us multiple times that this is not a sustainable infrastructure for us,” she asks, “then why drink the Kool-Aid anyway?”
DESPITE ALL THE STRUGGLE, artists themselves remain hopeful. At New Dialect, Bouldin has plans to diversify.
“Cooperation is what comes up for me first,” she says. “We’re going to be looking at ways that we can share space and share overhead with the understanding that we’ll have less capital to work with, but we have other resources that we can leverage together.”
At Kindling, Jones says a lifetime in the arts has
prepared him for this moment. “You know,” he says, “I’ve grown up in this industry. And my whole life, people have made references to the culture wars, and those were happening while I was like, 3 or 4 years old in the early ’90s. What I’m realizing is there were all of the byproducts of those culture wars — this repressed culture, a censoring of queer people, a much less diverse landscape than we should have been having in performing arts and media. And to now be circling back around to this censorship just feels sort of uncanny in a way. We’re basically on this infinite loop, a terrifying merry-go-round that circles back to this censorship and to a fear of the power of artists and intellectuals. It feels really potent.
“But the other thing,” Jones says, his tone lightening, “is that at this moment we have an internet that cannot be contained, and we are infinitely more globalized than we were 30 years ago.
“It’s a really interesting moment of knowing that they can’t control the culture as much as they want to.” ▼
ASIA PYRON, PYDANCE
FONDA
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
The Factory at Franklin’s
GENERAL ADMISSION
Shop 3 hours of sales from 25 local boutiques from 1-4pm
VIP ADMISSION
All the benefits of a GA ticket PLUS
• First dibs at the sales with early access at noon
• Complimentary beverage
• Tote bag full of gifts
PARTICIPATING BOUTIQUES
ABLE / Any Old Iron / Banded / Brittany Fuson
CT Grace, a Boutique / e.Allen / Elle Gray
Exclusive Look Boutique / Fab’rik Franklin
Flash & Trash & a Little Bit of Sass / Franklin Road
Apparel / The French Shoppe / Glamour Formals
Harper’s Den / Hollie Ray Boutique / Little Paper Kids
Before you shop, clean out your closet and bring your new/gently-used items to donate to Goodwill Industries. By donating, you’ll receive a Goodwill reusable tote bag and you’ll be entered to win a gift card!
Mountain High Outfitters / Nash Collection
Nine Thirteen / Palmer Kennedy / Pauli’s Place Boutique
Society Boutique / Style with a Twist
Vinnie Louise / Wilder / The Willing Crab
CRITICS’ PICKS:
FRIDAY, JULY 25
MUSIC
THURSDAY / 7.24
SHAKES
[GIMME ALL YOUR LOVE] ALABAMA
Make no mistake: Rock ’n’ roll is better with Alabama Shakes in it. The band that barnstormed Americana music in the 2010s with ground-shaking hits like “Hold On” and “Don’t Wanna Fight” returns this summer after an eight-year hiatus (in which bandleader Brittany Howard released a pair of must-hear solo albums and ripped a hardcore gig at The Basement East). Alabama Shakes tour coast to coast this summer in a long-awaited reunion with fans who can once again sing along to gooey hooks from the band’s two albums: 2012 breakout Boys & Girls and 2015 critical smash Sound & Color. Plus … maybe Howard and company dive into a few new tunes? After all, the band posted photos from the studio earlier this year to Instagram, including the caption “Working on some exciting stuff!” Here’s to hoping the year doesn’t end before the world hears a taste of what the band may be cooking. Until then, enjoy hearing Alabama Shakes make music on a stage again. Soul singer Alanna Royale opens the show; folk artist Caleb Elliott plays main support. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
7:30 P.M. AT ASCEND AMPHITHEATER
310 FIRST AVE. S.
MUSIC
[GOT TO MOVE] AMERICAN AQUARIUM
The existential crisis American Aquarium leader BJ Barham writes about on the North Carolina band’s 2024 album The Fear of Standing Still appears to be his own, but the music comes dressed in timeless Americana fashion. The Fear of Standing Still combines many tropes of Americana — from Tom Petty-esque organ to Old 97’s stomp — and you’ll love how deftly Barham and company apply them to lyrics about loving his partner until the wheels fall off and how gravity always gets you in the end. Barham’s songwriting skirts the boundaries of mainstream country songwriting, as you can hear in “Messy as a Magnolia,” while the music harks back to the alt-country of 20 years ago, when American Aquarium began releasing albums. The Fear of Standing Still registers as a thoughtful record about how guys who live on the road either have to get off of it or go under. As you might expect, Barham seems a little ambivalent about the prospect of settling down, and that might be the reason these
slices of Americana end up sounding pretty real. On “Messy as a Magnolia,” Barham sings: “Sometimes good people do horrible things / Sometimes those people need a reason to change.” Nashville singer Kristina Murray, whose latest album is this year’s Little Blue, opens. EDD HURT
8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
[CREATURE FEATURE]
MUSIC
DINOSAUR JR. & SNAIL MAIL
Dinosaur Jr. and Snail Mail are both in the midst of reinvention. Dinosaur Jr. has been on a roll since 2007’s Beyond brought the band back into the spotlight, most recently with the 2021 release Sweep It Into Space. Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan started experimenting with new textures and a harder, more polished sound on the 2021 album Valentine. So despite the generational gap, a double-headliner tour is a pretty perfect match — especially since it means getting to watch both J Mascis and Jordan at work. Jordan, who’s been teasing new music, has drawn parallels between getting into the headspace for live gigs and her recent acting debut as Tara in I Saw the TV Glow. In both settings, she’s adept
at bringing out the emotion and letting it bleed. Mascis, meanwhile, is an icon of fuzz with a background in hardcore punk, a presence that’s sure to be felt at The Pinnacle with Reptilian Records’ esteemed Detroit shredders Easy Action opening. ANNIE PARNELL
7 P.M. AT THE PINNACLE
901 CHURCH ST.
ART [DREAM TEAM] FLUX
If you think of Nashville’s creative community as a massive web, you’ll start spotting strands everywhere — the writers’ rounds, the video art projected onto dancers onstage and, of course, the letterpress artists turning concert announcements into works of art. The latest collaboration is between Haley Gallery — which is itself operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame — and The Forge’s visual arts arm STATE Gallery + Studios. A group exhibit that features more than 30 Nashvillebased artists working in a number of mediums, Flux is a showcase of interdisciplinary creative power. All the artists are female or nonbinary, and their practices span metalwork, textiles, glassworks, wood sculptures and paintings. Artists include Marteja Bailey, Meredith Edmondson, Jennifer Fleischer, Cynthia Floyd, Alison Ford, Heather Golinko, Erin Hewgley, Lex Lynne and Meg “Pie” Pollard. The show will stay up through Sept. 12. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
OPENING RECEPTION 5 P.M. AT HALEY GALLERY AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
222 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY S.
FRIDAY / 7.25
RADIO
[THE RICHEST MAN IN BEDFORD FALLS] WXNA SALUTES JIM RIDLEY
Late, great Scene editor Jim Ridley was an enthusiastic supporter of community radio station WXNA and its mission to bring an overflowing cornucopia of programming by and for the people to the airwaves. Sadly — and that’s a use of the word that’s up there for “understatement of the century” considering it’s applied to one of the most generous spirits ever — he died two months before the station officially signed on in June 2016. Throughout this week, shows across The X’s kaleidoscopic array have been celebrating what would have been Ridley’s 60th birthday on July 23 by putting a spotlight on the intersection of film and music, two storytelling mediums he loved passionately and knew with singular breadth and depth. Set your tuner to 101.5 FM or visit wxnafm.org to hear programs each day through Sunday that will pay tribute, but make sure not to miss these two highlights on Friday. A panel will convene during the live broadcast of Psychobabble (airing noon to 1 p.m.) for a roundtable discussion about the ways Jim impacted Nashville’s culture and its arts scenes. And at 7 p.m. the party becomes threedimensional when WXNA volunteer DJs turn their longstanding weekly set at East Nashville’s Vinyl Tap into Jim Ridley Night — brush up on the duet part of “In Spite of Ourselves” that suits you best and come through. STEPHEN TRAGESER ALL WEEK LONG ON 101.5 FM AND WXNAFM.ORG; 7 P.M. AT VINYL TAP
2038 GREENWOOD AVE.
FILM
[A DISH BEST SERVED COLD] MIDNIGHT MOVIES/ACTION DISTRACTION: I SAW THE DEVIL
The Belcourt’s Action Distraction series has been a godsend this summer, providing highflying, rip-roaring blockbuster mayhem for theatergoers. But as the series winds down, it’s only fitting that one of the final screenings in the series doubles as a Midnight Movie, because Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil is here to provide some revenge-fueled depravity for the true bloodlust freaks. Devil starts with a dismemberment and gets only more vile from there. Starring two of the South Korean New Wave’s biggest stars, Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-sik, Devil is not for the faint of heart. Director Kim is known for his inventive genre explorations like Western riff The Good, the Bad, the Weird; melodramatic spy drama The Age of
Shadows; and psychological horror trip A Tale of Two Sisters Devil is like if David Fincher’s Zodiac was melded with a bleak ’70s revenge thriller. It’s gnarly. LOGAN BUTTS
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
FILM
[TO A NEW WORLD OF GODS AND MONSTERS] BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Forget Christmas in July; I’d rather celebrate Halloween in the summer. Luckily, Hermitage’s Full Moon Cineplex hosts repertory screenings of horror classics year-round. On Friday night, the independent theater will show 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, the sequel to the megainfluential 1931 Frankenstein adaptation. As great as Frankenstein is, director James Whale may have outdone himself with his follow-up, thanks in large part to Elsa Lanchester’s iconic performance as The Monster’s Mate, aka the Bride of Frankenstein. (Lanchester also plays Frankenstein author Mary Shelley in the film’s meta opening scene.) For anyone wary of checking out a 90-year-old movie, Bride is a brisk 75 minutes long, and the gothic visuals will look beautiful on the big screen. If you’re wanting to combine a meal with the film, Full Moon offers a dinner-and-movie ticket option, with the dinner portion beginning at 6 p.m. LOGAN BUTTS
7 P.M. AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX 3445 LEBANON PIKE, HERMITAGE
COMEDY
[FUNNIEST PERSON IN AUSTIN] DYLAN
CARLINO
Discourse is always supposed to be a labored undertaking, or at least big media would have you believe so. But Dylan Carlino has a most unexpected gift for making discourse into something naughty and delightful, like a purloined VHS hidden behind a bookshelf, a scandalous graffito scrawled in out-of-the-way spaces or the way that kickball-court gossip defined the map of junior high psychosocial development. Carlino is funny and perceptive (not always qualities that go together), and he’s got a fearless streak that you’d love to see in more journalists and politicians. Moreover, it is impossible to underestimate the way that Some of This Is Bad, Carlino’s podcast with Colton Dowling and Jimmy Clifford, has expanded queer discourse in the most unexpected of places. In the guise of talking shit and
JUL
AUGUST
NOVEMBER 7
BOOKER
COMING
interrogating contemporary comedy, Carlino has been educating all manner of audiences about some of the real-real issues that the community is dealing with, but with the kind of earthy shamelessness exemplified by the Roman poet Catullus and the late, great ODB. His upcoming shows in The Lab — two per night this Friday and Saturday — are an interesting and essential opportunity for local audiences.
JASON SHAWHAN
JULY 25-26 AT THE LAB AT ZANIES 2025 EIGHTH AVE S.
MUSIC
[ON TO SOMETHING GOOD] ASHLEY MONROE PERFORMS THE BLADE
SATURDAY / 7.26
ART [IN BLOOM]
BLOOMVILLE
before the season is over. HANNAH HERNER
7 P.M. AT THE CENTENNIAL PARK BANDSHELL
2500 WEST END AVE.
[WHAT’S YOUR STORY?]
THEATER
THE THEATER BUG: STORIES, AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL
Back in some of the darkest days of COVID-19, with local theaters and arts organizations struggling to maintain any sort of online presence, The Theater Bug stepped up with some genuinely engaging content. One particularly notable project was Stories, an original musical web series that explored the lives of five young people, as told through “both their online ‘stories’ and the real-life stories that shape them.” Smart, tender and often thoughtprovoking, Stories took on a wide range of timely topics, from racial injustice to LGBTQ issues. And the production value? Off the charts, thanks to the brilliant creative minds at MA2LA. So you can imagine my delight when I learned the Bug would be bringing Stories to the stage as a live performance, beginning Saturday. Written by Cori Anne Laemmel, Megan Murphy Chambers and Pascia Weeden, Stories features 18 original songs by Cori Anne and Tyson Laemmel. Directed by Cori Anne Laemmel and Bakari King, the cast includes a terrific group of young performers, along with Nashville pro Tamiko Robinson Steele. The format may have changed, but as with the original, Stories “creates space for audiences to connect with voices they may not often hear.” AMY STUMPFL
JULY 26-27 & JULY 31-AUG. 3 AT THE NASHVILLE SCHOOL OF THE ARTS’ ROXY THEATER
1250 FOSTER AVE.
Ashley Monroe is your favorite country artist’s favorite country artist. Since the release of her debut album Satisfied and her 2013 breakthrough Like a Rose, the Knoxville-raised singer-songwriter has earned praise from everyone from Vince Gill to Jack White. She even received a fan letter from Dolly Parton, which is probably the highest honor in Tennessee, if not the world. Two weeks before the release of her sixth studio album Tennessee Lightning, Monroe will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of her Grammy-nominated 2015 record The Blade, which was produced by Gill and Justin Niebank. The album — which features the gorgeously plaintive title track, the rollicking Chris Stapleton co-write “Winning Streak” and the barroom waltz “I’m Good at Leavin’,” which Monroe penned with her Pistol Annies cohort Miranda Lambert — is a triumph from start to finish. Monroe discussed revisiting the album during a recent interview with the Scene. “Now when I listen to it, I’m like ‘I sound so young,’” she says. “But I love that about music. I love that about albums. [They’re] a snapshot of who you were, what you were feeling, what kind of music was moving you. [These songs] still kind of rip my heart out.”
BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
Bloomville is a curated display of art and flowers celebrating the miracle of the growing season, the beauty of nature and the fertile potential of creative collaboration. The show brings together original works by emerging visual artists intermingled with blossoming installations by local florists. The artistic and floral creations combine to transform gallerist Ryan Rado’s cave-like Rock Wall art space into a vibrant sanctuary that’s part gallery and part garden. This show has a sprawling roster and includes work from Amber Lelli, Megan Jordan and Shabazz Larkin, along with offerings from Rado and Bloomville curator Reggie Wayne. Hit up Bloomville Saturday night for its closing reception. Take in the sunny-season beauty and keep the summertime sadness away. JOE NOLAN CLOSING RECEPTION 6 P.M. AT THE ROCK WALL GALLERY 434 HOUSTON ST. INSIDE HOUSTON STATION
[SWING KIDS]
DANCE
BIG BAND DANCE
You can crack any window in Nashville and hear live music, but opportunities to dance take a bit more intentionality. Big Band Dance at Centennial Park is one of the chances to partner dance that’s worth marking on the calendar. One can’t help but be moved by a gorgeous horn section playing big-band music. This week, it’s Five Points Swing. (Listen to “Sing, Sing, Sing” to establish the vibe.) It harkens back to a time when lots of things were more difficult, but the dancing culture was easy. Dynamic Ballroom and Performing Arts offers free dance lessons in several styles at 7 p.m., and dancing starts at 7:30. Even if you’re not much of a dancer, the people-watching is elite and food trucks are available. Come with a partner, or not, and the dance community will loop you in. It’s not too late to get started on this Nashville summer tradition; there are two more events scheduled
SUNDAY / 7.27
FILM
[RISE ROAR REVOLT] ACTION DISTRACTION:
RRR
Cult auteur S.S. Rajamouli’s over-the-top storytelling made RRR one of the best films of 2022. Part Bollywood musical, part spectacle of unhinged violence, part hilarious buddy film, RRR was a relentlessly joyous moviegoing experience during a year that gave us another terrible Avatar movie and Aftersun RRR’s awardseason snubbing was just as infuriating as Cate Blanchett not winning an Oscar for her portrayal of the monkey Spazzatura in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. There’s no justice in the movie business, but sometimes the on-screen stories find suitable resolutions. In RRR, two unlikely allies team up to rescue a village girl who has been kidnapped by a sadistic governor. Along their journey, Rajamouli stuns viewers with the kind of bonkers action sequences that won this film a slot in the Belcourt’s summertime Action Distraction series. Come for what IMDb calls “strong, bloody violence.” Stay for the crowdpleasing musical sequence. JOE NOLAN
11:30 A.M. & 5:30 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
ASHLEY MONROE
SPORTS
[BASKETBALL JONES]
NASHVILLE PRO-AM BASKETBALL LEAGUE FINALS
Live Music at ON BROADWAY
JULY LINE UP
7.3 Levi Hummon
7.4 Waymore’s OutlawsPost Firework Concert
7.5 Ricochet
7.6 Livin’ The Write Life w/ Sherry Austin, Gary Frost, Ellis Griffin, Jadynce Jean, Aaron Loy, Allison Nichols, Will Rambeaux, Jagger Whitaker
7.8 Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose, Special Guest: Kaitlin Butts
7.9 Eric Paslay’s Song In A Hat w/ Tenille Townes, Adam Hambrick
7.10 Brassfield w/ Special Guests Rick Huckaby, Kayce
7.12 Gabe Dixon “Parts I’ve Played” Album Release Show
7.13 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Keith Stegall, Michael White
7.15 Chief’s Outsiders Rounds w/ Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek w/ Guests Ivy Alex, Sheyna Gee, Emily McGuill, Rachel Schumacher
7.16 Songwriter City Presents: The Songs of Music City with Lee Thomas Miller and Wendell Mobley
7.17 John Paycheck
WRITERS’ ROUNDS
smoking super spy. The frosted blue eyeshadow, miniskirt uniforms (reminiscent of the “... Baby One More Time” video) and Charlie’s Angels (but gayer) fight scenes provide an excellent dose of Y2K aesthetic. I’m convinced D.E.B.S. walked so lesbian comedies of today like Bottoms could run. With a healthy dose of camp and romcom sensibilities, it offers something often missing in “prestige” sapphic cinema: a blast!
KATHLEEN HARRINGTON
8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC
[HEART FOR SALE] WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: A CONCERT
TO BENEFIT AL ‘PIPER’ GREEN
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.
7.18 An Evening with Joe Bob Briggs: How Redneck’s Saved Hollywood
7.19 Take Me To Church Tribute - #1 Eric Church Tribute in America
7.20 Like Combs - The Luke Combs Experience
7.23 Uncle B’s Drunk With Power String Band Show Featuring Tyler Childers’ “Purgatory” with Leah Blevins, Alex Lambert, Nathan Belt, Aniston Pate, and Many More!
7.25 Jason Eady w/ Special Guest Addison Johnson
7.26 Jeff Hyde & Ryan TyndellThe Songs of Eric Church
7.27 Music Row for Musicares w/ Jackson Dean, Driver Williams, Jason Nix, and More Special Guests!
7.28 Buddy’s Place w/ Dylan Gerard, Walker County, Paul Sike
7.29 Dan Harrison, Jeff Middleton, Mark Irwin, Mark Taylor
7.30 Thom Shepherd Presents The Songwriters
7.31 Jamie O’Neal - There Is No Arizona 25th Anniversary
Every summer, after the Larry O’Brien Trophy is handed off to the NBA champions, I try to fill my hoops void by devouring books. The past two summers were occupied by The Breaks of the Game by local literary hero David Halberstam, and Chris Herring’s brilliant Blood in the Garden, which prominently features former TSU star Anthony Mason. But some of the best basketball you can ever catch is in the offseason, when players cut loose from their normal routine to play in leagues for the pure drive of competition. In the grand tradition of Harlem’s Rucker Park tournament and Southern California’s Drew League, Nashville Pro-Am Basketball’s six-week summer league lets pro talent from around the globe compete with college players and hopeful young talent. The games are open to the public, offering high-level competition with players ranging from college standouts to international professionals — many of whom have local ties — sharpening their skills and showcasing their talents. Games are free, but show up on time. The seats fill up quickly, especially when one team will get crowned champs. P.J. KINZER
4 P.M. AT EAST NASHVILLE MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL 110 GALLATIN AVE.
WEDNESDAY / 7.30
FILM [LUCY IN THE SKY] QUEER QLASSICS: D.E.B.S.
The final installment in the Belcourt’s July Queer Qlassics series, D.E.B.S. is a beautifully corny action-comedy B movie with a sapphic twist. D.E.B.S. centers on a group of teen-girl super spies and the tongue-in-cheek, silly action they get into. The group of gun-wielding schoolgirls is recruited through a secret screening on the SAT to find students who wield Discipline, Energy, Beauty and Strength. When the D.E.B.S. are sent on assignment to capture the jewel thief Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster), agent Amy Bradshaw (Sara Foster) falls down the enemies-to-lovers pipeline with her nemesis. It also features a performance from early-2000s model, “it girl” and forever star of my Pinterest board Devon Aoki as a French-accented (it’s so bad, it’s good) cigarette-
Since January 2024, the Nashville blues band Piper & the Hard Times has enjoyed a wave of critical acclaim and commercial success. After winning the International Blues Challenge to start the year, they released their debut LP, the Billboard blues-chart-topping Revelation But that was just the beginning. The LP subsequently won a Blues Music Award, and the band became a headline act. With Revelation now available on vinyl, the group is preparing for the release of its second project next month. But in the midst of all that success, the band’s ace lead vocalist Al “Piper” Green has been battling cancer, making a major impact on his ability to work. The Nashville music and national blues communities are joining forces to help Green and his wife deal with the fiscal stress. A big part of that effort will be the all-star gala event With a Little Help From Our Friends: A Concert to Benefit Al “Piper” Green. Certainly Piper & the Hard Times will be performing, but they’ll be joined by special guests like Mike Farris, Jimmy Hall, Shaun Murphy, Chris “Bad News” Barnes, Albert Castiglia, Etta Britt, Jackie Wilson and Lisa Oliver-Gray. This is a chance to not only hear a host of great performers, but also aid a most worthy cause. RON WYNN
7:30 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S.
AT CHIEF’S At Chief’s we understand that great music is born from the heart and soul of it’s creators, which is why our writers’ rounds are dedicated to celebrating the brilliant minds behind some of today’s most iconic songs.
7.12 Gabe Dixon 7.31 Jamie O’Neal
7.8 Maggie Rose
Date Night is a multipart road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.”
HILLSBORO VILLAGE might be Nashville’s most prolific and walkable choose-your-ownDate Night neighborhood. Act like a strapped student and do a progressive snack dinner of pizza and dumplings along the stretch of Belcourt Avenue closest to Vanderbilt’s campus. Blow it out at a steakhouse and one of the late-night spots on the other side of Belcourt where the dress codes ask you to “approach your wardrobe deliberately and with a sense of occasion” so as not to “diminish the experience of the room.” Or come as you are on this Nashville-natives route — the one most likely to still be around five years from now — where history and community never go out of style.
STOP 1: BROWN’S DINER
The smell of food frying in grease reaches 25 feet in every direction from Brown’s Diner, luring me in like one of those cartoon scents that hooks your nose, lifts you off your feet and transports you to the source. Brown’s has been around since 1927, so it pretty much always smells like that on the perimeter, whether food is actually frying or not.
BROWN’S DINER, THE BELCOURT AND THE VILLAGER TAVERN
Dinner, a movie and a dog bowl of beer in Hillsboro Village
BY DANNY BONVISSUTO
Husband Dom and I crossed the massive patio, which was empty because it was still too hot to even consider sitting in the shade at 5:30 on a Sunday night, and walked right into a set: A band played good old country music at one end of the shotgun space to a bunch of regulars on barstools at the other.
There are various cocktails listed on boards above the bar — margarita, salty dog, screwdriver — but the only real option is a longneck bottle of beer. Drinking anything else in a place like Brown’s would be ridiculous.
We moved through the bar and into the dining area where we settled into a slatted wood booth along the wall opposite the kitchen window. Water, fountain drinks and tea come in red plastic Coca-Cola cups. Condiments are corralled in a Busch Light-branded holder. A rainbow of sweetener packets is grouped together in the kind of plastic container you might use to take your leftover chili home. Above the door
between the dining room and bar, a sign warns customers not to get their tinsel in a tangle. So I didn’t get my tinsel in a tangle, even when I bit into my loaded egg burrito and was met with ice-cold tater tots and a sad, pale tomato slice where salsa should be. It was my fault for ordering food that wasn’t griddled or fried. I focused on the mozzarella sticks and fried pickles instead, both of which came sprinkled with “Nashville Hot” spices at our request. Dom out-ordered me with the burger, which never disappoints, and added a side salad covered in bacon, croutons and cheddar cheese to “have something healthy.”
Looking around the room at the old framed photographs and the Budweiser clock that appears partially melted, I thought back to a conversation with a friend who recently left Nashville for Pittsburgh. She told me Nashville had “lost its grit,” and she’s not wrong — but she’s not all the way right. Despite some
BROWN’S DINER
changes here and there over the past 98 years, there’s still plenty of grit at Brown’s, which is basic in the best possible way.
STOP 2: THE BELCOURT THEATRE
From Brown’s we walked north on 21st Avenue toward Hillsboro Village, reminiscing about what used to be where: Boscos Restaurant & Brewing Co. where Hopdoddy is now; Pangaea boutique, which was replaced by Molly Green; and Jackson’s Bar and Bistro, now Ruby Sunshine, a chain brunch spot that’s the polar opposite of its neighbor, Pancake Pantry.
Thankfully the Belcourt Theatre is still the Belcourt Theatre, even after 100 years. I’ve had my mind blown in that building more times than I can count, going back 28 years when I saw Ma Vie en Rose, a Franco Belgian drama about a transgender girl. (On that note, the Belcourt’s Queer Qlassics series wraps up Wednesday at 8 p.m. with a screening of 2004’s D.E.B.S.) Dom, who you might remember needed a vegetable earlier in the night, got a bag of popcorn and a box of Sour Patch Kids on our way to the Manzer/ Webb Screening Room upstairs, which seats a very cozy 34. Get there early unless you’re one of those weirdos who likes to sit too close to the screen.
Its run is over now, but we saw Art for Everybody, a documentary about the life, death and
dark side of Thomas Kinkade — the man who made millions off mall art. I need time to process once a movie ends, so we didn’t discuss it until we’d settled into our next stop, just around the corner.
STOP 3: THE VILLAGER TAVERN
We hadn’t been at the Villager for three minutes when the bartender rang the bell and announced to the whole bar, which is basically a hallway with dartboards at the end, that it was Grace’s birthday. So we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Grace while the bartender presented her with a dog bowl full of draft beer. Such are the strange and wonderful traditions of dive bars.
The Villager opened in 1973, and if you’re wondering how many people have come and gone over the past 52 years, all you have to do is look at the walls, where yellowed photos of patrons take up every available inch of space.
Dom and I shared our take on the documentary over two-song sets by people who rolled in off the street with guitars on their backs, waiting for their turn to stand in front of the window and sing. Just as we were about to leave, the bartender took the mic and sang/cursed/scatted his way through “Sunny Side of the Street” and “All of Me.” Then he went right back to pulling beers, serving cups of chili and showing the college students with fake IDs to the door. ▼
Nashville’s Best Thai Street Food
Vodka Yonic, the personal essay column in Nashville Scene, features the voices of women and nonbinary writers, on topics ranging from the deeply serious to the delightfully everyday.
Now, The Porch and the Scene are partnering on a summer writing contest. Submit your original 800-word essay by July 25 for a chance to win $200, a free one-day Porch class, and publication in one of the August issues of Nashville Scene We welcome a wide range of voices and topics: TV, grief, sex, politics, fashion, and everything in between. Entry fee: $5. Pour your truth on the page—we’ll raise a glass to it.
Submissions open the week of 7/7
Submissions due 7/25
WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION
In its eighth year, Kindling Arts continues to challenge and inspire
BY AMY STUMPFL
AT A TIME when artists are battling funding crises and growing concerns over censorship and personal freedom, the simple act of creative expression can feel revolutionary. Perhaps that’s what makes Kindling Arts Festival such an essential part of Nashville’s arts community. Beyond offering an artistic home for some of the city’s most innovative makers, Kindling provides a vast array of practical support and resources — along with a deep commitment to each artist’s vision.
“Much of what we do at Kindling is the invisible labor of building the infrastructure that makes live performance possible,” says founding artistic director Jessika Malone. “Our work unburdens artists from the financial risks, administrative tasks and producing demands that can derail creative energy, so they can dream bigger, reach further and step into the spotlight with greater capacity and confidence.”
This year’s festival highlights 19 original projects — everything from dance and aerial acts to performance art and experimental theater. Taking place at eight venues throughout Nashville — including OZ Arts, Darkhorse Theater, Actors Bridge Studio and The Barbershop Theater, among others — it’s an ambitious program, digging into a wide range of issues surrounding queer identity, gun violence in schools, climate concerns and the carceral system.
“It’s an incredible lineup of work that makes room for celebration, reflection, critical dialogue and a brave envisioning of possible futures,” Malone says, noting the urgent need for art and community “at a time when we all have more questions than answers.”
Leading the charge is the delightfully irrev-
erent musical theater performance collective Amm Skellars, with I Saw Goody Proctor With the Devil at OZ Arts. Billed as a “feminist electro-pop reimagining of the Salem Witch Trials,” this engaging work takes on serious themes of patriarchy and religious oppression without losing sight of the group’s signature style and wit.
“We were pretty clear from the beginning that while this show is steeped in parody, we didn’t want to shy away from some of the deeper themes we’re trying to explore,” says Amm Skellars co-founder Hannah Dorfman. “So one of the main questions we were trying to answer in writing this piece is, ‘What are we faithful to?’ And what happens to the imagination when it’s confined to one’s internal world because of oppressive systems and structures? In looking at the actual testimony in Salem, it’s very colorful and imaginative — it has a lot to do with the adolescent discovery of desire, as these girls were operating under really deplorable conditions and strict religious hierarchies. And that all felt incredibly relevant to us today, especially in light of our current political climate.”
Dorfman says Goody Proctor embraces something of an arena spectacle, with large-scale projections, pop songs and cheeky dance numbers.
“This project is much bigger than anything we’ve done before,” she says. “But Kindling has been amazing — especially with all of the technical aspects of the show. We’re using the projections in a way that keeps everything kind of immersed in Salem 1692, while the songs feel really colorful, with characters opening themselves up to different ideas. We’re exploring what happens to these girls when their religious
systems conflict with a normal teenage way of being in the world. But it’s still very campy. And as they say, camp is the lie that tells the truth.”
Another Kindling performer — the Iranian-born American multidisciplinary artist IMGRNT — is similarly exploring some hard truths with his work. Expanding on last year’s Kindling debut, his War & Beat at Actors Bridge Studio offers a “boundary-defying allegory for the immigrant experience through the lens of alien invasion and occupation.” Balancing acid-techno and psychedelic trance music with striking visuals and theatricality, the piece challenges our understanding of immigrant communities, raising the question: “Who is an invader, who is a neighbor, and who gets to decide?”
IMGRNT says he originally visualized War & Beat as a music project, but quickly recognized the need for greater visual impact.
“I’ve always gravitated toward electronic music,” he says. “That’s generally what I listen to, and this style of music is represented in a lot of different immigrant communities. I also felt like this genre lends itself to the topics I’m discussing. I wanted it to sound provocative, and in-your-face and aggressive. But one of the biggest challenges in making electronic music is that you can have this symphony of sounds, but visually speaking, it’s just a person standing onstage with a laptop. So I wanted to come up with something much more dynamic, which could help convey the story on its own.”
The result is a darkly visceral, pulsating work that turns the standard alien invasion trope on its head.
“We’ve all seen the alien invasion story told
from the perspective of the humans,” he says. “But I wanted to look at it from the alien’s perspective. Not in some abstract, highbrow way, but very explicitly. And obviously, the current political climate has only reinforced what I’m doing. I started talking about the project with [Kindling] right when Trump had come back in power and the ICE raids were starting to happen, so I was thinking about it in those terms. Then the Iran-Israel War started, and I was like: ‘Wow, that completely changes what this means to me.’
“But in presenting myself in this IMGRNT persona, I wear a mask,” he adds. “Because it’s not all about me. It’s about the immigrant perspective as a whole. It’s about the justified anger that we’re seeing in so many of these communities. I’m really excited for the performance, and interested to see how audiences respond. And I’m so grateful to Kindling for believing in this kind of work. When I first brought the idea to them, there was no hesitation, no ‘Oh, that might be too controversial.’ It was just, ‘You have this crazy idea? Bring it!’ And that’s what we’ve done.” ▼
Kindling Arts Festival
July 24-27 at venues including OZ Arts, Darkhorse Theater, The Barbershop Theater, Actors Bridge Studio and more
AMM SKELLARS’ I SAW GOODY PROCTOR WITH THE DEVIL
Bluegrass on 3rd Presents WYATT ELLIS SHELLY FAIRCHILD with SPECIAL GUESTS
AVENUE with KRISTOPHER JAMES
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring DAVE BERG, SHANE STEVENS, JOSH PHILLIPS & MAE ESTES
RADIO 15th Year ANNIVERSARY SHOW!
JUMPERS Formerly of CHICAGO THE PLAYERS - featuring KEITH HOWLAND and JEFF COFFEY + ROB ARTHUR & ED TOTH PIPER & THE HARD TIMES, The Galaxie Agency & Beehive Love Present WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS featuring ALBERT CASTIGLIA, CHRIS "BAD NEWS" BARNES, SHAUN MURPHY, JIMMY HALL, ETTA BRITT, MISS JACKIE WILSON, MIKE FARRIS, LISA OLIVER-GRAY: A Concert to Benefit AL "PIPER" GREEN
w/ Heartbreaker, The Pretenders Xperience & Rhiannon WeTouchGrass presents: Anime Rave Sinker's 40th Birthday Jamboree w/ Off the Wagon Bluegrass & The Magi with Special Guests Ekoh w/ Arankai & Sierra Annie The rock & roll playhouse: Music of the beatles + More for kids (11:30Am)
Próxima Parada w/ Steph Strings (8PM)
brian dolzani as the loner: The music of neil young lucas vittore w/ special guest oliverance
MUSIC POCKET GUIDE
Daniel Villarreal holds the groove gently BY
SEAN L. MALONEY
DRUMMER DANIEL VILLARREAL is at the tailor when we get in touch with him. He’s running errands to get ready for touring, including picking up a vintage jacket he’s had taken in. It’s a brief moment before we get down to business, but this underlines the style that he’s brought to his two albums as bandleader, Panamá 77 and Lados B, two platters stacked with grooves and guided by the easy hand of the genuinely hip. These are not off-the-rack records, no fast fashion here — just a deep understanding of what makes grooves hum and percussion sing.
“It’s going to be kind of catching the beginning of something fresh,” Villarreal tells the Scene ahead of his show Friday at The Blue Room at Third Man Records. “I usually tour with a five-piece band. But I’m doing a trio version of my band, which is upright bass and electric bass, and also vibraphone and drums. [We’re] playing music from my two records, and then some new music also that I’m doing for the first time on the road.”
If your Cal Tjader-loving heart just skipped a beat, you’ve got a good sense of where this is going. These songs are exploratory in nature but grounded in melodicism, finding harmonic textures in the subtle use of each instrument’s natural decay and sustain. Villarreal’s drumming creates song spaces that allow other players to flourish, nudging the songs forward, keeping the pockets deep and uncrowded. The compositions are loose and natural, sliding above, between and around genre conventions while touching on several continents’ worth of sound.
“The thing is, being from Spanish descent and all this stuff, people think that you play Latin jazz or Latin music most of the time,” says Villarreal. “But it is not the case sometimes, because my background is mainly rock ’n’ roll and punk music and also psychedelic jazz. … I combine everything.”
As he works with his fellow players, Villarreal has plenty of ideas, but is wary of micromanaging. “I want the players that play with me to be themself,” he explains, “and I don’t want to infect their creativity and their own style by doing something totally written or totally on a sheet of paper.”
The results are solidly funky tracks that reside in that post-hip-hop mélange when Tony Allen and Chico Hamilton are cued up on opposite sides of the crossfader. The tunefulness in Villarreal’s percussion plays with ideas of global traditions and minimalist recontextualization of rhythmic discourse. To put it more succinctly: These drums are catchy as hell. These are singalong drums, steering-wheel-tapping drums.
“I love all the classics,” says Villarreal. “I like from Afrobeat to Coltrane, and I like all kinds of
styles of music from salsa to boogaloo. And then I also love punk rock and classic rock. It’s kind of like I try to mix it all in. … I add my own percussion, extra percussion, meaning besides drums. I add bells and congas, and I also have the players play some kind of percussion, even though they don’t play percussion. I give them some bells or some wood blocks and shakers because everybody has some rhythm in them.
“I like things that sound warm and familiar, and instead of going for a clean sound or going for too much of a pop sound, I like things to sound a little bit more organic,” he continues.
“I like tape machines and … I like to go through a Space Echo, analog tube amps — I like all that stuff. Then it’s kind of keeping integrity as much as I can of the organic takes, and makes it interesting for the audience.”
And while there may be a number of, ahem, analogs for this sound in midcentury music — João Palma’s work at CTI Records springs to mind, or Sly Dunbar at Channel One — it feels incredibly modern. That may be because we’re living in a new golden age of instrumental music. Khruangbin is playing amphitheaters, Glass Beams are stacking critical raves, and there are
GOT SOUL, IF YOU WANT IT
Omar brings his cool, progressive vision of R&B to Nashville
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
THIRTY YEARS AGO this summer, U.K. soul singer Omar went on his first major tour in the States. He was promoting his third album For Pleasure , released domestically by RCA — still technically a major label, but much more prominent at that time.
“The tour was very well-organized,” says the singer (government name: Omar Lye-Fook), now 56. He’s speaking on a Zoom call from Brighton. “I remember being on a tour bus, for one. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and it’s a very interesting experience, you know? Some people still didn’t know the music. They didn’t know me then. So it was kinda good getting around and educating people. But you’re telling me it was 30 years ago? Wow. That brought it back to me.”
What the born Londoner found most surprising was that, even though Pleasure was then a recent addition to U.S. record stores, his music was already building a fan base.
“L.A. was a place that surprised me in terms of how many people were big fans,” Omar remembers. “San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, I was up in Toronto. I was in Montreal as well. You know what I mean? So it was just good to get out of the U.K. and see how much love there was for the music.”
a dozen other bands bringing wordless vibes to the contemporary touring scene. And it makes sense: The appeal is in the humanity, the authentic human experience, of listening to other humans banging out some beautiful sounds.
“I never thought that drums can be in the front. I never thought a drummer can do this stuff, because people [are] expecting you to want to be busy and flashy and all this. So no, I keep it in the pocket and I have my moments. I can do a solo, but I bring it always back, because I want people first to feel good and dance or feel familiar.” ▼
Omar has become an artist whose music is essential to fans of cool, cult R&B. Even though some of his albums — including his best one, aptly titled Best by Far — are still unreleased in the States and unavailable on streaming platforms, he still has enough of a loyal North American audience to make him come around these parts and perform regularly. He makes another run through this great land this month, and Saturday he’ll be making his first visit to Nashville. In his 40-year career as a singing, scatting multi-instrumentalist, he has collaborated with many Black-music icons. Pleasure includes tunes written by legendary Motown songwriters Lamont Dozier and Leon Ware. He’s done duets with Erykah Badu and Angie Stone, and collabs with Common. Ol’ Dirty Bastard performed on a remix of one of his songs. And on his 2006 album Sing (If You Want It) , he crossed the ultimate item off his bucket list: performing alongside Stevie Wonder on one track.
Originally coming out of Talkin’ Loud Records, the soul/acid-jazz label founded by famed British DJ Gilles Peterson, Omar’s midtempo progressive soul stylings are sophisticated and nostalgic. Evoking ’70s R&B icons like Wonder and Marvin Gaye, he throws in everything from lush strings to slithery synthesizers to Afro-Carribean grooves and rhythms — a continual nod to his Jamaican roots. Omar has never veered away from his classy but funky, undeniably British style of Black music.
“I think I’ve just been stubborn and stuck to my goals, which was to create music that was distinctly mine,” he says. “So you listen to a bar of it, and you hear straight away that it’s Omar — and
Playing 8 p.m. Friday, July 25, at The Blue Room at Third Man Records
PHOTO: CASSIE SCOTT
I’ve stuck to that. And you know, here we are on the ninth album.”
The newly released Brighter the Days is Omar’s first release in eight years, since Love in Beats in 2017. What took so long?
“These albums take as long as they take,” he says. “Certain tracks would have been written from way before.”
Omar points to “Lovey Dovey,” on which he shares singing vocal duties with American indie-soul men Raheem DeVaughn and Eric Roberson.
“My brother [producer and DJ Scratch Professer] started the beats on that in 2007,” he says. Even though Omar released two albums during that time — Beats and 2013’s The Man — he held onto “Lovey Dovey,” finally giving it a home on Days “It wasn’t right for those two albums, but it was right for this one.”
Days also features appearances from Brit blueeyed-soul rocker Paul Weller, R&B queens India.Arie and Ledisi, rapper Jeru the Damaja, drummer Daru Jones, and — during the intro — Omar’s own twin daughters. With song titles that include “It’s Gonna Be Alright” and “There’s Much Love in the World,” you could say the album has Omar providing listeners with much-needed uplifting summertime soul to play
MUSIC: THE SPIN
MAXIMUM JOY
BY COLE VILLENA
ZAC FARRO, the Franklin-raised drumslinger who’s helped turn Paramore into one of Middle Tennessee’s most beloved exports, kicked off a new chapter in his solo career Saturday at The Blue Room at Third Man Records with the release show for Operator. The LP is Farro’s first under his own name, following five releases from his project halfnoise.
The perpetually hatted percussionist has played with a lot of different sonic textures in his work outside Paramore. Farro’s most recent halfnoise album, 2023’s City Talk, bears the slick influence of city pop, a sound first popular in Japan in the 1970s and ’80s, while the project’s 2014 debut Volcano Crowe draws from an abundance of contemporary indie pop. Sudden Feeling brought bombastic synth pop in 2016, while 2019’s Natural Disguise focused on garage rock. Motif came in 2021, and it shares perhaps the most DNA with Operator by nodding to 1970s soft rock. But where Motif embraces the massive, lush string arrangements of that genre, Operator seems to have been written with a smaller ensemble in mind. That means the songs sound great in a small-to-midsize venue like The Blue Room.
Joshua Crumbly opened the night. The Juilliard-educated bassist has shared the stage with titans such as Kamasi Washington and Ravi Coltrane. But for his first time performing in Nashville, he appeared with only his white Fender Precision Bass and a set of exceedingly mellow, mostly instrumental numbers.
Music City indie-scene standard-bearer Josh
during these dark times. Even the cover has Omar on his tippy-toes, Michael Jackson-style, taking in the sunny blue skies. Did Omar intend to make a musical salve for us wounded souls?
“I wasn’t thinking of a salve , as such,” he says with a laugh. “But definitely a lot of it was written during the time of the lockdowns and the pandemic, where we weren’t allowed to mingle. We weren’t allowed to perform. People couldn’t bury their loved ones. It was quite a depressing time.”
He credits songwriter Vanessa Simon, who wrote lyrics to six songs on Days , for coming up with the album title and its positive outlook.
“It’s kinda crazy to look back at what we were going through then. It was something that we needed to get through. And yeah, I think this album, like the album cover, shows that as well. You can see there with that glint of sunshine in the background; there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” ▼
Playing 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 26, at City Winery
Gilligan, whose debut full-length Party of One came out in January, played next. Farro worked closely with Gilligan on Operator, and it’s easy to hear why they fit together well. Many of Gilligan’s songs don’t just share musical DNA with Farro’s work but also hit on similar lyrical themes of striving to be better and fighting isolation and anxiety with community and understanding. “Turn the Lights Back On,” Gilligan cheerfully said, was about his “old friend, depression.”
Farro and his five-piece band — Gilligan on pedal steel and keys, Crumbly on bass, Brandon Combs on drums, Andy Catá on keys and Chancey Pierce on guitar — took their seats onstage at 9:40 p.m. Farro, for his part, nestled in between a set of congas and a drum machine as they began their front-to-back playthrough of Operator with the peppy titular song.
It was immediately clear that the night was about hanging out with great musicians having a great time playing together. Crumbly in particular flexed his musical muscles, abandoning the meditative vibes of his solo set to unleash bouncy, propulsive bass parts that laid down an undeniable ’70s groove. By “Second Chance,” the second song in the sequence, Farro was fighting himself to stay seated as his bandmates served up tasty fills and wide smiles to the sold-out crowd.
“Kind of a new adventure for me,” Farro said between songs. “I love this city, and I’m just thankful that y’all showed up to see the show.”
The next trio of tunes especially stood out, beginning with “1.” The song as recorded has plenty of danceable halfnoise DNA, but on Saturday, it was elevated by Gilligan’s falsetto backing vocals and the arrival of saxophonist David Williford to the stage. Then came “Simple Actions,” one of a few yacht-rock-tinged numbers from Operator. Farro took great pride in handing the spotlight over to Pierce for an electric guitar
outro solo before the guitarist switched to a 12-string for the next song.
“My My,” Operator’s lead single and arguably its strongest track, would sound at home in between songs by Marshall Tucker Band and Rod Stewart on a ’70s soft-rock station. The song sounded much like it did on the record, proving that you don’t need giant string arrangements to make a towering, memorable number in that genre.
Farro was so enamored with his bandmates’ performances during “Gold Days” that he first swiveled on his stool to face them head-on, then finally stood up to dance by song’s end. After “All I Really Want Now” — which once again waded deep into yacht-rock waters thanks to Catá’s swirling key textures — Farro and Gilligan sat cross-legged on the floor to take in the drum intro Combs played solo. Following album closer “I Need You,” the band bowed and took their exit, but the house lights stayed down.
As the audience waited the customary two
minutes or so for the band to return for an encore, an interesting question was posed. Farro had exhausted the supply of songs released by the artist “Zac Farro” throughout the night. What, then, would he play during the encore? When he returned to the stage, he gently let down Paramore fans who might have been hoping for a particular halfnoise song.
“I’m just going to warn you: This is a Zac Farro show,” he said. “We only have the one album. So, we’re going to run a couple back. No ‘Scooby’s in the Back’ today, sorry.”
The audience didn’t seem to mind repeat performances of “Gold Days” and “Operator.” Farro and company had already accomplished their mission of introducing the new album to the world, and all the encore had to do was bring us along for one final two-song dance party to remember. If the buzz among the crowd leaving The Blue Room was any indication, the operation was a success. ▼
PHOTO: KRISTEN DRUM
SMOOTH OPERATOR: ZAC FARRO
Thursday, July 24
HATCH SHOW PRINT
Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Saturday, July 26
SONGWRITER SESSION
Gary Nicholson NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, July 26
POETS AND PROPHETS
Dennis Morgan
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Sunday, July 27
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Buddy Miller
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Friday, August 1
BOOK TALK Barry Mazor
Discusses the Everly Brothers 11:00 am
TAYLOR SWIFT EDUCATION CENTER
WITNESS HISTORY
Local Kids Always Visit
Saturday, August 2
SONGWRITER
COMING IN HOT
Oh,
Hi! is a tone-shifting take on commitment-phobia
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...
Mario’s ”Let Me Love You.”
up some witchcraft in the hopes that Isaac will forget all of this. Brooks eventually knocks off the preposterousness and gets sincere, as the commitment-phobic Isaac starts getting a bit Stockholm Syndrome-y, wondering if he’s just as broken (and brokenhearted) as his captor.
THERE SEEMS TO BE a trend this year of cinematic love stories in which someone holds their beloved against their will. Earlier this year, the sci-fi survival flick Companion saw Jack Quaid strapping his significant other Sophie Thatcher to a chair when she finds out she’s a killer android. We also had Samara Weaving as a pop star trying to escape Ray Nicholson’s obsessive, matrimony-seeking stalker in the tongue-incheek thriller Borderline. (I’m assuming Alison Brie and Dave Franco will also engage in some extreme bondage in their upcoming elevated horror show Together. Stay tuned for our review of that one next week.)
As much as Oh, Hi! wants to be a less flamboyant, gender-swapped Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, it owes more to All About Steve — the stinker featuring Sandra Bullock as an annoying single gal who goes on a bizarre hero’s journey that makes even the guy she’s been stalking (a pre-A-list Bradley Cooper) bow in respect.
And now we have a bit of screwy suspense with Oh, Hi!, a movie where someone gets chained to a bed. But this time around, it’s a dude who finally gets his!
You might go in thinking Oh, Hi! is a dark comedy in which a fed-up, unstable gal goes Misery on a man who sees her more as a side piece than the love of his life. Right from the jump, writer-director Sophie Brooks makes viewers think there’s something not right with this coupling. The first 30 minutes is all lovey-dovey and full of affection as the pair drives to their destination, adorably singing ”Islands in the Stream” together. But Brooks throws in some glitches, like Iris and Isaac having a brief but heated spat over a town name on a welcome sign. (Isaac says it’s High Falls, but Iris says it’s O’High Falls — hence the title.) It had me thinking we were actually seeing everything from Iris’ rose-colored perspective, and we’d eventually flash back to how the day really went down.
Oh, Hi! is a hot-ass mess of a movie, coming to a surprisingly sensible stop after 90 or so minutes of awkward, tone-shifting fuckery. But Brooks and Gordon have too much compassion for their troubled but well-meaning protagonist to dismiss her as a textbook batshit stereotype. For them, Oh, Hi! goes out to all the women who — as Big Mouth’s Hormone Monstress would say — love big and love hard. They just expect whoever they’re with to do the same. ▼
At some point, Brooks must’ve had a change of heart, deciding to give her loopy antiheroine a redemption arc. Sure, Iris displays a lot of outta-pocket behavior. (Much like her Shiva Baby co-star Rachel Sennott, Gordon doesn’t mind portraying a neurotic, narcissistic nut onscreen.) But we soon learn that she’s actually the least crazy person in her friend group.
Star/producer Molly Gordon (The Bear, Theater Camp) is Iris, the gal who does the restraining during a weekend road trip to a countryside vacation home with her boyfriend (Logan Lerman). At least, she thinks he’s her boyfriend. After some steamy, prop-enhanced lovemaking, Iris uses the C-word — that’s couple — and the still-shackled Isaac informs her that this ain’t serious. This sends Iris into panic mode, leaving Isaac chained up so she can spend the next 12 hours convincing him how great they’d be together. This mostly involves Googling solutions, making some disgusting-looking French toast, and re-creating a childhood talent-show dance routine set to
Scared that Isaac will call the cops once he’s freed, Iris calls her bestie Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) for a solution. She and her doltish boyfriend Kevin (John Reynolds) show up at the house and willingly implicate themselves in this accidental kidnapping. They even conjure
Oh, Hi! R, 94 minutes Opening Friday, July 25, at the Belcourt and Regal and AMC locations
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6 First word of “Jabberwocky”
10 Grps. that are often inactive in the summer
14 Frida who portrayed her chronic pain through art
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16 The best of the best
17 Acrobat developer
18 “You’re in on this?”
20 Tattle on ... or an instruction for answering 22-Across
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30 Like the tail of a stegosaurus
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48 They keep the wheels turning
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51 Part of a beer name ... or an instruction for answering 53-Across
53 Certain clergy member
55 In no way
57 Orderly display
60 For all time
61 Podcaster’s need
62 Witherspoon of “Little Fires Everywhere”
63 Forms a union
64 Rock climber
65 Temporary store DOWN
1 Stefani Germanotta ___ Lady Gaga
2 “That’s very unfortunate”
3 Weight measurement commonly known by only its second part
4 North ___, N.Y. (home of Lake Placid)
5 Simple exercise often done while standing
6 Country that hosts more intl. students than any other
7 Like Hawaii, among the 50 states
8 Secondary social media acct.
9 Self-congratulatory
10 Silent marching band position
11 Trumpeted
12 Upfront payments
13 Person it should be impossible to surprise
19 Intermediary
21 Nail polish brand with the shade I Just Can’t Cope-acabana
23 Bakery purchase
24 When Elphaba sings “Defying Gravity” in “Wicked”
26 Like a dog in the middle of a bath
29 Creates some opportunities
31 The Cavaliers, on scoreboards
33 “Fulcrum” sculptor Richard
35 Begins to feel real
36 ___ Gonçalo, Brazil
38 Activity for many H.S. juniors
39 Singer Cruz with the 2010 hit “Dynamite”
40 Teensy
42 Stuntperson’s twowheeler
45 Each
46 F equivalent
47 Had the wheel
49 Makeup of some gloves and paint
51 From the start
52 Prefix with sweet or soft
54 Commercial item sometimes advertised as “twistable”
56 Chest guard
58 Sun Devils’ sch.
59 “Okey-dokey”
wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.
44 Heavily inked
2025, the Davidson County Sher-
iff’s Department will offer to sale to the highest bidder, for cash, the interest of Charles J. Fenton, in the following real property located at 2647 Delk Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37208, Map/Parcel 081 - 100-048.00 (the “Property”) and described as follows:
Legal Description: The Property is described in the Quitclaim Deed dated April 28, 2021, of record at Instrument No. 202106080076678, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee. Street Address: The street address of the Property is believed to be 2647 Delk Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37208, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description herein sha ll control.
Land in Davidson County, Tennessee, being Lot No. 44 on the revised plan of Normal Heights –Section 2, as of record in Book 2330, page 54, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, to which plan reference is hereby made for a more complete and a ccurate legal description.
Being the same property conveyed to Charles J. Felton by the Quitclaim Deed dated April 28, 2021, of record at Instrument No. 20210608-0076678, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee.
August 21, 2025, on the steps of the historic Davidson County Courthouse, 1 Public Square, Nashville, Tennessee 37201, the Sheriff will sell the above property for payment toward said judgment together with all expenses a nd legal costs accruing.
TERMS OF SALE: Cash, Certified Check, Receipt on Judgment from Plaintiff, or credit of not less than 6 months. Pursuant to Sale Order: bidding will start at $116,650.00, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 265-115; high bidder will be required to execute a written sale agreement at conclusion of bidding; Plaintiff is allowed to credit bid; redemption rights and equity of redemption are waived, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8-101(2); the sale shall be approved and confirmed by the Davidson County General Sessions Court, the Court which issued the process directing this Sale; and the Sheriff shall provide the deed described at Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8-111 after entry of the order of confirmation of the sale and after confirmation of payment to Plaintiff.
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NOTICE OF SHERIFF’S SALE OF REAL PROPERTY
By virtue of an execution and Levy issued by the General Sessions Court of Davidson County, Tennessee, in 611 Live Life Lane, LLC, Plaintiff, vs. Charles J. Fenton, Defendant, Davidson County General Sessions Court Docket No. 24GT8149, as well as that Order Directing the Davidson County Sheriff to Conduct Judicial Sale of Real Property entered on April 25, 2025, the Davidson County Sheriff’s Department will offer to sale to the highest bidder, for cash, the interest of Charles J. Fenton, in the following real property located at 2647 Delk Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37208, Map/Parcel 081 - 100-048.00 (the “Property”) and described as follows:
Legal Description: The Property is described in the Quitclaim Deed dated April 28, 2021, of record at Instrument No. 202106080076678, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee. Street Address: The street address of the Property is believed to be 2647 Delk Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37208, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description herein sha ll control. Land in Davidson County, Tennessee, being Lot No. 44 on the revised plan of Normal Heights –Section 2, as of record in Book 2330, page 54, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, to which plan reference is hereby made for a more complete and a ccurate legal description.
This sale is made pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.07(4) and Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-5-101, et. seq. and is in satisfaction (whole or in part depending on amount of sale) of the judgment in favor of 611 Live Life Lane, LLC by that Judgment dated September 3 0, 2024, in the original base amount of $23,526.11, plus all post - judgment interest since the entry of the Judgment, sale expenses and costs, and court costs.
All property is sold “as is.” No warranties or guarantees are made, expressed or implied.
Other interested parties receiving notice: Metropolitan Development Housing Agency; Samaroo Development Group; Robert Reed f/u/b State Farm; American Heritage, Inc.
At 9:00 o’clock A.M., on Thursday, August 21, 2025, on the steps of the historic Davidson County Courthouse, 1 Public Square, Nashville, Tennessee 37201, the Sheriff will sell the above property for payment toward said judgment together with all expenses a nd legal costs accruing.
TERMS OF SALE: Cash, Certified Check, Receipt on Judgment from Plaintiff, or credit of not less than 6 months. Pursuant to Sale Order: bidding will start at $116,650.00, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 265-115; high bidder will be required to execute a written sale agreement at conclusion of bidding; Plaintiff is allowed to credit bid; redemption rights and equity of redemption are waived, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8-101(2); the sale shall be approved and confirmed by the Davidson County General Sessions Court, the Court which issued the process directing this Sale; and the Sheriff shall provide the deed described at Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-8-111 after entry of the order of confirmation of the sale and after confirmation of payment to Plaintiff.
As of July 1, 2025, notices pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 35-5- 101 et seq. are posted online at www. https://foreclosuretennessee.com by a third-party internet posting company. Questions related to the sale or the underlying debt can be addressed to: David Anthony, attorney for judgment creditor, at: Exo Legal PLLC; P.O. Box 121616, Nashville, Tennessee 37212; 615 -869-0634; david@exolegal.com. THIS 17th day of July, 2025.
By: Davidson County Sheriff For Publication in and on: The Nashville Scene: July 17, 2025; July 24, 2025; July 31, 2025
Amazon.com Services LLC seeks candidates for the following (multiple positions available) in Nashville, TN. Apply at: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ , referencing job ID (3018900): Program Manager II (Job ID: 3018900). Identify, design, develop, implement, and execute new and existing processes, policies, goals, and solutions to ensure optimal customer experience related to fulfillment solutions. Drive development efforts and manage priorities for project/program completion, including operational solutions. Domestic and/or international travel up to 25% to perform role responsibilities may be required.
Health Assurance Sr. Scientist. Work with local health team to implement Health Assurance Program that protects PIC supply chain and customers’ herds.
Employer: PIC USA, Inc. Job location: Hendersonville, TN HQ, with 35% domestic/5% int’l travel to client sites required. Employee may reside anywhere in the U.S. Salary range: $115 – 135K. Email CV to Mary Blake, PIC USA, Inc., mary.blake@genusplc.com, with Job Code 2025-12359.
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Being the same property conveyed to Charles J. Felton by the Quitclaim Deed dated April 28, 2021, of record at Instrument No. 20210608-0076678, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee. This sale is made pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.07(4) and Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-5-101, et. seq. and is in satisfaction (whole or in part depending on amount of sale) of the judgment in favor of 611 Live Life Lane, LLC by that Judgment dated September 3 0, 2024, in the original base amount of $23,526.11, plus all post - judgment interest since the entry of the Judgment, sale expenses and costs, and court costs. All property is sold “as is.” No warranties or guarantees are made, expressed or implied. Other interested parties receiving notice: Metropolitan Development Housing Agency; Samaroo Development Group; Robert Reed f/u/b State Farm; American Heritage, Inc. At 9:00 o’clock A.M., on Thursday, August 21, 2025, on the steps of the historic Davidson County Courthouse,
As of July 1, 2025, notices pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 35-5- 101 et seq. are posted online at www. https://foreclosuretennessee.com by a third-party internet posting company.
Questions related to the sale or the underlying debt can be addressed to: David Anthony, attorney for judgment creditor, at: Exo Legal PLLC; P.O. Box 121616, Nashville, Tennessee 37212; 615 -869-0634; david@exolegal.com. THIS 17th day of July, 2025.
