CORECIVIC REOPENING
WEST TENNESSEE PRISON FOR ICE
DETAINEES
>> PAGE 7
Music City’s male revues look to cement their place in the city
BY HANNAH HERNER
MUSIC: DANIEL DONATO PREPARES FOR HIS MOTHER CHURCH DEBUT
>> PAGE 29 FILM: DEFY FILM FESTIVAL TURNS 10
>> PAGE 32
This Mex Tex brand suede jacket, embellished with fringe, cowhide yoke overlay, and conchos, was worn by Dwight Yoakam in the 1986 music video for his debut single and breakout hit “Honky Tonk Man.”
From the exhibit Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock, presented by City National Bank, closing September 16. RESERVE TODAY
CoreCivic Reopening West Tennessee Prison for ICE Detainees
Following a heated town meeting, one elected representative is calling for an investigation into the conduct of other officials BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
Rep. Andy Ogles Owes $120K to Several D.C. Firms
Niche legal defense account shows nine months of unpaid bills, adding to congressman’s financial woes BY ELI
MOTYCKA
Street View: Downtown Homelessness and a New Business Improvement District
New legislation expands the Central Business Improvement District to cover the Gulch. Homeless service providers are concerned. BY LENA MAZEL
COVER STORY
Hunky-Tonk Angels
Music City’s male revues look to cement their place in the city BY HANNAH HERNER
Bully, Seven Samurai, Joshua Ray Walker, Chris Crofton, Astronomy on Tap and more
Low Point
The winner of our first Vodka Yonic Writing Contest says it’s hard to rise from the bottom BY KORY WELLS
Back on the Road
Super Duper
At SuperNormal, Robbie Wilson and Emily Perry Wilson dole out happy meals for Sylvan Park BY KAY WEST
BOOKS
Taking a Stab
Killer Nashville is a one-stop shop for authors of all kinds BY LOGAN BUTTS
Sweet Lizzy Project’s new album is a bold reflection on their journey so far BY P.J. KINZER
Stars Align
Daniel Donato prepares for his Mother Church debut BY MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
A Decade of Defy
Nashville’s one-of-a-kind celebration of extraordinary cinema turns 10 BY JOE NOLAN
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD MARKETPLACE
CORRECTION:
In an article in last week’s issue (“CoreCivic Is Facing Hundreds of Lawsuits,” Aug. 14, 2025), the Scene ran a photo of CoreCivic’s former headquarters on Burton Hills Boulevard in Brentwood. The company relocated from that building in 2019. We apologize for the error.
ON THE COVER:
Music City Gents; photo by Hamilton Matthew Masters
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Following a heated town meeting, one elected representative is calling for an investigation into the conduct of other officials
BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
FOLLOWING A HEATED public meeting that ended in confusion, a West Tennessee CoreCivic prison is reopening to house federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
The Aug. 12 meeting of the Mason Board of Mayor and Aldermen was called to vote on a contract between the town of Mason and private prison operator CoreCivic, and another between the town and ICE. The meeting drew around 100 people to Mason, Tenn.’s fire station, an overflow space across from the town hall, although only a few dozen members of the public were allowed inside the building. Attendees were wanded with a metal detector by Mason police, who provide public safety to a town of fewer than 1,500 residents.
A group of protesters, some from across the state, chanted outside the building for around two hours. At times, members of the public inside the building chanted along as well, drowning out the remarks of elected officials who shared a microphone and a small speaker inside the sweltering metal building.
Mason Mayor Eddie Noeman made an economic argument for reopening the prison, pitching some 240 job opportunities and hundreds of thousands of dollars of increased revenue for the small town. He dismissed public concerns about the potential for human rights abuses by both CoreCivic and ICE amid a national immigration crackdown.
“At the end of the day, we are trying to care about our citizens, about [our] city — there’s nothing personal about any immigrant,” Noeman said, noting that he is an Egyptian American immigrant.
Noeman appeared to grow more agitated throughout the meeting as he faced angry protesters, at times engaging in arguments with attendees — some of whom were not Mason residents. Several aldermen acknowledged that the room had few familiar faces.
Several people issued public comments, in-
Niche legal defense account shows nine months of unpaid bills, adding to congressman’s financial woes
BY ELI MOTYCKA
cluding a Mason man who said he worked at the prison when it previously operated in the 1990s. The man said he was underpaid his promised wage, saying, “All money ain’t good money. … When you talk about what’s good for the town — that prison ain’t ever been good for the town.”
Another man said his son died in a CoreCivic prison three years ago, calling it a “death trap.”
CoreCivic lobbyist Jerry Lankford addressed the crowd, saying, “The facility will operate with strong oversight and accountability from our government partners, meaning that our government partners will have a presence at that facility while we’re operating, including regular audits and on-site monitors.”
“Both our company and the government partners share a deep commitment to humane care,” said Lankford. “Our top priority is the safety of the people in our care, our staff and the community.”
The West Tennessee Detention Facility is located just one mile from where the meeting took place, and has “remained idled” since it closed in 2021 — it has not housed inmates since that time, but is maintained by CoreCivic. Following the meeting, CoreCivic public affairs manager Brian Todd told reporters the prison operator has already received 2,100 applications for jobs at the facility.
The agreement to reopen the prison passed the board 4-1, with two abstentions. When asked about the outcome of the ICE vote, Noeman said that — despite leading the meeting, calling for the vote and gaveling out the meeting — he didn’t know the outcome. Noeman seemingly grew agitated when asked if he should know the outcome of items the body just voted on, pointing to the town’s recorder a few feet away before leaving the building.
The recorder confirmed the results of the vote despite apparent attempts from a Mason police officer to stop the press from asking about the results. The ICE agreement was initially re-
corded as failing 3-2 with two abstentions. After the meeting, according to the mayor and several aldermen, the item passed in a 3-2-2 vote, with Noeman saying the error and correction were explained to the board by Nathan Bicks, whom Noeman referred to as a “city attorney.”
“With my partner David Goodman, we represent the town, and our job is to make sure that if the town chooses to enter into these relationships, that the town [is] protected to the maximum extent,” Bicks said during the meeting.
When Scene sister publication the Nashville Post reached out to Bicks for clarification on the misunderstanding, Bicks said he doesn’t represent the town and declined to offer any clarification on the confusion surrounding the vote. Bicks has not returned additional requests for comment or provided any additional information. According to his firm Burch, Porter and Johnson, Bicks is the town attorney for Collierville, located 35 miles south of Mason.
The agreement with ICE was ultimately approved, but longtime Alderman Virginia Rivers raised concerns about not receiving the final CoreCivic contracts until arriving at the Aug. 12 meeting. Noeman said the final contracts were largely identical to contracts the board had received in March, but acknowledged that they did include updated information. As of this writing, those contracts have not been made available to the public online or provided to the Scene or Post
“We never got [the March] contracts back to know what was changed, and we never got ICE’s contract [before Aug. 12],” Rivers said, noting that Bicks said attorneys had just completed a review of the contract prior to the meeting.
Rivers also said she believed the ICE vote had
failed before later finding out that it had passed — confusion that was echoed by other aldermen. Rivers alleged that Noeman was “coercing” Vice Mayor Reynaldo Givhan to support the measures, with Givhan voting for the CoreCivic contract and abstaining from the ICE contract.
Rivers also alleged that the mayor and vice mayor, along with Alderman Alethea Harris, violated state open-meetings laws when they left the room and went outside in a gated area — where, Rivers said, they were discussing the agenda items.
“They were out there so long that I got up to see what was going on,” Rivers said. “When I got out there, those three, along with the CoreCivic guys, were holding a conversation about voting and talking about the contract, out there. That was illegal.”
Rivers said she hopes the meeting is investigated. Noeman denied that the group was conducting business, as did Givhan — who told the Post he stepped out to get some fresh air, collect his thoughts and pray, and that other board members came to check on him.
Next steps and details about the reopening of the prison are unclear at this time.
On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee issued a press release demanding that Mason “immediately stop all actions related to contracts” with CoreCivic and ICE. The ACLU argues that the board did not follow the town’s charter, which requires a majority vote to pass an item.
The ACLU is seeking confirmation that the ICE contract was not illegally approved, with ACLU of Tennessee interim executive director Phyllida Burlingame calling for “transparency and accountability.” ▼
U.S. REP. ANDY OGLES of Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District has accrued more than $120,000 in unpaid legal bills since October, continuing the money woes that have dogged the Republican congressman since he took office in 2022. The bills, owed to four separate D.C.area law firms, are ledger items on a special-purpose account opened by Ogles on Oct. 1, 2024, under congressional rules and governed by Tennessee law.
The House of Representatives’ Ethics Committee allows for legal defense funds where members can fundraise and spend for matters related to legal costs incurred by their office. Ogles has faced FEC violations
and investigations into campaign finances since being elected.
Last summer, during the previous presidential administration, the FBI executed a search warrant against Ogles. Federal prosecutors dropped their investigation into Ogles in January, days after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump. Early this year, a House Congressional Ethics panel further questioned a personal loan declared by Ogles on prior Federal Election Commission filings.
Ogles’ newly minted fund, the “Andy Ogles Legal Expense Trust,” accumulated $120,498.75 in legal bills
between Oct. 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, all of which remains unpaid as of the most recent publicly available financial documents. The account owes $88,290 to firm Earth & Water Law LLC; $6,932.50 to Compass Legal Group; $5,376.25 to Holtzman Vogel; and $17,000 to Secil Law. Transaction details indicate Ogles solicited legal counsel from Holtzman Vogel and Secil Law on back-to-back days in May. An additional $3,000 is owed to political strategist and former Maryland Republican Party comptroller James Appel’s GOP Compliance.
Records show Ogles initially sought to create a legal defense trust as early as May 2024. Ogles formally requested approval for the trust on Aug. 19, 2024, amid an FBI investigation that included the confiscation of communication records and his cellphone. Ogles named Appel as the account’s trustee last year.
“The report’s public, so you can see the numbers right there,” Appel tells the Scene in a brief phone call in which he confirms his position as trustee of Ogles’ account.
Appel explains further that, as trustee, he is in an accounting role and not responsible for raising money or providing funds for the trust.
While Ogles’ trust documents are public record, legal defense trusts are among the few government records not available online. Instead, they must be obtained in person in Washington, D.C. The Scene received copies of the trust records, transaction details and an incomplete trust agreement signed between Ogles and Appel, and independently verified the documents through an additional source. In both cases, Ogles’ trust agreement on file — initially signed in October 2024 and revised on Dec. 3, 2024 — includes only odd-numbered pages, indicating a possible filing error from his office that additionally violates reporting requirements.
“I understand that I will be bound by the Committee’s Legal Expense Fund Regulations, effective May 1, 2024, and that while the Trustee will oversee the Trust, I bear ultimate responsibility for the proper administration of the Trust,” reads Ogles’ request to Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi and ranking member Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania.
Ogles joins Florida’s embattled Rep. Kat Cammack, a fellow Republican, as the only members of Congress who opened such accounts this session. ▼
New legislation expands the Central Business Improvement District to cover the Gulch. Homeless service providers are concerned.
BY LENA MAZEL
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
IN JULY, METRO COUNCIL discussions about expanding downtown Nashville’s Central Business Improvement District struck a familiar theme.
BL2025-846, a bill from District 19 Councilmember Jacob Kupin, aims to combine the Central Business Improvement District (CBID) with the Gulch Business Improvement District (the GBID), creating one streamlined area managed by the Nashville Downtown Partnership. Both business improvement districts offer services like litter and trash removal, landscaping, district programming and safety patrols for property owners within their boundaries, funded by additional tax and a fee of 0.25 percent on certain retail transactions. The biggest concern for many locals was the CBID’s relationship with unhoused people downtown.
During the bill’s public comment period, NDP representatives and community partners talked about outreach efforts: helping local organizations give out meals and clothes and connecting people to supportive services. Isaiah Henderson, an outreach worker for NDP, said the organization helped him get back on his feet. “I stand here today not just as a supporter but as some-
one whose life was changed,” he said. “I was homeless, I was hopeless, and they found me.”
But a long line of people also came to speak in opposition of combining the CBID and the GBID, and they told a different story about the Nashville Downtown Partnership’s relationship to unhoused people. Many referenced NDP’s security contractor Solaren, which has allegedly forcibly removed people from downtown streets. District 6 resident Barbara Thomas called them a “shadow police force that targets our most vulnerable neighbors.”
Despite these comments, the BID merger passed 29-6, with a few amendments addressing community concerns. Now some organizations say the way Nashville Downtown Partnership interacts with vulnerable people needs to change.
“We have journeyed with folks throughout the years that always say the same thing — they are continually told to move along, they’ve been kicked awake by officers where they were sleeping, their belongings were pressure washed,” says India Pungarcher, associate director of advocacy at Open Table Nashville, a homeless outreach and advocacy organization. Pungarcher stresses that the people experiencing this behavior often aren’t violent or disruptive. “There’s not necessarily a precipitating event. It’s just there are people in an area that is inconvenient for tourists and the businesses downtown.”
Solaren has been the subject of a few recent controversies. In May, an anonymous whistleblower told WSMV that Solaren instructed employees to arrest unhoused people but leave rowdy tourists alone. In March, the group went before a judge for having their security guards wear police badges. And in 2024, Solaren arrested 10 people after new federal laws made camping on state property a felony.
Kupin, whose district includes downtown Nashville, sponsored the legislation combining the BIDs. He tells the Scene he took action after the felony anti-camping arrests. “To me, that was indicative of a problem and we solved it, because we shouldn’t be felony arresting people for trying to exist,” he says.
Overall, Kupin says security downtown isn’t about targeting a specific group, but instead targeting behaviors that make people feel unsafe. “I try to separate someone’s housing status from their behavior,” he says.
Downtown serves as a hub for many resources and also connects many of Nashville’s bus routes. This includes temp services with pickup spots and offices downtown. “There are a lot of people who work downtown who are experiencing homelessness,” says Pungarcher. Many of these people work in construction, she says: “They’re quite literally building the buildings downtown, and then they have nowhere to sleep at night.”
According to Open Table, making downtown better for everyone isn’t a problem that can be solved by more policing. “We’re spending millions of dollars trying to police our way out of very deep economic and social issues,” Pungarcher says.
In an email to the Scene, Nashville Downtown Partnership’s marketing and communications
manager Alexis Bell highlights NDP’s overall efforts to keep downtown “clean, safe, active and attractive through clean and safe services, marketing and communications and economic development.”
NDP does invest in outreach programs. Bell highlights their outreach team, “a four-person team who engage daily with individuals to connect them with a variety of services and resources (voluntary rehabilitation, temporary or permanent housing and employment opportunities) with more than 6,000 connections in 2024 and the first third of 2025.” NDP did not respond to the Scene’s question about whether they would invest some of their funding in affordable housing in the future.
Nashville’s 2025 point-in-time count — an annual one-night estimate of people experiencing homelessness — put the number at 2,180 people on Jan. 23. This was up 4.1 percent since January 2024. While the city has taken steps to offer more supportive housing, nonprofits have also criticized Metro’s Office of Homeless Services for a lack of transparency. And overall, people will continue to experience housing insecurity if housing isn’t affordable.
“We have to be honest as a city,” Pungarcher says. “We don’t have enough resources … so just bringing an outreach worker online or having their presence can only go so far if there aren’t housing units or resources on the other end of that outreach worker interaction to connect people to.”
The Nashville Banner previously reported that NDP’s contract with Solaren is up for renewal in April of next year. While NDP did not respond to the Scene’s question about whether they would renew that contract, NDP chief operating officer Ben Simpson told the Banner in March that it’s not out of the question that they would consider other providers.
A number of amendments to Kupin’s bill addressed community feedback, including more financial transparency and an established grievance process for people interacting with security personnel. District 7 Councilmember Emily Benedict proposed an amendment that would set aside parts of NDP’s budget for an affordable housing fund, but that amendment did not make it into the final version of the bill.
Kupin says nearly all the constituents he spoke to were “happy and supportive” with the efforts of the bid, but he also recognizes that there’s still work to do.
“Anyone who lives in my district is a constituent, whether they have a home or not,” says Kupin. “I think it’s really important that the message gets out that I’m not just thinking about the rich business owners. To me, [downtown] is about the unhoused individuals, the people that live there, and the people that work there. We are working really hard to take care of everybody, and that work will continue.”
In the meantime, more resources can’t come soon enough. “Many of us are worried that we’re on the precipice of a new wave of mass homelessness and mass evictions,” Pungarcher says. “Our friends on the streets are feeling that.” ▼
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CHESTNUT HILL
BY HANNAH HERNER
PHOTOS BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
FEW PEOPLE ARE more qualified to be a Ranch Hand than Patrick Tanski.
By day, Tanski is a ranch hand who works on a farm outside Nashville rescuing and taming wild mustangs and Western pleasure horses. By night, he takes the stage with Ranch Hands Cowboylesque — a twice-weekly show at Cannery Hall — as a Ranch Hand of the male-revue variety.
He wears the same outfit for all of it: a cutoff flannel and jeans.
A former Chippendales performer, Tanski found the gig while searching for “ranch hand jobs in Nashville.” It was kismet.
While tourists aren’t exceedingly likely to find a man who works in agriculture for a living while they’re out for a night in downtown Nashville, the Ranch Hands fulfill the fantasy.
“When girls come to Nashville, they want to see cowboys, because that’s the whole aura of
the city,” Tanski tells the Scene. “They’re thinking country music and cowboys.”
That’s why the Chippendales had one of its dancers ride a horse down Broadway in June (with the help of a family of horse trainers) to signal the 1979-founded male revue’s grand entrance to Music City — and its first residency outside Las Vegas. Chippendales’ “Nashville Experience” has set up shop at the Hard Rock Cafe on Lower Broad.
Very “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.”
LOCAL MALE REVUE Music City Gents, on the other hand, is a little more Ginuwine’s “Pony.”
Music City Gents operates out of a building on Trimble Street in Chestnut Hill. And for founder Adam Visbeen — who first entered the male-revue scene back in 2017 — the cowboy trope is limiting.
“I never wanted to be full cowboy,” he explains. “I don’t think Nashville is cowboy. I don’t think we’re very much that cowboy culture at all. But I do understand that these girls think it is.”
The serial entrepreneur previously ran transpotainment company Nashville Party Barge. He also ran a now-defunct scooter tour business. When Visbeen left active military duty
in 2017, he bought a house in Germantown. He lived in the garage, showered at the local YMCA and used his new house as a short-term rental. With the money he saved, he launched Music City Gents.
“I stuffed flyers in my back pockets, put my cowboy hat in the back of my shirt, and I rode down to Broadway after work on Friday [on a scooter] and handed flyers out till, I don’t know, midnight,” Visbeen says. “Then Saturday morning, I knew exactly where every party bus, pedal tavern, party anything was happening, and I would just walk Broadway like Terminator, looking for girls in bachelorette attire and talking to them.”
Visbeen says that by his fourth year in business, he did $1 million in sales thanks to word-ofmouth marketing.
Visbeen has applied the work ethic he developed while in the military to grow his business — so much so that his dancers can rely on Music City Gents for full-time income. But he’s also a retired dancer himself. He was an extra in 2015’s Magic Mike XXL, and during filming he befriended dancers from famous Dallas strip club LaBare. For a time, he even flew in from Fort Campbell, where he was stationed, to dance at LaBare on weekends. (At one point he learned
to juggle fire, but the Nashville Fire Department put a stop to that when he tried it at Music City Gents.)
These days, Visbeen manages the business — running his Airbnb, managing party buses and even driving a shuttle bus. Even so, during a recent show, a joke about Visbeen coming out of dance retirement garnered some of the loudest screams of the night.
JOINING THE SCENE in 2021, Lexy Burke’s operation Ranch Hands is the PG-13, pants-stay-on answer to the Gents’ raunchy shadow-humping and mild flogging.
“I wanted to do something that was more Nashville and more approachable,” says Burke. “We have 90th birthdays at the Ranch and things that get sexy, but not like where you’re scared.”
Burke’s journey also began with an Airbnb aimed at bachelorette groups — bachelorettes who often asked her what to do in town. Inspired by the success of Paramount’s popular neo-Western Yellowstone and using her background in film and theater, Burke wrote the Ranch Hands script. And yes, there is a script — and a plot, singing and comedy, unlike what you’ll find at most male-revue offerings. She
used the money from her rental property to start the show, and later used the profits from Ranch Hands to found White Velvet Wedding Chapel. Burke does something relatively new in the male-revue space — offering some body diversity.
“This is just a part-time gig for these guys,” she points out. “Just having them be able to keep up stamina-wise was all I really cared about. I don’t want it to be having all these meatheads on stage. That’s not relatable.”
The host of the show, Blake Rackley, describes himself as more of a “Chris Farley doing Chippendales” offering. And he gets as many or more dollars stuffed in his pockets as the rest of the cast.
Tanski, the former Chippendale now at Ranch Hands, loves that he’s able to keep a beard and his chest hair, leave a few weeks between haircuts and even sport a slight farmer’s tan. It adds to the character.
“I’m Italian, I’m a hairy guy — me taking the time out of my week to shave my chest is a lot of time, and just having to keep up with the maintenance is a lot of work,” Tanski says of Chippendales’ rigorous grooming requirements. “Honestly, in my experience, I get the same reaction here now, looking the way that I do, as I did when I was smooth as a dolphin and just had to be jacked and ripped.”
Unlike the homegrown shows that can make their own rules and forge their own path, Chippendales has a 40-plus-year legacy to uphold. That rigidity translates to polish onstage. And that’s not to mention the real working onstage shower, a motorcycle that’s brought into the act and a bevy of coordinating themed outfits.
Childhood best friends Jon Jones and Zac Trautman, now Nashville Chippendales, previously worked together in the elevator repair business.
“We both came in thinking, ‘Oh, we’re just going to get up onstage and have some fun and shake it all around,’” Trautman tells the Scene
“It’s not like that at all. It’s a full-blown production, down to the lights, making sure your hand
is placed in a certain area. You get constant corrections, sometimes 40 hours of rehearsals per week. It’s the real deal. It was humbling, for sure.”
Dance captain Teddy Zervoulakos, a Chippendale since 2011, says he can teach anyone to dance — even guys like Jones and Trautman who don’t have a lick of experience.
“These guys were troupers,” he says.
“You can move your upper chest,” says Jones. “You can move your hips by themselves. You can isolate that. Before, I’m just like a board. I’m stiff. Watching old videos, it’s honestly hilarious.”
Zervoulakos’ favorite number in the show is one he choreographed and Jones stars in — a
bathtub routine.
“You have to have a certain confidence, a certain air about you, but I don’t feel like there’s any type of tension between us,” Zervoulakos says. “When I’m onstage with these guys, I want them to do their best, and I trust them that they’re going to do shower, tub, all of it.”
Most of the Chippendales performers moved to Nashville specifically for the gig. There’s no Chippendales house for the transplants, but if there were, “They’d have meal prep down,” jokes Zervoulakos.
RANCH HANDS DANCE captain Anthony LaGuardia formerly performed as a dancer on
Broadway (the one in New York City) and in touring musicals. He tells the Scene he loves being part of the residency because he gets to go home to his fiancé most nights. On the night the Scene visits Ranch Hands, the two are dancing side by side.
LaGuardia met his fiancé Robert Raske, a former cheerleader, when LaGuardia pulled him onstage during a performance. While LaGuardia says he doesn’t like to mix work and personal life, in a pinch one night, his then-boyfriend Raske — who knew the Ranch Hands choreography by heart — filled in for a missing performer. LaGuardia says when casting Ranch Hands, he goes by attitude over skill set.
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6:30PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26
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6:30PM
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6:30PM
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10:30AM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29
“What I’m looking at is how everybody’s treating each other in the room. People can get better. I have trained many a dancer in my life. People will always get better, and there’s nothing that a little bit of practice won’t be able to fix. What I can’t fix is poor personalities and people who don’t treat each other with respect.”
—Anthony LaGuardia, Ranch Hands
SATURDAY, AUGUST 30
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“What I’m looking at is how everybody’s treating each other in the room,” he says. “People can get better. I have trained many a dancer in my life. People will always get better, and there’s nothing that a little bit of practice won’t be able to fix. What I can’t fix is poor personalities and people who don’t treat each other with respect.”
Over at Music City Gents, it’s all about teamwork. The guys set up and tear down the show. They also check in and seat guests. It builds a rapport between the guests and the Gents, Visbeen says, and allows the Gents to take ownership of the show. He says it’s rare for a Gent to leave the show, and the core group leans on each other during times of struggle — like when one of the Gents died during off-season, or when Visbeen’s father died on a show night.
“I just know that at the end of my life, I will always be so proud of what we built here as a team, even if I don’t make as much money as the next person,” Visbeen says, “because I would be so proud to know that I built a team that gave a shit about each other.”
Visbeen has something most other male-revue proprietors don’t — his own building. He owns the Music City Gents space at 69 Trimble St. (Yes, that’s really the address.) Each of the male revues mentioned in this story has dealt with venue uncertainty. Nashville has a limited
NASHVILLE SCENE AUGUST 21 – AUGUST 27, 2025 • nashvillescene.com
number of midsize venues that can accommodate a male revue on weekend nights, so the groups often fight over the same few stages.
In 2024, Chippendales sued downtown Nashville’s Woolworth Theatre, alleging that the venue negotiated an agreement to host the show before ultimately choosing Thunder From Down Under for an (albeit short) residency there. Thunder, an Australian-born male revue, lasted from September 2024 to May 2025 in the historic space.
Ranch Hands was caught in the crossfire of that deal. The local troupe began performing at Woolworth’s in 2023. After a year in the space, they were given three weeks’ notice to find a new venue. Before Woolworth, Ranch Hands had hosted brunch shows at Nashville Palace; after, they ultimately landed at Cannery Hall.
In their seven-year tenure, Music City Gents have performed at six different venues: the now-defunct Piranha’s, Bowie’s, The Valentine, Nashville Underground and Hard Rock, before finding their permanent home in The Trimble. Seeking to put money down on a permanent home, Visbeen was met with banks that conflated the male-revue business with strip clubs. He wasn’t able to get the loan to purchase the building, so he began renting — and the owner eventually allowed him to purchase it.
“I’ve called a few bank executives, I played hardball,” Visbeen says. “It’s like, ‘Show me in your policies where it says anything against what I do,’ and they couldn’t prove it to me. It was just their perception of what they didn’t want to have involvement with.”
A bit of context: A male strip show is defined by its setting — a strip club. Visbeen says male revues also differ in that they’re during a set time block. Both Ranch Hands and Music City Gents borrow the tipping tradition from the strip-club world, encouraging guests to shove dollars in performers’ pants and pockets. Chippendales distances itself by banning tipping, but performers with both Chippendales and Music City Gents strip down to their briefs.
Visbeen says he put $750,000 into renovating the building, which was slated to be completed in January 2023. But then he says he encountered problems with a contractor that eventually resulted in a lawsuit. And earlier this year, several inches of water flooded the space. Despite the challenges, Music City Gents officially opened in May.
“I always knew competition was going to come,” Visbeen says. “Kind of sucks, financially, but at the same point, I have the number one thing that nobody else has, and I will bank on that all day — because at any moment, any one
of those shows can get the boot to the street.”
Meanwhile, Ranch Hands is expanding, adding another residency in Scottsdale, Ariz. — another popular bachelorette destination — after a successful pop-up in the fall. They signed with a talent agency and booked more gigs, including at CMA Fest. The group is planning a tour, and a brunch offering is returning.
Turns out, cowboys play well with just about everyone — Ranch Hands has toured in locales as far-flung as South Dakota, Connecticut and Canada, and has seen Irish visitors at their Nashville shows.
Burke credits her success to her own female gaze.
“I am the audience — I’m in bachelorette parties,” she says. “I think that that has been what’s made it so successful — all of our clientele walking through the door are girls I hang out with.”
OVER THE PAST decade, the male-revue landscape has seemingly evolved to de-center men in power — none of the performers on the stages that the Scene patronized were wearing police or military uniforms. Music City Gents have gone so far as to theme a performer, Valentino, as the “romance” guy. His entrance involves giving a rose to one lucky audience member.
Visbeen wants to make sure his performers
understand from their very first interview with him that the show is not about them.
“I want you to be able to be humble enough to know that all these girls are loving the show, but it ain’t about you,” he tells the Scene. “It’s about the experience for these girls.”
He adds: “You got all these women coming through here every weekend, and this is their one weekend with their best friends, and they’ll never forget this for the rest of their life. So you better go out there and perform like that. You have this one moment in these people’s lives they’ll never forget. So what level of ‘give a shit’ are you going to bring to this?”
Each group the Scene spoke to for this story echoed some version of that same sentiment: Male revues are about helping the audience escape.
“We just want to make sure they feel seen,” Chippendales’ Zervoulakos says. “They feel like they’re part of the show, because that’s essentially what we want them to do, just distract them from what’s going on and make them feel wanted. Because I think that’s all anyone really wants, is just to feel accepted.”
The new-to-town Chippendales were not aware of the term “woo girls” or the vitriol that is sometimes aimed at Nashville’s influx of bachelorette parties.
“Woo girls welcome,” they say. ▼
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
OCTOBER
OCTOBER 13
OCTOBER 26
NOVEMBER
FEBRUARY
THURSDAY, AUG. 21
MUSIC [LOT LIZARD] JOSHUA RAY WALKER
The corporate home goods chains have been hawking Halloween decor for months now, and pumpkin spice concoctions are right around the corner. But in Nashville, we’re still wading through the dog days of summer, and we don’t even have a beach or a Grizzly River Rampage to take the edge off. Thankfully, Texas singer-songwriter Joshua Ray Walker has the perfect painkiller for landlocked Tennesseans longing for tiki drinks and palm trees: the Tropicana Tour. Walker will bring the beach vibes to East Nashville honky-tonk Skinny Dennis when he rolls through town to perform tunes from his latest LP Tropicana, a breezy concept album about a mythical beachfront hotel. The Dallas native wrote the album while he was undergoing chemotherapy for stage 3b colon cancer and was unable to tour, or even vacation. “Music has always been an escape for me,” Walker shared in a recent press release. “I couldn’t go to the beach, so I decided to bring the beach to me.” If you enjoy a healthy dose of twang with your island music (think Jimmy Buffett’s Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes), don your best Hawaiian shirt and cowboy boots and get ready for a night of Key West country. BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
7 P.M. AT SKINNY DENNIS
2635 GALLATIN PIKE
ALISON KRAUSS AND UNION STATION PAGE 20
ACHING BACK SUNDAY: THE ACHING BACK PARADE PAGE 22
NASHVILLE SYMPHONY: SUMMER AT SCHERMERHORN PAGE 22
THEATER
[THE WORLD’S MINE OYSTER] NASHVILLE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
Known for its fast-paced humor and sharp social commentary, The Merry Wives of Windsor may well be the perfect selection for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s annual Summer Shakespeare production. The action follows the bumbling Falstaff, who sets out to solve his financial woes by seducing the wives of two wealthy merchants. Ah, but these ladies are no fools. They soon uncover his devious scheme and set out to exact their revenge. Of course, it’s all in good fun. And what follows is a delightful charade of mixups and mayhem — along with a healthy dose of girl power. Directed by the always reliable Beki Baker, the cast features a terrific blend of new and familiar faces, including Galen Fott, Evelyn O’Neal, Eric D. Pasto-Crosby, Ana Marie Harvey, Nick Govindan, Brian Webb Russell and more. I’m eager to check out Andy Bleiler’s scenic design, as well as June Kingsbury’s relaxed Elizabethan costumes. Guests can also look forward to a great lineup of
preshow entertainment, food trucks and more. There are even VIP seating packages available. AMY STUMPFL AUG. 21-SEPT. 21 AT ONEC1TY 8 CITY BLVD.
ART [PREFAB SPROUT] VESNA PAVLOVIĆ: PREFABRICATING SOLIDARITY: IMS-ŽEŽELJ BETWEEN YUGOSLAVIA, CUBA AND ANGOLA
In her 2020 book Stagecraft, Nashville-based photographer Vesna Pavlović writes about how images can relate to memory and ideology:
“The photographic grain reminds us of an analogue moment in time, a brief pause, a site of memory.” Her unique style — cinematic, architectural and undeniably Slavic — is perfectly suited for this most recent exploration of a specific type of prefabricated housing systems. The IMS Žeželj system, according to the exhibition statement, was a “sophisticated skeletal structure of concrete columns and floor slabs held together by steel cables, developed in 1957 by engineer Branko Žeželj at Belgrade’s IMS Institute.” In another photographer’s hands, the idea of making postwar construction materials the star of the show might seem unlikely, but
this stuff is right up Pavlović’s alley, and her exhibition at Begonia Labs is giving the work the attention it deserves. The exhibition is part of the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice at Vanderbilt University’s fall programming, and Thursday’s opening reception will be followed by an Oct. 3 panel discussion about art, architecture and the politics of the IMS system.
LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
OPENING RECEPTION 6-8 P.M.; THROUGH NOV. 8 AT BEGONIA LABS
2805 WEST END AVE.
ART [A NEW ANIMA]
RAE YOUNG: SPIRIT PLAY
It’s exciting to witness someone really going for it. It’s like that Artforum quote from Kim Gordon that explains the appeal of rock shows: “People pay money to see others believe in themselves.” That’s what Spirit Play makes me think of. This new solo exhibition from Nashville-based artist Rae Young has fearlessness written all over it. In what sounds like an immersive installation that will be part The Clan of the Cave Bear, part Blade Runner, Young has assembled both synthetic and organic matter — including spray foam, netting, cords, fur, iron, hair, plastic and shells — into sculptural objects. This seems like a group effort across the board. For the exhibition’s opening and closing receptions, a performance from dancer Gordy Val and composer Jake Slipkovich will take place, and one of Young’s central works was created in technical collaboration with John Holmes of New Media Nashville. From the exhibition statement: “Importantly, Spirit Play does not linger in binaries. It proposes a new kind of being — part ritual object, part signal transmission — where technology and spirituality are not in opposition but in union. What emerges is a hybrid form: embodied, protective, animated.” LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
OPENING RECEPTION 6-9 P.M.; THROUGH SEPT. 15 AT THE FORGE NASHVILLE
217 WILLOW ST.
FRIDAY / 8.22
FILM [BY PROTECTING OTHERS ...]
It’s the final week of the Belcourt’s Akira Kurosawa retrospective, and the revered director’s best work may very well have been saved for last. Epic action drama Seven Samurai is one of the most influential films in cinema history. But don’t let the gargantuan run time (which will stretch to more than three-anda-half hours when including the 10-minute intermission) and film-school-syllabus status intimidate you: Seven Samurai is thrilling, empathetic and engrossing. The film’s all-time elevator pitch of a premise — seven misfit samurai band together to protect a small farming village from bandits — has fully ingrained itself in popular culture. Classic Western The Magnificent Seven? That’s a Seven Samurai remake. Any film where a funky team of experts and goofballs is assembled? Seven Samurai is the ur-text. Catch it alongside Red Beard, Ikiru, Dersu Uzala and Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams in the final week of Kurosawa action. For showtimes, visit belcourt.org. LOGAN BUTTS
AUG. 22 & 27 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
Believe it or not, it’s been 14 years since the last studio album from Alison Krauss and her tastemaking bluegrass group Union Station. And yes, the new music was worth the wait. Krauss and the band returned in the spring with Arcadia, a sharp collection of old-time songs that showgoers can expect to hear when Union Station plays Friday night in downtown Nashville. In a press statement, Krauss explains the 10-song LP: “The stories of the past are told in this music,” she says. “It’s that whole idea of ‘in the good old days when times were bad.’” Listeners hear the result on numbers like the somber “One Ray of Shine” (co-written by Krauss’ brother Viktor Krauss and Sarah Siskind), rowdy “North Side Gal” or the toe-tapping “Richmond on the James.” Be sure to take your seat on time; there’s no opener listed for the show, and you’d hate to wait another 14 years to catch the opening number. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
7:30 P.M. AT ASCEND AMPHITHEATER
301 FIRST AVE. S.
Singer, comedian, writer and actor Chris Crofton cites 1970s songwriters and hitmakers Carly Simon and Gordon Lightfoot as inspirations for his new album I’m Your Man As a fan of pop tunes like Simon’s “The Right Thing to Do” and Lightfoot’s “Beautiful” — both from 1972, a great year for singer-songwriters — I approve of Crofton’s aesthetic move. I hear echoes of ’70s folk-pop-rock throughout I’m Your Man, so I’d cite music as disparate as
America, Mott the Hoople and maybe even ELO as influences. The achievement of I’m Your Man lies in Crofton’s ability to construct catchy, heartfelt songs in a post-folk-rock setting that matches his big theme, which is how hard it is to keep it together in the demanding environment of Nashville. The writing is ace — the album’s “Inside a Song,” to name one track, would be the envy of many an Americana or country songwriter. Crofton, who moved back to town in 2022 after a stint in Los Angeles, has a résumé that includes writing the Scene’s Advice King column, acting in Harmony Korine’s 2009 movie Trash Humpers and making a credible but unsuccessful run at an at-large seat on Nashville’s Metro Council two years ago. He’s also the subject of Seth Pomeroy’s new documentary Chris Crofton: Nashville Famous I’m Your Man goes beyond genre and into Crofton’s truth, which he delivers with style. Aaron Robinson opens.
EDD HURT
7 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT
1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.
Before the 700-mile waterway that winds through southern Kentucky and Middle Tennessee was called the Cumberland River, it was referred to as the Wasioto by Shawnee in the area. (As a matter of fact, thanks to advocacy from Nashville’s Indigenous People’s Coalition, Music City’s Cumberland Park was renamed Wasioto Park late last year.) The Cumberland has played an instrumental role in the history of the Nashville area — before the arrival of settlers and after — and that history will take center stage in an upcoming walking tour from the folks at local nonprofit the Cumberland River Compact. Billed as “an immersive tour that blends ecology and urban planning,” From Steamboats to Stewardship will explore river-powered commerce, historic flooding, the development of green infrastructure and more as attendees are guided to landmarks including Fort Nashboro and the Bridge Building. If you’re a history nerd, a budding environmentalist or an urbanist wonk (and I’m guessing there’s more than a little overlap between the three), you won’t want to miss the roughly mile-long trek. Register via cumberlandrivercompact.org.
D. PATRICK RODGERS
10-11 A.M., BEGINNING AT RIVERFRONT PARK
100 FIRST AVE. S
Alicia Bognanno’s latest single as Bully, an electric reworking of the piano ballad “Atom Bomb,” was recorded in her bedroom. With a grungy bass line and drums from JT Daly, it’s slower and more stripped-down than her roaring 2023 album Lucky for You, but the emotional core is the same: confessional, cutting indie rock, anchored by small details of fury and frustration and expert songcraft. “A shade of blue could make me cry,” she confesses
THIS
WE DO IT DANCE PARTY FRI, 8/22
EMO NIGHT BROOKLYN SAT, 8/23
PSYCHOSTICK + POLKADOT CADAVER SAT, 8/23
THU, 8/28
RIOT SAT, 8/30
SABRINA
HOUSE
NICKNAME
BROADWAY
RIO
YUNG
THU, 9/4
SAT, 9/6 BUZZCOCKS TUE, 9/16
TUE, 9/16
WED, 9/17
on the track — a nod to “Lose You,” Bognanno’s collaboration with fellow Nashvillian Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy on Lucky for You “Atom Bomb” is a set list favorite, an arresting song to hear live, and it’s one I hope to hear this weekend when Bully plays two nights at The Blue Room. L.A. DIY act Jawdropped are opening on the heels of their debut release Just Fantasy, a noisy EP that came out in April on Fire Talk Records. Get tickets while you can — as of this writing, the Saturday night show is already sold out.
ANNIE PARNELL
AUG. 22 & 23 AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
MUSIC
[LEI IT ON ME] FATS KAPLIN & STEVE DAWSON W/ THE VOLCANO BROTHERS
In our landlocked state, the phrase “Hawaiian music” might bring up similar feelings as you get from the phrase “seafood stew.” Don’t let that color your perception of The Volcano Brothers, though. The group is led by seasoned producer, songsmith and multi-instrumentalist Steve Dawson, a Canadian native and multiple Juno winner who put down roots in Music City a few years back, and their repertoire consists entirely of pre-WWII steel guitar music from Hawaii. There’s a deep musical and cultural history lesson to be had in exploring the commonalities between some of the material and what people were dancing to in other cultures in that time period. But with Dawson on steel resonator guitar, his running partner and musician’s musician Fats Kaplin on uke and revered bassman Dave Jacques picking up the low notes, it’s also fine to just lose yourself in the lively melodies and rhythms. Saturday evening’s show at venerable watering hole The 5 Spot kicks off with a duo set from Kaplin and Dawson, who are sharp from a sold-out duo tour across Canada. An appearance from Kaplin’s musical and life partner Kristi Rose on vocals, some magic and other surprises are promised as well.
STEPHEN TRAGESER
6 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT
1006 FOREST AVE.
[FAMOUS BACK SPASMS]
MUSIC
ACHING BACK SUNDAY: THE ACHING BACK PARADE
Millennial punk/emo fans can’t rock out like they used to, with necks a little too stiff for head-banging and hips a little too sore for thrashing in the mosh pit. Thankfully, Nashvillebased tribute band Aching Back Sunday hurts
all over as much as we do. Since Gerard Way and the boys aren’t stopping in Music City for their album commemoration tour, Aching Back Sunday will play My Chemical Romance’s seminal The Black Parade in its entirety with “The Aching Back Parade.” Sure, we proud millennials have gotten a little grayer and harder of hearing since The Black Parade’s 2006 release. However, unlike its fiercest fans, that album has aged tremendously. If you like your nostalgia drenched in black and blared at the highest possible volume (well, maybe not that high), “The Aching Back Parade” will keep you carrying on — just wear comfy shoes with your gothic marching band attire. Jaguar on Mars and Riane will open. CORY WOODROOF
8 P.M. AT THE ’58 AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508A GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
I could try to explain the enduring appeal of Scooby-Doo in my own words, but it’s no use when the stars of the live-action 2002 adaptation of Scooby-Doo — the now real-lifemarried couple Sarah Michelle Gellar (Daphne Blake) and Freddie Prinze Jr. (Fred Jones) — put it more eloquently than I ever could in a promotional clip. “It was so ahead of its time,” waxed Gellar. “It wasn’t gender-specific. It wasn’t a boys’ cartoon or a girls’ cartoon, or any of those things.” Cut to Prinze: “It was a talking dog, you know what I mean?” Both are equally correct, and that’s why Scooby-Doo is a movie for the people. I’ve watched it while being babysat, babysitting, on a college dorm floor, eating at Little Hats with my friends — you name it. If you can’t laugh while the Mystery Inc. gang smuggles a poorly CGI’d, 6-foot Scooby — disguised in elderly women’s clothes — on a plane to the supernatural Spooky Island, you may have lost your meddlin’ kid-like sense of wonder. Watch it on 35 mm as part of the Belcourt’s Midnight Movies series and try to keep count of how many stoner jokes and innuendos you missed as a kid. KATHLEEN HARRINGTON
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
[WEST COAST COWBOYS]
MUSIC
CHRIS HILLMAN & DWIGHT YOAKAM
LIVE INTERVIEW
Not one but two legends of country-rock will appear at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater Saturday afternoon. Chris Hillman and Dwight Yoakam will discuss their influential careers with new staff writereditor Erin Osmon in support of the museum’s Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock exhibit. As a member of The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas, the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band and The Desert Rose Band, Hillman is one of the most important figures in the history of country-rock, while Yoakam was instrumental in the Southern California cowpunk scene before becoming a country star. “We’re going to talk about their careers individually, and we’re also gonna talk about their friendship,
because they’ve become friends over many decades,” says Osmon, a former Los Angeles Times contributor and lecturer at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “Country-rock would not exist without Chris Hillman. He is a linchpin in the whole thing because he created and then rode the entire wave of its existence from the ’60s all the way to the ’90s. I think with Dwight — he really revived the raw versions of country music at that time, and he really injected a punk rock energy into country roots music.”
DARYL SANDERS
3:30 P.M. AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM’S FORD THEATER
222 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY
MUSIC
[BIG SCREEN, BIGGER SOUNDS] NASHVILLE SYMPHONY: SUMMER AT SCHERMERHORN
Summer may be winding down, but the Nashville Symphony is hoping to keep the fun going just a bit longer with its new musicthemed movie series. Things kick off Sunday with a Wicked sing-along that invites guests to return to the Land of Oz while belting out all of their favorite hits from the award-winning musical phenomenon. Later that evening will be a showing of The Blues Brothers, the 1980 comedy classic starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as Jake and Elwood Blues — two brothers on a “mission from God.” On Aug. 27, you can revisit Jack Black’s raucous comedy School of Rock. The series wraps up on Aug. 28 with the Oscar-winning biographical drama Ray, which follows the inspiring story of the legendary Ray Charles. Be sure to arrive early to enjoy a live DJ in the courtyard, with drink specials available for purchase. It’s a unique way to experience the acoustics of the Schermerhorn — and a fun way to connect with fellow music and movie lovers. AMY STUMPFL AUG. 24, 27 & 28 AT THE SCHERMERHORN 1 SYMPHONY PLACE
BOOKS [SUMMER OF LOVE]
SUGAR AND SPICE CO. POP-UP BOOK CLUB
Sugar and Spice Co. is one of the latest mobile romance bookstores to hit the Nashville bookish scene. Marked by red-and-pink wrapping — complete with a heart-shaped “Keep Nashville Spicy” mural on the side — Sugar and Spice allows readers to pick from their favorite sweet or (very) spicy titles. Since it opened in May, Sugar and Spice has popped up at coffee shops, breweries and farmers markets across town. The bookstore has now launched its own book club, starting with Till Summer Do Us Part by Meghan Quinn. The event will feature a signature cocktail from the Flamingo called The Prickly Pair, and the bookstore will be open after the book club chat. To join, all you need to do is sign up online at
sugarandspicebookco.com/book-club. Members will enjoy a discount on future titles and priority access to events and giveaways, and they will get to connect with other romance lovers. For more information on future book clubs or to see where the store will pop up next, you can find them on Instagram at @sugarandspiceco. TINA DOMINGUEZ
6 P.M. AT FLAMINGO COCKTAIL CLUB 509 HOUSTON ST.
[HERE WE GO AGAIN]
FILM
MUSIC CITY MONDAYS: MAMMA MIA!
I would say Mamma Mia! is having a resurgence, but the truer assessment of the situation is probably that it never left us. The 2008 film is a masterpiece — filmed against the beautiful scenery in the Greek islands of Skopelos and Skiathos — that features extremely memorable performances from Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep and a singing (!) Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. Every member of the cast commits to the bit (and was possibly a little drunk) for a movie chock-full of expert comedic timing and physical performances. Mamma Mia! is also one of the longest running Broadway musicals, lasting from 2001 to 2015, and is presently undergoing a revival. Then there’s the prequel, the dinner shows, the images of the movie wrap party that live rent-free in my head, and I even recently attended a loosely Mamma Mia!-themed bachelorette party. And now it’s screening at our local independent arthouse, complete with an introduction from Belcourt staff member Erin Thompson that will surely do this crowd favorite justice. I can’t wait to see if there’s any dancing in the aisles. HANNAH HERNER 8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
SCIENCE
[FAR FAR AWAY] ASTRONOMY ON TAP
Just about all I know about space is galaxy leggings and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century Since Astronomy on Tap is back, I’m hoping I can learn a bit more about the mystery that is space. But it’s not a mystery for these folks — volunteers who take the time to educate us arts and communications majors on the ins and outs of those galaxies far, far away. The event is offered at a new time and place than it was in its previous iteration, and this particular talk will focus on two doctoral degree candidates discussing cosmic shape shifters and gravitational waves. There will also be trivia and the opportunity for fun sandwiches at the bar’s on-site cafe. You may have seen me write about Opera on Tap, and let me tell you, the On Tap series of events is a winner. It’s all about learning something new, sharing an experience and getting a little refreshment with friends in a casual environment. And it’s free entry.
HANNAH HERNER
7 P.M. AT FAIT LA FORCE BREWING
1414 THIRD AVE. S., SUITE 101
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is c bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
eeple committed mmi
8.1 Alex Williams Album Release Show
8.2 Josh Ward
t
8.5 Salute The Songbird With Maggie Rose, Special Guest: S.G. Goodman
8.6 Hell’s Belles - The World Famous All-Female AC/DC Tribute
8.9 Keith Anderson - The Pickin Wildflowers 20th Anniversary Tour
8.13 Aaron Raitiere
8.14 Stellar Unplugged w/ Adam Blackstone, Dana Soréy, Miles Minnick
8.15 Aaron Nichols & The Travellers - Chris Stapleton Tribute
8.16 William Michael Morgan
8.17 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Marla Cannon-Goodman, Faith Schueler
8.19 Chief’s Outsiders Round Presents Country In Color: Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek w/ Guests Brei Carter, Daya Dorado, Travis McCready, Trae Taylor
8.20 Ashes & Arrows
8.21 Danny Burns - Southern Sky Album Release
8.23 Sammy Sadler & Dave Gibson - The Hits & History Tour
8.25 Buddy’s Place w/ Garrett Jacobs, Ryan Larkins, Lauren Mascitti
8.27 Thom Shepherd Presents The Songwriters w/ Special Guests Shawn Camp, Phil O’Donnell
8.28 The Warren Brothers
8.29 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band feat. Bryan Simpson, Vince Herman, Wyatt Ellis, John Mailander, and Thad Cockrell
8.30 Love and Theft
ON A LATE afternoon in mid-July, the heat shimmers off SuperNormal’s kelly-green turf, upon which are planted shiny white splinterfree picnic tables pierced through the center with cobalt-blue umbrellas. Industrial-size fire-engine-red fans are stationed at intervals along the sidelines of the outdoor-only dining area, bordered by a chest-high wooden fence and tall trees, which help contain the children scampering about and dogs attentively waiting for a stray bit of food to fall within their reach.
At the rear of the faux grass, a tall, white curvilinear structure is branded on one side with giant red NASA-font letters: “SN.” A comparatively small, 3D white-and-blue sign spelling out “SuperNormal” is mounted above two side-by-side windows, each with glass that slides horizontally.
The entire tableau is so evocative of a Wes Anderson set — with a bit of Pee-wee’s Playhouse thrown in — that I am a bit disappointed when the tables don’t talk and Scarlett Johansson doesn’t emerge from the window and ask if she can take my order.
SuperNormal opened on May 13 in the restaurant-populous zone of Sylvan Park, one of Nashville’s most young-family-residential neighborhoods. It marks the return of a chef who helmed the kitchens of several early Gulch restaurants under the M Street umbrella — Kayne Prime, Whiskey Kitchen, Tavern and Virago 2.0.
SuperNormal — conceived and owned by chef Robbie Wilson and his wife Emily Perry Wilson — also precedes their forthcoming grown-up restaurant Lion’s Share, across the street at the corner of Murphy and 45th Avenue North, fondly remembered by Old Nashville as the former home of McCabe’s Pub. Lion’s Share was intended to open first, but shite happened, and on this Hades-hot summer afternoon, the unmistakable sounds of an active construction site compete with a peppy soundtrack piped through speakers.
I find Yelp reviews about as torturous to read as the owner’s manual for an iPhone, but they popped up when I did a bit of previsit research on SuperNormal. Apparently, the Wilsons responded to some early complaints. I respect that in restaurateurs, at least when those issues concern service models.
In their first several weeks of operation, SuperNormal’s customers were required to order through their phones or at the kiosk that fronted the window to the right. A text was sent when the order was ready to be picked up at the window to the left, handed over by a human.
Diners quite overwhelmingly also wanted a human to take their order, perhaps explain a few of the items, answer a question, maybe even offer a cheerful hello. When I ordered for
At SuperNormal, Robbie Wilson and Emily Perry Wilson dole out happy meals for Sylvan Park
BY KAY WEST
my party of four — which included a nearly 3-year-old child — from the hard-copy menu I requested in place of a QR code, it was face-toface with a pleasant young woman.
About 10 minutes later, after we claimed a table and commandeered a fan, a text called me to the pickup window, where a pleasant young man slid our trays stacked with boxes and beverages into my hands.
Nashville is rife with burger joints and places known for a damned good burger. The OG Wall of Fame includes Brown’s, Gabby’s, Burger Up, Dino’s, Pharmacy and Fat Mo’s. Chefs got into the act with Hugh-Baby’s (Pat Martin) and Joyland (Sean Brock). Robbie Wilson joins that camp with a succinct menu primarily focused on burgers — one a vegetarian patty — and supplemented with fries, a hot dog, an unexpected hot ham and Swiss and practically de rigueur soft-serve ice cream.
SuperNormal’s foundational item is not a smash burger, nor is it a perfectly preshaped patty. It’s somewhere in between — bigger than the bun, with a nice crisp coat and juicy center
SuperNormal 105 45th Ave. N. supernormal.food
cooked to medium, at least in our experience with three burgers.
The SuperNormal Burger adds American cheese, sweet butter lettuce leaves, pickled and smoked shitake mushrooms and SuperNormal sauce, reminiscent of the famous Southern Comeback sauce, which works beautifully. Splitting the vote were the mushrooms, with one diner making a face and opining he would prefer a simple sauté and another — me — giving a thumbs-up to how the flavor profile complemented the beef.
The #1 Delicious Burger probably has fans, but none were at our table. The 50/50 beef/ pork patty was piled with items that jarred the palate — American cheese, Japanese XO mayo, chili crisp, Thai basil and lemongrass pickled crudités.
Speaking of gilding the lily, the SuperNormal hot dog is an all-beef frank just slightly longer than its poppy-seed bun, loaded up with bacon marmalade, Sriracha, cream cheese, spicy cabbage and green onion. Maybe it works, but the hot dog sampler in our group was the little person who refused all the accoutrements and opted for a Build to Suit Dog with — ahem — ketchup. The part of the hot dog I cleansed of the offensive condiment was really great, with that skin pop we love.
The sleeper hit was the hot ham and Swiss: Texas toast spread with SuperNormal sauce, piled high with thickly sliced smoked ham, brushed with butter, pressed and grilled until the cheese oozes into the ham, then wrapped up tight to keep it melty, even on a drive across town. (I went back for a second.) I am a sucker for a good ham sandwich and a good grilled cheese, and in this case, the two became a goodto-the-last-bite one.
Fries are of the hand-cut, floppy-leaning, not-too-greasy school; if you prefer your frites thin and crisp, you might pass. Get them plain, sea-salted or “extraordinarily seasoned,” which means a bit spicy, looking and tasting like they’ve been dusted with Tajín, the ruddy-colored Mexican lime-chili-pepper-salt seasoning used on everything from eggs to ice cream.
But not on SuperNormal’s ice cream. (Though
one Yelper suggested dipping a fry into the ice cream for a taste sensation.) The dense and custardy soft serve — original buttercream, malted milk chocolate or a 50/50 combo — is dreamy, swirled into a cup with the cutest winky face, topped with dehydrated marshmallow bits that improve on the Lucky Charms formula.
I don’t know that I’d drive across town for a SuperNormal burger (ham and cheese maybe) but it is well-suited for its neighborhood, and a steady stream of pedestrians — many with kids in strollers, on scooter and on bicycles — arrived despite the heat, though one wonders what the plan is when the temperature goes in the opposite direction. As a devoted recycler, I do have issues with the many boxes the food is packaged in — cute on Instagram, bad for the planet.
In this fraught era when we are bombarded with hourly alarming breaking-news reports and “unprecedented” is repeated ad nauseum, don’t we all crave a return to normal, or better yet, SuperNormal?
Though if I ever open a restaurant, you can bet I’m calling it Unprecedented. ▼
Killer Nashville is a one-stop shop for authors of all kinds BY LOGAN BUTTS
ON A DARK and (possibly) stormy night in August, a group of eccentric authors with an intertwined past will gather at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center in Franklin. Little do they know: None of their manuscripts will be leaving the 20th annual Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference intact.
That’s because the literary conference — which focuses on genre fare of the horror, crime, mystery and romance varieties — has enough resources that even the most hardened veteran author would find it difficult to leave town without having gleaned an idea or two to throw into their next project. Many literary conferences and festivals are geared toward readers or the general literary landscape, but Killer Nashville’s emphasis on the down-and-dirty world of genre fiction (and nonfiction) makes it stand out among its peers.
Another unique attribute of Killer Nashville: Everyone from aspiring writers to New York Times bestselling authors intermingles at the various panels, presentations, networking soirees and meet-and-greets.
“We don’t recognize superstars,” says author and filmmaker Clay Stafford, the founder of Killer Nashville.
of Nashville’s — and the world’s — journalism titans), is given to a publishing industry figure “who has championed First Amendment rights to ensure that all opinions are given a voice, has exemplified mentorship and example to authors, [is] supporting the new voices of tomorrow, and/or has written an influential canon of work that will continue to influence authors for many years to come,” according to the Killer Nashville website. The 2025 recipient is longtime Midwest detective fiction author Sara Paretsky, while past winners include such literary luminaries as Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates and Otto Penzler.
“We aren’t interested in whether it’s a hardcover book or a paperback,” Stafford tells the Scene from his home in Franklin. “We’re not interested in if it’s published by the Big Five [book publishers] or if it’s independently self-published. What we’re after is a good story. It is a symbiotic relationship where people at all levels can benefit, and no one should feel intimidated because we’re all there to learn and share.”
Stafford, who grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee, has a long-held reverence for the importance of storytelling both locally and worldwide.
“Storytelling has been a really, really integral part of my Southern roots, because I grew up in an environment where there were a lot of oral storytellers,” he says.
After starting the locally focused Council for the Written Word in Williamson County, Stafford was looking for a way to convene writers from across the globe here in Middle Tennessee. What started out as a group of writers “sitting around talking about what was working, what they wanted to do, and if anybody had any ideas on how to achieve this” morphed into the networking and educational conference that Killer Nashville is today.
At each year’s edition, attendees can pick and choose from a lineup of publishing workshops, forensic and law enforcement presentations, agent and editor roundtable sessions, manuscript critiques, pitch coaching sessions, author panels and more. It’s a veritable one-stop shop for writers of all levels, and can be especially helpful for budding authors in need of an industry breakthrough.
“We want to encourage everybody, and it’s so important these days for all perspectives to get out in literature and that we maintain a position where we have freedom of expression, freedom of speech,” Stafford says.
One of the event’s annual honors, the John Seigenthaler Legends Award (named for one
“Nashville, it has a long history, a very long history, of being a literary center, and I couldn’t be more proud than to live in the Nashville community, because I’m certainly, if I’m standing on anything, I’m standing on those shoulders of the giants who’ve come before.”
Despite a decades-long career as a writer, Stafford finds himself learning just as much as the attendees at the event each year.
“I’m in the same boat as everybody who comes to Killer Nashville,” Stafford says. “I’m just a guy who knows a little bit and is trying to learn a little more, has done a little bit and is trying to do a little more, so we’re all equal on that front.” ▼
Nashville International Writers’ Conference Aug. 21-25 at Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center in Franklin killernashville.com
The winner of our first Vodka Yonic Writing Contest says it’s hard to rise from the bottom
BY KORY WELLS
Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
WE ARE THRILLED to announce the winner of the first Vodka Yonic Writing Contest, a new collaboration between the Nashville Scene and nonprofit writers’ collective The Porch. We received more than 60 submissions — and they were full of vulnerability and boldness. The range of ages, experiences, backgrounds, tones and voices represented made the selection process especially
ON THE FIRST DAY of seventh grade, Mrs. Grubbs shut off the lights, stood in the overhead projector’s glare, and sketched our state’s three distinct regions, from Delta west to Smokies east. For our yearlong study of Tennessee history, we needed to understand the lay of the land. She marked a dot for our college town, smack in the state’s middle. Surrounded by rolling farmland, we sat at the bottom of a basin, she said — a word I’d heard only Mamaw, my grandmother, use at her bathroom sink where two faucets separated hot and cold.
A few summers before, in East Tennessee, I’d learned from Mamaw how to save time and water by taking a “whore’s bath.” I didn’t know what a whore was, exactly, but I grasped this process: You went into the little bathroom that smelled of mint toothpaste, witch hazel and talcum powder. You turned on the sink’s left tap. You waited. When the water finally flowed hot, you plugged the porcelain drain with a rubber stopper on a chain.
Tennessee’s Central Basin is a bowl, Mrs. Grubbs explained, drawing a flattened U shape on the map. She made a small line at the base. We lived at this lowest point, amid clouds of cedar pollen and ragweed. This was why we suffered allergies. It’s hard to rise from the bottom. ~
As the bathroom basin filled with hot water, you eventually turned on the cold, then dipped and swirled your finger, checking for a comfortable temperature. Water cost money, so when there was just enough, you’d turn off the faucets. Take a washcloth from the red chest
difficult. Our winning entry — “Low Point” by Kory Wells — offers an intimate look at Tennessee through the lens of family, memory and place. The fragmented essay form moves like memory itself, and the images — both tender and unflinching — stay with you long after you finish reading. We are grateful to every writer who shared their work for this contest, and we look forward to celebrating more voices in the years to come. If you are looking for a place to share your stories or hone your craft, we invite you to join a class or event at The Porch (porchtn.org)!
—Yurina Yoshikawa, director of education, The Porch
—Hannah Herner, staff reporter, Nashville Scene
—Laura Hutson Hunter, arts editor, Nashville Scene
beside the sink. Smell line-dried sunshine. Soak the cloth, lather a bar of Ivory, scrub your stinky parts. Plus your neck, where granny beads — a 3D mixture of dust, humidity and sweat — accumulated on hot days and sticky nights.
For most of my life I’ve lived in the same state as six generations before me. Though they were mountain folk, I’m always driving to reach any hills — Walter Hill, Halls Hill, Chapel Hill. Anywhere but Capitol Hill, where I’ve quit turning for hope, and where every legislative session seems to take us further back in time. Yesterday my adult daughter asked, “Do you regret staying?”
When I was young, I was going to move to The City, any big city. But then a full scholarship at my hometown university. Then a good job at a military research base close to home. Then pheromones, a certainty in every cell of my body, a man whose roots in this state run even deeper than mine.
Mamaw’s middle name was Tennessee, but she was born in Georgia — one of my first lessons in contradiction. As if a grandma in a floral housedress taking a whore’s bath wasn’t contradiction enough. Waiting for her to emerge in a mist of Jungle Gardenia perfume, I’d contemplate the wooden sign above the bathroom door that read, “What the heck you looking up here for?”
When did I first start dreaming of elsewhere? Maybe in the week after we married and
everyone wanted to call me by his name. Maybe a few years later, when my kids’ nursery school teacher pulled me aside and said in the South my children needed church to fit in. Maybe one of the countless times I kept my opinion to myself. Or during our travels, in those places I’ve seen more art, more preservation of cultural and natural heritage, more recycling, more Pride displays.
I don’t believe in regrets. But another word for basin is depression, and another meaning of depression is hopelessness — something too many of us feel. State lawmakers have surely learned about the “least of these” in Sunday school, but new laws further weaken support for public schools, wetlands, women’s health, diversity, immigrants, the trans community and more. “So leave,” I hear you saying. But there are my parents to care for, doctors we don’t want to change. So much community to love.
I also don’t want to regret. I want to be proud of my deep roots in one of the most beautiful, musical, friendly and biodiverse states in the nation. And I want to live in a place that makes a place for everybody. So I summon the ghost of Mrs. Grubbs to remind the good people of Tennessee: Our state’s three geographical sections are called the Grand Divisions, and can’t grand still mean wonderful? I summon those mornings Mamaw let the hot water flow until it warmed, then stoppered the drain and opened the cold. I’m saying that achieving a balance is a process, that it takes effort to hold what you want just right. I’m saying I don’t have an answer for my daughter. But I can’t deny: Eventually it’s time to pull the plug. To let it all wash away down the drain. ▼
noodles, amazing sushi, & the greatest happy hour on
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haleigh martin w/ Jaxon Deno beau burnette
Seth Beamer & Jake Morgan (9pm)
troubadour blue w/ cameron albright team nonexistent w/ Shuteye, boof & concrete paradise midtones w/ DelGrosso & Adam Schleicher
LB Beistad w/ Mikki Brayboy (7pm)
kikko mai &
Sweet Lizzy Project’s new album is a bold reflection on their journey so far
BY P.J. KINZER
THERE IS A RARE joyfulness to the Cuban-born Nashville transplants in Sweet Lizzy Project. Twelve years into the band’s career, their spirit seems untainted by the sort of jaded coolness that often accompanies musicians who have been working for so long.
Once a seven-piece, Sweet Lizzy Project has scaled back to four members — singer Lisset Diaz, drummer Ángel Luis Millet, bassist Wilfredo Gatell and guitar player/producer Miguel Comas — for their new album. Objects in Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear, released in July and full of outsized pop rock with electronic flourishes, is the result of a lot of effort by each of them.
Since relocating to Middle Tennessee from Havana, SLP has maintained a constant schedule of recording and relentless touring, releasing three albums since immigrating and sharing stages with the likes of Heart, Billy Strings and Joan Jett. The four members, freshly rested after a 650-mile drive from Appleton, Wis., were willing to sit down for a Monday morning phone call from Pittsburgh to share their unique story.
Sweet Lizzy Project’s journey to Music City began with a 2017 PBS special called Havana Time Machine. Hosted by Raul Malo of The Mavericks, the program showcased the music of modern-day Cuba, including performances from Sweet Lizzy. Malo, born in Miami to Cuban parents, took notice of the band and encouraged them to look to the United States for new opportunities. Two years later, the members of SLP moved into a house in Nashville, preparing to release a new album on Malo’s label, Mono Mundo Recordings.
“We moved in together in the middle of 2019,” Diaz says, “because we were mostly on tour.”
The big house allowed the band to save money and served as a rehearsal space when they were in Nashville.
“In February of 2020, our record Technicolor came out,” Diaz says, “and then the pandemic happened.”
As with many artists on the road at the time, COVID-19 shut down their touring plans overnight, leaving the band in a foreign city with a new record and no way to play their music live. But having the large rehearsal space and nowhere to go became the mother of invention. Dubbing their shows The Sweet Quarantine Series, SLP was able to promote their record while the whole world practiced social distancing.
“The reason why we started doing that was a mix of things,” says Diaz. “First of all, we were going to go crazy — five of us living together with absolutely nothing to do!”
There was a lot of fear and uncertainty in
those early days of the pandemic, Diaz says, and the band members’ families were all in different countries. But bringing their music online helped create a new community. Dubbing their fans The SLP Army, Diaz credits the Lizzy loyal with much of the band’s success.
“It was the best decision we ever made,” says Diaz. “We started creating this online community that is pretty much the reason why we’re here.”
She says fans often still tell her they discovered Sweet Lizzy from the pandemic streaming sessions, which also led to the release of SQS Vol. 1, a collection of their favorite live cover songs from that time.
The sounds of Objects in Mirrors are much more expansive than in their previous releases.
“We evolved in sound in the last few years,” Comas says of the massive sound on the new album. “In my head, I wanted [the production] to be bigger.”
The monumental sound reflects the fact that the band has been playing to arenas for the first time since forming, as the opening act on recent tours.
“It sounds quite cinematic, as if we were telling a story, like a movie,” Diaz explains. “And that’s kind of what we want people to feel when
Objects in Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear out now Playing 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, at 3rd and Lindsley
Daniel Donato prepares for his Mother Church debut
BY MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
DANIEL DONATO HAS played near the Ryman — a lot.
He cut his teeth as a teenager busking on Lower Broadway, performing outside the old Hatch Show Print shop and the old location of Gruhn Guitars. He would sometimes play on the steps of the storied Mother Church of Country Music, where he caught the attention of tourists with a Johnny Cash cover or his take on a Bill Monroe song. He religiously studied The Don Kelley Band, a steadfast honky-tonk band that for decades held court at Robert’s Western World. He describes the group as “my Led Zeppelin … the greatest band I ever discovered.”
Eventually, Donato joined his Zeppelin onstage. He graduated from the streets to regularly playing with Kelley and company at gigs, despite not being old enough to order a Pabst at the bar. A few hundred feet from the Ryman stage, he performed 464 shows with the band.
Ten years to the day after his last show at Robert’s, Donato returns to downtown Nashville to headline the Ryman. Set for Friday night, the show celebrates the release of his new album Horizons which hits streaming services and record store shelves that day.
“I would stand behind Robert’s, and I would just look at the Ryman and get lost in thought,” Donato says of the nights before he turned 21, when he waited outside the bar to get paid for the show. “I always wanted to play there. I always wanted to sell it out. I wanted to do it right and play the music that moves my soul and moves other people’s souls, in that building.”
they listen to the record. From the beginning to the end, we’re telling our story as a band.”
Comas says the band’s adopted home was another major theme on Objects in Mirrors. “Nashville has a lot to do with this record too — it’s part of the sound,” he says, explaining how many of the lyrical and musical ideas are reflections on their new city. “So it’s part of the essence of the album.”
“I write most of the lyrics,” says Diaz. “And every song is based on a personal experience, so I remember exactly what I was thinking of when I was writing certain songs.”
She says she finds it easier to write lyrics in English than in Spanish, noting that most of Sweet Lizzy’s musical influences are English speakers. The band was performing in English since forming in Cuba, which — Diaz has said in past interviews — made them outliers in the island’s music scene. “So when music came to me, English was a language that I chose to express myself,” she says. “It felt more organic, actually.”
While Objects is already available on all the normal streaming services, Nashville fans will have their first chance to catch the new album live at Sweet Lizzy Project’s album release show Aug. 24 at 3rd and Lindsley as part of Lightning 100’s Nashville Sunday Night series. ▼
The show comes billed as a night of “Cosmic Country,” a nod to the name of Donato’s backing band and a community he’s building by merging improvisation and jam influences with his knack for classic country storytelling. It’s a place for people who may love the twang of a Willie Nelson tune and the freewheelin’ spirit of a Grateful Dead bootleg in equal measure.
The band has quickly caught on with fans hungry for Donato’s take on honky-tonk psychedelia. Earlier this summer, he brought Cosmic Country to Bonnaroo, playing a fiery set the night before heavy rain caused organizers to cancel the rest of the fest. From there, he took off to Colorado for a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater with String Cheese Incident. Later this year he’ll play tastemaking jam festival Suwannee Hulaween in Florida, and in early 2026, he’ll set sail as a performer on the Outlaw Country Cruise. What can showgoers expect from a night of Cosmic Country? “It exists in the past and in the future, all within one set,” Donato says. “We’ll go all the way back to the early 1950s, and by the end of the night, we’re in a jam that is in a different time signature from when the song started. We’re trying new sounds … that are on the cutting edge of what we can do with live sound, with instruments. We try to exist in as many points of
Saturday, August 23
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Saturday, August 23
INTERVIEW
Chris Hillman and Dwight Yoakam
3:30 pm · FORD THEATER SOLD OUT
Sunday, August 24
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Chris Leuzinger
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, August 30
SONGWRITER SESSION
Terri Jo Box
NOON · FORD THEATER
WITNESS HISTORY
Sunday, August 31
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Brassfield
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, September 6
SONGWRITER SESSION Preston Cooper and the Warren Brothers
NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, September 6
PANEL DISCUSSION Bell Bottom Country
Creating the Lainey Wilson Look
2:30 pm · CMA THEATER
Saturday, September 6
BOOK TALK Paul Burch
Meridian Rising: A Novel 3:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Local Kids Always Visit Free Plan a trip to the Museum! Local youth 18 and under who are residents of Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties always visit free, plus 25% off admission for up to two accompanying adults.
time as we can.”
Horizons is Donato’s third LP and second studio collection of original tunes. The 15-song album straddles influences from working-class country (like on the honky-tonkin’ single “Broadside Blues”) to bluegrass ambition (heard subtly on instrumental jam “Hangman’s Reel”) to keep-you-guessing progressive sounds (such as the the kaleidoscopic 11-minute “Chore”).
Donato cut the album at Berry Hill studio Sputnik Sound with producer Vance Powell, whose credits include Chris Stapleton and Jack White. He worked quickly on Horizons, not wanting to dedicate extensive time to overdubs and other production techniques.
“There is this constant opportunity to go back and edit yourself, and there’s not really a threshold on how much you can do that,” Donato says. “You have to set it for yourself. One of the main values behind this record is to have faith in what’s human and what’s instinctual, what’s intuitive. To achieve something like that, you have to put yourself in a place that is really fast. You don’t have a lot of time to think. You just have time to act and feel.”
The Ryman show won’t be the only chance to catch Cosmic Country in Nashville on Friday night. After doors close to the Mother Church, Donato plans to play an encore gig across the street at Robert’s. He’s recording both shows for a forthcoming release.
“We’re going to do somewhat of a tribute to what I used to do at Robert’s. We’re gonna play all those oldtime country Western swing and bluegrass songs and make a record out of it.” ▼
Horizons out Friday, Aug. 22, via Retrace Playing 8 p.m. Aug. 22 at the Ryman
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Nashville’s one-of-a-kind celebration of extraordinary cinema turns 10
BY JOE NOLAN
WHAT DO YOU give a film festival celebrating a decade of outstanding programming and the kind of audience building that turns a weekend at the movies into a tiny institution? Defy Film Festival is an annual high point for cinephiles in this movie-loving city, and filmmakers from around the globe know the festival’s reputation as an outlet for bold, unique cinema. Founders Dycee Wildman and Billy Senese first brought Defy to East Nashville in a scrappier, weirder form back in 2016. The 2025 edition of the fest is bigger, bolder and built to last.
“For the past 10 years, Defy Film Festival has been a powerful reminder of the importance of independent art in all its forms,” reads an emailed statement from Senese and Wildman. “We’re definitely pulling out all the stops to make our birthday feel special!” The fest’s 10year anniversary includes mind-bending shorts, a Southern observational documentary renaissance, video art and a visionary debut feature by a former Nashvillian.
Defy Film Festival Aug. 22-23 at Studio 615, 272 Broadmoor Drive defyfilmfestival.com
$eck was a painter and photographer when he lived in Nashville. Now he’s based in Brooklyn, and he’s just released his first feature film. So Far All Good premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this spring, where it was nominated for the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature. Ace (Rasan Kuvly) has just been released from jail — he stole a car on a dare, and has a history with anger issues. He’s heartbroken when he gets back on the street and finds no family or friends celebrating his homecoming.
$eck unwinds a Joycean dérive with Ace drifting between locations, interacting with various friends and acquaintances. The director is an enthusiastic formalist, dropping in striking images of European oil paintings to demarcate his scene breaks, and supporting it all with a propulsive Cuban jazz soundtrack and layered musical sound design. These mix with the director’s handheld, run-and-gun footage into a feature that’s notable for its inventive editing — there’s a magic rhythm between $eck’s kinetic cinematography and his cuts. $eck’s cast gives refreshingly unpolished performances, and it’s not clear how much of the film is written and how much is improvised. When the actors engage with bystanders in public spaces, the line between the film’s world and the real world gets only more blurry. This is a landmark debut from a natural filmmaker, and So Far All Good is my top pick at the fest.
The festival’s commitment to local voices is particularly strong this year. “We have more Nashville films in this year’s program than ever before,” Senese and Wildman explain. “Being able to celebrate local voices alongside global ones has always been our hope, and this year it feels like that vision has truly come together.”
Nashville filmmaker Seth Pomeroy headlines the festival with his documentary Chris Crofton:
Nashville Famous in Saturday night’s closing feature slot. Crofton is famous in Nashville for his musical and comedy performances, his old radio show on WRVU, and his Advice King column right here in the Scene. Pomeroy captures his subject on stages and in hospital beds, loudly drunk and quietly sober. Crofton crashed into Nashville’s cultural consciousness in the early 2000s, when he led the Alcohol Stuntband through their shambling shows at the long-shuttered Slow Bar. What’s followed is the two decades of volatility and blown opportunities you might expect from a creative career based on alcoholism. Pomeroy’s funny film documents every breakthrough gig and every missed magic moment. A beautiful-loser story can be a bore, but this film was made over 10 years, and Pomeroy wisely spent a lot of that time with his camera simply filming the comedian off stage while he rants, remembers, regrets and reassesses. Nashville Famous is tragicomic. It plays like a sad musical, punctuated by graceful moments in which Crofton is heartfelt and transparent about his outsized need for artistic recognition — and his lifelong love of roller skating. Nashville Famous gives me hope that the 2020s are coming out of a documentary film slump.
In a text message Senese writes, “Have you seen Clovers? OMG is it good. I want everyone to see Clovers.” The film by Jacob Hatley and Tom Vickers is making its world premiere at the festival. The movie paints a portrait of Southern small-town life in Asheboro, N.C. It’s a documentary about family trauma, addiction, jail time, dead-end jobs and an illegal video-gambling casino in a nondescript commercial strip. Clovers serves as an oasis for the lonely souls of Ashboro who while away the hours — and their meager paychecks — huddled around flashing screens. The casino specializes in video games from an old Chuck E. Cheese location that have been modified into gambling machines. The documentary pictures its working-class subjects with openness and warmth, allowing them to
tell their stories of loss and violence and dreams deferred. This is an unforgettable film with a haunting finale, and it proves that Pomeroy isn’t the only Southern documentary filmmaker who still understands the fundamentals of the form: observe and record. Hatley and Vickers get it, and so do Allison Inman, Sean Clark and Jace Freeman. The local trio’s latest short film, “Baxter Bi-Rite,” opens the doc block on Saturday.
I’ve been excited about John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office since the festival teased it months ago. Lilly developed the isolation tank in the 1950s before leading pioneering research in an effort to communicate with dolphins in the 1960s. He took a lot of LSD and thought cosmic entities were controlling the coincidental happenings in human lives. A documentary about Lilly should be particularly interesting to cinephiles, as the good doctor’s work inspired the science-fiction cult classics The Day of the Dolphin (1973) and Altered States (1980). The movie is narrated by Chloë Sevigny, and it’s the most Defy-coded film at this year’s festival.
Defy is unique in its broad notions of what a film festival can be. The fest has teamed up with local artists to produce a zine celebrating their 10th anniversary, and they’ve created a pair of retrospective movie programs revisiting highlights from 10 years of curating.
Local artist/curator John Holmes of New Media Nashville is curating an interactive video art display, and Defy is hosting its first Thursday night kickoff party featuring a collaborative live music/video performance by Gardening Not Architecture and Dycee Wildman at Main Street Gallery in East Nashville.
“We are carving out a space for the work you won’t see anywhere else,” explain Wildman and Senese. “From the beginning, our focus has been on staying true to who we are: championing artists with distinct voices, the ones with something to say and the guts to say it their way. We call it ‘Defy’ for a reason.” ▼
1 Top tier
6 Environmental concern in Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax”
10 Mild cheese
14 Search engine giant based in China
15 Flaky white fish
16 Drag
17 Microsoft offering whose name sounds like two letters of the alphabet
18 Ones who are out of cite, in brief?
19 Skip over
20 Hang outdoors, say
22 Expensive topper
23 Subj. of evaluation by a college panel
26 Intrusive
27 Like respect for a parent
28 It has its ups and downs
30 Characters in “There Will Be Blood”
32 Navigate
33 Talking point at a political debate
34 Small sticking point
37 Layout of solar panels, e.g.
38 Elvis Costello hit featured in “Notting Hill”
39 Film heroine in search of the demigod Maui
41 Precursor of the International Space Station
42 Similar
44 Something carried into battle
45 Section at the end of a textbook, often
47 Manner of speaking
48 Jet wing fasteners
50 Sprint
52 Word before foot, fire or free
53 Grand tales
54 Badlands discovery, maybe
56 Surface ___
57 Afflicts
58 Explosive stuff, familiarly
62 Setting for some White House events
63 Like some chatter
64 Cartoon character who says “Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet”
65 Pioneering puzzleladen computer game
66 Yearbook superlative
67 Smart DOWN
1 Prez on a penny
2 Burden
3 Nervous twitch
4 That’s a thought
5 (Stops (false (not any) witness) filming)
6 Makes a mess, in a way, as a pet
7 Compact wooden figures ... and a hint to 5-, 11-, 22- and 25-Down
8 Agree to
9 Come together
10 Alpha Centauri A, par exemple
11 (Bucks’ (lady’s (roadside stopover) title) mates)
12 Director Kurosawa
13 Headbanger’s genre
22 (Baseball (German (physicist Ernst) possessive) rarities)
23 Region known for its silk and tea
24 ___ dish
25 (Church (Buffalo’s (minister, informally) waters) seats)
27 Seasonal malady
29 Pirates’ sphere
31 “Gotcha”
33 “You sure?”
35 Words often appearing after a number and a hyphen
36 Jamie ___, “Ted Lasso” character
40 Tolkien creature
43 ___ Vegan (resident of Nevada’s largest city)
46 Withdraw one’s testimony
47 Pack animal
48 Kingdom
49 “Here’s hoping …”
51 Plus
54 Classic pet name
55 Cheerful air
57 Target
59 “You’re oversharing”
60 Cartoon canine
61 Alternative to .com
Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.
21 Part of a seat assignment
Sheriff to Conduct Execution Sale of Real Property entered on July 1, 2025 (the “Sale Order”), the Davidson County Sheriff’s Department will offer to sale to the highest bidder, for cash, the interest of The Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, in the following real property located at 444 Summit Ridge Place, Nashville, Tennessee 37215, Map/Parcel 131-05-0-B-444.00 CO (the “Property”) and describ ed as fol-
lows:
Legal Description: The real property is described in a Warranty Deed dated December 28, 2005 of record at Instrument No. 20060104-0000954, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee.
Street Address: The street address of the property is believed to be 444 Summit Ridge Place, Nashville, Tennessee 37215, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description herein shall control.
LAND in Davidson County, Tennessee being Apartment Unit No. 444 of Four Seasons Condominium, created under Title 66, Chapter 27, Sections 101, et seq, as amended, Tennessee Code Annotated, and as established by a Master Deed of record in Book 6841, Page 349, and amended in Book 6847, Page 122, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, together with the undivided percentage interest in the Common Elements appurtenant to said Units as set forth in said Master Deed. Reference is hereby made to the Plat of Four Seasons Condominium shown as Exhibit "D" to said Master Deed, for a more complete identification and description of said Unit.
NOTICE OF SHERIFF’S SALE OF REAL PROPERTY
By virtue of an execution and Levy issued by the Chancery Court of Davidson County, Tennessee, in Sims|Funk, PLC, Plaintiff vs. Echelon Properties, LLC, Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, and Blake Schrader, Defendants, Davidson County Chancery Court Docket No. 24-1490-II, as well as that Order
Directing the Davidson County Sheriff to Conduct Execution Sale of Real Property entered on July 1, 2025 (the “Sale Order”), the Davidson County Sheriff’s Department will offer to sale to the highest bidder, for cash, the interest of The Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, in the following real property located at 444 Summit Ridge Place, Nashville, Tennessee 37215, Map/Parcel 131-05-0-B-444.00 CO (the “Property”) and describ ed as fol-
lows: Legal Description: The real property is described in a Warranty Deed dated December 28, 2005 of record at Instrument No. 20060104-0000954, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee. Street Address: The street address of the property is believed to be 444 Summit Ridge Place, Nashville, Tennessee 37215, but such address is not part of the legal description of the property. In the event of any discrepancy, the legal description herein shall control.
Being the same property conveyed to Echelon Properties, LLC by Warranty Deed dated December 28, 2005 of record at Instrument No. 20060104-0000954, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, and later conveyed to The Leon H. Schrader Family Trust pursuant to a Decree of Redemption of record at Instrument No. 20230605-0042457, 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 third -party judgment in favor of Sims|Funk PLC, pursuant to that Order Granting Motion for Default Judgment issued in the case of Sims|Funk PLC, Plaintiff vs. Echelon Properties, LLC, Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, and Blake Schrader, Defendants, Davidson County Chancery Court Docket No. 24-1490-II, on February 24, 2025 (the “Judgment”), in the original base amount of $49,968.00, plus all post -judgment interest since the entry of the Judgment and plus court costs and all sale expenses and costs.
All property is sold “as is.” No warranties or guarantees are made, expressed or implied.
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 third -party judgment in favor of Sims|Funk PLC, pursuant to that Order Granting Motion for Default Judgment issued in the case of Sims|Funk PLC, Plaintiff vs. Echelon Properties, LLC, Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, and Blake Schrader, Defendants, Davidson County Chancery Court Docket No. 24-1490-II, on February 24, 2025 (the “Judgment”), in the original base amount of $49,968.00, plus all post -judgment interest since the entry of the Judgment and plus court costs and all sale expenses and costs. All property is sold “as is.” No warranties or guarantees are made, expressed or implied.
Other interested parties receiving notice: Four Seasons Homeowner’s Association, Inc.; State of Tennessee Department of Revenue; Leon H. Schrader Family Trust; Echelon Properties, LLC; Roman “Blake” Schrader At 11:00 o’clock A.M., on Thursday, September 25, 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 and 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 $179,400.00, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-
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LAND in Davidson County, Tennessee being Apartment Unit No. 444 of Four Seasons Condominium, created under Title 66, Chapter 27, Sections 101, et seq, as amended, Tennessee Code Annotated, and as established by a Master Deed of record in Book 6841, Page 349, and amended in Book 6847, Page 122, Register's Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, together with the undivided percentage interest in the Common Elements appurtenant to said Units as set forth in said Master Deed. Reference is hereby made to the Plat of Four Seasons Condominium shown as Exhibit "D" to said Master Deed, for a more complete identification and description of said Unit. Being the same property conveyed to Echelon Properties, LLC by Warranty Deed dated December 28, 2005 of record at Instrument No. 20060104-0000954, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee, and later conveyed to The Leon H. Schrader Family Trust pursuant to a Decree of Redemption of record at Instrument No. 20230605-0042457, Register’s Office for Davidson County, Tennessee.
Other interested parties receiving notice: Four Seasons Homeowner’s Association, Inc.; State of Tennessee Department of Revenue; Leon H. Schrader Family Trust; Echelon Properties, LLC; Roman “Blake” Schrader At 11:00 o’clock A.M., on Thursday, September 25, 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 and 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 $179,400.00, pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-
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 third -party judgment in favor of Sims|Funk PLC, pursuant to that Order Granting Motion for Default Judgment issued in the case of Sims|Funk PLC, Plaintiff vs. Echelon Properties, LLC, Leon H. Schrader Family Trust, and Blake Schrader, Defendants, Davidson County Chancery Court
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