Nashville Scene 10-29-20 by FW Publishing

CITY LIMITS: IN NASHVILLE, HIRING A NEW POLICE CHIEF HAS ALWAYS BEEN COMPLICATED

OCTOBER 29–NOVEMBER 4, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 38 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

FOOD & DRINK: GOOD VIBES AND GREAT FOOD ANCHOR THE OPTIMIST IN GERMANTOWN

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THE

REPLACEMENTS AS LEGACY MEDIA CONTINUES TO BE BATTERED, A WAVE OF DIGITAL UPSTARTS TARGETS NASHVILLE SPORTS FANS BY STEVE CAVENDISH

INSIDE:

THIS YEAR’S BEST OF NASHVILLE WINNERS SAY THANKS

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NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

OCTOBER 29, 2020

In Nashville, Hiring a New Police Chief Has Always Been Complicated .............. 10

Pod Goals: Ladies First

CITY LIMITS

What those involved in — and left out of — the search process are looking for in a new chief

CULTURE

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

BY MEGAN SELING

Joy Oladokun Issues a Firm, Gentle Call to Action in ‘I See America’

Vanderbilt Employees Decry $100 Million Recruitment Initiative During Pandemic

Podcast host Kim Baldwin invites you to ‘meet the women you think you know’ on Ladyland

BY STEVEN HALE

Tennessee’s Least Undecided Voters Declare Trump Victory ............................ 10 Debate greeted by hoots, hollers at Rocketown conservative watch party BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Homelessness Service Providers Prepare for Pandemic Challenges This Winter ... 12 With COVID-19 protocol in place, outreach efforts from groups like Launch Pad and Open Table Nashville will look different

BOOKS

Home, Happiness and Hurt Writers of color consider what it means to belong in the South BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM AND CHAPTER 16

‘Sleeping Breonna’

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

A poem for Breonna Taylor, illustrated by Sensei ArJae

Pith in the Wind ...................................... 14

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

COVER STORY

The Replacements As legacy media continues to be battered, a wave of digital upstarts targets Nashville sports fans BY STEVE CAVENDISH

Chef Trevor Moran’s Much-Anticipated Locust Opens This Week Claymation Mini-Series Tank Talk Takes Underground Comedy Underwater

MUSIC

Holding On ............................................... 45 Cam reaches out a hand with The Otherside BY MARISSA R. MOSS

Through Lines: End of the Century ........ 46 Looking back on local releases that reflect the vast changes in Nashville music in the 1990s BY MICHAEL McCALL

CRITICS’ PICKS Tune in to a conversation with Caroline Randall Williams and Roger Guenveur Smith, build your own streaming John Carpenter film festival, watch the Halloween double feature at Stardust Drive-In, attend Lindy West’s virtual book tour, stream The Cancellations’ Springwater benefit show and more

FOOD AND DRINK Smooth Sailing

Good vibes and great food anchor The Optimist, Germantown’s newest seafood paradise

The Spin ................................................... 48 The Scene’s live-review column checks out Third Man Records’ telethon with Alicia Bognanno, Daisha McBride and more BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

51 FILM

A Hell of a Town Our critic on the best of the 2020 New York Film Festival, from Lovers Rock to On the Rocks and much more BY JASON SHAWHAN

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

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10/26/20 7:05 PM

FROM BILL FREEMAN

TRUMP IS CAUSING ALARM, AND BIDEN VOTERS BETTER TAKE HEED The early voting period has been exciting! More people are voting. More people are voting by mail and mailing those ballots earlier to ensure accurate counts. Parts of the country that were not considered “battleground states” a year ago are now up for grabs — an example being red state Texas, now much more competitive turf thanks in part to reports of suburban housewives tipping toward Democrats. This election feels historic. And if the presidential debate held at Belmont University in Nashville last week indicated anything, it is that we all need to vote. According to Fox News, as of Oct. 22 national polls showed President Donald Trump trailing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by nearly 10 points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by two points but lost the electoral college vote. An Oct. 22 MSN report shows that former Vice President Biden has a good shot of winning Texas, where President Trump was still meagerly ahead in the weeks prior. A Texas Monthly article suggests that President Trump will have “no path to victory” if he loses Texas. But other states will of course affect the outcome. The Fox News story says nine states will decide the election: Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Michigan. All but one poll show Biden pulling ahead in those states, if only incrementally, as I write this. In Michigan, polls indicate Biden has the edge over the president in the battle for the state’s 16 electoral votes, but supporters are worried. Associated Press reports an example — Michigan housewife Lori Goldman, who in 2016 started a group called Fems for Dems in an effort to elect the first female president. She and her group of nearly 9,000 knock on doors throughout Michigan, asking residents to vote, and vote Democrat. It appears the former vice president has a great deal going for him in contested states, but as Goldman points out, she is taking nothing for granted. “We work like Biden is behind 20 points in every state.” Our confidence in any prediction of this election is tempered by the unknown

impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has already completely altered the campaign-trail landscape. The U.S. COVID-19 death toll has passed 225,000, but President Trump still campaigns against safe voting practices. The president argues still that millions of mail-in ballots cannot be counted accurately or without holding up the election process. He’s also suggested he might remain in office if he’s not pleased with the outcome. I hope voters ignore his alarmist rants and vote in any way available to them. Our system will work. An Oct. 22 Yahoo report states that “key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have all issued rulings that give voters more time to return their ballots to have them counted … as long as the ballots are postmarked by election day and arrive in the days after, having a potentially significant effect on the election.” Perhaps fearing the president’s threats or that an injustice could occur, many who originally requested mail-in ballots have shown up to vote early in person, signing affidavits to cancel their previously requested mail-in ballots. Consumerreports. org will help you learn how to vote safely if you wish to do so in person on Election Day. According to an Associated Press report Sunday, with several days to go, “more people already [had] cast ballots in this year’s presidential election than voted early or absentee in the 2016 race.” And we need to keep this trend going. Media outlets like FiveThirtyEight project that Biden will win based on the current numbers, but everyone still must do their part. Biden supporters should not, and indeed cannot, assume that he’s got the win in the bag. If you want to see your guy in office, go vote, and do whatever you can to encourage your friends, neighbors and family members to do the same. It matters!

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editors Jack Silverman, Abby White Staff Writers Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Andrea Williams, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Events and Marketing Director Olivia Moye Promotions Coordinator Caroline Poole Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Debbie Deboer, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Stevan Steinhart, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Manager William Shutes Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Aya Robinson, Price Waltman Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

Copyright©2020, Nashville Scene. 210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203. Phone: 615-244-7989. The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com. Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $150 per year for 52 issues. Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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CITY LIMITS

What those involved in — and left out of — the search process are looking for in a new chief BY STEVEN HALE

avidson County Sheriff Daron Hall knows that the process of replacing a police chief is often fraught with challenges. A change in police leadership many times follows periods of strife, and decisions over the future of the department can divide officials and communities. The sheriff’s late father, Dunward Hall, was a Metro Councilmember in 1989 when then-Mayor Bill Boner faced a choice between two veteran internal candidates for the job — Robert Kirchner and John Ross. The elder Hall sided with his longtime friend, Kirchner, when the council weighed in on the matter, which had divided Metro insiders. Boner named Kirchner the chief and appointed Ross deputy chief. (Almost three years later, just before New Year’s Day 1992, Ross drove out to the police training academy and killed himself with his service revolver. He left a note citing health, financial and marital problems.) When Kirchner retired in 1995, Emmett Turner was appointed as the city’s first Black police chief. He took over a department divided along racial lines. In 1992, a Black undercover officer named Reginald Miller had been beaten by two white officers from the same precinct. The incident came around the same time that Black officers were alleging discrimination within the department related to promotions, among other things. Turner led the department until 2003, when he left for a job with the state — kicking off another round of jockeying and internal drama. Then-Mayor Bill Purcell appointed Deborah Faulkner as acting chief. Faulkner was the first woman to work as a uniformed patrol officer in the department’s history, and the first to achieve the rank of deputy chief. She looked at first like a shoe-in for the permanent job, but she faced criticism over the department’s handling of the investigation into the widely reported disappearance of 13-year-old Tabitha Tuders as well as dissent from within the department. In late 2003, as decision time neared for Purcell, a veteran deputy chief wrote a memo harshly criticizing Faulkner for not doing enough to address the overwhelming whiteness of the department’s leadership ranks. That deputy chief’s name was Steve Anderson. Purcell ultimately hired Ronal Serpas, and Faulkner resigned. When Serpas was hired away by New Orleans in 2010, Anderson was appointed to replace him. In August of this year, Anderson abruptly retired from the Metro Nashville Police Department, with the city and the police force still beset by the issues that his predecessors failed to

address. The department’s relationship with Black Nashvillians is broken after years of disproportionate attention, measured in stops and searches, and two recent fatal police shootings of Black men. There is still a lack of racial and gender diversity among the department’s leadership, and the sexual assault survivors organization Silent No Longer Tennessee has recently come forward with what it says are allegations from dozens of women of harassment, assault and sexist treatment within the department. “It’s always been a complicated process,” Hall says of selecting a police chief. Hall is one of six people who will serve on an interview panel that will meet with five finalists for the job on Oct. 29 and 30. Along with the sheriff, the panel includes: American Baptist College president Dr. Forrest Harris; Community Oversight Board chair Andrés Martinez; Former Boston police commissioner and Seattle police Chief Kathleen O’Toole; president and chief executive officer of the YWCA Sharon Roberson; and Metro’s chief of operations and performance Kristin Canavan Wilson. Mayor John Cooper will make the final decision. Hall says he hasn’t spoken to the mayor about the search at all, which he appreciates. “I kind of find that somewhat refreshing,” says Hall, who expressed an interest early on in participating in the process. “They’re not telling me what to do and who they want, that type of thing. There’s been no pressure at all or even interest at all in talking about it, which I think is a healthy way of doing it.” The search has also attracted attention

METRO POLICE CHIEF FINALISTS: JOHN DRAKE: “Interim Chief of Police Drake has served Nashville as a member of the Metropolitan Police Department (MNPD) for 32 years. His previous positions include deputy chief for community supervision and commander of the Central Precinct.”

LARRY SCIROTTO: “Mr. Scirotto is the former assistant chief of professional standards with the Pittsburgh Police Department, where he oversaw policy and program development, training and education and internal investigations. Prior, he oversaw the Major Crimes Unit.”

TROY GAY: “Assistant Chief Troy Gay is the chief of staff for the Austin Police Department. Assistant Chief Gay has more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement, including seven years of experience at the assistant chief level.”

KRISTEN ZIMAN: “Chief Ziman serves as the chief of Illinois’ second-largest police department, Aurora. She joined the Aurora Police Department in 1994 and became Aurora’s first female police chief in 2016.”

DARRYL McSWAIN: “Chief McSwain has served as the chief of the Maryland-National Capital Park Police for the past two years. Prior, he served as the assistant chief for field services for the police department of Montgomery County, Maryland, a jurisdiction of more than 1 million residents in the metropolitan Washington area.”

All information appears exactly as provided by Mayor Cooper’s office.

TENNESSEE’S LEAST UNDECIDED VOTERS DECLARE TRUMP VICTORY Debate greeted by hoots, hollers at Rocketown conservative watch party BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT JOHN RICH

PHOTO: STEPHEN ELLIOTT

IN NASHVILLE, HIRING A NEW POLICE CHIEF HAS ALWAYS BEEN COMPLICATED

for the voices that have been left out of it. A search review committee put together by the mayor was made up entirely of former cops and prosecutors. Metro Public Defender Martesha Johnson has not been included in the process at all. “I certainly think that as the agency that represents most of the people who interact with the police department,” says Johnson, “I thought that my perspective and certainly the ability to ask questions from the perspective of the work that we do was important.” Johnson tells the Scene she understands that she doesn’t have “an automatic right” to participate in the mayor’s hiring of a police chief, but she has expressed her views to his office. “I would like a police chief … who understands that there are multiple perspectives as it relates to interactions with the police, and the perspective of someone charged with a crime is as important as other people involved in that process,” she says. “It is sometimes difficult to get people to listen to that viewpoint, but it is certainly hard to hear that perspective if the perspective is not in the room.” A new chief, Johnson adds, “should be engaged in efforts to try and bring more restorative practices to the city, more diversion opportunities for people who struggle with mental illness and addiction.” That’s what Hall wants to see too, and it’s something he plans to ask the candidates about. He calls Anderson a friend who brought a number of “healthy” attributes to the job, but says the former chief “is not the easiest to get to change or to be creative and think outside the box.” Nashville, Hall says, has made a big investment in decriminalizing mental illness with its newly opened Behavioral Care Center, and he wants a chief who is committed to putting it to use. “We need a person in that job who’s at least willing to see that if you arrest a naked man in the airport because you were called out there,” says Hall, “that the police chief and the police department is willing to see an alternative if it’s available in lieu of just more arrests and more people going in the system.” EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

summer’s worth of music festival lineups was thrown in the trash due to COVID-19. But we got the next-best thing Thursday night as a lineup of Nashville’s B-list conservative celebrities preached to a choir of like-minded Trump supporters gathered at Rocketown to watch the presidential debate, which took place two miles away at Belmont University. At this late stage in the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, few voters are undecided. And you would have been hard-pressed to find an undecided voter at the watch party, dubiously billed by its Turning Point USA organizers as “the biggest debate watch party in the country.” “If you don’t know who the hell you’re voting for at this point, have a cocktail, I don’t know what to tell ya,” joked the first of the luminaries to speak, John Rich, bar owner and singer of “Shut Up About Politics.” Most of the attendees at the event were optimistic about the looming election. One, Kanye West elector Rick Williams, even passed out flyers for a Trump “victory parade” he organized — to be held two days before the election. “I don’t believe in polls,” said Tomi Lahren, the conservative personality who recently relocated to 12South, citing models that showed Trump was expected to lose in 2016. The smell of grievance was heavy at Rocketown. A cheer went up when Lahren asked how many attendees lost friends when they supported Trump in 2016. Even louder was the response when Lahren then asked, “How many of you are ready to lose even more friends when we win on Nov. 3?” Lahren said she was happy to be among fellow Trump supporters, even though she left the event shortly after her 10-minute speech. “It’s a safe space for us, even though we never really need a safe space,” Lahren said. The event was hosted by the local chapter of college conservative group Turning Point USA at Rocketown, a venue founded by Christian musician Michael W. Smith, and where Trump held a campaign event in 2015. Venue security enforced

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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a mask mandate at the event, despite opposition from event organizers, and at least one attendee was kicked out when he did not comply. One volunteer collecting signatures for an effort to recall Nashville Mayor John Cooper said the people she approached were mostly from neighboring counties. After more speeches from national and local conservative personalities, including failed mayoral candidate Carol Swain and eye doctor Ming Wang, the attendees settled in for the main event. Unlike the voters around the country who find Trump’s diversions into conspiracy and minor rightwing news plots nearly impossible to follow, the Rocketown supporters deemed his largely debunked lines about Biden’s supposed foreign entanglements the highlight of the night. Though fracking is not typically

a consideration in Tennessee politics, the Trump supporters in Nashville reserved some of their loudest applause for the president’s defense of the extraction process. Among the loudest cheers came when Trump predicted Republicans would win back the House, an outcome observers (not present at Rocketown) deem unlikely with House Republicans playing more defense than offense this cycle. Their commitment to Trump left them at times at odds with themselves: They cheered loudly when Trump pointed out that “cages” used for holding immigrants at the border were built during the Obama administration. (Presumably they were cheering for the line and not the construction of cages.) A minute later, the crowd jeered Biden’s distaste for Trump’s

policy that separated, in some cases indefinitely, migrant children from their parents. Though Rich implored the crowd to disagree with Democrats with kindness, the crowd laughed when Biden’s well-documented stutter manifested. And while the event’s speakers and crowd evidenced a full-throated belief that Trump had won the debate and would win on Nov. 3, at least one attendee was more skeptical. Parker Harless, a 22-year-old Trevecca Nazarene University student, said he thought Biden won the climate-change portion of the debate, and that the election would be a “nail biter.” Asked outside the venue about the rest of the crowd’s optimism, Harless said, “I hope they’re right.” EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

HOMELESSNESS SERVICE PROVIDERS PREPARE FOR PANDEMIC CHALLENGES THIS WINTER

With COVID-19 protocol in place, outreach efforts from groups like Launch Pad and Open Table Nashville will look different

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n early March, when service providers at Launch Pad — an organization that helps homeless youth — heard that the COVID-19 pandemic would soon reach Nashville, they cobbled together funds and placed their shelter guests into motel rooms. It was a departure for the small organization, which usually sets up mattresses on the floors of churches. “We just didn’t want to keep doing that [type of] congregate shelter, just didn’t think it was safe,” says Ty Brown, the nonprofit’s executive director. “One day when our guests came into the church where we had the shelter that night, we said, ‘Well, this is voluntary, but if you want, we’re going to put everybody up in a motel room.’ And of course, everybody was happy to do that.” It wasn’t a completely smooth transition. The first motel Launch Pad went to eventually asked them to leave. Luckily, they had a much better working relationship with the second motel they partnered with. Launch Pad extended its shelter season past March 31 to May 15, and Brown says many of the nonprofit’s guests even transitioned from motels into permanent housing. Now, roughly eight months after the pandemic first hit Nashville, Launch Pad has decided to once again secure motel rooms for its winter shelter season, which starts Nov. 1. Brown says it’s a safer and more convenient option for guests — compared to lugging their stuff around all day and finding a different shelter every night. “They’ve got laundry available, take a shower whenever they want, three meals

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BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

TY BROWN a day,” he says. “It’s a very nice upgrade to their situation, and … it’s really more of the model that we should be shooting for. “I’m less and less comfortable with the idea of emergency shelter and more and more comfortable with the idea of emergency housing,” Brown adds. Launch Pad has secured 20 motel rooms for guests, as well as a spare room for Launch Pad staff and volunteers that will act as an on-site office. “We’ll have supplies there, [and] we’ll distribute food out of there,” says Brown. Brown says Launch Pad isn’t ready to publicly share the name of the motel yet, mostly to avoid confusion in their admission process. Young adults age 18 to 24 who need a room can email Launch Pad (shelter@ nashvillelaunchpad.com) or contact Oasis Center, a youth crisis intervention organization (oasiscenter.org). Launch Pad isn’t the only services provider adapting to new challenges this winter. Open Table Nashville, a nonprofit dedicated to homelessness outreach and alleviating poverty, is examining how staff and volunteers can practice social distancing while delivering supplies to those who need them. Co-founder and co-director Lindsey Krinks tells the Scene via email that nor-

mally during the winter, “a small army of volunteers” from Open Table canvasses the streets and lets people know what options they have for shelters. They will also offer supplies like sleeping bags, hand warmers and even propane. “Because of the pandemic, however, we are having to reexamine everything and put new safety protocols into place to protect our friends on the streets, as well as our outreach workers and volunteers,” Krinks says. “Instead of canvassing in the evenings across the city, our outreach workers will work to provide supplies and support during the days, and then we’ll have some evening pickup spots that one of our volunteer van drivers will check in the evenings.” Krinks adds that there will still be evening canvassing efforts in the downtown area, because “it is the area with the highest concentration of people who stay out.” Open Table and other private providers across the city are also partnering with Metro to assist in the cold-weather response. Earlier this month Mayor John Cooper’s office announced the city’s cold-weather overflow shelter plan, which will add additional space to the emergency shelter established at the Fairgrounds Nashville. That space was established in March in response to the

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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10/26/20 6:29 PM

— Cowboy Jack Clement

Country Music Hall of Fame member Cowboy Jack Clement remains one of the most highly regarded producers, songwriters, and entrepreneurs in country and popular music history. Explore the Museum’s major exhibit Outlaws & Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s to find out more about Clement and country music’s ever-evolving story.

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nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

PET OF THE WEEK!

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COVID-19 pandemic and consisted of two buildings: one for people who tested negative for COVID-19, and another building partitioned with separate spaces for people who tested positive and those awaiting their results. Metro’s winter plan will add a third building to the shelter to accommodate winter overflow guests on nights when the temperature drops to 28 degrees or colder. Metro’s cold-weather plan begins Nov. 1. The fairgrounds shelter was controversial with some advocates, who felt the city should have also pursued alternatives like

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: The third (Or is it fourth? Ninth? Sixteenth?) wave of the COVID-19 pandemic looks as if it’s arrived in Nashville, as the number of new cases is surging to levels unseen since midsummer. Active cases, after hitting a five-month low in late September, are now rising back toward where they were in August when the city looked as if it was recovering from the July high. Statewide, hospitalizations are higher than they’ve ever been and the death toll in Tennessee is now north of 3,100, with Davidson County inching toward 300 deaths as of press time. … Laborers International Union of North America Local 386 — which represents 600 maintenance, groundskeeping, custodial and dining-room workers at Vanderbilt University — and other labor groups at the school are calling for more transparency and financial support from officials following the announcement of a $100 million initiative. The initiative is aimed at recruiting 60 new professors at a time when the university asked LIUNA members to defer annual merit raises. The median wage rate for LIUNA members workers is $15.80 per hour, and the usual annual increase of 3.25 percent for LIUNA members would cost roughly $700,000 total this year — less than 1 percent of what the school will spend on its recruitment effort. The graduate students’ union and the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors are also raising concerns, creating hope for

providing motel and hotel rooms to people experiencing homelessness — which advocates feel are safer and more socially distant alternatives to group shelters. City officials pushed back against those criticisms, saying the shelters followed Centers for Disease Control safety guidelines. Launch Pad is still accepting donations to help fund their guest’s motel stays, and Open Table Nashville is still accepting donations of supplies like sleeping bags, tents and blankets. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

a campus-wide labor coalition cutting across white- and blue-collar workers. … With Sen. Lamar Alexander mere weeks from entering lame duckery, our own Steven Hale says he’s preemptively tired of all the praise-heaping that will surely occur, as Alexander, long seen as a moderating force from a time gone by, has rarely offered more than a half-hearted tsk-tsk at the Trump administration’s policy and moral failings. “Imagine being a high-ranking U.S. senator and still carefully choosing your words in this way, all to presumably avoid angering the realityTV president and drawing the attention of his Twitter followers,” writes Hale. “This cowardly and empty posturing doesn’t do anyone much good.” … Metro announced that a third facility for sheltering the city’s homeless population is being prepped at the Fairgrounds Nashville for coldweather overflow. The shelter has the capacity for 250 to 300 guests. In addition to beds and dinner service, the site will provide amenities like shower facilities, kennels and a yard space for pets, and an outdoor smoking area. Transportation to the shelter will also be provided. The city’s pandemic sheltering operations will continue at the site as well. … The Tennessee Titans and their own King (Derrick) Henry made it thrilling on St. Crispin’s Day against Pittsburgh, but spotting the undefeated Steelers a couple of touchdowns before the anthem was over wasn’t a recipe for success. Yet another bid at a stunning second-half comeback fell short (or if you prefer, was pushed right by kicker Stephen Gostkowski) and the Two-Toners took their first loss of the year, 27-24. NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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t’s been an awful decade for traditional media. The Tennessean’s daily print circulation has fallen to roughly 35,000, and — battered by insufficient digital revenue and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on its advertisers — the paper had to furlough parts of its staff for most of 2020. On the broadcast side, consumers continue to cut the cable cord, leaving local affiliates scrambling for new ways to reach viewers. Radio has seen its audience drastically reduced as working from home reduces the number of commuters listening in their cars. But if you’re looking for the moment when traditional Nashville sports media blew its huge lead, you probably need to look at Jim Wyatt’s career. The man identified with covering the Titans for more than two decades grew up in Nashville and had early aspirations of being a journalist. He couldn’t get a full-time gig at The Tennessean or the since-folded Nashville Banner after graduating from the University of Tennessee in 1989 because the benches were so deep: Legends John Bibb and Fred Russell still wrote columns; Jimmy Davy and Mike Organ duked it out on the Vanderbilt beat against Greg Pogue; David Climer and Joe Biddle were the faces of their respective newspapers’ sports sections; a young Buster Olney, who would go on to work for The New York Times and ESPN, covered college basketball and, of course, minor league baseball. Wyatt paid his dues in a Tennessean section the editors called “preps,” or high school sports, earning bylines on a part-time basis for years until a full-time opening came up in 1997. Two years later, he became a Titans beat writer alongside Paul Kuharsky during the Titans’ run to the Super Bowl. By 2015, Wyatt was widely regarded as one of the best beat reporters in the country, and he was named the state’s top sports writer six times. When news on the Titans beat broke,

it was almost always because Wyatt broke it. But things had changed seismically. The Banner was closed by Gannett in 1998, and The Tennessean’s sports section was weakened by years of cuts. Nightly sports reports on the city’s broadcast outlets had been nipped and trimmed as sports-television viewers departed en masse for cable sports networks. The internet gave rise to any manner of fan sites — like On the Forecheck and Music City Miracles — which made up in volume and frequency what they might have lacked in authority. In fact, it could be argued that by 2015 Wyatt’s most important asset was not his byline on the front page of the print edition of The Tennessean, but rather his Twitter feed. That’s where he doled out almost hourly updates on everything from front-office changes to injuries to practice-field surprises. The Titans certainly noticed — they made him an offer to become the senior reporter for Titans Online, the team-owned news site. And so in June of that year, Wyatt crossed over to the digital side, and The Tennessean never fully recovered, replacing him with a succession of solid beat writers who never reached his heights. Into the traditional-media breach, though, has come a wave of newcomers determined to meet consumers at one place — your phone. From streaming broadcasts to premium news sites to podcasts, Nashville sports fans have never had more options than they do now. These newer entities have all been enabled by an internet culture that has been gradually eroding the authority of legacy media. It’s likely that they won’t all find success — nobody has developed a foolproof revenue model — but fans are richer for their attempts. What follows is a look at the biggest players in Nashville’s sports-media landscape, piece by piece.

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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THE SOLE PRACTITIONER

PaulKuharsky.com

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

f you’ve followed the Tennessee Titans since they arrived in Nashville, you are familiar with Paul Kuharsky. First as a beat writer covering the team for The Tennessean and then the AFC South for ESPN, the acerbic Kuharsky has juggled his reporting duties with his presence on The Midday 180 on 104.5 WGFX-FM The Zone. But when ESPN eliminated his position in a reorganization three years ago, Kuharsky took a different tack — he hung out his own shingle. Because sometimes the person is the brand. At PaulKuharsky.com, for $5.99 per month readers get the full PK, including news stories, features, analysis, podcasts and exclusive video chats on the Tennessee Titans. Kuharsky’s status as one of the longest-serving writers covering the team gives him a perspective only a couple of other reporters in Nashville can match. His market is die-hard fans. “If you’re a really big fan of the team — and you’ve got to have tickets to a certain game, or a jersey of a certain player, or you feel like you’ve got to have all these things in order to show that you’re a high-level fan — and you don’t have a membership to my site then you’re incomplete,” Kuharsky says. “I think if I’m not part of the coverage that you’re reading, you’re missing out on the hardest-edge, most critical analysis of it. If you don’t have that, you’re not seeing the full picture.” If that sounds like boasting, Kuharsky has earned the right. He has clashed with coaches and previous Titans administrations by not being afraid to ask a tough question. He also breaks the occasional big story, including a piece about a non-NFLsanctioned practice that players held at Montgomery Bell Academy in the middle of a team lockdown due to positive coronavirus tests. The daily radio gig provides a symbiotic situation for his site.

PAUL KUHARSKY

With Titans news dominating most of the talk on WGFX’s shows, Kuharsky brings news experience to a medium that can get bogged down in opinionating. And when he breaks a story on air — like the aforementioned MBA practice — it’s a good plug for his site. It’s little surprise that when the station shuffled its lineup earlier this year, The Midday 180 crew of Jonathan Hutton, Chad Withrow and Kuharsky became the central focus of the station’s schedule. Kuharsky defers when asked about numbers. His premium membership group, called the All 22, has remained full since the site launched. That group pays Kuharsky $125 a month for special access to him, including a private group chat and the ability to text him questions. He holds regular events with the group and has even brought in guests like Titans general manager Jon Robinson and tackle Taylor Lewan for private, off-the-record sessions. He will say, however, that his paid audience has been more stable than his sponsors, many of whom dropped out during the pandemic. Ticket broker Tennessee Tickets remains a title sponsor and enables him to travel to cover the team. Some back-of-thenapkin math, based on audience, would indicate that Kuharsky is pulling in well over $60,000 per year just from his site, but he won’t confirm anything. With the Titans making a run to the AFC Championship game last year, expectations are sky-high this season. And more interest has meant more members on Kuharsky’s site. “There’s a lot positive that’s been going on with this team in the last couple of years and I’ve certainly written about that,” he says, aware of his reputation. “The Titans could go to the Super Bowl — I picked them to. For everybody that wants to make me out to be constantly negative, I kind of blew up their theory with that.”

THE PREMIUM OPTION

The Athletic

Rexrode’s hiring a year later was a shot directly at the paper. The coverage is less frequent, but more in-depth. “I think there’s just an emphasis on finding the deeper story,” Rexrode says. “So I think of myself as more of a features writer who also has the freedom to be a columnist. Whereas at The Tennessean it was a lot more emphasis on reacting to news and your opinion. I guess I’ve always wanted to be versatile, so even as a beat writer I like to do different kinds of stories.” At $5.99 a month, the price is comparable to what most serious sports fans are paying for a streaming add-on beyond their current TV packages. The company, based in San Francisco, announced that it hit a million subscribers in September, but its success has not been without hiccups. A round of layoffs earlier this year cost longtime Titans writer John Glennon his job. The site is backed by analytics-obsessed Silicon Valley money, and a change in subscription patterns might spell other changes in the future. But that still pales compared to the instability in newspapers right now, and the chance to work at arguably the highest-profile sports site in the country was too good of an opportunity for Rexrode to pass up. “You always have a certain fear of like, ‘Man, I’ve been in newspapers my entire life, how could I not still be in newspapers?’ ” Rexrode says. “The print readers, that’s who I would get emails from, and I know it’s like people who [are] not on Twitter. They are a lot of older people who are reading this. But people who really still appreciate the newspaper and interact with you, and you still feel connected to that audience. And, you know, ‘OK, they’ll never read another word I write.’ So you think about all those things. But the short answer is that The Athletic was very convincing. I believe in The Athletic. I was a subscriber early and was thrilled with the product as a consumer. I mean, I can’t read all the good stuff every day.”

JOE REXRODE

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

nyone trying to make the case that sports fans should pay for content would be hard-pressed to find a better example than the piece Joe Rexrode posted on Aug. 20 on The Athletic. Titled “Fourth and Inches Every Day,” Rexrode’s story drew a straight line from Mike Vrabel’s 2012 season as an Ohio State defensive coach on Urban Meyer’s staff to Vrabel getting the Tennessee Titans head-coaching job six years later. It was full of anecdotes and details about the season and the transformation of a young coach fresh from his NFL playing career. The piece was of a quality you might expect from a magazine of another era, full of color and an expert-level grasp of the material. A little more than a year ago, the piece might have appeared in The Tennessean in one form or another, though it’s hard to see it taking up the two broadsheet pages necessary to let it breathe in today’s thin sports section. But Rexrode was lured from his columnist position at the daily to join The Athletic in August 2019, and the piece shows why they wanted him — he built his reputation in Michigan as a talented enterprise writer and Michigan State beat reporter before taking over David Climer’s lead-columnist job at The Tennessean in 2016. Years of Big 10 football gave him the chops and sources to dig into Vrabel’s time in Columbus. And he’s got a distinctive style. In short, Rexrode’s story has everything The Athletic says sets them apart from the newspaper staffs they’ve been raiding since launching in 2016. Nationally, the site covers virtually every major sports franchise and has a significant presence in soccer, including arguably the best stable of English Premier League writers on either side of the pond. In 2018 they opened a Nashville office, covering the Preds and Titans, UT football and occasionally more. Adam Vingan was hired away from The Tennessean to cover hockey, but

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

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THE PODCASTER

raden Gall had been restless for a while. A good talker who can toggle effortlessly from sports to news to music, Gall was a host on 102.5 WPRT-FM The Game’s morning show for four years. And in service to the medium, he ran afoul of the scientific methodology of executing sports talk radio: A host will tease, pay off the tease, set up an audio clip, play the audio, set up two sides of a discussion, argue about it, and move on to the next thing. The worst versions of terrestrial radio can feel like a bad version of Groundhog Day. It’s the polar opposite of a college football podcast he’s been co-hosting for Athlon Sports for several years — the Cover Two podcast — which is just as likely to nerd out on variations of the “air raid” style of offense as it is to examine Vince Dooley’s coaching tree. Even contract stints on ESPN Radio and SiriusXM college football shows provided more depth — and fulfillment — than morning radio. The disconnect between his day job and his side work had been eating at him for a couple of years, to the point that he even pitched versions of a series of podcasts to friends and colleagues. Gall was ready to cut the cord. As it happens, so was 102.5. Gall and co-host Derrick Mason were fired in February as the station, which had been bleeding listeners and slipping in the ratings, shuffled its lineup. “It is 100 percent fair to say that I was unhappy and looking around, but I also need to be very clear that it was not my decision to leave,” Gall says in the improvised studio in his East Nashville home. “102.5 canceled our show. They canceled Nick Kayal first in November, and then canceled Derrick and I on Feb. 10. And there was never a discussion about why. And that’s OK, that’s their prerogative.” Gall had no idea that six months later he’d be starting his own free podcast network, 440 Sports. But the more he talked through the idea, the more passionate he became about getting into more depth in sports talk than terrestrial radio was offering.

“It allows you to go deeper, it allows you to go nerdy and analytical, it allows you to go into storytelling mode, it allows you to pull back so many layers of the singular topic that you love the most so that you learn a lot more about it,” Gall says. “And I think you become a smarter and better sports fan because of that. That is what a podcast as a format does. And while there are plenty of good people doing good work in the city of Nashville, it feels like there is a void and a vacuum in the sports-talk area in this city around all of the things that people love.” Gall launched three main podcasts in September: Fringe Element, an in-depth look at SEC football with Erin Dugan; The Gold Standard, a Nashville Predators podcast with Adam Vingan of The Athletic; and The 440 Daily, a less-than-10minute podcast with headlines and short analysis about Nashville sports. (Full disclosure: I co-host a fourth podcast from 440 about local sports business and media, Lamestream Sports. I receive no money from Gall for appearing, and he didn’t see this story prior to publication.) Gall is also carrying other people’s podcasts on his network, including a ton of Titans pods by Broadway Sports and one by Vandy Sports. The plan, Gall says, is to turn the listener who may be unhappy with radio options into an on-demand consumer using the technology already in their pocket. He’ll sell ads on the podcasts as his audience expands. “I believe people want to control the content,” he says. “They don’t want to allow other people to decide what they hear or what they care about. And that is essentially what you are doing when you are listening to a radio sports talk show, is you are choosing to allow that host to drive whatever topic he or she wants in that moment. That means if you’re a die-hard Nashville Predators fan, you don’t know when you’re going to get Predators content on the radio. But if you go to a Predators podcast, you are going to get exactly what you want every single time you go there.”

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

440 Podcast Network

THE FREEMIUM CO-OP

Broadway Sports Media

ad things worked out differently, Johnathan Boren would have been on the sidelines instead of in the press box. For several years, he analyzed film as an assistant coach under former Titan Kevin Dyson at Independence High School in Williamson County. But things “just didn’t break right, so I went a different direction,” he says. Boren leads a collective of 16 people as CEO of Broadway Sports, the newest entity in the Nashville sports market. Fans will recognize parts of other sports media in the bios of the Broadway lineup — including Music City Miracles and On the Forecheck, two of the highest-profile fan-led sites — but Boren says the disparate parts needed to get organized under one roof. “All of our entities that we’ve had have been operating independently, and I think almost creating competition for ourselves,” Boren says. “I think there’s also a growing market here in Nashville, and the media hasn’t necessarily grown with it. Being able to bring in new faces and incorporate that into the media landscape with a growing city, if we want to be a big-time city, we’ve got to be able to cover it like a big-time city. We saw an opportunity, had a decentsized group with a skill set and some familiarity with covering the team, I saw an opportunity and said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ Here we are.” With some known quantities — like John Glennon on the Titans and Kris Martel on the

Predators — blended with a boatload of Titans podcasts (Football and Other F Words and Homerun Throwback to name two), Boren thinks there’s room for a freemium player in the market. The idea is to pair some free stories with deeper analytical work, like Mike Herndon’s film study of the Titans, and unique content — including stories from Speedway Soccer’s Ben Wright and Davey Shephard — behind a paywall. At $9.99 per month, it’s the most expensive play of the upstarts, but nobody is getting rich anytime soon. Aside from Glennon, the entire group is working day jobs to support their sports media careers. “I would say that the value is, again, you’re going to get it all in one place,” Boren says during a break from his gig as a project manager for HCA Healthcare. “I think that the quality of what we provide and also just the access, everybody who is on that site is easily accessible and easy to interact with. I think a lot of times you have these folks that may be local, but they come from a national entity. Or if you’re getting that production quality, it’s guys at ESPN that are providing these kinds of things — which, cool, they say something, you get kicked off and that’s it. There’s no other way to actually interact with those people. One of the things that I pride ourselves on is the accountability. ‘Hey, we’re going to be wrong at some point, but one, we’re going to tell you why we thought the way we did, and we’re also going to own it.’ That’s the big thing.”

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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THE ONLINE TALK SHOW

AtoZ Sports

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atching an AtoZ show can be a little bit like a visual assault. A pair of former radio hosts who were fired from their morning show — stop me if this sounds familiar — Austin Stanley and Zach Bingham are surrounded by a cacophony of team logos, social media bugs, cutout photos and teasers to later show segments. The duo appears in separate boxes in front of a background emblazoned with, you got it, AtoZ logos. It’s October, so the lineup for this particular show is Titans-heavy, concentrating on Ryan Tannehill, Derrick Henry and the team’s upcoming Oct. 25 matchup with the 5-0 Steelers. As they rate the Titans’ chances at victory on a scale of 1 to 10, Stanley and Bingham start calling out commenters from their multiple video streams. A Facebook viewer says it would be an 8, but he lost on Madden last night, so it’s now a 6. “You probably played like a 6 last night,” Bingham says. Beazy622 chimes in from Periscope, flashing on the screen with his 6.9 prediction. This is a show on Adderall, wrapped in a wave of graphics, but the hosts’ connection to their audience is very real. “We try to have a three-way conversation,” Bingham says. “The conversation is between Austin and I — it’s A and Z — but it’s really about a lot of others feeling a part of the conversation.” The pair discovered an audience on Facebook Live not long after being let go by 102.5 WPRT-FM The Game in 2016. They took a laptop to Birmingham for the SEC’s media days and just started doing their radio show for a camera. In time they would balloon to 50,000 Facebook fans and add a nighttime show starring Titans reporter Buck Reising. A typical daily show might get a

couple hundred viewers on each of the three video platforms, but then double over the course of 24 hours as fans continue to watch and comment. They call it “Nashville’s on-demand sports talk show.” “I look at the radio and television industry very much like coaching,” Bingham says. “If you get into this, you’re gonna get canned along the way. Somewhere, someplace. Ours came after a firing. We said, ‘Do we want to continue to do this? We’ve got something special.’ And luckily Facebook’s livestream had just barely started. And we took advantage. Looking back at the first ones we did, they’re really, really bad.” Stanley chimes in. “And Facebook memories pop up, and they remind us of just how bad.” Eventually the duo got more comfortable in front of the cameras, and more importantly, they were able to sell their growing audience to local advertisers. It went well enough that they turned down opportunities to return to terrestrial radio, as Bingham was able to leverage their show into real money, in part by undercutting their former employers on classic radio sponsorship opportunities, like a pop-up show at a business. “Radio stations sell that for like three grand, which is so ridiculous,” Bingham says. “Three grand for a radio pop-up that goes away after three hours and you can’t see anybody? So we sold it to them at a good price and it worked. It’s the whole reason we left radio — because they were taking 80 percent of the sale. I’m like, ‘I just worked my ass off for this sale and you’re gonna give me 15 percent?’ That’s what’s always on my mind.” Will it continue to work? They’re bullish enough to embark on an expansion into the Dallas market next. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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CRITICS’ PICKS R O U N D U P

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TUNE IN TO A CONVERSATION WITH CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS AND ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH

Among the most exciting aspects of our contemporary civil rights movement is seeing longtime artists and activists connect with the next generation of those carrying the mantle. OZ Arts — which has put all of its in-person programming on hold until certain folks mask up and stop acting like fools — will present two such luminaries. Roger Guenveur Smith has been on stages and screens for more than three decades. He’s a frequent collaborator with Spike Lee, and you may know him as Do the Right Thing’s Smiley, School Daze’s Yoda or Get on the Bus’s Gary. But in recent years, he’s also taken on Huey P. Newton, Rodney King and Frederick Douglass, both as a playwright and an actor. He’ll be joined in this virtual event by Nashville’s own author, poet and performer Caroline Randall Williams. We’ve been singing her praises for years, and the world took notice when The New York Times published her op-ed in June — “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument” is an indictment of white Southern pride and an exorcism of its demons. The live event, which is called How the Past Informs the Present, is free to watch. 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, via the OZ Arts YouTube channel and Facebook page

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EVE MARET his time playing Xbox games — but his filmography has plenty of great options to choose from. While Carpenter had a couple of worthy efforts earlier in his career, it only makes sense to kick off your film fest with Halloween. It’s screening this weekend at Watertown’s Stardust Drive-In — see our Critic’s Pick about that below — and

is also free with a Shudder subscription, or $4 to rent on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes. The iconic 1978 film launched the career of quintessential scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and plunged America into the golden age of slasher cinema — indeed, it remains the high-water mark against which all other teen horror films

FILM

you’ll donate via links they’ll provide to the Nashville Free Store, which offers food In this year’s Best of Nashville Issue, and household items free of charge and no we saluted all-ages do-it-together venue questions asked, and Bliss and the Trash Drkmttr and its organizers for the way Plants, an operation to rehabilitate and they’ve adapted its mission during the recycle plants that have been thrown away COVID-19 pandemic. Now you’ll be able (some of them into providing produce). The to check out a new project that addresses first episode streamed on Oct. 22, and you’ll both Drkmttr’s long-standing goals and be able to access both shows for rewatching those recently added to the mix. With if you support the venue on Patreon. 8 assistance from the folks at youth arts p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29, via Queen Ave nonprofit YEAH!, rock ’n’ pop wizard Collective’s Twitch channel STEPHEN TRAGESER Hayley Williams, stellar indie label/booking enterprise Cold Lunch Recordings and the production team at Queen Ave Collective, [OBEY!] the folks at Drkmttr have put together BUILD YOUR OWN STREAMING JOHN a virtual variety show called Spirit of CARPENTER FILM FESTIVAL Drkmttr that’s streaming in two parts. The It’s been a few weeks since your pals at second episode streams Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. via the Scene issued a new installment in our Queen Ave Collective’s Twitch channel, and ongoing build-your-own-streaming-filmthere’s a shedload of music in store fest series. But now, with Halloween from local standouts: Electronic week upon us and rising COVID-19 musicians Eve Maret and Dream case numbers making trips to EDITOR’S NOTE: Chambers as well as punk the local cineplex less than AS A RESPONSE TO THE outfits Thirdface, Engine ideal, we figured it’s high time ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED THE FOCUS OF IX and Peachy are in the for another dose — and who THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO mix. There will also be drag better to recommend as our INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN performances from Carnelian 25th streaming-fest filmmaker PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT and host Sassy-O-Pathic, magic than master of fright John HOME. from David Torres, a puppet Carpenter? It’s been roughly a show from Brian Hull, a comedy decade since the legendary writerset from Laura Peek, raffles for prizes director-composer helmed a project from local businesses and more. The show of his own — the 72-year-old has told press is free to watch, but the Drkmttr crew hopes in recent years that he’d just as soon spend

THE FOG

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CRITICS’ PICKS HALLOWEEN

™

about anything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. AMY STUMPFL THEATER

are measured. From there, head to 1980’s The Fog ($4 on Prime, YouTube and iTunes), a minor classic that, though shot with a very small budget and remade to absolutely dreadful reviews in 2005, is an inspired little film also featuring JLC. Up next is an absolute must: 1982’s Kurt Russell-starring parasitic-extraterrestrial romp The Thing (available with a Showtime subscription, or $4 on all those aforementioned streaming services), which has practical effects that are even grosser and more delightful than you remember — and look up the hilarious Russell-featuring commentary track while you’re at it. While Carpenter has a slew of other releases worthy of your time (Assault on Precinct 13! Escapes from both New York and L.A.!), we’re going to keep this thing on theme by recommending you close out your streaming fest with a doubleheader of stone-cold classics: 1983’s Stephen King adaptation Christine and 1988’s absolutely singular They Live (both available for $4 on Prime). Both films are utterly outlandish and transfixing, though only one includes Roddy Piper, Keith David and a six-minute scene featuring the most insane street fight to ever grace the silver screen.

[FROM CREEPY TO CAMPY]

CHECK OUT ONLINE TUTORIALS FOR ICONIC BROADWAY MAKEUP

Looking for some last-minute costume ideas for Halloween? There are plenty of online tutorials available for iconic Broadway makeup. You might try re-creating Elphaba’s signature green look from Wicked, or maybe the glitz and glamour of Moulin Rouge!, or transform your wig in a box with Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Morph into one of the creepy characters from Beetlejuice, and check out all the Jellicle possibilities from Cats. (Grizabella is my personal fave, although Rum Tum Tugger is always fun.) You can also find more general ideas and tips — such as how to create realistic-looking bruises and perfect old-age makeup. You can find most of these looks through YouTube, playbill.com or pinterest.com, but be sure to follow professional makeup wizards like Joe Dulude II (@dulude2 on Instagram) and Charlie Short (@Pinkstylist on YouTube) for all of their latest creations. AMY STUMPFL

Nashville's ONLY vinyl record store with full bar, deli and appetizer menu, 24 seasonal craft beers on tap THANK YOU NASHVILLE for your votes. And thank you for all the support through the COVID-19 closure this summer! You kept us going through some dark days. Per current guidelines, we’re open on a shorter schedule, come by and say hey! www.vinyltapnashville.com | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram for current DJ and music events

2038 Greenwood Avenue, in historic East Nashville

[LET’S DO THE TIME WARP!]

CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN WITH A CREEPY BROADWAY PLAYLIST

Whether you’re planning a virtual costume party or just want to spend a fun evening at home decorating pumpkins and making your own treats, you’re going to need a creepy Halloween playlist to help set the mood. As always, Broadway is a great source for songs — from the silly to the truly spooky. You might start with classics like The Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd. (Sweeney’s organ prelude and opening ballad are positively chilling.) “No Good Deed” from Wicked is another good choice, as is “Confrontation” from Jekyll & Hyde. For a little lighter fare, check out “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” from The Book of Mormon, “When You’re an Addams” from The Addams Family or “Sexy” from Mean Girls. And you can’t go wrong with “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space” from Little Shop of Horrors. Of course, you can also borrow a few movie hits as well, such as Bette Midler’s rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” from Hocus Pocus, “This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and just

FILM

Come by and say Hey!

THEATER

D. PATRICK RODGERS [DOUBLE FANTASY]

WATCH THE HALLOWEEN DOUBLE FEATURE AT STARDUST DRIVE-IN

For the past 42 years, John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s Halloween has been the most influential slasher movie ever made. It’s a gateway into understanding the philosophy of cinemascope framing and foreground/ background tension in a static image. It’s also perhaps the only scary movie that even the most horror-phobic philistines have to acknowledge the artistry of. Halloween endures to the point of becoming a ritual, its structure written in the DNA of cinephiles and grindhouse mavens alike. It has made an icon of Jamie Lee Curtis, and its elegance and visceral power are undiminished in the intervening decades. (To really scratch the Carpenter itch, read our above Critic’s Pick to find out how to make your own streaming John Carpenter film fest.) And though there are several different paths one could take in the 11-film franchise (parts 12 and 13 are due out in 2021 and 2022) regarding continuity and character, 2018’s Halloween elided the rest of the series, picking up 40 years after the original with a shellshocked Laurie Strode gearing up for the day she

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PRESENTED BY

O R PA R T Y I N G W I T H U F S K N S! THA

Day

PRESENTED BY

Celebrate the Silver Linings of 2020

WEDNESDAY, 10.14

NER: READERS' POLL

stival

Fest

e t a n r e t l a salty

Congrats to all of the winners of this year’s Best of Nashville! Thank you to our partners and sponsors for making our 2020 virtual celebration of our city so special. SPONSORED BY:

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PRESENTED BY

THANK YOU Nashville

Best of Nashville is more than just a list of winners. It’s a way to celebrate and highlight the accomplishments our community, its artists, businesses, restaurants and more. It’s no secret that Nashville has seen its share of thunderstorms in 2020. But we’ve also seen plenty of silver linings and rainbows. Come check out our new commemorative Best of Nashville mural on Laurel Street in the Gulch, and continue celebrating the #BON20 spirit with us.

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

nt o r n f i us o g t ho nd ta ne p r e a u c o l s y a e T r l e Tak the mu ashvilGANGAR @n ofnashvillescene.com BON NASHVILLE SCENE nashvillescene.com NASHVILLE SCENE 29 3 @ d n a | OCTOBER 29 –29 NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | | | OCTOBER – NOVEMBER 4, 2020

CRITICS’ PICKS

BEST LAWYER 2020

WWW.ROCKYLAWFIRM.COM

615.425.2500

WE FIGHT FOR YOU

always knew would be coming — the day she can battle The Shape, in this instance known as Michael Myers. The Stardust is presenting the two films as a double feature on Halloween weekend, and that’s the way to do it. Stardust shows cinemascope films in the proper aspect ratio, and the vibe fits perfectly — especially as the fall chill fills the air. And these two films deliver on all fronts (super shout-outs to P.J. Soles, Virginia Gardner, Jibrail Nantambu and Miles Robbins among the supporting cast). 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31-Sunday, Nov. 1, at Stardust Drive-In, 310 Purple Tiger Drive, Watertown JASON SHAWHAN [DON’T MIND IF I DO]

MARATHON THE SIMPSONS ‘TREEHOUSE OF HORROR’ EPISODES

Plenty of sitcoms roll out Halloween episodes every year, but few have embraced that tradition like The Simpsons and its annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes. The yearly collection of horror-themed shorts allows the show to run even more wild with its expansive roster of oddballs, throwing characters into all sorts of supernatural shenanigans. Unsurprisingly, many are smart spoofs of well-known films, books and stories: “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace” (from “Treehouse of Horror VI”) has Groundskeeper Willie standing in for Freddy Krueger, while “The Shinning” (yes, two N’s, from the fifth installment) puts the Simpson family in a familiar spooky hotel. Plus there are tons of Twilight Zone riffs — Bart spies a gremlin on the side of the bus in “Terror at 5 ½ Feet” from “Treehouse of Horror IV.” Other personal favorites include a pair of Homer-centric entries from the third and sixth installments: “CLOWN WITHOUT PITY,” which features a murderous talking Krusty doll, and the “The Devil and Homer Simpson,” in which Homer sells his soul to Ned Flanders/Satan for a doughnut. And with an upcoming election, I’d be remiss not to mention the political satire “Citizen Kang” (“Treehouse of Horror VII”) where recurring Halloween-special characters Kang and Kodos, a pair of aliens, swap bodies with 1996 campaign rivals Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Thanks to this segment, if the world lays in smoky ruins after Election Day, you can always tell folks, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” The segments exist in various bootleg forms across the internet, and all 30 episodes can be streamed on Disney+, collected under The Simpsons: Horror. In the latter case,

I recommend starting with the very first “Treehouse of Horror” episode, which features a solid adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” narrated by James Earl Jones. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ BOOKS

Nashville’s

ROCKY was voted

THE SIMPSONS’ “TREEHOUSE OF HORROR”

[ZOOM IN]

ATTEND LINDY WEST’S VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR

Before her brilliant collection of essays was adapted as the hilarious and poignant Hulu series Shrill — and before she inspired an untold number of her readers to reconsider how they approach everything from body stereotypes to modern politics — Lindy West was a sharp-tongued film critic for Seattle’s alt-weekly newspaper The Stranger. Full disclosure (and minor brag): I worked with her in those days, and Film Critic Lindy was always my favorite Lindy, because Film Critic Lindy wasn’t afraid to get real weird. With her new book Shit, Actually, West returns to her film-reviewing roots by rewatching and reviewing some of America’s most beloved mainstream “classics” — and she delivers her observations with the same kind of joke-laden, irreverent essays that caught Roger Ebert’s eye all those years ago. Watch the films as you work your way through the book — it’s like having West right there with you as you suffer through films like The Notebook, Twilight and Titanic. There are still a couple of virtual book tour

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THANK YOU FOR VOTING US

BEST DISTILLERY!

Shine Responsibly

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, u o y k n a th ! e l l i v h s a n

CRITICS’ PICKS

When we created Diskin Cider, we made it our mission not only to make dangerously good cider, but to place customer service at the top priority of everything we do, so being voted by our community as best service is extremely humbling. We can't wait to continue to serve Nashville for years to come! @diskincider www.diskincider.com

events left, too — one via Commonwealth Club on Thursday, Oct. 29, and another via Chicago’s beloved bookshop Women and Children First on Friday, Oct. 30. For all event information, visit found.ee/lindywest or follow West on Instagram at @lindywest.

SELF-HELP

MEGAN SELING

BEST HANDYMAN/ BEST HOUSE PAINTER

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HANDYMAN SERVICES • PAINTING KITCHENS AND BATHROOMS email: hello@nashville-pro.com | office: 615-982-7070 32

[LESS IS MORE]

READ THE UNDERACHIEVER’S MANIFESTO

Are you feeling guilty that you haven’t learned a new language, purged everything that doesn’t spark joy or read even a single book during quarantine? If so, you can fix all of that with Ray Bennett’s 2006 self-help guide The Underachiever’s Manifesto — recently updated for 2020. The book makes the convincing case that not only does nobody like a Type A personality, but that being one takes years off your life. The book reminds me of the late, great roach-coach philosopher Kenny Shopsin in the documentary I Like Killing Flies, Matt Mahurin’s 2004 snapshot of the last vestiges of pre-9/11 New York: “The first duty of everybody in life is to realize they’re a piece of shit. Feeling that you’re a good person all the time … is a responsibility which is almost impossible to live up to. Being a piece of shit and occasionally doing something good and true is a much easier place to be. In fact, it’s what the whole ball game is about — being not-so-terrific, and accepting it.” The Underachiever’s Manifesto is just the thing to quell your mid-pandemic anxiety. And naturally, it’s really short. It’s available through both Parnassus and The Bookshop.

MUSIC

THANKS FOR VOTING US NASHVILLE’S BEST HANDYMAN FOUR YEARS IN A ROW!

[IT’S THE WATER]

STREAM THE CANCELLATIONS’ SPRINGWATER BENEFIT SHOW

My favorite haunts are those places that have been around forever, with Yelp ratings that average about three stars because the kind of people who write Yelp reviews are fazed by things like surly waitstaff, shabby decor or tagged-up bathrooms without locks. That’s the Springwater — a portal to a version of Nashville that is simultaneously more conservative and way weirder. Any touring rock or punk band worth its salt likely played here, either on the way to bigger, more Yelp-friendly venues, or before they realized that one cannot live on Top Ramen alone. You already know the only way to ensure your favorite small business survives this trash fire of a year is to support it directly, but bars are trickier. Still, a Nashville without the Springwater is not one you, I or anyone should want to live in. So tune in to this virtual benefit hosted

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PANDEMIC. PROTESTS. MURDER HORNETS. THIS IS NOT THE YEAR TO LEAVE THINGS TO CHANCE.

FIND VOTING INFO AT NASHVILLE.GOV/ELECTION-COMMISSION

Korea House AUTHENTIC KOREAN RESTAURANT

WE ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE: VOTED

#1 KOREAN

RESTAURANT 15 YEARS IN A ROW! THANK YOU NASHVILLE For Your Continued Support!

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Mon.-Sat. 11a.m. - 10p.m. Closed on Sunday

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CRITICS’ PICKS hosted by the righteous folks at Viv & Dickey’s — Joelton, Tenn.’s best (only?) one-stop shop for used vinyl and vintage threads — featuring the kinda-Strokesy, kinda-Smithsy power pop of locals The Cancellations, and support your local dive bar with your wallet. The show streams live via Viv & Dickey’s Facebook page, but you can also give to the ongoing Springwater tip jar via GoFundMe at any time. 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, via Viv & Dickey’s Facebook event page

Sylvan Heights

1807 21st Avenue South

www.DoubleDogs.biz

STREAM SOME KID-FRIENDLY HALLOWEEN CARTOONS AND SPECIALS

I love a good horror-movie session around Halloween, but sometimes the situation calls for spooky-season fare that’s more appropriate for young folks — or maybe you just need a break from the screaming and gore. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are staples of my rotation, and probably yours too. A few of my other favorite titles aren’t exactly obscure, but aren’t in ultra-wide circulation. They are, however, available to stream. In Ernest Scared Stupid (filmed partly in East Nashville and streamable on Hoopla via Nashville Public Library), the beloved underdog played by Jim Varney teams up with some neighborhood kids to battle an evil troll. They’re aided by a very cute dog named Rimshot and Old Lady Hackmore, a cantankerous yard artist played by the legendary Eartha Kitt. The outstanding 1983 clip show Disney’s Halloween Treat isn’t on Disney+, but two of the best shorts from it are: Seek out “Lonesome Ghosts,” a piece that apes the Marx Brothers and presages Ghostbusters, and “Trick or Treat,” in which an ultra-rude Donald Duck gets his comeuppance from a witch voiced by the inimitable June Foray. The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, an Emmy-winning special about a dispute among monsters that threatens to end Halloween, and Halloween Is Grinch Night, a psychedelic nightmare starring Dr. Seuss’ green jerk, aren’t available via official streaming sources, but you can find a decent transfer with a little digging. My ultimate pick: Witch’s Night Out, a distinctive Canadian cartoon in which a washed-up witch gets her groove back when she turns some misfit children and their babysitter into real monsters. The cast includes Catherine O’Hara and Gilda Radner; you can watch it for free on Tubi. STEPHEN TRAGESER COMMUNITY

4017 Charlotte Avenue

Hillsboro Village

[SO OK, I AIN’T THE AVON LADY]

MUSIC

KIDS

CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

democracy delicious” by delivering free pizza, water and other snacks to any U.S. polling place experiencing long lines. And they can’t do it without our help. Chip in $20 to buy some hungry voters a pizza — and report any long wait times you see at local polling places — at polls.pizza. This year Pizza to the Polls is also launching a food truck service — also free! — which will be making its rounds here in Nashville on both Oct. 29 (the last day of early voting) and Nov. 3. See a long line in town? Let ’em know so they can stop by with snacks and encouragement. MEGAN SELING [CURIOUS VOLUMES]

WATCH LORE’S STREAM ON INSTRUMENTHEAD LIVE

Though they’ve only been on the road for a few years, the two musicians at the core of the new project Lore each have a full career’s worth of credits. Songwriter and soulful singer Laura Reed toured far and wide with her band Deep Pocket in the late Aughts, rubbing elbows with musical heroes from George Clinton to Whitney Houston. Eventually she settled in Nashville, where she’s worked with luminaries of our soul and R&B scenes like Shannon Sanders. Guitar master Laur Joamets moved to Nashville from his native Estonia at the behest of Rival Sons drummer Michael Miley and star producer Dave Cobb, and became widely known and loved during a long run with Sturgill Simpson’s band. In the years since, Joamets has contributed to a variety of projects by other top local songsmiths including Darrin Bradbury and Jon Latham. With help from Grammywinning producer-engineer Vance Powell (whose long, long CV includes work with Jack White and Phish) and bassist Dave Schools (Widespread Panic, Hard Working Americans), Joamets and Reed have been writing and recording as Lore. The soulkissed country-rock project, which Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks might be proud to call their own, recently released its debut single “Surrender,” a tune about the strength required to let things go. Sunday, Nov. 1, they’re set to stream a performance as part of Instrumenthead Live, the series filmed at photographer Michael Weintrob’s East Nashville studio. The show will stream in real time at 7 p.m., but will be available to purchase (or rewatch) for a limited time afterward — see instrumentheadlive.com for all the details. 7 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, via instrumentheadlive.com STEPHEN TRAGESER

[PIZZA PIZZA]

DONATE TO PIZZA TO THE POLLS

Americans have shown up in record numbers to cast their ballots during the early voting period of this election cycle. On Oct. 21, The Washington Post reported that the country had already “hit 89% of total 2016 early voting,” with “at least” 42.1 million people voting nationwide. And that was with two weeks to go before Election Day! Whoa! While that’s encouraging news to anyone who appreciates democracy, the large crowds have made for longer-than-usual wait times in some areas. Enter Pizza to the Polls, an organization that aims to “make

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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Thanks, Nashville!

Since 1980

We’re Proud That Y’all Voted Us Best Catﬁsh For 2020!

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Thank You, Nashville

Support Local.

For voting us #2 for the Best Mexican Food in Town! All Margaritas always made from scratch with fresh-squeezed lime juice • Margarita prices start at $3.99 • Enjoy dining on our semi-enclosed patio

ORDER ONLINE: www.elfuegonashville.com DIA de LOS MUERTOS: Sat., Oct. 31st thru Mon., Nov. 2nd: Celebration Weekend: Special Tequila Flights Served!

DINE-IN, TAKE-OUT

Save the dishwashing for later.

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Visit nashvillescene.com for our daily takeout picks.

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EAST GERMANTOWN COCKTAIL

MUSSELS FRITES

SMOOTH SAILING

Good vibes and great food anchor The Optimist, Germantown’s newest seafood paradise BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

ow long do you wait to review a restaurant during a pandemic? It’s a dilemma no one’s faced in 100 years, and honestly? Food writing was not big business during the 1918 influTHE OPTIMIST enza outbreak. 1400 ADAMS ST. Food criti615-709-3156 THEOPTIMISTRESTAURANT.COM cism predates that, of course. THUNDERCAP OYSTER $3 The French PLEASURE CRUISE COCKTAIL $11 kicked things SMOKED FISH CHOWDER $12 YELLOWFIN TUNA CARPACCIO $16 off in the WHOLE ROASTED FLOUNDER $31 1800s with APPLE PUDDING CAKE $9 Almanach des

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

FOOD AND DRINK

Gourmands. By 1900, Michelin had slipped into the game with its dining guide — still a savage ploy to goad people into wearing out their tires. But when did food criticism pop up here in Nashville? Near as I can tell, about 160 years ago. The first reference I found to a local restaurant in The Tennessean archives was from 1845 — back when the daily newspaper was known as the Republican Banner — and it was just a bulletin for the Nashville Eating House. The first opinion came 12 years later in a one-line recommendation for any establishment owned by Sam Riddleburger. And Sam Riddleburger deserves a detour. Topping out at 543 pounds, Riddleburger

was the fattest man in Tennessee, and proud of it. He nearly suffocated with corpulency, which only proved to his diners that he was uniquely fit to feed them. And what did he feed them? Fish and oysters. Which brings us back to why we’re here: The Optimist. So when it came time to get back into reviews, we started easy. Having dined at The Optimist Atlanta, I felt certain that chef Ford Fry’s seafood spot in Germantown would deliver. Just one question: Could they deliver during a pandemic? In short, hell yes. From the fresh fish to the flawless cocktails to the moody, plush vibe, The Optimist is a breath of fresh air. Let’s all enjoy it. Needless to say, the pandemic still rages on, and even with all the proper social distancing protocols in place, some diners won’t be comfortable eating in a restaurant. Good news: The Optimist offers carryout as well.

EAT IT RAW

Unsurprisingly, a bountiful raw bar is the cornerstone of The Optimist’s dark-and-

dreamy downstairs dining room. It’s one of four distinct dining spaces within the reclaimed warehouse that is The Optimist. Up front, there’s a cocktail lounge outfitted with brass fixtures and slick marble, and out back there’s an open-air patio. Head upstairs for an airier dining room with a luxe oval bar. Starting with the raw bar, everything is meticulous and accessible. For example, oysters are listed thusly: THUNDERCAP / M / PEI 3.00 shallow cup, mild salinity, sweet, clean finish. The flavor notes are key, of course, but so is the “S/M/L” size designation. I am not a big-oyster person, and unless you’re going to shrink that sucker up in a broiler à la Rockefeller, I don’t want your big, sloppy mouthful of bivalve. At The Optimist, I get what I want: briny, crisp oysters with a name that sounds like something a WWE wrestler would name his McMansion. For the seafood-tower treatment, there’s The Opportunist: six oysters, six shrimp, ceviche, smoked fish dip and tuna poke

nashvillescene.com | OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

FOOD AND DRINK

WHOLE ROASTED FLOUNDER for $52. But I recommend opting for the $16 yellowfin tuna carpaccio. The setup changes, but ours was stellar: piquant giardiniera, creamy sauce gribiche (think deviled eggs but French) and gaufrette potatoes, which are basically waffle-fry potato chips. Finished with tiny pickled mushrooms, the tuna was beefy yet delicate, and teeming with umami — the perfect way to wake up your palate.

BOTTOMS UP

I’ve been a fan of beverage director Tracy Ardoin-Jenkins since I first encountered her skills opening Nicky’s Coal Fired, and I’m pleased to report they haven’t dulled. She can still take ingredients that sound simple — vodka, lemon, club soda — and with the deft addition of spicy ginger and sweet hibiscus, make a drink that lives up to a name like The Pleasure Cruise. For something darker, try The East Germantown: a mix of Tennessee corn and rye whiskies, Rinomato aperitivo and chicory that hits every bitter, buttery note. The wine menu at The Optimist is also user-friendly. Upon hearing I wanted a crisp white, our server Ernest suggested the 2017 Weszeli Langenlois Grüner Veltliner. That’s

a friggin’ mouthful, but when I clocked the descriptors “sage,” “pear blossom” and “fresh” on the menu, I knew we were in my wheelhouse. Could I pick out those notes blindfolded? Not a chance. But by having those notes (and Ernest’s support), we found a wine that was accessible yet sophisticated, and just what I wanted.

“SMALL” PLATES

First off, the name of this category is a lie. The giant bowl of mussels and frites I’m about to drool over while describing is anything but small, but it’s listed as a starter, so here we are. As with all good mussel dishes, it’s all about the broth, and this one is made with ham hock, charred greens and hot-sauce aioli. It is as rich, porky, bitter and spicy as it sounds, and if your mouth doesn’t water at that combination, you are not a Southerner. The smoked fish chowder with Old Bay crackers is also an umami-laced standout, as is the classic shrimp à la plancha. The latter comes drizzled with scampi butter, a side of “sopping toast” and shells that have — blessedly! — been peeled enough that you won’t turn your tablecloth into an imitation Pollock. Tip: Order the shrimp with the mussels for peak cross-soppabililty.

THE MAIN EVENT

Main courses at The Optimist are an embarrassment of riches. There’s old-school halibut en papillote; monkfish-crab-andeverything-else cioppino; fancified chicken and dumplings! I doubt any are duds, but I will enthusiastically vouch for a few. The scallops are seared hard on one side and raw on the other, so they’re buttery and crunchy — an ideal texture for topping the creamy, paella-style clams, sausage and Calasparra rice underneath. But real talk: If you’re at The Optimist and you don’t order whole fish, you’re doing it wrong. The roasted flounder is a foregone conclusion. Served fall-off-the-bones succulent and crusted with pecan meunière, the fish is bright with lemon and parsley but also rich and nutty (pecans, brown butter). The whole thing is just satisfying, especially with a side of secretly stunning green beans, which are infused with bacon, mustard and thyme.

HAPPY ENDINGS

On the subject of satisfaction, I give you my new favorite pairing: Cardmaro and pudding cake. The former is a wine-based aperitif that has the after-dinner sweetness of sherry but the funkiness of amaro. (It’s

made with artichoke-ish stuff and aged in oak.) The gentle bitterness, the round sweetness — it is delightful and delicious, and I’m livid it took me 37 years to find it. Then there’s the apple pudding cake. Like my whole-fish rule, another hardand-fast one is that if any mix of “cake” and “pudding” is on the menu, you order it. Double that if the toppings are toffee sauce and vanilla-rum anglaise, which is a liquor-laced custard that oozes all up in your puddin’. It is a hot, boozy mess in the greatest way. (And just to be clear, when I say “double that,” I mean double your order. I ended up getting an extra to-go because I did not enjoy sharing the first one.)

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Optimist is good. Very good. It’s not 100 percent perfect, and there will come a time, perhaps not long from now, where the world will even out and we critics will go back to pointing out room for improvement, nitpicking or even poking fun. What we need now is good vibes and great food. The Optimist has brought us both by the boatload. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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CULTURE

Podcast host Kim Baldwin invites you to ‘meet the women you think you know’ on Ladyland BY MEGAN SELING

adyland was created out of curiosity. Many good podcasts are, I suppose. But instead of taking a deep dive into an unsolved mystery or picking the brains of uber-rich celebs, podcast host Kim Baldwin decided to look a little closer to home for inspiration. She set out to really understand the women she thought she already knew. It all started the moment she learned a longtime running buddy built meth labs for a living. “I used to run with [local running group] East Nasty,” says Baldwin. “I would meet all these women who were my running speed, so we would run together as a group. LADYLAND IS AVAILABLE We ran together ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY OR WHEREVER for years, and just YOUR FAVORITE PODCASTS randomly on runs ARE FOUND. FOLLOW KIM someone would talk BALDWIN ON TWITTER AT about, ‘Well, you @THEBLONDEMULE AND LADYLAND ON INSTAGRAM know, I’ve got to go AT @LADYLAND_PODCAST. to blah blah blah tomorrow for my blah blah blah.’ And I was like, ‘I actually don’t know! What is your job?’ “The person who started it worked for the DEA,” she continues, “and she re-created meth labs to show people what to look for and how to not explode. And I was like, ‘I’ve been running with you for years and I didn’t know!’ ” At the time, Baldwin was regularly writing for her blog The Blonde Mule (theblondemule.com). The realization that she was friends with a Ph.D.-holding chemist who spent her days building models of illegal and highly dangerous drug labs sparked a blog series: “These Are My Bitches,” which Baldwin describes as “a Q&A-style series highlighting my awesome friends and their super-cool jobs.” Baldwin was approached by her friend Michael Eades about doing a show for his podcast network We Own This Town, and the two agreed it made sense to turn “These Are My Bitches” into an audio feature. Baldwin is a gregarious extrovert who loves to ask questions and connect with people — just the sort of person who makes an engaging podcast host. She has amassed a variety of cool and interesting friends, from cookbook author and food blogger Joy “The Baker” Wilson to body-positive burlesque performer Freya West. Listening to Ladyland feels a lot like listening in on a comfortable conversation between confidants. Baldwin’s affability puts her guests at ease, and producer Mary Katherine Rooker and editor Eades help ensure things run smoothly and sound great. But Baldwin laughs when asked how she managed to pull off such an impressive feat on her first try.

“Ladyland is my second podcast,” she admits. “I feel like it’s important to have a bad first one! And I had a real bad first one that I have wiped from the internet called Friday Night Noods, like noodles. Didn’t work. No one listened to it, zero downloads, it was so bad. So bad. But that’s how I learned! I was like, ‘OK, none of that worked. So let me try maybe a little more structure.’ ” Ladyland has completed two seasons, 14 episodes total, since launching in August 2019. (Do not miss the installment in which she chats about Lizzo with New York Times

Baldwin’s ability to talk bluntly about mental health — and many of life’s generally uncomfortable topics, for that matter — is a big part of what makes Ladyland so relatable. As Baldwin opens up, so do her guests, allowing listeners to “meet the women you think you know,” as the podcast’s tagline puts it. Conversations have addressed everything from finding a work/life balance to the struggle to maintain a sense of self after having children. But there’s fun stuff too — it wasn’t until listening to Baldwin’s interview with contract lobbyist Melanie Bull that I learned Korean raccoon cafes are a thing. “In the beginning, I just wanted Ladyland to be a creative outlet,” Baldwin says. “I did it for fun. I ultimately want as many people to hear it as need to hear it. Like, do you feel like no one knows what the fuck you do, or no one cares? The people who are on the show, I want them to have a place to say who they really are and have an honest conversation. I just want it to be big enough to find the people that it could be useful for.” EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

LADIES FIRST

bestselling author Samantha Irby.) But regular listeners have probably noticed that COVID-19 has, frustratingly, put Season 3 in a bit of a holding pattern. Baldwin prefers to do her interviews in person — “I feel like the conversation sounds better when you can tell the people connected, and that screen is a barrier,” she says. But the pandemic and everything that has come along with it have made it difficult to muster the energy and inspiration needed to be creative. “I went into a depressive state this summer, like probably everyone did whether they were diagnosed or not,” Baldwin says. “You can’t have a trauma activated and be creative at the same time. I can’t. And I have to be creative to do the podcast. I have to be on, and my energy has to be up here for it to work. “I think I’ve come out of it,” she continues with a laugh. “Like, I mean, what are any of us doing? Am I still depressed? I don’t know! I’m probably completely disassociated! Am I better? Or have I just learned how to hide it? Don’t know!”

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BOOKS

HOME, HAPPINESS AND HURT

Writers of color consider what it means to belong in the South

Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South considers the varying societal access points for people of color below the Mason-Dixon line. From a broad range of perspectives, the book takes on an essential question: What does it mean to be part of the modern South, rather than remaining an eternal tourist? This diverse collection of essays, edited by Cinelle Barnes, reveals that sometimes the answer is welcoming yourself, as Osayi Endolyn explains in “A New Normal South.” Her Brown in the South dinners in Decatur, Ga., feature chefs A MEASURE OF BELONGING: TWENTY-ONE WRITERS OF COLOR ON THE NEW AMERICAN SOUTH EDITED BY CINELLE BARNES HUB CITY PRESS 192 PAGES, $16.95 of Indian backgrounds who work in the modern South. Endolyn describes the gatherings as “the version of the South that I’ve wanted to be a part of since settling here.” The menu? Southern/Indian fusions like deepfried fish puppies and spiced fried chicken on uttapam. Because food is home. And food guides several of the essayists in their homemaking. In “Duos,” Devi Laskar describes her North Carolina childhood home as West Bengal in the South, filled with the aroma of buffalo carp and ground spices. Regina Bradley knows that she is unfortunately “Outta the Souf” when Waffle House signs are no longer black-and-yellow and Popeyes is nonexistent. Jennifer Hope Choi’s Korean mother, despite endless relocations, seems right at home as long as she can eat kimchi and rice. The essayists also explore the meaning of belonging in Southern academia. When Aruni Kashyap tells potential landlords that he is a professor of English literature at the University of Georgia, they ask him if he means ESL. In Christena Cleveland’s “White Devil in Blue: Duke Basketball, Religion, and Modern Day Slavery in the ‘New’ South,” Cleveland describes her awakening to the profound inequality baked into “the racial and religious power dynamics” of NCAA basketball at Duke University, where she worked. When she expresses her concerns about institutional racism, she is informed that she might not be cut out for Duke. The title of the essay suggests that perhaps the new South is not new at all; maybe it is simply the old South retrofitted with new appliances. Gary Jackson, a professor at the College of Charleston in South

Carolina, knows the value of “behaving” in order to survive in academia but is still called angry and dark by a student. This is a book about people of color, and skin color does not go unexamined. In “Foreign and Domestic: On Color, Comfort, and Crime in Miami,” South Asian poet Jaswinder Bolina considers that he could easily be mistaken for his Latino muggers in Coral Gables, Fla. — they’re the same color. In the same neighborhood, Filipina M. Evelina Galang is mistaken for being Chinese Jamaican. Ivelisse Rodriguez, in “White, Other, and Black,” wrestles with whether she is more white or Black when there is no better option at the DMV. She is not content to “pass,” a phenomenon that Toni Jensen also explores as a Métis woman. These essays, all well-written, take a great variety of tones and approaches. Nichole Perkins’ “Southern, Not a Belle” takes on a humorous tenor to describe the challenge of transcending stereotypes in dating. Joy Priest’s essay reads as a memoir-and-rapopera hybrid, each memory-aria delineated by the titles of classic hip-hop songs. In “That’s Not Actually True” Kiese Laymon’s interjections of the title phrase create a double consciousness that is psychedelic yet truthful. Tiana Clark’s contribution takes letter form, as an epistle to the South. “Dear Tennessee,” she writes, “I thought I hated you — I didn’t love you until I left you.” From the entire collection, we experience the South not as mere backdrop but as a determinate character, although it sometimes shifts in appearance. Segregated “Miam-ah” becomes Miami. The Tennessee that one has escaped from becomes the pain that one will endure just to be home. The North Carolina red clay that one has long pretended not to know becomes, in reverie, a last surviving relative. A Measure of Belonging is a critical work, particularly during our country’s current great migration southward. Black millennials are returning to the South to purchase the homes and farmland on which their ancestors toiled. As remote work becomes increasingly common, more Americans are moving out of the big cities and toward the cost-friendly South. Still others have lived in the South for generations and have yet to feel an affirming welcome. Who gets to decide who is in and who is not? This book, with its roster of brilliant writers, explores the multifaceted and often porous Southern identity in contemporary times. For many people of color, the South is home, happiness and hurt. For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

ILLUSTRATION: SENSEI ARJAE

BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM

‘SLEEPING BREONNA’

A poem for Breonna Taylor, illustrated by Sensei ArJae BY KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM Sleeping brown beauty, in a silk bonnet they stormed in like Kentucky weeds. Silent death-pellets, showered your resting place, bringing your Prince to his knees. Woman’s Day? A Black woman’s day is hard A Black woman’s day is long This Black woman’s day is done Sleeping brown beauty, ain’t no bonnets needed in Heaven.

Kashif Andrew Graham is a librarian and shares his typewritten poetry on Instagram at @kagwrites.

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MUSIC

HOLDING ON Cam reaches out a hand with The Otherside BY MARISSA R. MOSS

PHOTO: HARPER SMITH

t the end of Cam’s new record The Otherside is a song that the standout country artist jokingly calls her “author’s note.” She wrote the tune with The Highwomen’s Natalie Hemby during a quiet session THE OTHERSIDE OUT FRIDAY, OCT. 30, VIA RCA/ at home. TRIPLE TIGERS “Natalie played a few verses on the piano,” recalls Cam. She’s speaking with the Scene from the car, where she’s been cruising around with her parents and her sleeping baby. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s such a sad song.’ And Natalie told me, ‘That’s your song. That’s your story.’ ” That song is called “Girl Like Me,” and it’s a raw ballad about what happens when our expectations don’t line up with reality and our rose-colored glasses are shattered forever. The chorus came easily once Cam started riffing: “They’re gonna give up on you,” she sings delicately. “You’re gonna give up on them.” Cam easily has one of the strongest, most striking voices in country music today, and it’s even more potent when it’s presented in its most refined form. She’s calling out to anyone who needs to be reminded that they’re not in this alone, including herself. That giving up, sometimes, can be the most normal of emotions — even if you eventually make it to the other side. “You hear all the plans, and ideas, and blueprints, and socialization, and Disney movies — and, at some point, you realize the world isn’t that,” she says. “And it just breaks your heart. And then what? Do you stay jaded? Do you find a way to move forward, accepting that the world is a mixed bag with good people who do bad things, and bad people sneaking past your intuition?” For Cam, standing still and letting herself be overwhelmed was never an option. Over the past five years, she’s traversed peaks of incredible fortune and valleys of outrage and despair. First, the good: Her 2015 major label debut Untamed was widely acclaimed, and she was nominated for Grammys, ACM Awards and CMA Awards for her single “Burning House.” She had a baby and is married to a man whom she joyfully sings about stealing away with for a backseat quickie in “Till There’s Nothing Left.” But there’s been plenty of disappointment to go around. Cam ended up living through a breakup too: In 2018, she left her label, Arista Nashville, for RCA. Both are Sony Music subsidiaries, but RCA’s offices are in New York, not on Music Row. She got intimate experience with what it’s like to be a woman in country music with — gasp! — opinions, as well as a vision that favors artistry over profit. Through a partnership between RCA and Triple Tigers, her followup LP The Otherside will see the light of day via a company that, much like Cam herself, has been pushing the boundaries of where and how an artist can exist in the mainstream country universe. It’s a different

road from where she began, but one worth riding out. “I had expectations, and [my relationship with Sony Music Nashville] wasn’t meeting all those exact things,” she says. “But then you get to the other side of it and you look back and say, ‘Oh, this is why. Oh, I had this much to learn.’ ” It’s been five years since Cam released Untamed. The Otherside is sometimes referred to as Cam’s “comeback,” but that gives you a good survey of the many flaws of Music Row. Sure, she hasn’t had the consistent churn of radio hits that’s expected from a mainstream country star, but it’s well-established by now that the deck is stacked heavily against women in radio. White dudes who sing paint-by-numbers truck songs may hold sway over Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, but Cam’s accomplishments are far more impressive. She’s collaborated with pop stars Sam Smith and Harry Styles; both have co-written songs on The Otherside, and Styles even had Cam as an opener for his Ryman show, a year before she headlined the Mother Church herself. When renowned dance-

music producer (and once, very briefly, a Nashvillian) Diplo made a foray into country last year under the name Thomas Wesley, he recruited Cam for the debut single “So Long.” Cam co-wrote her new album’s title track with Avicii, another star dance producer, who sadly died before the record’s release. Before any of that, Cam has credits on “Maybe You’re Right,” which appears on Miley Cyrus’ 2013 smash hit Bangerz. In a sane world, or a sane genre, that résumé would make you a leader, not a bit of an outsider. Though it may be a constant battle to get her perspective heard, Cam shares it with boundless creativity and determination on The Otherside. The record was co-produced with Tyler Johnson and Jeff Bhasker; both worked on Untamed, and their collective list of credits includes the aforementioned Styles and Smith as well as Maren Morris, Kanye West and Bruno Mars, among many others. The LP is a collection of songs about growing up and moving on; about love, sex and longing; about irresistible fun and unmatchable hurt. The opener “Redwood Tree” taps into the pain of realizing our impermanence as well as the peace that can

come with accepting our temporary existence. “Classic,” which Cam worked on with Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Lorde, The Chicks), is luxuriously relaxed. She moves from club-worthy anthems to intimate tracks like “Girl Like You” in an easy breath — even the tender moments are packed with catchy choruses, and even the bangers are written with precision and intent. “I know there are a lot of different definitions of country music,” Cam says. “The truth is, I just think I am in this space because I can sing songs to make people laugh, and to make people cry. I don’t know a lot of other spaces that allow you to do that.” Throughout her career and especially on The Otherside, Cam routinely stretches the boundaries of what’s usually sung about in the genre — particularly by a woman. “Till There’s Nothing Left” is an overt expression of sexuality and a proclamation of desire. In “Diane,” she showcases empathy and a willingness to see a story from an unexpected, complex, at times uncomfortable perspective. It’s written as a response to Dolly Parton’s iconic “Jolene,” from Jolene’s point of view. In “Diane,” Jolene is apologetic, having taken the man in question without knowing that he meant so much to another woman. The piece peels apart layers of intense emotions for an unflinching look at human nature. “I remember hearing ‘Jolene’ at first, and I just loved that Dolly said ‘please,’ ” Cam says. “It was just so human.” “Diane” was singular and irresistible when it was released as a single in 2017. It quickly became a fan favorite overseas, landing on the highest-rotation playlist of popular English station BBC Radio 2. In the U.S., it peaked at No. 43 on Country Airplay, but still very clearly resonated with fans. “Fortunately in the U.K. it got to have the sort of lifecycle that it deserved, and have a massive impact,” Cam says. “And in Australia too, which was just so nice. In the U.S., at the shows, I had to even play it twice. People were so into it — almost like musical theater, acting it out. It was so good.” Cam speaks openly and honestly about the realities of racial and gender inequality in Nashville and beyond. There’s a possibility that has shortened the lifespan of songs like “Diane” on country radio, but she’s not concerned. Instead, she’s more focused than ever on making sure she uses her platform in meaningful ways to elevate underrepresented voices and break down the barriers to success in both practical and radical terms. “People keep saying, ‘What’s the solution?’ ” she says. “And the truth is, it’s like, ‘What are the solutions — plural?’ There need to be lots of solutions at all different levels for all the specific things that are happening, from people that are in those spaces that know them. There’s not just one hero that will ride in and end white supremacy.” Like that woman she’s singing to on “Girl Like You,” Cam knows that the world is a mixed bag, and she’s going to sing, and speak, to those who need a nudge to stay in the game. And since this is her version of country music, she’ll find a way to laugh along the way. “That’s just what my process is,” Cam says. “Pulling things out of a subconscious and bringing it from the darkness into the light.” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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MUSIC

THROUGH LINES: END OF THE CENTURY

LAMBCHOP, HOW I QUIT SMOKING (MERGE, 1996)

Looking back on local releases that reflect the vast changes in Nashville music in the 1990s BY MICHAEL McCALL Editor’s note: In an occasional series called Through Lines, we’re taking a look back at records that help tell the evolving story of Nashville music, one decade at a time. Our installment on the 1990s comes courtesy of veteran music journalist Michael McCall, who has long served as museum editor at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

or the Nashville music community, the new century started a decade early. In the 1990s, every segment of the music scene expanded toward where the city finds itself today, with a vast SEEK OUT THESE RECORDS array of rich music FROM YOUR FAVORITE scenes that in many LOCAL RECORD STORE cases have achieved national or international recognition. The ’90s were a damn fun time to be a music fan in Nashville, and these eight albums epitomize the decade and its changes.

DIXIE CHICKS, FLY (MONUMENT, 1999) The decade found Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and Dixie Chicks (who changed their name to The Chicks in June 2020) releasing albums that topped 10 million units sold, leading the way as Music Row kicked open the golden doors of the top-floor suites of American entertainment. The Chicks’ Fly, which has been certified 11 times platinum, suggested the possibilities of the coming century while summing up the virtues of the previous decade in country. The riotous “Sin Wagon” and “Goodbye Earl” embody the swagger and fun of Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places.” The honky-tonk of “Hello Mr. Heartache” and “Some Days You Gotta Dance” embraces country traditionalism broadly and Texas dance hall music in particular. Their songs draw on the best songwriting talent of Music Row (Matraca Berg, Marcus Hummon, Richard Leigh) and the developing Americana world (Patty Griffin, Mike Henderson, Jim Lauderdale, Darrell Scott). A few years later, mainstream country radio and its fans torpedoed the group and its musical vision with a narrow-minded reactionist response to the band’s criticism of George W. Bush. Country music still suffers creative constrictions stemming from this very public blacklisting, with artists still afraid to speak out for fear of getting “Dixie Chicked.”

BR5-49, LIVE FROM ROBERT’S (ARISTA, 1996) Lower Broad in the 1980s was populated by pawn shops, coin-operated porn emporiums and a few vacant bars with booths of ripped

Naugahyde. The conversion into today’s fleshpacked neon strip catering to here-for-the-party tourists began when Robert’s Western Wear (now Robert’s Western World) and Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge gave their stages to musically astute traditionalists like Greg Garing, Paul Burch and BR5-49, who drew crowds of scenemakers and old-school country fans who wanted to dance. Want to know what a night on the street used to sound like? Grab a dance partner, pop open a Pabst and put on the vital and visceral Live From Robert’s. Every night was a welcoming carnival, without the bachelorettes, country bros, long lines and vomit of recent years. The music was so much older (and wiser) then; it’s younger (and dumber) than that now.

MATTHEW RYAN, MAY DAY (A&M, 1997) The countryinfluenced punk rock and smart power-pop communities of the 1980s, which began to draw national attention, led to the rise of a professionally savvy group of roots rockers and artful boundary-pushers. The best featured inspired songcraft and skilled musicianship, a Nashville tradition. These acts conspired to move beyond what some called the “Nashville Curse” by proving a local act could find national success outside of country music. A record-deal-driven festival called the Extravaganza, run by the long-gone Nashville Entertainment Association, strived to expose non-country acts to coastal-based record executives. The fest launched with a dozen prudently selected rock and pop acts. It grew into a sprawling event that crammed more than 400 aspirants into 26 clubs across four nights in 1998, its penultimate year. Artists with national followings gave the city a boost by moving here, including Steve Forbert, Nanci Griffith, John Hiatt and Lucinda Williams. Some locals, such as The Cactus Brothers, The Dusters, Mark Germino and the Sluggers and Webb Wilder, also continued to grow their fan bases. Others used critical acclaim to build niche followings, among them Bedlam, Jim Lauderdale, Buddy and Julie Miller, Todd Snider and Matthew Ryan. As exemplified in the brooding, anthemic guitar rock of Ryan’s May Day, all of these acts created work that ranks among the best of the 1990s.

A young DIY crowd consisting of set-to-destruct bands as diverse as F.U.C.T. and Trauma Team were driven by angst and fuck-all attitude. With the valiant Lucy’s Record Shop positioned on Church Street as an all-ages temple of communion and Xeroxed fanzines, these bands sparked a politically minded youth movement that railed against boredom and injustice. Lucy’s joined other clubs in championing sonic experimentalists — the best of which, Lambchop, went on to international fame. How I Quit Smoking captures the band at its most expansive and complex, with songs that set understated horn and string charts against washes of pedal steel and electric guitar to create an ornate, downcast form of Southern chamber pop.

COUNT BASS D, PRELIFE CRISIS (WORK/ EPIC, 1995) The NEA Extravaganza drew criticism from Nashville’s Black music communities for its lack of diversity: The late Aashid Himons, leader of the reggae-influenced Afrikan Dreamland, launched his own alternative festival after the Extravaganza included only a minuscule number of Black artists. Around the same time, the local hip-hop scene began to surface, powered by message-based, socially aware artists such as Count Bass D and Utopia State. Count Bass D’s debut, released on a subdivision of Epic Records, demonstrated as much ingenuity as higher-profile acts like Nas and A Tribe Called Quest. The work of Count Bass D and others set the stage for the success of rapper Young Buck in the Aughts and for local hip-hop leaders in years to come, such as Starlito (who began his career with Cash Money as All Star Cashville Prince), Chancellor Warhol, Mike Floss and Daisha McBride.

ROD McGAHA, PREACHERMAN (COMPASS, 1999) Nashville’s jazz community has deep roots, and its profile rose at the end of the 20th century. The scene included several established leaders, including Beegie Adair, Lori Mechem, Dennis Solee and Roger Spencer. They worked with local musicians Rahsaan and Roland Barber, Chris Brown, Jeff Coffin, Nioshi Jackson and Jody Nardone. In time, these stellar musicians drew praise from and collaborated with nationally known elders, such as Larry Carlton, Kevin Mahogany, Jimmy Smith, Chester Thompson and Kirk Whalum. The pop-jazz a cappella vocal group Take 6, signed to Warner Bros., stunned audiences with their acrobatic harmonies and beatbox rhythms

and attracted the support of Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder. Chicago-born and Nashville-residing trumpeter Rod McGaha, in particular, found mentors in Max Roach, Clark Terry and other leading jazz lights. McGaha’s second album Preacherman was produced by Delfeayo Marsalis and released on Nashville-based indie Compass Records. The jazz world took notice, and rightfully so. Preacherman finds McGaha working a searching, spiritual depth into traditional swing and straight-ahead jazz arrangements.

BÉLA FLECK AND THE FLECKTONES, THREE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (WARNER BROS., 1993) The emergence of progressive acoustic music, initiated largely by musicians steeped in bluegrass and inspired by jazz improvisation, ranks among Nashville’s most important American musical contributions. The Flecktones, led by former New Grass Revival banjoist Béla Fleck and featuring brothers Victor and Roy “Futureman” Wooten, led the charge. Their work brought attention and collaboration from Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Bruce Hornsby, Branford Marsalis and others. Fleck was quick to cite how the interaction of a group of peers pushed all of the musicians to new plateaus. These top-of-their-field players, all of whom have attained international recognition, include Alison Brown, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Mark O’Connor. Their members have composed symphonies and soundtracks while collaborating with everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to Paul Simon to the Nashville Symphony. The Flecktones’ album Three Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, recorded during a stretch when the band was a trio without a player on reed instruments, is its most stripped-down effort. It dives even deeper into funk and ventures lightly into hip-hop while maintaining a focus on adventurous time signatures and joyous, improvisational flights.

SELF, SUBLIMINAL PLASTIC MOTIVES (ZOO/SPONGEBATH, 1995) Down the road in Murfreesboro, upstart Spongebath Records proved that a college town with a university recording industry department could draw awareness for a quirky brand of pop-rock. The success of one-of-a-kind bands like Self, The Katies and The Features pushed Spongebath to partner with major labels and attempt to provide a springboard to national recognition — especially for a mastermind like Self’s leader Matt Mahaffey. On Subliminal Plastic Motives, he established an inventive pastiche drawing on funk, pop and jazz to create a futuristic sound comparable to Beck, OutKast and Prince. EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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GRAMMY® Award-winning and Country Music Hall of Fame members, The Oak Ridge Boys, will celebrate the holiday season at home this year as part of Gaylord Opryland’s 37th annual A Country Christmas event. The Oaks “Christmas in Tennessee” Dinner Show will feature a delicious holiday meal followed by The Oak Ridge Boys and their band performing Christmas classics, new favorites and many of the timeless hits that shaped their legendary career. November 20 – December 25 | ChristmasAtGaylordOpryland.com Peanuts© 2020 Peanuts Worldwide LLC · ELF and all related characters and elements © & ™ New Line Productions, Inc. (s20) THE POLAR EXPRESS and all related characters and elements © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s20)

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MUSIC

CUTLINE

THE SPIN

OPERATORS STANDING BY BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

arly voting has been underway since Oct. 14, and campaigns for the Nov. 3 election have been running far, far longer. If anyone needed more convincing that Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Marquita Bradshaw is the people’s candidate, Third Man Records’ 11thhour telethon on Oct. 20 — which you can rewatch on TMR’s YouTube channel — put a fine point on the sentiment with characteristically bold style. The event brought together more than 50 musicians, poets, authors and comedians, most of whom are Volunteer State residents and all of whom lent their support with their art. A few weeks earlier, Nashville-raised comedian John Early hosted a similar event with comedians and actors to raise funds for Bradshaw, the first Black woman to be nominated for a statewide race by a major party in Tennessee. It was a little hit-andmiss, both from a technical perspective and content-wise — the performances suited the medium, but diluted the message somewhat. The TMR telethon’s aesthetic, however, was flawless. Clearly, the time spent cultivating TMR’s Public Access series in the pandemic’s early months was well spent, because this stream, which hopped between live footage in Third Man’s Blue Room show space and heaps of pre-filmed performances, ran seamlessly. Scene fave Alicia Bognanno ripped through a solo rendition of “What I Wanted,” from her band Bully’s flawless third LP Sugaregg, on a seafoam-green electric guitar. Expert Dylanologist Emma Swift’s brand-new original song “Soft Apocalypse,” delivered with an assist from her partner Robyn Hitchcock, was also lovely. But the standout for me was brothers Rob and Jay Griffith’s slowed-down bedroom-pop take on The Jam’s “In the City,” a plea to those in power to listen to the kids. Despite ROBYN HITCHCOCK AND EMMA SWIFT

originally being released more than 40 years ago, the tune felt perfectly relevant without being heavy-handed. Also among the highlights were IMAKEMADBEATS, a mysterious figure wilding out on a laptop and sampler from a South Memphis studio; Steelism, whose smooth-as-silk, pedal-steel-powered instrumentals perfectly soundtracked watching the sun set out my living-room window; and Andrew Combs, whose blend of layered falsetto harmonies and unsettlingly pretty soundscapes evoked a Bends-era Radiohead demo. Hip-hop up-and-comer Daisha McBride performed a stripped-down take on her self-empowerment anthem “Ride Fr,” which fans last heard in concert during Spewfest V in February, mere weeks before everything would change forever. If Bradshaw needs a campaign song, it’s hard to imagine a better pick. Back-to-back heartfelt duets from Margo Price and Jeremy Ivey and Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell wrapped up the stream in fine style. Tyler Mahan Coe of Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast fame played host and hype man to perfection. An example of his expert quipping: “Aaron Lee Tasjan … I can promise you’ll never see anything that cool on a Republican candidate’s telethon.” Meanwhile, a maskedup (but easily recognizable) bank of operators manned the phones, including comedian (and Scene advice columnist) Chris Crofton as well as musicians Erin Rae, Caitlin Rose, Tristen Gaspadarek and William Tyler. Bradshaw herself hit all the right notes as she discussed her background, clearly and cogently stating her case. The nearly three-and-a-half-hour stream reportedly raised more than $15,000 for the campaign. The coffers of Bill Hagerty, Bradshaw’s Trump-endorsed Republican opponent, are much deeper. No matter the outcome of the election, the impact of the vital, visible support for Bradshaw’s candidacy is something we may be measuring for a long time to come. EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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FILM

A HELL OF A TOWN

Our critic on the best of the 2020 New York Film Festival, from Lovers Rock to On the Rocks and much more BY JASON SHAWHAN

t’s been quite a year. Like several of my most beloved festivals, the New York Film Festival made the leap to the virtual/online realm (as well as several drive-in screenings throughout the five boroughs). It’s a tradition for me to attend just to stay at the forefront of global cinema, and this installment (nearly simultaneous with the Nashville Film Festival) saw me attending (remotely) for the 19th year. Granted, all bets are off for the future of theatrical exhibition in the U.S. Drive-ins are doing fine, and several arthouses — including the Belcourt — have moved into virtual screening rooms where they have partnered with distributors to keep the metaphorical lights on. But how long the big mainstream exhibitors are going to be able to hang around is a significant unknown. Opening-night film Lovers Rock (which premieres on Amazon Prime on Nov. 27 as part of the Small Axe quintet) from Oscar winner Steve McQueen was a sensual feast of Proustian dubby bass lines (truly the most essential soundtrack of the NYFF) and the scent of fresh curry. It’s a perfect illustration of the specific becoming the universal to the open-minded viewer, and it captures perfectly the sorely missed magic of the communal gathering. Hopper/Welles, a remarkable document of a few hours in 1970 where Orson Welles and Dennis Hopper have some drinks and maybe shoot some material for Welles’ then-gestating The Other Side of the Wind, is essential for anyone invested in the art of making movies. But it’s also scandalous fun; you’ll learn a lot (including how Welles saw Hopper becoming a Republican 30 years before the fact), and the photography is exquisite. And then there’s Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning, which will kick your ass. There’s some Bresson, some Von Trier, and some Tarkovsky in the mix, but Kulumbegashvili, a first-time director from the nation

ON THE ROCKS

LOVERS ROCK of Georgia, has her own perspective about the trials a woman of the Jehovah’s Witness faith must face in modern Eastern Europe, and this is as wrenching and elegant a debut as one could hope for from a film so deeply, deeply upsetting. I will watch anything she makes from this point forward. Coming to New York after winning the Golden Lion at Venice 2020, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (coming in December to the Belcourt) is a tour de force for star/producer Frances McDormand. As a widow whose town has collapsed after local industry led the way, she takes to the road with a van full of memories and a determined heart. If you’ve been wondering how badly the ongoing collapse of the economy has been affecting the remnants of domestic manufacturing, you should absolutely check this kindhearted film out. The new Sofia Coppola, On the Rocks (which played at the Belcourt’s drive-in in a sold-out engagement Oct. 16-18), is a delightful New York story of a marriage buffeted by uncertainty, leading Rashida Jones (looking reminiscent of ’70s Margot Kidder) to enlist her father, charming lothario Bill Murray, to help find out if her husband is cheating on her. It’s a delightful romp through the city, with several deft character turns and a genial sense of adventure. And

Steve McQueen’s Red, White and Blue (the TBA 2021), which is a fraught and delightful fifth of the Small Axe quintet, premiering romance, featuring global treasure Franz on Amazon Prime on Dec. 18) delves deep Rogowski at his most charming. into the conflict between generations, and The sheer dizzying pleasure of cinema more so the conflict between idealism and can be hard to qualify, but you know it pragmatism. Dialectical and wrenching, when you experience it. A pair of flawless this builds like a skyscraper, with a final se4K restorations (Wong Kar-Wai’s eternal quence that sticks with you. In the Mood for Love and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Some local drama surfaced in the short hazy brothel reverie Flowers of Shanghai) film “Wild Bill Horsecock” (which also showed deliver texture and the most profound romantic melancholy in gold-toned, smoky at the recent Nashville Film Festival), which abundance. And Pedro Almodóvar’s addresses the ongoing uncertainties surEnglish-language debut, a one-act extravarounding country artist/amateur porn star/ ganza starring Tilda Swinton in an adapalleged rapist Hayes Johnson. The film tation of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and it’s difficult to come away from watching is pure magic. A triumph of pandemic the film without feeling very uneasy. ingenuity, Swinton’s pandimensional power and Almodóvar’s gift for Gunda (coming to the Belcourt physical space (seriously, how at some point in 2021) does this VISIT has Mattel not reached out to with no dialogue and in crystalNASHVILLESCENE.COM him to design a Barbie Dream line black-and-white. The film FOR OUR UNABRIDGED RECAP OF NYFF’S VIRTUAL House?), this is a must-see for features farm life deconstructed EVENTS. anyone who loves glamour and and rendered with alien curiosity refined actressing. (early comparisons to Eraserhead by some critics are not unmerited), David Byrne’s American Utopia (which and the family of pigs (and their cow recently premiered on HBO) is an enand chicken associates) at the heart of this ergetic shot of amped-up decency. It’s not abstraction will poke their snouts into your Stop Making Sense, but nothing could be. heart. There’s no shock gore or explicit With Spike Lee, Byrne has found a collabopolitical subtext (Gunda is rated G, in fact), rator who gets the music and the message, but the final 10-minute single-take sequence and this filmed document of Byrne and his pulled an Okja and had me swearing off amazing musicians’ Broadway residence is pork just with a plaintive search. utterly wonderful. When you consider the giant, flaming poiCity Hall (opening Nov. 6 in the Belcourt’s soned question mark that is 2020, it’s a wonVirtual Screening Room), the latest from der that so many arts organizations have documentary legend Frederick Wiseman, been able to at least make a partial transilets you spend four-and-a-half hours getting tion to the online realm. Especially when to know the ins and outs of Boston’s city govso many haven’t. When the history of this ernment and all that it does, from business period of time is written, it’s going to be brulicensing and tree removal to council meettal when we must come to terms with all the ings and commemorative ceremonies. It’s people and organizations that didn’t make it. what Wiseman does well, and if you exult in And that’s a lot for anyone to bear. But when the civic process, there’s nothing that comes faced with this overwhelming chaos and close. (It’s also great if you need to re-edudespair, especially with the losses that New cate some libertarians as to what a properly York City has borne during this pandemic, funded government can do.) the folks of Film at Lincoln Center gritted Christian Petzold (Barbara, Phoenix, their teeth and came up with something to Transit) takes the classic German folk tale keep art alive. of a water nymph bound by blood to whomEMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM ever will love her in Undine (at the Belcourt,

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Rental Scene

Welcome to Gazebo Apartments

Your Neighborhood

FEATURED APARTMENT LIVING

2 months free (no rent until January 1) Offer expires 10/31/2020.

Local attractions: · Broadway · The Nashville Zoo · The Escape Game

Enjoy the outdoors: · Centennial Park · Fair Park Dog Park · Radnor Lake State Park

Neighborhood Dining and Drinks: · Big Machine Distillery · 12-South Tap Room · Tin Roof · Brother’s Burgers · Southside Kitchen & Pub · Eastern Peak

Best place near by to see a show: · Zanies Comedy Favorite local neighborhood bar: · Southside Kitchen and Pub Best local family outing: · The Nashville Zoo

Your new home amenities: · Brand New Wellness Center & Outdoor Turf Space · 3 Sparkling Salt Water Swimming Pools · 35-Acres of Lush Green Space · Social Events & Instructor Led Fitness Classes · Off Leash Pet Park & Pet Spa · Tennis Courts · Gated Community

141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 | www.Gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832

To advertise your property available for lease, contact Keith Wright at 615-557-4788 or kwright@fwpublishing.com

British Woods 264 British Woods Drive Nashville, TN 37217 1 bed / 1 bath 725 sq ft $1084+ per month

2 bed 1.5 / 2 bath

3 bed / 2.5 bath

1025 to 1150 sq ft $1227+ per month

1650 sq ft $1670+

5 floor plans

www.britishwoodsapartments.com | 615.205.1862 Dupont Avenue Apartments 601 N. Dupont Avenue Madison, TN 37115

1 bed / 1 bath 650 sq ft $872 to $1184 3 floor plans

www.dupontavenue.com | 615.285.5687

Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft $1,119 +

2 Bed / 1.5 Bath - 2 Bath 1,047 – 1,098 sq ft $1,299 +

3 Bed / 2 Bath 1201 sq ft $1,399 +

5 floor plans

www.Gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 54

NASHVILLE SCENE | OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 4, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Madison Flats Brinkhaven Ave Madison, TN 37115 1 bed / 1 bath 630 sq ft $960

2 bed / 1 bath 810 sq ft $1130

5 floor plans

www.madisonflatsapartments.com | 615.285.5981 The Residence at Old Hickory Lake 2401 Lakeshore Drive, Old Hickory, TN 37138

1 bed / 1 bath

2 bed / 2 bath

3 bed / 2 bath

$1,325 to $1,555

$1,695 to $1,805

749 sq ft

1092 - 1211 sq ft

$2,319 to $2,324 1382 sq ft

Rental Scene

Studio 325 sq ft $850

5 floor plans

www.residenceatoldhickorylake.com | 615.258.6088

Nob Hill Apartments 180 Wallace Rd. Nashville, TN 37211 1 bed / 1 bath 690 sq ft $1003 to $1303

LEGAL NOTICE

InjuRy Auto ACCIdEnts WRongFul dEAth dAngERous And dEFECtIvE dRugs

Voted Best Attorney in Nashville Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation

www.rockylawfirm.com LEGALS

LEGAL NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT Sterling Nashville West Property, LLC is pursuing a Petition for Termination of Use of Land as Burial Ground and for Removal and Reinterment of Remains of Decedents in the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee (case #200166-III). Petitioner seeks to relocate a cemetery at 7114 Charlotte Pike, Nashville, Tennessee in Davidson County. Petitioner believes that persons buried at the cemetery may include John M. O’Brien (1874 to 1957), Mattie J. O’Brien (1876 to 1952), John Thomas O’Brien (1936 to 1936), and Frances Inez Stephens (1928 to 1930). Petitioner seeks to reinter the graves at a location nearby the current cemetery, but outside of trees and development. The Court entered an Order of Publication that Interested Persons enter an appearance on or be-

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Contact: classifieds@ fwpublishing.com today! EMPLOYMENT Applications Engineer needed for HCA Management Services, Nashville, TN. Engage in analysis, design and development of JAVA/J2EE based applications. Utilize Spring, REST WebServices, JAVA Script, CSS, JSON, and K2 Integrator. Work with an Oracle database. The employee may work remotely from home within commuting distance of Nashville, TN up to 3 days per week. Must have a BS degree in computer science or engineering and 3 yrs. of exp. in the skills listed above. Will also accept a MS degree in computer science or engineering and 1 yr. of exp. in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com

2 bed / 2 bath 950 sq ft $969 to $1366 2 floor plans

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plus takex your service Applications Engineer needed for HCA Management Services, Nashville, TN. Engage in analysis, design and development of JAVA/J2EE based applications. Utilize Spring, REST WebServices, JAVA Script, CSS, JSON, and K2 Integrator. Work with an Oracle database. The employee may work remotely from home within commuting distance of Nashville, TN up to 3 days per week. Must have a BS degree in computer science or engineering and 3 yrs. of exp. in the skills listed above. Will also accept a MS degree in computer science or engineering and 1 yr. of exp. in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com Software Solution Advisor – Microsoft CDW Direct, LLC seeks Software Solution Advisor – Microsoft to be responsible for Microsoft Solutions and product acquisition programs segment sales. Min. requirements: 3 years business-to-business Microsoft Solutions sales experience providing custom technology solutions to clients, including Microsoft licensing and contractual software licensing sales and support.Position is based out of CDW’s Brentwood, TN office, but employee may work remotely from home.Approximately 10% regional travel required. Send resume to: Catherine Audu, CDW, 75 Tri-State International, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Reference job title.

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NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT Sterling Nashville West Property, LLC is pursuing a Petition for Termination of Use of Land as Burial Ground and for Removal and Reinterment of Remains of Decedents in the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee (case #200166-III). Petitioner seeks to relocate a cemetery at 7114 Charlotte Pike, Nashville, Tennessee in Davidson County. Petitioner believes that persons buried at the cemetery may include John M. O’Brien (1874 to 1957), Mattie J. O’Brien (1876 to 1952), John Thomas O’Brien (1936 to 1936), and Frances Inez Stephens (1928 to 1930). Petitioner seeks to reinter the graves at a location nearby the current cemetery, but outside of trees and development. The Court entered an Order of Publication that Interested Persons enter an appearance on or before 30 days after the last publication of this Notice and file an answer to the Petition, or judgment by default may be taken against them for the relief requested in the Petition. This Notice will be published for four consecutive weeks. NSC 10/29, 11/5, 11/12, 11/19/20

Minister of Music. Develop, coordinate, supervise, and direct all music programs for a church. Must be able to demonstrate piano proficiency by sight-reading and playing up to three selected songs and correctly interpreting written melody, dynamics, and timing. Employer: Kentucky-Tennessee Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists. Location: Madison, TN. To apply, mail resumé (no calls/e-mails) to C. Haley, HR Director, 850 Conference Drive, Goodlettsville, TN 37072. Authorized Officer, IT Support Analyst, UBS Business Solutions US LLC, in Nashville, Tennessee. Monitor and troubleshoot Infrastructure issues. Reqs: Bach deg in IT or rel fld & 5 years of exp IT Analyst or related occ. Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 000307. NO CALLS PLEASE. EOE/M/F/D/V.

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