NEWS: TENNESSEE STAYS ON NATIONAL ANTIABORTION RADAR
>> PAGE 9
NEWS: URGENT POLITICS AND EASY CONVENIENCE DRIVE EARLY VOTER SURGE
>> PAGE 10 FILM: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE 70 MM IMAX SCREENINGS OF THE ODYSSEY
>> PAGE 36 Nashville is getting
BY JULIANNE AKERS
Stephen Wilson Jr. wore this sweater, jacket, bolo tie and clasp, and ballcap embellished with embroidered roses and an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe when he performed “Stand by Me” at the CMA Awards, November 19, 2025.
From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music
TICKETS
Located near West Eastland & Mcferrin Aves, Richmond Bend is an exciting mixed-use community in the historic Greenwood neighborhood of East Nashville. The next phase is now underway, with five new luxury homes currently under construction. Buyers who secure a presale contract will have the opportunity to personalize select interior finishes, creating a home that reflects their individual style.
FROM $1,299,900 GREENWOOD
Welcome to Stonewall, these newly constructed masterpieces offer the perfect balance of comfort, style, and functionality just 12 minutes from Downtown Nashville and moments to Brentwood’s best shopping and dining. Step inside through the striking pivot front doors and immediately feel the warm elegance of white oak hardwoods, designer lighting, and curated stone surfaces throughout. Exclusive permanent rate buydown available! Inquire for details.
FROM $1,799,000 BRENTWOOD
August 18 September 9
Tuesday | August 18
OPENING NIGHT PARTY
5:30PM AT MOXY HOTEL
Opening Night Film
DUST BOWLS AND JEWISH SOULS: ANOTHER SIDE OF WOODY GUTHRIE
7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
Thursday | August 20
BETWEEN THE STONE AND THE FLOWER 7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
Saturday | August 22
FRONTIER
7PM AT GORDON JCC
Nashville Jewish Film Festival 2026
Thursday | August 27
Monday | August 24
MONDAY MATINEE LUNCH
11:30AM AT GORDON JCC
Monday Matinee Film: FULL SUPPORT 12 NOON AT GORDON JCC
Tuesday | August 25
TO KILL A NAZI 7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
ROSENTHAL: THE GREAT SHOWMAN 7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE ICE CREAM TRUCK SOCIAL FOLLOWING FILM
Saturday | August 29
PIZZA PARTY
5:30PM AT THE WELL THE STAMP THIEF 7PM AT AMC BELLEVUE
Tuesday | September 1
MURANOW
7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
Thursday | September 3
THURSDAY MATINEE ETHAN BLOOM 12 NOON AT GORDON JCC
Tuesday | September 8
ADA SERENI: THE LADY IN THE BLACK DRESS SHORT FILM: DOUBLE HAPPINESS 7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
Tuesday | September 8 | Closing Night Film
TOVAH
7PM AT BELCOURT THEATRE
The Nashville Law Firm Securing White House Pardons
Local attorney Alex Little has found a niche appealing to Trump
BY
ELI MOTYCKA
Tennessee Stays on National Anti-Abortion Radar
Centerville man awarded millions in settlement following illegal 2021 blockade of Mt. Juliet abortion clinic BY HANNAH HERNER
Urgent Politics and Easy Convenience Drive
Early Voter Surge
High turnout trend holds through two weeks, boosting primary ballots 35 percent from 2024 BY ELI MOTYCKA
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
COVER STORY
Hot Topic
Nashville is getting hotter. Here’s a look at the historic, cultural and climate-related influences affecting the temperature.
BY JULIANNE AKERS
Tomato Art Fest, Three Films by Elaine May, The Weird Sisters, Nordista Freeze’s The Cool Off and more
FOOD AND DRINK
Making Leftovers Good
New nonprofit Bach Bank rescues the food that tourists leave behind BY MARGARET LITTMAN
VODKA YONIC
My Original Sin
How I discovered my sexuality at a purity conference
BY SYDNEY MARKS
BOOKS
Scares to Go
Horror book truck Papercut Horror & Other Dark Lit is set to open this month BY ANNIE PARNELL
Sister Rockers
Girl Tones brings the Bowling Green scene to Music City BY JULIANNE AKERS
In Her Own Words
April McLean’s Where I Belong offers an intimate glimpse into a rich musical life
BY GRACE BRASWELL
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out Pavement at the Ryman and Charli XCX at The Basement East BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN AND JULIANNE AKERS
The Projectionist
An inside look at Regal Opry Mills’ 70 mm IMAX screenings of The Odyssey BY LOGAN BUTTS
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
ON THE COVER:
Photo and lettering by Angelina Castillo
SUBSCRIBE
NEWSLETTER: nashvillescene.com/site/forms/subscription_services
PRINT: nashvillesceneshop.com
msmith@nashvillescene.com
TOMATO ART FEST RETURNS
Tomato Art Fest returns Aug. 7-8 to East Nashville’s Five Points, celebrating its 23rd year with live music, local art, food trucks and the beloved Tomato Parade. tomatoartfest.com
WIN TWO MINT VIP PASSES TO BOURBON & BEYOND Bourbon & Beyond 2026 brings four days of music, bourbon and food to Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, Sept. 24-27. Enter to win two sold-out Mint VIP tickets at nashvillescene.com/freestuff.
THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING COMING TO THEATERS AUG. 14 Matthew McConaughey stars in The Rivals of Amziah King in theaters Aug. 14. Win tickets to an Aug. 13 Belcourt screening featuring a performance by McConaughey and The Last Bison. Follow @nashvillescene & @nashvillecityguide to win tickets.
LOUDER THAN LIFE 2026 My Chemical Romance, Iron Maiden, Tool and Limp Bizkit headline North America’s largest, loudest rock festival Sept. 17-20 in Louisville, with four days, seven stages and nearly 200 bands. louderthanlifefestival.com
STAY UP TO DATE FOLLOW THE SCENE ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS @NASHVILLESCENE. CONTACT MIKE SMITH AT MSMITH@FWPUBLISHING.COM TO LEARN MORE ON HOW TO PARTNER WITH THE NASHVILLESCENE FREE STUFF
In my 35+ years living and working in Nashville, I’ve navigated the twists, turns and now expansive growth of this wonderful place. Let me help you make the best choices in your biggest investment — real estate. I’m so grateful for my clients’ great reviews, repeat business and continued referrals. I’d love the opportunity to help make your Real Estate Goals a reality!
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM AT CENTENNIAL PARK The Bard returns to Centennial Park’s bandshell Aug. 20-Sept. 20 with A Midsummer Night’s Dream Win the Royal Package: front-row seats, parking, a picnic dinner and stage shoutout. Enter at nashvillescene.com/freestuff. EVENTS WE’RE INTO FROM OUR PARTNERS
WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO THE RED WHEEL
The Red Wheel brings singersongwriters to Turner Theater at The Factory at Franklin, playing ThursdaysSaturdays at 7:30 p.m. through Sept. 12. Enter to win a pair of tickets at nashvillescene.com/promo/freestuff.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers
MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez
SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin
ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter
MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Logan Butts
AUDIENCE EDITOR Annie Parnell
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman
STAFF WRITERS Julianne Akers, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams
SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan
EDITORIAL INTERN Emma Pickett
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cat Acree, Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Bailey Brantingham, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Tina Dominguez, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Jayme Foltz, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Katherine Oung, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Bobbie Jean Sawyer, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon Shamban, Amy Stumpfl, Cole Villena, Kay West, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Kelsey Young, Charlie Zaillian
ART DIRECTOR Kayla Stark
PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sandi Harrison, Tracey Starck, Mary Louise Meadors
GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN Alex Levin
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello
MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Robin Fomusa
EVENTS MANAGER Tristan Maryanski
MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MANAGER Meredith Grantham
PUBLISHER Mike Smith
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski
SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS
Teresa Birdsong, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Niki Tyree
ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS
Kailey Idziak, Allie Robbins, Andrea Vasquez
SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty
ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATE Audry Houle
SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa
PRESIDENT Mike Smith
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton
CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Olivia Britton
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Elizabeth Jones
IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer
DIGITAL DIRECTOR Caroline Prater
CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis
FW PUBLISHING LLC For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 National Advertising: Ruxton Media Group www.ruxton.com
Drawn from the collection of Tate, UK, International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams focuses on the trajectory and international reach of surrealism through key themes like dreams, desire, mysterious energies of the natural world, and the politics of freedom. Presented a century after the first surrealist exhibition in Paris, International Surrealism from Tate features familiar artists like Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Dorothea Tanning as well as artists whose work deserves to be better known like Kati Horna, Malangatana Ngwenya, Osamu Shiihara, and Lionel Wendt.
919 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203
Get tickets and information at FristArtMuseum.org
Connect with us @FristArtMuseum #TheFrist
Local attorney Alex Little has found a niche appealing to Trump
BY ELI MOTYCKA
AT NOON SHARP on Jan. 20, 2021, with COVID deaths peaking in the United States and Tom Brady leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers through the NFL playoffs, millions celebrated Joe Biden’s ascendance to the White House. The union had weathered Trump’s four years in office and his followers’ haphazard, violent coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol, and welcomed a new beginning.
One Kentuckian was celebrating for different reasons. His full name — Johnny D. Phillips Jr. — was on the list of 143 presidential pardons inked during the waning hours of Trump’s first term. (One more, Al Pirro, a Manhattan fraudster and ex-husband of DOJ prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, came the morning of Biden’s inauguration day.) A federal judge in East Tennessee had convicted Phillips four years prior for conning more than a hundred investors out of $14 million with a coal mining scheme.
“Mr. Phillips is known as an upstanding citizen and is a valued member of his community,” the Trump White House wrote at the time, citing support from Kentucky’s U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. “He dedicates his time to his three young children and is an advocate for Type 1 diabetes research.” Phillips’ pardon was a milestone for Nashville attorney Alex Little too. He had just won an 11thhour presidential pardon for his client from a disorganized and chaotic White House, a first taste of what would soon become Little’s calling card: using legal training, office politics, media and relationships to divine White House palace intrigue. It’s a presumably lucrative business pivot by Little, highlighted by the Scene in 2018 for defending survivors of sexual harassment and assault in the music industry. (His clients include Kesha during her highly publicized dispute with producer Dr. Luke.) Since founding
Litson PLLC in 2024 with Zachary Lawson — the firm’s name combines the attorneys’ surnames — Little has become known nationally for his success dealing with the White House.
Litson has since stocked up on lawyers with Justice Department experience, like former federal prosecutors Edward Canter and Brent Hannafan, who know how to beat the FBI. Spotlight cases have followed. Litson is defending Brian Cole Jr., the 31-year-old Black man from Virginia accused of planting pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC on Jan. 5, 2021, as well as David Taylor, the Kingdom of God Global Vision pastor charged with forced labor and money laundering in Detroit.
Phillips’ clemency was the first of many golden tickets won by the Music Row attorney. Little has gone on to secure pardons for former Tennessee state Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) and reality TV show stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. Success caught the eyes of the wealthy, well-connected and federally convicted, leading to a business boom. Soon his client sheet included one of D.C.’s biggest busts: U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and his wife Nadine, convicted in 2025 of a bribery and foreign influence scheme tying Menendez to the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
Litson and Little turned down the Scene’s requests for an interview and declined to comment about the pardon process. Many journalists and Trump critics speculate that winning the president’s constitutionally endowed get-out-of-jail-free card involves a significant financial transaction. Though there is no direct evidence Trump or any member of his family has solicited or received fees for pardons, lawyers involved make out handsomely.
Little does not price pardon services hourly, like a typical attorney, instead charging an expensive fee for up-front consulting and legal advice. Two other well-connected pardon attorneys, lobbyist and self-described D.C. fixer Mike Davis and White House adviser Brett Tolman, collect millions for their work. Upon Trump’s signature, attorneys’ “success fees” can also mean seven-figure paydays.
Trump himself has made historic profits from the Oval Office, disclosing some $2.2 billion in income earned last year — owed in large part to loosely regulated cryptocoin ventures and real estate deals across the globe. But when it comes to pardons, he reaps benefits of another sort. Many of his chosen grantees earn Trump social or political favors from individuals or key constituencies. Immediately after taking office in 2025, Trump signed for several anti-abortion activists, including three Tennesseans who were convicted in 2021 for obstructing a Mt. Juliet abortion clinic — his own type of virtue signal.
Trump also has clearly established a pattern of using pardon power to free people he sees as having suffered political persecution, a line of argument uniquely available to convicted elected officials or other partisan individuals.
Little’s success lies in intentionally crafting cases for his clients that appeal to Trump’s proven predilections, finding a connection to his inner circle or otherwise getting his attention. Phillips, for one, had a loose connection to a White House staffer going back to their college days. Kelsey was connected to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Lexington political elite via his wife, Ingram Industries lobbyist Amanda Bunning Kelsey, granddaughter of Kentucky’s longtime U.S. Rep. and Sen. Jim Bunning. The Chrisleys, a popular real estate reality show couple, required a more media-savvy strategy.
“The biggest issue here was, it’s very clear the case would never have happened if they were not celebrities,” Little told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on May 29, 2025, two days after winning the Chrisleys’ pardons. “The Chrisleys become celebrities and all of a sudden the FBI picks up the case again. I think that sort of targeting, based on who you are publicly, is what this president’s made very clear he doesn’t want to condone.”
Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Peter Welch and two California congressmen have since probed Todd Chrisley’s pardon and several others they say may have been obtained “through intermediaries, financial contributions, or other forms of influence,” per a letter sent May 7, 2026.
A new “advocacy” website for North Carolina businessman Greg Lindberg — a current Little client convicted of fraud and bribery in 2020 and 2024 — praises Trump and casts Lindberg’s misfortune as personal retribution from the scorned state insurance commissioner, inviting readers to “join the movement” for Lindberg’s freedom. Court records also tie Little to high-profile Los Angeles financier Kenneth Leech II and Steve A. McBee, a reality show star convicted of insurance fraud and friend of the Chrisleys. McBee already has a pending White House pardon. Little has not formally filed for the Menendez pardons yet, though both husband and wife are currently in federal custody.
With White House politics looking increasingly like a medieval royal court, winning these cases requires trained lawyers to comprehend a bespoke justice system tried and judged by an audience of one. Little has apparently figured that out. Like recently shuttered heavy-hitter firm Neal & Harwell, which enjoyed close White House ties in the 1970s and 1980s through founding partner James Neal, Litson has become a major white-collar player with one foot in D.C. and another in Nashville. ▼
Centerville man awarded millions in settlement following illegal 2021 blockade of Mt. Juliet abortion clinic
BY HANNAH HERNER
A CENTERVILLE, TENN., man last week told Fox News that he was awarded a seven-figure settlement from the Department of Justice stemming from his part in a March 2021 physical blockade of a Carafem clinic in Mt. Juliet.
Paul Vaughn was convicted for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law making it a felony to use force, obstruction or inflict property damage to interfere with reproductive health care services. He was part of a group of mostly out-of-state activists who livestreamed the event, and introduced a patient as a “mom coming to kill her baby.” At the time, Carafem was performing abortions, but one year later, the facility was banned following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and enactment of Tennessee’s abortion trigger ban.
In January 2025, while his case was on appeal, Vaughn and two other Tennesseans were among the 23 anti-abortion activists pardoned by President Donald Trump. Shortly after, DOJ chief of staff Chad Mizelle penned a memorandum indicating that future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions would happen only in “extraordinary circumstances.”
“More than a million dollars from this government to reward a man who broke federal law harassing patients, healthcare workers and volunteers,” says Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. “The administration is rewarding the very people who are willing to use violence to advance their agenda. Regardless of your views on abortion, we should all condemn this in the strongest possible terms.”
The day after Vaughn announced his settlement news, Planned Parenthood Federation of America filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration for reducing its Title X funding.
The Mt. Juliet Carafem location couldn’t issue a statement about Vaughn’s settlement, because the facility is no longer there. It stopped offering abortions under Tennessee’s trigger ban in August 2022 and closed in May 2023. Carafem now has locations only in Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, D.C., while Planned Parenthood locations in Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville pivoted to abortion navigation, as well as menopause care, vasectomies, gender-affirming care and other reproductive healthcare services.
An April report from the Department of Justice claims that the Biden administration disproportionately prosecuted anti-abortion activists under the FACE Act. Vaughn’s lawyer said his client was arrested in a “predawn FBI raid” for his “pro-life beliefs” in front of his wife and some of his 11 children.
“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an April statement. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on
Name:
SASSAFRAS
Age: 2 yrs.
Weight: 41 lbs.
MEET
SASSAFRAS!
This lovable pup is always ready to soak up attention, whether she’s enjoying pets, sharing kisses, or spending time with her favorite people. Sassafras is a professional passenger princess who loves going for rides and is the perfect car companion. She also enjoys a good game of fetch and is always eager to show off her skills. Sassafras knows sit, shake, lay down, and come, and she’s a smart girl who proudly walks right into her kennel when asked. With her loving heart and playful spirit, Sassafras is ready to bring joy to her forever family!
Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org
Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209
Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.
beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”
Blanche’s statement is in stark contrast to the DOJ statement released just a few years earlier under the Biden administration.
“These defendants knowingly chose to violate laws they disagreed with,” said Henry C. Leventis, former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, in January 2024, when six defendants including Vaughn were convicted. “The jury’s verdict today is a victory for the rule of law in this country and a reminder that we cannot pick and choose which laws we follow. It is also a testament to the outstanding work done in this case by the trial team and our law enforcement partners.”
High turnout trend holds through two weeks, boosting primary ballots 35 percent from 2024
BY ELI MOTYCKA
Despite the state’s nearly total ban on abortion, anti-abortion activists continue to travel to Tennessee in an attempt to further chip away at reproductive freedom. A group identifying as abortion abolitionists from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion traveled from out of state in March to support legislation that would have allowed homicide charges — including first-degree murder — to apply in cases involving “unborn children.” As it was originally presented, this means fetal homicide charges could ostensibly be brought against a person for receiving an abortion. The legislation ultimately did not pass.
an independent bookstore for independent people
UPCOMING EVENTS
PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTS FOR TICKETS & UPDATES
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6
6:30PM CHRIS YOUNG at PARNASSUS The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience
10:30AM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8
SATURDAY STORYTIME with CARTER HAMRIC at PARNASSUS Big Ole Day on the Farm
6:30PM
CAROLINE BROOKS DUBOIS with LISA SPENCER at PARNASSUS All the Sunshine in the World
6:30PM
CHANG-RAE LEE
with STEVE HARUCH at PARNASSUS A Tender Age
6:30PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 10
Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi also worked with Democratic representatives to bring the Maternal Health Care Protection Act, inspired by a Tennessee woman who was denied a sterilization procedure to protect her “sacred fertility” and another who was denied care from an OBGYN because she was unmarried. Such discrimination is legal under Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act, which went into effect in 2025 and allows medical professionals to deny care that goes against their “conscience.”
In June, Tennessee became the first state to erect a “monument to the unborn” on Capitol grounds. ▼
MORE THAN 50,000 Davidson County ballots have already been cast before Election Day, an early voting surge up 35 percent from 2024.
and get research help from David’s elderly father, who even checks out the judges subject to a “retain or replace” vote.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11
HANNAH WHITTEN with MALLORY ARNOLD at PARNASSUS Reliquary
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12
6:30PM AARON MAHNKE at PARNASSUS Exhumed
3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 | Nashville, TN 37215 (615) 953-2243 Shop online at parnassusbooks.net
@parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooksnashville
Midterm primary races typically see lower turnout than presidential years, especially with few contested races on the ballot. But convenience, traffic concerns and the season’s unique politics all helped bring civic-minded residents to the polls during Nashville’s two-week early voting period, which concluded Aug. 1.
Nashville has endured several years of political drama, from local conflict to D.C. scandals. State lawmakers have twice sliced the county up with congressional redistricting, first in 2022 and again in 2026, inciting blowback against the GOP’s dilution of Nashville and Memphis voters. A historically unpopular president struggling to justify America’s war on Iran and assuage economic concerns draws daily media scrutiny.
“I think the gerrymandering’s awful, it’s terrible, it’s a form of cheating — it’s just choosing your own voters,” musician David Guy tells the Scene just after voting at Lentz Public Health Center. “We were literally a block from where the lines changed and had two different representatives on our road.”
Guy and Bry York spoke to the Scene on Friday, the second-to-last chance for voters to early vote. They are rare high-propensity voters
“I’m a musician here, and there’s so many musician friends that don’t vote,” Guy says. “It really is frustrating to me. There’s a chance people are getting pretty lethargic about doing anything political. I try to say that voting is the easiest part — it’s literally the least you can do.”
The Hermitage, Bellevue and Edmondson Pike library branches led early voting sites, attracting about 19,000 voters between them. The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee — a new early voting site this year located in a recently completed complex on Belmont Boulevard — helped absorb the loss of last year’s leading site, the Green Hills Public Library, currently closed for renovations. Two other new early voting sites — the Scarritt Bennett Center and Davidson County Election Commission’s office on Murfreesboro Pike — tallied 457 and 1,387 votes respectively, the lowest totals of all 15 locations. Early voting spanned two weeks in both 2024 and 2026 and peaked in the final three days each time, when some 40 percent of the early vote came in. Contested races also drive energy, especially the seat left vacant by Democrat state Rep. Caleb Hemmer in State House District 59. A four-person Democratic field has veered into intense campaigning in the heavily Democratic
city’s only true toss-up seat.
Simple convenience has won over Wayne and Stacy Smith.
“ I don’t want to fight traffic,” Wayne tells the Scene as he climbs into his truck after early voting. “It’s a whole lot easier to early vote — there are no lines, and it’s not far from us. I don’t know why anybody would want to come on Election Day.”
Wayne doesn’t like professional politicians, especially older party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, who he says cling tightly to power. He thinks profiting or stock trading while in office should disqualify any public servant.
Stacy has not missed an election since the Reagan years, she says proudly — but she tries not to discuss politics (or religion) with her friends or family.
“ I have a lot of friends on the other side of the aisle from where I am, and we’re still friends, which makes it astounding to me that people will cut off their family or friends because they have a different viewpoint,” Stacy says. “You’re in America. That’s the whole thing we were founded on. If somebody has another opinion than me, you think I’m not gonna not go to Christmas with them or not go have lunch with them? The moment that happens, we’re in trouble. Something’s wrong with you mentally.” ▼
Opinion columnist Betsy Phillips thinks we should have a Nashville History Month. “We have some really interesting history that many locals were never taught and that newcomers have no easy way of learning because we don’t have a city museum,” she writes. So how can Nashvillians celebrate Phillips’ newly (and very much unofficially) declared Nashville History Month? By visiting the Nashville Public Library’s Main Branch where you’ll find the Nashville Room, the Civil Rights Room and the Women’s Suffrage Room Or by visiting the Nashville City Cemetery and the Tennessee History Museum, walking around Fisk University’s campus or taking a Nashville Sites tour — or even going fossil hunting.
In the run-up to Thursday’s primary elections a recent poll from OnMessage showed U.S. Rep. John Rose narrowing the gap between himself and frontrunner U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn in the Republican primary for governor. Blackburn also leads the race in donations from corporate PACs, including a range of law firms, healthcare companies and other large corporations — including Acadia Healthcare, Delta Dental, Blue Cross Blue Shield in Tennessee, private prison operator CoreCivic, Tractor Supply and many others. Rose — who is primarily self-funding his campaign — also received a major contribution from the Tennessee Hospitality and Tourism PAC while fellow Republican Monty Fritts and Democratic frontrunner Jerri Green each received small sums from less prominent PACs.
Robert Saleh, the Tennessee Titans’ first-year head coach fresh from San Francisco, packed new schemes, skill coaching, positional drills and simulated plays into training camp last week. All that work came alongside a healthy dose of team building at the Titans’ modern MetroCenter headquarters, which reporter Eli Motycka checked out on July 30. Last year, the Titans competed to avoid being labeled the NFL’s worst team, though a few bright spots gave fans just enough hope to keep watching. For now, with the Titans’ first preseason game just a week away, coaches and the front office have a few immediate concerns.
AUGUST
AUGUST
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
Nashville is getting hotter. Here’s a look at the historic, cultural and climate-related influences affecting the temperature.
BY JULIANNE AKERS
IT’S HOT.
Sweltering. Blazing. Scorching. Whatever adjective you use to describe Nashville’s relentless, sticky summer heat, it is impossible to ignore. While some of this can of course be chalked up to the fact that we live in the South, climate change data shows that Nashville — and the rest of the world — is getting hotter. Earth’s average surface temperature has risen approximately 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century, according to NASA data. Meanwhile, global surface temperature has increased more rapidly since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the past 2,000 years.
Amid rising temperatures, Nashville grapples with what’s known as the urban heat island effect, an environmental phenomenon common among metropolitan areas in which city temperatures become significantly hotter than surrounding rural areas. This is often caused by the widespread placement of low-albedo surfaces like asphalt, pavement and roadways, all of which trap and absorb heat, releasing it throughout the day. There’s not much reprieve when the sun goes down either, as the trapped heat often raises temperatures even more at night.
Being in close proximity to green spaces and a lush tree canopy can significantly reduce temperatures. But in Nashville, these cooling methods are not evenly distributed. When comparing the temperatures of downtown Nashville to more rural, peripheral areas of Davidson County, there is sometimes a difference of 10 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the time of day.
While Nashville’s urban core — full of asphalt and tall buildings (many of which also trap heat and block wind) — is often hotter than the more rural parts of Davidson County, other neighborhoods are also disproportionately affected by lack of trees and the urban heat island effect. This comes in part due to racist practices like redlining and projects constructed during urban renewal efforts in the 1950s and ’60s. These practices were seen in the historically Black neighborhood North Nashville, which was split in two with the construction of Interstate 40, and faced rampant disinvestment. The massive highway, along with unused parking lots and other abandoned paved areas, have led to that community experiencing higher temperatures and worsening air conditions than other parts of Nashville.
In 2022, Metro Nashville completed an Urban Heat Mapping Campaign, which shows the urban core, North Nashville, Edgehill and Madison, as well as parts of South Nashville, Elm Hill and West Nashville bordering I-40 and Charlotte Pike as considerably hotter than other areas of Davidson County during the same time of day. The Nashville neighborhoods experiencing the most extreme heat also frequently include communities with residents who are most vulnerable to its detrimental effects: older adults, young children and people with chronic diseases and mental illnesses that could make heat a risk to their health. The map shows areas of North and South Nashville having a higher population of residents with health conditions like asthma, diabetes, heart disease, pulmonary illness and obesity that could affect their bodies’ capacity to cool down. According to the World Health Organization, heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths, and the Tennessee Department of Health reported more than 3,000 heat-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits in Davidson County between 2010 and 2021.
This also becomes a socioeconomic issue, as
the unhoused community, people who can’t afford central air conditioning and those who rely on public transit are especially vulnerable to heat exposure. Outdoor workers, people living alone, individuals with disabilities and non-English speakers also face increased risk of heat vulnerability.
A new research report from Vanderbilt University explores the concept of heat as not just numbered temperature, but also a socially produced condition substantially impacted by racial geographies, historic marginalization, health risks and other cultural factors — such as the way people dress, live, work and adapt to heat.
“This idea that heat is socially produced refers to all of this complex mix of biophysical factors, health factors, social factors, economic factors that can put certain people more at risk and also allow other people to be more protected or less vulnerable during a heat event,” says Ashley Carse, a cultural anthropologist at Vanderbilt and one of the primary authors of the research.
Citywide temperatures gathered throughout the day on Aug. 14, 2022
6-7 a.m.
The report notes that metrics like the heat index and wet-bulb temperature — along with standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers — largely use the experience of young or middle-aged men who are able-bodied and standing in shaded or temperate areas as the standard. There’s little research denoting how people of different experiences respond to heat.
History also plays a huge part in how humans have adapted to extreme heat over time.
Carse notes that use of air conditioning is still a relatively new practice. Through looking at archived newspapers, Carse found that air conditioning slowly began to be integrated into life in Nashville in the early 20th century. Places like theaters, stores and hotels were the first to offer air conditioning, and those were the spaces people would flock to if they needed to cool off. If people didn’t have the money, shaded parks were often where they sought relief from the heat. Even back then, many Nashvillians made efforts to help their neighbors. Carse says pre-World War I newspapers detailed ice funds and donations for low-income families during heat waves.
Now air conditioning is commonplace in the U.S. — and Vanderbilt’s research found that consistent use of air conditioning can make people more susceptible to heat-related stress
when outdoors.
“A lot of us live in these kind of air-conditioned bubbles,” Carse says. “We go from our air-conditioned houses to our air-conditioned cars to our air-conditioned offices or stores or whatever, but that’s all pretty new. … I think that
most vulnerable.
One is the Cumberland River Compact, which is conducting a series of depaving projects across the city. The initiative transforms underutilized parking lots and other derelict parcels of pavement into green space — an
EVEN IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, MANY NASHVILLIANS MADE EFFORTS TO HELP THEIR NEIGHBORS. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY'S ASHLEY CARSE SAYS PREWORLD WAR I NEWSPAPERS DETAILED ICE FUNDS AND DONATIONS FOR LOWINCOME FAMILIES DURING HEAT WAVES.
we can learn from how people lived and coped with heat here before AC and things, how people have done it in other parts of the world.”
The research treats this historical and cultural knowledge as necessary infrastructure when crafting heat-related policy and solutions.
Amid the incessant heat, there are several local organizations taking note of these factors through initiatives intended to cool down the city, especially in the neighborhoods that are
effort funded through Biden-era COVID-19 relief dollars designed to mitigate stormwater runoff and prevent contaminated water from draining into Nashville’s waterways — including Tennessee State University’s Tiger Bay Wetlands. By removing impervious surfaces like pavement, the water is then filtered through leaves and soil rather than running directly into Nashville’s water channels.
Depaving also plays a major role in cooling
down the surrounding areas through the removal of low-albedo surfaces that absorb heat, as well as the addition of trees that provide additional shade.
“Driving around Nashville, everybody has just seen some space that’s overpaved,” says Jason Sprouls, urban waters division manager with the Cumberland River Compact. “Typically, those are spaces that were developed in the ’50s or ’60s before our stormwater codes were in place.”
Recent depaving projects have taken place at Pearl-Cohn High School, Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church and Westwood Baptist Church, University Center — all of which are in North Nashville. Sprouls says by the end of September, the compact will have depaved 31,000 square feet in North Nashville and more than 100,000 square feet across Davidson County.
Sprouls also helps lead the Root Nashville campaign, a partnership between the compact and Metro Nashville aiming to plant 500,000 trees across Davidson County by 2050. Through the campaign, Davidson County residents can receive up to three free trees to plant on their property. (Current orders close Aug. 31.)
“If people are feeling the duress of summer and they’re wanting to take an action to help promote climate resilience at a hyperlocal scale, the act of planting a tree really helps a lot be-
cause also it’s a measure of cost savings as well,” Sprouls says. “Having shade near your property can help reduce your dependency on air conditioning and heating, so it helps you reduce your emissions and dependency on utilities as well.”
Meanwhile, organizations like The Alliance to Conserve Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest and the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps are working to preserve and protect Davidson County’s tree canopy.
The Nashville Tree Conservation Corps recently conducted a shade report ranking all parks in Davidson County based on their heat index and tree coverage. The report found that Nashville’s least shaded parks include Watkins Park, William Edmondson Park, Owen Bradley Park and Morgan Park.
Chris Leonard, board chair of the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps, tells the Scene that shade at parks can be important for children and families, the unhoused community or anyone else who congregates in the green spaces — and the addition of trees can significantly cool down the area.
“I want [trees] to be really close to the playground equipment, overhanging the playground equipment, so that there’s shade on that stuff, and the temperature of the actual physical equipment can stay down throughout the day,” Leonard says. “So if I’m a parent sitting on a bench watching my kids play, I have the option of sitting in the shade. Think about nursing mothers who are going to this park who have to watch their older kids play while basically being stuck stationary on a bench while nursing. They shouldn’t have to do that in blazing heat.”
Leonard encourages anyone who sees a need for tree coverage in their neighborhood to request trees through Metro’s hubNashville portal.
“People who care, who are close to the action, need to be the ones to request this stuff,” says Leonard. “Not only because they’re the ones who should care the most, but also because they would have the most informed opinion about what and where this stuff should go.”
Amid the push to replenish Nashville’s tree canopy come brazen efforts from Nashville Electric Service to ramp up tree trimming in the wake of Winter Storm Fern. During January’s storm, tree limbs across Davidson County broke under the weight of the ice, subsequently caus-
ing damage to power lines. Before the storm, NES’ buffer between a power pole and a tree was 6 feet. Since the storm, it’s increased to 15 feet, which has been scrutinized by tree conservationists and other residents across the city who say NES was overcorrecting after falling behind on tree trimming in previous years.
“Citizens have more power than we think we do, but now we have some data,” Leonard says. “We should always have data at our fingertips to inform our decisions and priorities, because it’s important to me that the underserved areas of Nashville, or sometimes the forgotten areas of Nashville, just don’t get left behind as we improve things.”
if you’re building to a certain level of LEED certification in the downtown core, and you’re achieving that LEED certification — which could include things like green space, green roofs, things like that — you could be able to build to a higher height.”
She adds that Metro will soon host a retreat including all of its departments to identify gaps in how the government addresses heat exposure and vulnerability in Nashville. Abkowitz says this includes identifying pilot projects like a recent Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure initiative experimenting with a cool sealant that has a reflecting characteristic and helps prevent roadways from absorbing heat.
As far as what’s being done at the Metro level, Kendra Abkowitz — who works as deputy chief of operations in the Mayor’s Office for Sustainability, Resilience, and the Environment — notes Nashville’s recently launched ecological conservation strategy and study.
“[The study] is helping us better understand where we have unique ecological resources, how they benefit the community, and then figuring out different tools within our toolbox that we could use to preserve those,” Abkowitz tells the Scene. “It recognizes that there are several different levers that we could pull to try to preserve and conserve spaces that provide unique value to our community.”
This comes as Metro recently announced a 300-acre expansion of Beaman Park through an acquisition of forest property adjoining the park, protecting it from any potential development.
Abkowitz says as Metro collects information through the study, it could recommend new planning regulations that could help alleviate the urban heat island effect in Nashville as the city continues to grow and face threats from large developments like data centers, which emit large amounts of heat.
“Examples of this would be things like, how are we taking existing regulatory programs like the bonus height program within downtown code and trying to make new development or significant renovations be more climate-friendly,” she says. “For example,
“It’ll be one of the more recent activities that we’re taking across multiple different departments to really examine how the decisions that we’re making are affecting the heat landscape and how heat is felt by our residents,” Abkowitz says.
She says Metro departments will often reference data from the heat mapping campaign to understand where certain projects could be piloted.
“If we’re going to start setting up places like resilience hubs or more intentional cooling centers, if we were to do that, which communities would we want to go to first?” she says. “I think it’s hard, because you want to make sure that you’re responding to the needs of all your residents. That’s what government does. But I do think there is a way that you can prioritize your engagements, or if you are in a piloting framework, maybe you want to test out and try some more innovative approaches in neighborhoods that need it the most.”
Abkowitz says efforts to reduce the urban heat island effect in Nashville will take both large-scale efforts like the Beaman Park expansion as well as neighborhood-focused projects like individual tree plantings across the city.
“I’m trying to think a lot about scale, and thinking about sort of micro-level interventions as well as these more macro-level interventions,” she says.
As dangerous heat is expected to permeate Davidson County in the weeks to come, it’s safe to say most Nashvillians will welcome interventions at any level. ▼
“CITIZENS HAVE MORE POWER THAN WE THINK WE DO, BUT NOW WE HAVE SOME DATA. WE SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE DATA AT OUR FINGERTIPS TO INFORM OUR DECISIONS AND PRIORITIES, BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT TO ME THAT THE UNDERSERVED AREAS OF NASHVILLE, OR SOMETIMES THE FORGOTTEN AREAS OF NASHVILLE, JUST DON’T GET LEFT BEHIND AS WE IMPROVE THINGS.”
—CHRIS LEONARD, NASHVILLE TREE CONSERVATION CORPS
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
8.1 Thomas Gabriel
8.8 Karen Waldrup
8.9 Music Row for Musicares Presented by Eric Church Band & Corient: Casey Beathard, Luke Dick, Jeff Hyde, Driver Williams, Jonathan Singleton, & Dan Isbell
8.13 Aaron Nichols & Friends from The Voice w/ Dustin Dale Gaspard & Bay Simpson
8.14 Ty Herndon - Living in a Moment 30th Anniversary
8.15 Mitch Rossell
8.16 Chris Smither
8.20 Save Ferris — “It Means Everything” Performed Front to Back, Special Guest Adrian + Meredith
8.22 Waymore’s Outlaws — Runnin’ with Ol’ Waylon
8.25 Buddy's Place Writer's Round w/ Lauren Mascitti, Walker County, Adam Hambrick
8.26 Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Presents — Adele McCoury Night: One of Adele’s & One of Del’s! w/ John Cowan, Mother/ Son, Mason Via, Cherokee Hope, Jason Carter, Dani Flowers, Delaney Ramsdell, & Uncle B
8.27 Icons of Country Tribute to Hardy and Zac Brown Band
8.29 Josh Ward
8.30 Dedicated Men of Zion: A Night of Sacred Soul
EVENTS & CONTESTS ART, PARADE, LOCAL MUSIC, DELICIOUS FOOD, COSTUMES, WACKY CONTESTS, TOMATOTHEMED SHOPPING, FAMILY ACTIVITIES AND MORE.
TOMATO ART PRE VIEW PARTY
THURS AUG 6 · 6-9PM
TOMATO 5K
SAT AUG 8 · 7:30-8:30AM
SAT AUG 8 · 10AM-1PM
TOMATO ART FEST PUSH, PULL & WEAR PARADE
SAT AUG 8 · 9AM
FRI AUG 7 · 5-10PM
SAT AUG 8 · 10AM-7PM
Tomato Art Fest Push, Pull & Wear Parade
Saturday, August 8 * 9am
S 13th Street between Fatherland and Holly St
Prizes: Best Overall, Best use of Tomatoes, Festival Spirit, Best Pushed, Best Pulled, Best Wearable, Honorable Mention
Tomato Art Show
The Tomato Art Show showcases over 300 tomato-inspired pieces throughout the weekend.
Friday, August 7 * Noon - 7 pm
Saturday, August 8 * 9 am - 7 pm
Sunday, August 9 * 11 am - 5 pm
Tomato Art Pre View Party
Thursday, August 6 * 6pm-9pm
Main Street Gallery * 625 Main Street
Tito’s Handmade Vodka Bloody Mary Garden Party presented by the Tennessee Titans
Saturday, August 8
Inside the Festival event happens during Tomato Art Fest in Five Points
10 am - 1:00 pm
118 South 11th Street
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
SATURDAY, AUG. 8
MUSIC
[LET’S GET WEIRD] THE WEIRD SISTERS
When experimental dance-rock duo The Weird Sisters — Gabrielle Lewis and Izaac Short — headline the Tomato Art Fest afterparty at The Basement East Saturday night, it probably will be their final show in Nashville. That’s according to a lengthy announcement the duo posted on their Facebook page on July 24. “After careful consideration, we have decided to hit the pause button on our project The Weird Sisters — specifically, on the live frontier,” the duo writes. “All future collaborations between the two of us will most likely be in the studio.” They went on to announce what will “likely” be their final four shows, a list that includes area appearances at The Beast on Saturday and Hop Springs Beer Park in Murfreesboro on Aug. 21. As for the reason for their hiatus, they say the DIY project that began in 2017 has grown to the point where they can no longer sustain it by themselves. Even though they’ll be taking a break, The Weird Sisters intend to go out with a bang. “We don’t plan on pulling any punches or crying about the past for these last few performances. … Obviously we could fade out and do a show every year or so, but we’d rather put a pin in it.” On Friday, the group will be releasing a new single: “Top Dog” backed with “Call Me Dion.” DARYL SANDERS
7:30 AT THE BASEMENT EAST
917 WOODLAND ST.
FOOD
[SCOUT’S HONOR] OUTSIDE THE BOX
Hard-to-find seasonal ingredients are the cornerstone of many kitchens. On Thursday, local chefs and mixologists will be playing with Thin Mints, Samoas and other beloved Girl Scout Cookies as the limited-supply ingredient du jour. They’ve been tasked with making a cookie-inspired dessert, appetizer or cocktail as a fundraiser for Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee (GSMIDTN). In addition to the themed eats and drinks, there will be an exclusive historical exhibit from GSMIDTN’s archives. Culinary partners include City Winery, The Loveless Cafe, Southbound Tequila and others. Tickets can be purchased online, and proceeds from Outside the Box will provide funding to make Girl Scouting accessible to all girls. Because of the unlimited alcohol, this is a 21-and-up event. Leave your actual Girl Scouts at home.
MARGARET LITTMAN
6 P.M. AT THE TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM
1000 ROSA L. PARKS BLVD.
THEATER
[FRIEND REQUEST] EAST NASHVILLE FACEBOOK PAGE: THE
I first encountered East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical back in 2023 as part of the Kindling Arts Festival. Presented by Emma Supica and local improv musical troupe Cherry Bomb, it was initially billed as a musical comedy send-up of “the city’s most simultaneously beloved and despised news source.” And while that remains an accurate description, this hilarious show goes well beyond your standard comedy bit — with crazy characters and wacky setups, all set to the marvelous musical stylings of Alex Dolezal. Now in its fourth year, East Nashville Facebook Page is back at Eastside Bowl this weekend with a slew of talented performers, including Supica, Christina Ashworth, Erika Bailey, Ryan Citrino, Gabe Cyrus, Margaret French, Seth Nathan Green, Kim Herrmann, Mick Khoury and Cammie York. You don’t have to live in East Nashville to appreciate the humor, and no matter how many times you’ve seen it before, the show is always a little different since it’s inspired by real posts from the actual Facebook page over the past 12 months. Rowdy, riotous
fun, this is one Facebook oddity you won’t mind revisiting. AMY STUMPFL
AUG. 6,7 & 9 AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508A GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
FRIDAY / 8.7
[CATSUP]
FESTIVAL
TOMATO ART FEST
“The tomato: a uniter, not a divider! Bringing together fruits and vegetables.” East Nashville’s quirky, popular, longtime art
festival inspired by the beloved nightshade is back this year, bigger and better than ever before. Located in the historic Five Points neighborhood, the Tomato Art Fest is a two-day event filled with music, food, art pieces and everything tomato. The festival began in 2003 with just tomato art being showcased, but since then the wacky tradition has blossomed into an outsized, only-in-Nashville community affair. To go along with all the fun and fresh tomatothemed art, there will be a multitude of tomatobased contests. Some of the most popular events include the Tomato Costume Contest; the
Biggest, Littlest and Ugliest Tomato contests; bobbing for tomatoes; and the tomato toss. The event is free to all, and all ages are welcome to join in on the fun. EMMA PICKETT
AUG. 7-8 IN EAST NASHVILLE’S FIVE POINTS
ART [CRAWLIN’]
FIRST FRIDAY FRANKLIN ART CRAWL
I think we can all agree that the arts need to be celebrated. The Factory at Franklin is doing just that with their monthly art crawl, a free art exhibit showcasing local artists from Williamson County. The Find, Stonebridge Gallery and the Grand Hall near The Skylight will feature these talented artists and their works. The crawl is family-friendly, and a great way to introduce kids to the world of visual art, via up-and-coming local talents. Some pieces will be available for sale, so you may even find a new piece to bring home. Spend your Friday night wandering the historic halls of The Factory and discover something new, unique and beautiful. EMMA PICKETT
6 P.M. AT THE FACTORY AT FRANKLIN
230 FRANKLIN ROAD, FRANKLIN
As the founder and executive/artistic director of FALL Productions, Rebekah Hampton Barger has used movement and dance to explore everything from identity and personal trauma to chronic pain, hope and
resilience. But with her most recent project, Where We Meet, she was inspired by real women’s stories of addiction recovery. Presented in collaboration with Healing Housing — a wonderful nonprofit recovery housing program for women — this original aerial and contemporary ballet performance offers “a powerful glimpse into the healing journey while transforming stigma into understanding.” Directed and choreographed by Barger and Skyler Meadow Levine, the show’s cast includes Levine, Mel Allen, Autumn Wegner, Allison Hardee, Marisa Pace, Molly Robinson and Asia Pyron. The piece also features an original score from Jon Epcar, an accomplished musician and songwriter who has worked with everyone from Bono to John Legend and Rihanna. Touching on themes of healing, connection and transformation, Where We Meet promises a powerful experience. Best of all, proceeds go to support the vital mission of Healing Housing.
AMY STUMPFL
AUG. 7-9 AT OZ ARTS
6172 COCKRILL BEND CIRCLE
FILM
[YOU’RE A GROOVY BOY] MIDNIGHT MOVIES: BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
20th Century Fox obviously did not know what they were getting into when they snapped up nudie-filmmaking legend Russ Meyer to cowrite and direct Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the 1970 T&A fest that was supposed to be a
NASHVILLE SYMPHONY & CHORUS
SEPTEMBER 11 TO 13
All The Dogs is a 5 song EP of new original material by Nashville’s own Indie Rock band, Tower Brothers. Starting on 7/31 it will be available on all streaming platforms.
Diverse. Dedicated. Determined. The opening concert of the Nashville Symphony’s 80th season celebrates a kaleidoscope of American musical voices. Don’t miss Leonard Slatkin’s premiere performance as Music Director in a kickoff concert that will be the talk of the town.
spiritual sequel to their hit 1967 adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s trashy bestseller Valley of the Dolls. Meyer and a young film critic named Roger Ebert came up with this bosomy, batshit reimagining, wherein a trio of young female rock ’n’ rollers (including Playboy playmates Dolly Read and Cynthia Myers) get swallowed up by Hollywood’s hella-hedonistic scene, with its sex, drugs and Strawberry Alarm Clock tunes. This satirical psychedelic freakout — complete with rampant nudity, delirious editing and a chaotic, violent third act inspired by the Charles Manson murders — practically outdoes the original Valley in the outrageousness department. Tonally madcap, visually relentless and horny as fuck, Beyond — perhaps the most hold-my-beer movie ever made — truly went beyond. And that’s why the Belcourt has given it a Midnight Movies slot this weekend.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
FILM [NOTHING IS WRITTEN]
WEEKEND CLASSICS: BEAT THE HEAT: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
The only thing better than seeing the brightblue eyes of Peter O’Toole shine against the sun-soaked backdrop of the Arabian Desert is seeing them on the big screen for the first time. While many film fans have seen the epic Lawrence of Arabia at one point or another, far fewer have had the chance to see David Lean’s 1962 blockbuster in theaters. Fortunately, the Belcourt is giving everyone the opportunity this weekend as part of its Weekend Classics: Beat the Heat series. Showings are taking place all three days this weekend at 11:30 a.m., each
with a 10-minute intermission. It may be a long sit at nearly four hours, but Lawrence of Arabia remains one of the definitive blockbuster experiences in Hollywood history, and it’s well worth the time to see it in a theater. CHARLIE RIDGELY 11:30 A.M. AUG. 7-9 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
[WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB]
FILM
When I sat down in the theater almost exactly 16 (!) years ago to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on its opening weekend, I was expecting more of the usual Edgar Wright markers. The first two entries of his beloved Cornetto Trilogy — 2004’s Shaun of the Dead and 2007’s Hot Fuzz — strike the perfect tonal balance of laughout-loud goofball gags and sincere homage to some of the director’s favorite genres. But with Scott Pilgrim, Wright flexed a different set of directorial muscles, filling every frame to the brim with filmmaking flourishes. It’s an almost overwhelming experience with joke-a-minute dialogue, comic-bookpanel-style visual touches, impressive action choreography and legitimately great musical sequences. (Fun fact: Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet was originally supposed to shepherd the soundtrack, a role that went to Beck following the band’s breakup.) Come for Wright’s leveling up as a director, stay for the aheadof-its-time cast, which featured breakthrough appearances from Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson and Aubrey Plaza. I’m
glad this cult favorite is receiving its (Ramona) flowers. LOGAN BUTTS
MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
Escape from the sticky-hot August heat and peek behind the curtain with one of Music City’s most promising songwriters? Sounds like a solid bet for a Saturday afternoon in downtown Nashville. This week, a new edition of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Songwriter Session program features Carter Faith, a major label upstart who made waves last year with her cinematic debut album Cherry Valley. The hourlong program typically features an acoustic performance with behind-the-scenes stories about the songwriting process. Attendees should expect a few tales from the making of Cherry Valley and Faith’s follow-up deluxe release, Cherry Valley Forever, which debuted last month. On Cherry Valley Forever, Faith doubles down on her breakout album with the help of a few friends: Oklahoma troubadour Wyatt Flores joins on slow-burning number “Nothin’ Better to Do,” while Laci Kaye Booth and Baby Nova help deliver a fresh take on anthemic badassery with “Pearl Handled Pistol.” Those wanting to attend the event will need to purchase a ticket to the Country Music Hall of Fame for the day of the show and join the Songwriter Session waiting list at countrymusichalloffame.org. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER NOON AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME’S FORD THEATER
222 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY S.
[SIDEMAN]
Saturday afternoon, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s acclaimed Nashville Cats series returns with a program saluting multi-instrumentalist John Jorgenson and hosted by museum writer-editor Jon Freeman. “He’s got an interesting story,” Freeman says of Jorgenson. “He can play any kind of music, and he’s had a slightly different journey than a dedicated Nashville session player, which we do feature in this series as well.” Best known for his prowess on guitar, Jorgenson first stepped into the national spotlight when he co-founded the country-rock group The Desert Rose Band with Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen in 1985. The group scored eight Top 10 country hits between 1987 and 1990. In the early ’90s, Jorgenson founded the instrumental guitar trio The Hellecasters and spent the mid- to latter part of the decade recording and touring as a member of Elton John’s band. In 2004, he formed the gypsy jazz group the John Jorgenson Quintet, which continues to perform to this day. Jorgenson also is still active in the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band (J2B2), which he co-founded in 2014 with former Desert Rose bandmate Pedersen. Saturday’s program will feature Jorgenson in conversation with Freeman about his storied career, accompanied by music and video clips. At the close of the program, Jorgenson will give a short live performance.
DARYL SANDERS
2:30 P.M. AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME’S FORD THEATER
222 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY S.
MUSIC
[SIGN ‘O’ THE TIMES] NORDISTA FREEZE’S THE COOL OFF
Nashville singer-songwriter, rocker and scene-builder Nordista Freeze loves to get onstage and explore the huge variety of music that’s been “pop” at different times. The organizer of the annual Space Prom is exceptionally busy year-round, with recent exploits including a marathon of 50 concerts in all 50 U.S. states in 30 days, plus supporting Bloc Party at the Ryman and Of Montreal at The Mil (all as he makes a bid to compete on Survivor). Somehow he also found time to organize The Cool Off, a show that’s meant to evoke a formal school dance (“dress nice and be ready to dance,” he says on Instagram) that celebrates the blend of rock and soul that characterized American pop in 1962. You could say this time was right as the ’60s were becoming culturally and politically distinct, with landmarks in the civil rights movement and the U.S. space program as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Still yet to come: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Kennedys, the escalation of the Vietnam War, Beatlemania, psychedelia and much more.) Freeze isn’t strictly limiting the show to songs released in 1962, which leaves him and his cohorts a broader canvas to paint a picture of the culture that gave us indelible
music that year, from Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me” to Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” Booker T. & the M.G.’s “Green Onions,” Little Eva’s “The Locomotion” (fun fact: written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin) and beyond. STEPHEN TRAGESER 8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS
623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
[MIGHTY DOLORES]
Artist Andrés Bustamante threads a difficult needle: He makes abstract sculptures that actually have a lot to say. The longtime Nashville-based artist draws on his experience as a young immigrant and refugee — he arrived in the U.S. from Colombia at age 10 — to make works that communicate that struggle through materials like chain-link fence and barbed wire. Conceptually, DOLORES uses clever wordplay as its foundation. The Spanish word dolores, which means pain, is only one letter away from dólares, which means money. “Corporations like the GEO Group and CoreCivic reveal the underlying logic,” he explains in his artist statement. “Detained bodies generate revenue. In this system, dolores become dólares. The love of money overtakes the love of humanity.” The show opens on Saturday, and Bustamante will give an artist talk at 7:30 p.m., followed by a performance by movement artist Phylicia Roybal. A percentage of proceeds will be donated to The Remix Way, a group that handles mutual aid and community support for immigrant families. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
OPENING RECEPTION 6-9 P.M.; THROUGH AUG. 27 AT
ARCADE ARTS GALLERY 63
223 FOURTH AVE. N.
Fraternal Twin frontman Tom Christie first gained notice a decade ago as the bassist with the New York band Quarterbacks, which specialized in short, fast punk songs. Christie started Fraternal Twin in 2015 and released the band’s full-length Homeworlding in 2016. In contrast to Quarterbacks, whose tunes often ran a minute, Fraternal Twin favors slow, languorous compositions that have elements of dream pop and shoegaze, with Christie’s guitar leading the way. The band’s new album Halo Fell Forever keeps the tempos dreamy, and Christie has a knack for cutting the lassitude with classic pop melodies. Christie wrote some of Halo Fell Forever a decade ago, but the album works as a statement about keeping yourself together in a world that militates against relaxation and peace of mind. As he says in the press materials for Halo, the album’s “Medicine” is about “anxiety, rumination and deciding to get on antidepressants.” Halo is post-pop that isn’t as depressing as it could be, and I think it peaks with “Lucidity,” which is Christie at his most beguiling. On Aug. 11 at Betty’s Grill, Fraternal Twin gets support from Ditch, Dream Wave and Swimming Sisters. EDD HURT
8 P.M. AT BETTY’S GRILL
407 49TH AVE. N.
FILM [HENRY & HENRIETTA & MIKEY & NICKY & CHUCK & LYLE]
If you haven’t heard the name Elaine May, then you need to get on down to the Belcourt for the Three Films by Elaine May series; you’re in for three unforgettable films. May was a pioneer for women directors in Hollywood, and her style of comedy often lampoons the follies of foolish men. A New Leaf, for instance, is a hilarious romcom starring Walter Matthau as a rich playboy gone broke who conjures a scheme to marry a nebbish botanist (played by May herself) and murder her for her wealth. If you’re looking for something much darker, then you can’t go wrong with Mikey and Nicky, featuring the dynamic duo of John Cassavetes and Peter Falk in a frank and honest film about mobsters going through a friendship breakup (and an ending that will haunt you for hours afterward). Don’t skip over Ishtar either, as this flop-turned-cultclassic features unforgettable performances by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, who play a pair of lounge singers suddenly wrapped up in a government conspiracy. Every film here is worth its weight in cinematic gold, so don’t miss out on this series running Aug. 11 through 17. For showtimes, visit belcourt.org. IAN MATTHEWS AUG. 11-17 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
New nonprofit Bach Bank rescues the food that tourists leave behind
BY MARGARET LITTMAN
WHEN KAITLIN ZURDOSKY’S friends came to town for a bachelorette party, they had leftover food in their Airbnb at the end of their trip. They didn’t want it to go to waste, so they asked Zurdosky, who lives in Nashville, if she wanted to take it.
She didn’t need it, but she didn’t want it to be tossed, so she took it. Zurdosky knew there were people in town who needed nonperishable food more than she did, and she realized that if her friends had unopened snacks, other people staying at Airbnbs probably did too. She couldn’t stop thinking about how many bachelorette party groups must leave piles of snacks untouched when they go home.
“People come to Nashville to celebrate, and they don’t want people to go hungry,” Zurdosky says. “So they overestimate how much they need, and then there is lots of uneaten food.”
Last year Zurdosky launched Bach Bank, a nonprofit that helps connect visitors with food banks that distribute food to people in need. She funds the project with small public donations and a few small grants.
Food waste is a huge problem in the U.S. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates as much as 40 percent of food in our country goes uneaten. While Metro Nashville and other groups have been addressing food waste for years, more help is needed.
“What Kaitlin did was really inspiring,” says
Jack Stell, manager of community partnerships at Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, one of the organizations that accepts donations from Bach Bank. “You don’t see people very often who say, ‘I am going to solve this,’ and then stick with it.”
Second Harvest is a large organization that accepts millions of pounds of food annually. Stell says it’s not efficient for the group to send a truck to pick up donations of less than 800 pounds. So while Second Harvest was aware that there’s food to rescue from tourists, logistically, they didn’t have a way to get it. Public food donations are accepted at the warehouse on Great Circle Road (as well as in Smyrna and Camden, Tenn.), but Zurdosky points out that many visitors don’t have cars when they visit — or the time or the will to Uber to the warehouse to drop off a donation before they leave town. Also, donations at Second Harvest are accepted only Monday through Friday, and many donations to Bach Bank come in on weekends.
Originally, Zurdosky anticipated most of the donations would be on Sundays — but in practice, she says, people arrive and leave all week, and Bach Bank is active in picking up food on weekdays too.
Zurdosky organized Bach Bank on a volunteer network. Those staying in short-term rentals and hotels with extra food (and drink) fill out a web form that alerts volunteers to come pick it
up. They then drop it at one of the shelters and food banks with which Bach Bank partners. As is the case with Second Harvest, many have regular donation drop-offs that volunteers use. Bach Bank doesn’t have its own warehouse or physical space yet; donations go from the porch of an Airbnb to a volunteer’s car trunk to the food bank. So far, Zurdosky tells the Scene, Bach Bank has rescued 2,000 pounds of food.
Bach Bank generally accepts unopened, nonperishable foods, including bottled water, chips, pasta and snacks. They can also take perishable and frozen foods on ice and will even take alcohol, which is given to other nonprofits to use for fundraising events. The most frequently rescued food item? Limes. “People buy a lot of limes for margaritas,” Zurdosky says.
Indeed, Stell says when he sees several bottles of margarita mix in the donation sorting room, he thinks, “Kaitlin was here.”
Zurdosky has partnered with some short-term rental groups to have bags and information about Bach Bank in their spaces so people know they have an option besides letting food go to waste. Visitors can place the food in the bags on the porch; the bags are then returned inside for the next renters.
In addition to running Bach Bank, Zurdosky has a full-time job in political communications
and a background in technology. She’s currently designing an app that will streamline the process for tourists to schedule a pickup and for volunteers to see where they’re needed. The app could also help tourists see which organizations received their goods. She hopes Bach Bank will be her career in the future — it’s the first nonprofit organization she launched, and she’s learned as it has grown. Zurdosky received the Tallu Quinn Serving Spoon Award from the Phila Awards — an annual culinary community awards group — in her first year in the industry.
Zurdosky thinks an app will not only streamline donations, but also help her expand Bach Bank to other cities. She’s scoping out communities with large tourist draws, lots of short-term rentals and a population that can use food donations. Las Vegas is first up for expansion, partly because of demographics and partly because she has been spending time there. (Her boyfriend lives there.)
“It’s the perfect marriage of people who are in need and people who want to help,” Zurdosky says of the Bach Bank model. “It’s the coolest thing.” ▼
How I discovered my sexuality at a purity conference BY SYDNEY
Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
I’m 11 years old. I’m sitting on a hard pew, my Mary Janes barely hitting the brown carpet below. My mother and younger sister are on either side of me in a sanctuary full of middle school girls. A woman in a red Talbot’s pantsuit and big gold jewelry stands on the stage.
“Your body is like a rose,” she says, looking toward a flower she’s holding. “It is beautiful and pure. It deserves to be revered and honored.”
She abruptly plucks a full pink petal and throws it to the ground, squashing it under her heel.
“But,” she continues, “when we let others pick from this pretty rose, it loses its beauty.”
8/6, 8/7, & 8/9 EAST NASHVILLE FACEBOOK PAGE: THE MUSICAL
8/8 PRO WRESTLING SYMPHONY: NO REMORSE
8/12 GIMME GIMME MORE MARKET
8/13 RAQ BABY
8/14 STATIC SURGE FEST
8/15 AUDIO GEAR SWAP EXTRAVAGANZA
8/21 DEFY FILM FESTIVAL
8/29 KARROT: A TRIBUTE TO KORN
8/30 EMAROSA
9/3 CYBERTRONIC SPREE
9/9 VOLUMES
9/10 ATTA BOY
9/12 OVERTOW: A TRIBUTE TO TOOL
9/17 MILITARIE GUN
9/19 JUTES
9/20 WXNA FALL RECORD FAIR 2026
9/27 HOT FIX SIDESHOW
9/29 MESSER CHUPS
10/2 HAZLETT
10/3 DRIVIN N CRYIN
10/4 XAVIER WULF
10/9 OMENBRINGER: A NIGHT ON BLACK MOUNTAIN The ‘58
8/6 THE SOAPGIRLS
8/7 GREASY CHICKEN REVIEW: REVOLVER
8/8 LIP CRITIC
8/10 KATE COSENTINO
8/15 ELECTRO LUST
8/16 ACHING BACK SUNDAY
8/18 BULL Y LOS BÚFALOS
8/21 RUNNIN’ DOWN
PETTY: A TRIBUTE TO TOM PETTY
8/22 THE VELVET AFFIAR: TROPICAL OASIS
8/25 DESTRUCTO DISK
8/27 HOWLING GRANT
8/28 BOOTSAROO: A “WINDOWS ON THE CUMBERLAND” CELEBRATION
8/29 MOLDING
9/2 LOS PISTOLEROS
9/4 THE WELL
9/12 SMOKIN’ PEAS
9/17 NATE VICKERS
9/18 DEATH LENS
9/26 CELEBRATING PINKERTON: 30 YEARS OF WEEZER
9/29 MESSER CHUPS
9/30 HOT ROD CIRCUIT
The Lounge
8/6 PHAT PHARMAT 6P
RUSSELL THOMPSON 8P
8/7 THE COAL MEN 7P
MY DAD’S BAND 8P
8/9 BRUNCH BOYS 7P
DUTCH WHISKY 9P
8/11 JON BYRD 6P
8/12 RY BRADLEY 6P NIC ROULETTE & THE RICOCHETS 8P
She begins to rashly pick at the soft petals. I watch them gently float to the hard ground, until nothing but the spiky stem remains.
“The Lord designed this rose to be a beautiful flower for us to admire and appreciate. Now it is nothing more than a thorny stick.”
She explains how my virginity — a word I only recently learned — is like this rose. My body is pure and beautiful until I give it to a suitor outside of marriage. He will claim me and pick at me until I am empty, pokey and pointless, and it will be my fault.
I just learned what sex was last summer. I am deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed. I don’t know where to look, or what to do with my hands.
The presenter turns on the projector and opens a PowerPoint presentation. A photo of a teenage girl with large breasts in a teal tank top flashes on the screen. She is beautiful. Her tanned shoulders shine under her spaghetti straps. Her cleavage peaks up over her top. Her shirt is too small, stretching over her chest. I want to be her best friend.
“See this, girls? There are several things wrong with this image,” Mrs. Red Suit chastises.
As she uses a laser pointer to identify the “valley between her mountains,” anger rises in my chest. I feel defensive and upset. We do not even know this girl. Why are we saying such mean things about her body? I happen to think her body is the most amazing body I have ever seen.
As I look at the faces of disgust and judgment around me, I shrink further inside. Something is wrong. I do not feel disgust or judgment. I feel curious. I am wrong. As she flips through more pictures and shares more slights of modesty, I take in these rules and commit them to memory.
If I can follow these rules perfectly, nothing
will be wrong with me.
The volunteers pass around a purity contract for each of us to read and sign. A verse from 1 Corinthians 6 (ESV) is bolded at the top.
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Below the Bible verse, the contract lists a series of proclamations about saving my body for my husband, and committing to resisting any and all sexual temptation — but without detailing what that actually means. I am to dress modestly, avoiding spaghetti straps, bikinis, tight shirts and short shorts. This feels doable — I wear my uniform skirt and a sweatshirt most days anyway. In 15 minutes, I have learned several fundamental truths that will inform every decision I make for the next 15 years.
1. My body is not my own. It belongs to God, the authority figures in my life, and my husband.
2. I do not know what is best for my body. At its core, my body is sinful and bad. Only the Bible and adults I trust can tell me what is true.
3. Sex only exists between a man and a woman.
4. Sex is terrible and painful and bad until you are married. When you are married sex is enjoyable and fun. Sex is anything that is remotely physical between a man and woman.
5. God literally died for me. The least I can do to repay him is to follow these rules.
6. I will do whatever it takes to get this right. If I fail, I will be damned to hell for all of eternity.
AS SHE USES A LASER POINTER TO IDENTIFY THE “VALLEY BETWEEN HER MOUNTAINS,” ANGER RISES IN MY CHEST. I FEEL DEFENSIVE AND UPSET.
I quickly sign the contract. I feel proud of my choice to follow God’s will for my life. I shove down my confusion and curiosity about how it feels to see girls in tank tops. I instead try to dream of what type of wedding dress I will wear, and what kind of man God has made for me. I stare blankly at the floor. I feel nothing. ▼
BY ANNIE PARNELL
TO OPEN HER mobile horror bookstore, Iza Hudson has had to learn how to drive a stick shift.
“I’m only stalling out once a day now,” she tells the Scene at The Forge, where Papercut Horror & Other Dark Lit is being built.
The book truck will officially open with a launch party at Fait la Force Brewing on Aug. 28, and will sell horror books as well as less scary stories with “rich gothic elements.” Soon it will be lined with books and decked out in a fresh coat of paint — the shop’s color scheme, black and red and cream, is inspired by vintage horror art. But for now, it looks like a standard 1990s kei truck, a kind of compact vehicle that Hudson had imported from Japan. Riding shotgun, though, is a life-size skeleton — affectionately known as Skelly.
Hudson, a Nashvillian by way of Ocean City, Md., is a longtime horror fanatic. She traces her obsession back to Mercer Mayer’s book There’s Something in My Attic, which she memorized as a child.
“It’s so easy to say that [horror is] just entertaining or fun, or it’s just blood and guts,” Hudson says. “But it’s so much more than that.” She previously worked in the publishing industry, and since then she’s found herself “yearning to do something with books again.” After seeing the success of local book trucks like Slow Burn, which moved into an East Nashville brick-and-mortar in 2025, Hudson decided a mobile store focusing on her favorite genre was worth a shot — and hit the ground running.
“I got the idea for it earlier this year,” she explains. “I was like, ‘Why not? Let’s try.’”
Across media formats, horror stories have been growing in popularity in recent years. In the book world, Library Journal points to a
publishing boom in epic-length horror novels and gothic retellings, and many have analyzed the genre’s avenues for social commentary and marginalized perspectives. The new Apple TV horror-comedy hit Widow’s Bay features a character who runs a book truck, and recent series like Yellowjackets and The Haunting of Hill House have pulled impressive streaming numbers. Film buffs, meanwhile, rejoiced in March as Oscar wins for Sinners, Weapons and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein — not to mention Sinners’ record-breaking nomination count — signaled the end of longtime Academy horror snubs.
Hudson ties the rise to the also-growing physical media trend, and thinks that both connect back to “the tumultuous time we’re having in America.” “It feels like a moment of resistance,” she says.
But what is it that makes horror the perfect genre for that moment? To her, it’s the way horror dismantles the status quo and creates “a mirror to reflect our cultural anxieties.”
Many of Hudson’s personal favorites provide that mirror, confronting social fears around domesticity and oppression. Hudson cites Stephen King’s The Shining as an all-time favorite, declaring it “much better than the movie.” In Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall, which she calls “a perfect Nashville story,” a British acid-folk band records an album in a haunted manor in the 1970s. Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory considers the horrors of Jim Crow-era Florida, and Indigenous author Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is described on the dust jacket as “an Indian revenge story.”
To Hudson, the genre’s focus on what she calls “big dark themes” like these also makes its audience unique.
“My hot take is that horror readers are some of the most empathetic people,” she says. “They’re people that willingly sign up to sit with uncomfortable emotions for long stretches of time.”
So far, bringing Papercut to life has been a community affair. The truck is being built at The Forge by Hudson’s partner Reagan Wallbaum and friend Ethan Warner, and the shop’s graphic designer is her best friend Stefanie Lipp. Hudson is particularly excited about the launch party because of Fait la Force’s emphasis on community events, and teases more events to come as the shop opens for business.
She thinks Nashville’s support for small businesses makes it the perfect place for Papercut to call home. “This city loves independent shops. They love supporting the community.”
But she also emphasizes the need to keep Nashville weird.
“New Nashville is home to franchises and hospitality-group-owned restaurants and bars. We need more mom-and-pop stuff. We need more weird stuff.” ▼
Horror & Other Dark Lit Launch Party at Fait la Force Brewing 5-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28
Tim Miner & Friends featuring Benjy Gaither, Tabitha Fair, Chip Davis, Zach Gonzalez & Chris Rodriguez
Jimmy Hall & The Prisoners of Love featuring Kenny Greenberg + Jack Ruch with SMC (Ryan & Alex Hall + Chris Smith)
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring Marv Green, Jordan Walker, Jesse Lee with Kalsey Kulyk + Lauren Mascitti
Monsters of YachtAmerica’s Premier Tribute to 70s and 80s Yacht Rock
895 aLIVE presents Kip Moore with Leah Blevins
The Time Jumpers
A Celebration of Life in Honor of Ric Latina featuring Shaun Murphy, Al Green (Piper), Lauren Anderson, Baillie and The Boys, Shantelle & The Juke Joint Band, Peter Moon Band, Crooked Eye
Tommy, Dana Robbins, Miranda
Louise & Surprise Guests! Hosted by: Whit Hubner & Joe Blanton
The French Connexion featuring French Family Band, Jimmy Fortune, Mike Rogers, Jenee Fleenor, Ben Isaacs, Jeff Taylor
josh tatofi w/ abby anderson framing hanley w/ lowfye50, flip the mule & hollow wake abby holiday x charli adams w/ Laken campo helmet w/ spirit in the room legend zeppelin w/ Obscured By Meddle (Pink Floyd Tribute) Adrian Vandenberg w/ Marco Mendoza and Vinnie Moore my so-called band: all 90's hits live! Rock Steady Nashville w/ Echo Pilot, Fatal Affair, Year of October, and Campanula mustang mcgee and freedom junction
BY JULIANNE AKERS
IT’S NOT OFTEN that you’ll find sisters Laila Crowe and Kenzie Shultz flailing around a moshpit. Why? Because they’re usually the musicians onstage commanding the sweaty crowd of headbangers.
This is what Crowe and Shultz — the duo behind the Bowling Green, Ky.-born rock outfit Girl Tones — tell me on a sweltering summer day, sitting on the patio at The Basement ahead
April McLean’s Where I Belong offers an intimate glimpse into a rich musical life
BY GRACE BRASWELL
EARNEST SONGWRITER, passionate pianist and longtime Nashvillian April McLean has dedicated her life to her craft. As a youngster, McLean found a safe haven in music. Later she crafted two stellar full-length albums with support from Todd Moore, her producer and devoted husband of nearly 30 years. McLean and Moore plan to release her third record Where I Belong on Aug. 6. But this one carries a different weight than any of her previous projects. McLean has been diagnosed with corticobasal syndrome, a rare neurological disorder associated with early onset Alzheimer’s. The illness has affected her fine motor skills drastically, including her abilities to walk, speak, write music and play piano. Day-to-day life is wildly different for the couple and their 17-year-old son Griffin, with each day bringing new challenges as McLean’s symptoms progress. Moore is dedicated not only
to electrify a crowd. Often dressed in colorful tights and Doc Martens loafers, with a certain twee-meets-1960s je ne sais quoi to their stage fashion, the sisters have developed a distinctive, noisy and delightful unruly rock sound that refuses to hold back. Though they trained in classical cello and piano, the pair formed Girl Tones in 2018 amid a small yet bustling music scene in their hometown, which had a significant impact on their early years.
“We definitely cut our teeth in Kentucky, in Bowling Green specifically,” Crowe says, adding that they got their start playing house shows and DIY gigs, sometimes traveling a couple hours away to Somerset, Ky., for a show. They also played many sets at the bygone Bowling Green venue Tidball’s. “It was a really good scene. And then COVID came and it kind of killed all the momentum, which was really sad, but it definitely taught us a lot.”
The two draw inspiration from standout rockers like The White Stripes, The Kills, Queens of the Stone Age, Beck and Red Hot Chili Peppers — whose records were all frequently played around their house growing up. Their sibling dynamic helps them mesh well together, particularly when they’re onstage.
material when they’re supposed to be practicing their existing songs.
“We just end up messing around because we both hate practicing,” Crowe says. “So then we just procrastinate while we’re down there. And then that’s when you come up with new stuff — and then you eventually don’t want to play that because you don’t want to practice. It’s just a never-ending cycle.”
While Girl Tones have become known for their heavier rock sound, Shultz explains they don’t want to be confined to just one genre.
“I would say ultimately we are a rock band,” says Shultz. “But we also want the freedom to explore and do what we want to do. So a general kind of umbrella term is rock, but overall we have acoustic stuff. We have a song that is a piano ballad, and I just feel like we’re diverse under that umbrella of rock.”
of a show. Full of energy and feminine rage, Girl Tones have gained momentum in recent years with their punk- and riot-grrrl-influenced performances. They’ve toured with fellow Bowling Green indie rockers Cage the Elephant as well as The Velveteers, Dexter and the Moonrocks, hey, nothing and Silversun Pickups.
With Crowe primarily on drums and Shultz on guitar and lead vocals, the pair knows how
to attentively caring for his wife, but also making sure her story is told.
“The first thing we noticed in 2022 was that she couldn’t play her own songs anymore,” Moore says, sitting in the living room of the couple’s East Nashville home. “We were both really depressed for two or three years. Finally, in 2023, I took off my depressed husband hat and put on my publisher-producer hat. She’d been writing songs her whole life, since age 8. It’s a big part of who she is. I started listening back to some of her catalog, and then I remembered that we have all of these songs that didn’t fit her previous records.”
McLean was born and raised in rural Virginia. When she was very young, her parents divorced and she, her two sisters and their mother settled in the historic village of Waterford, Va. These were difficult times marked by a challenging family dynamic, and songwriting became a necessary release for McLean. It offered her a way to be her authentic self and gave her a newfound sense of freedom.
She fell in love with writing, so much so that she went to Berklee College of Music in Boston to pursue a career in songwriting. Her honest, confessional lyricism drew in her audience and ultimately landed her in Nashville, where she wrote contemporary Christian songs like “In My Father’s Hands” for Warner Chappell Music. McLean
“We’re used to arguing with each other and getting over it and getting resolutions out of it — because at the end of the day, I mean, we’re family, so that trumps everything,” Crowe says. “There’s not a ton of creative conflict, and we usually have good unspoken communication, especially with live shows. And I feel like that’s what makes it flow so well. … We’re just in tune with each other without having to necessarily say it and lay out, ‘Oh we’re gonna do this at this point.’ We just know.”
This extends to their songwriting too. Crowe says they often (ahem) drum up their best new
The pair will take the stage at East Nashville’s Tomato Art Fest on Friday, Aug. 7, for what will be their fourth performance in Middle Tennessee this year, including a Bonnaroo set that got cut off early due to an unrelenting downpour. So far, all of the duo’s released discography includes singles like the most recent release “Stubborn Mouth” from May, along with their 2025 debut EP, Blame (produced by Cage the Elephant’s Brad Shultz). However, they’re planning to release their debut album later this year.
“It’s sooner than you think,” Kenzie Shultz says. “Let’s just say that.” ▼
has released two more pop-oriented records of her own, Becoming (2002) and Darbytown Road (2007). Her rich, deep, gently weathered voice stands out on her albums, whose sonic settings are in a similar vein to other pop songwriters of the 1990s and 2000s like Sarah McLachlan and Vanessa Carlton.
Among the things that drew Moore to McLean was her stunningly vulnerable, open songwriting. He met her first at church, where he awkwardly told her that he loved her performance during the service, and then again through mutual friends who shared their love of music.
“January of ’95 is when we started dating,” Moore recalls. “We were going to go out to dinner, but first she wanted to invite me over to hear a song she wrote. So I picked her up at her apartment in Antioch, and she sat down at her piano and she played me this song called ‘Where I Belong.’ Now that’s the last song on the record we’re releasing in August. We’d only been dating two weeks when she played it for me, and now it’s coming out. It’s full-circle.”
Over the course of her career, Moore — a producer and musician himself — made live-to-tape recordings of almost every one of his wife’s songs as soon as they were written. They’re raw, intimate portraits of McLean and her process.
To honor his wife and keep her strong through her diagnosis and declining health, Moore took out a little of their savings for a special project. He started with nine of the vocal-and-piano recordings, three of which remain unadorned. On the other six, he collaborated variously with cellist Matt Butler, saxophonist Todd Cooper, bassist Matt Pierson and multi-instrumentalist Mark Comden on mandolin to add sparing accompaniment. In a throwback to his and McLean’s times playing coffehouses together, Moore also plays djembe and shaker on some songs; Moore did some recording in their home studio, but also worked elsewhere with engineers Charles Yingling and Jeff Pitzer. The resulting tracks will be released as Where I Belong. Plans for a release celebration are in the works, but haven’t been finalized as of this writing.
“Music becomes a bridge through illness,” Moore says. “One of our biggest things is that we’re not done yet. April can’t do it anymore, but she’s still here. She has an opinion, and I can ask her yes or no questions. When I was producing this session, I was always checking in on her. I’d ask her ‘Do you like this?’ or ‘Do you want to change this?’ It was magic. It really was magic, 31 years in the making.” ▼
BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
THE FIRST TIME I saw Pavement was with my mom, dad and brother back in 1997, opening for Beck on the Odelay tour. I was 12, my brother Nick was 9. We both loved Beck, naturally, but knew nothing of Pavement. What we saw was the noisiest, snarkiest, most effortlessly cool thing we’d ever witnessed — in a big venue, or anywhere. My parents (who are obviously cool themselves since we were there in the first place) were into Beck. He was awesome. But his opener? I remember one of them remarking on Pavement’s proudly slovenly, feedback-heavy performance, “Thanks for inviting us to your band practice, guys.” Tough crowd! The band was getting away with something, yet it was also good. It just made us love it even more.
Bandleader Stephen Malkmus and his cohorts (who officially came together in Malkmus’ hometown of Stockton, Calif., in 1989, but trace their various associations to activities like DJing at University of Virginia student radio station WTJU and working as security guards at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York) never had huge radio hits. But the tunes from that 1997 set — “Stereo,” “Shady Lane” and “Embassy Row,” all off the then-new Brighten the Corners — never left my consciousness. They’ve been a gateway to countless other amazing cult bands: The Fall, The Clean, The Wedding Present and so many more. Their lyric sheets were vocabulary lessons: “ramrod,” “emery board,” “slipshod,” etc. Pavement proved there are different ways to measure a band’s greatness and influence.
Clearly I’m not alone here. Pavement originally called it quits in 1999, yet today they stand as a veritable classic rock outfit. Their July 28 show at the Ryman marked their second Nashville love-fest in as many nights (they hadn’t
played here since stopping at 328 Performance Hall in October 1994) and the final date of the band’s summer tour. The audience included locals, out-of-towners and cool parents with kids; it was a living museum of stylish specs and rare band T-shirts. Fans came from all over: Just among our neighbors in the pews at stage right were visitors from Auburn, Ala.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Reno, Nev.; and Boston. If good nights of the week for going downtown exist, these were it. For a few hours on Monday and Tuesday, Pavement took over the edge of Broadway. At Assembly Food Hall Monday, wherever I looked there were gangs of friends linking up for quick snacks and drinks. Those arriving early Tuesday might’ve heard a local street musician serenading showgoers with karaoke covers of “Cut Your Hair” among other Malkmus-penned, Clinton-era classics. Kicking things off Tuesday night was Soccer Mommy, once a bedroom project with promising songs and a tentative live show, but now a refined, confident juggernaut with a simultaneously pretty and gritty sound. For how consistently strong the press has been for leader Sophie Allison and her band since her 2018 debut Clean, I was surprised to learn this was the first time they’ve played the Mother Church. As Malkmus put it while pausing for some last-show-of-tour superlatives: “She’s got great-sounding songs, and really good lyrics — a rarity in this age.” At this rate, a headlining gig can’t possibly be far off. I stood every moment of both gigs. Most everyone did. But not just for the familiar tunes. Pavement’s inexplicable surprise TikTok breakout (is there any other kind when it comes to old bands?), the 1999 B-side “Harness Your Hopes,” was played both nights. It received just as thrilled a reception as canonical tunes like “Gold Soundz” and “Range Life,” which sit alongside the aforementioned “Cut Your Hair” on 1994’s seminal Crooked Rain Crooked Rain Monday’s performance started out sluggish, with utility player Bob Nastanovich working overtime to keep energy up before the band rounded into form. That set consisted heavily of short, crude yet profound material from Pavement’s watershed debut Slanted and Enchanted,
which turns 35 next year. You could call Nastanovich’s contribution a lot of banging and yelling, if you want. But without him, it all would’ve come off painfully serious. Thankfully, with the rest of the crew more on their game Tuesday, the indefatigable auxiliary vocalist, drummer and hype man didn’t have to work as hard. They roared out of the gate with “In the Mouth a Desert,” one of the few Slanted songs not played the first night. For the next two hours, they ran the gamut from indie-rock classics to deep rarities. In their years between reunions, Pavement’s members have naturally become more proficient players, in part simply from keeping at it. Since his eponymous 2001 LP, Malkmus has issued seven more with his band The Jicks — that’s two more albums than Pavement managed on their initial run. This level-up in skill was evident in moments like the high-flying psych of “Fight This Generation” and Brighten the Corners closer “Fin.” That’s where bassist Mark Ibold and drummer Steve West shone brightest — it felt like an indie-rock jam band, and I mean that as a compliment. If there was one moment not to mess up, it was the aforementioned “Harness Your Hopes,” and they didn’t. (If trending on TikTok means more people under 40 at a Pavement show in 2026, I’m for it.)
But the band hasn’t forgotten who they are either. The moments recalling their origins as friends messing around in a suburban NorCal garage felt genuine. These included the false start to Crooked Rain’s “Elevate Me Later,” a
flubbed crash-in to “Gold Soundz” (Malkmus: “That was a very … cute version of that one”) and ecstatic performances of guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg’s simple-yet-powerful contributions “Kennel District” and “Painted Soldiers.” There was also Malkmus’ presong huddle with Ibold ahead of “Texas Never Whispers,” noise rock par excellence from their 1992 EP Watery, Domestic. “Range Life” was also punctuated by a tender moment between Malkmus and Nastanovich, when they sat on the stage’s edge, heads on each other’s shoulders.
On the opposite end of the catalog, there were “The Hexx,” “Spit on a Stranger” and “Folk Jam” (omitted Tuesday, but played Monday), all from Pavement’s swan song Terror Twilight The record is an outlier among some fans for its more mature sound and pristine Nigel Godrich production, but the songs translated beautifully at the relatively intimate Ryman. Backwards-gazing can be a trap, but the vibe here was comfortable nostalgia. All over the room, it felt as if old friendships were being rekindled, new ones forged, and new memories made.
BY JULIANNE AKERS
NASHVILLE SAW A new side of dance-pop icon Charli XCX on July 29.
In support of her new rock-leaning album Music, Fashion, Film, the British pop star played an intimate, at-capacity show — presented by Spotify with free first-come, first-served tickets — at The Basement East, which holds 575 people. There was a stark difference from her last appearance in Nashville, a sold-out 2024 appearance at Bridgestone Arena on a co-headlining tour with Troye Sivan following her hit album Brat
Wednesday afternoon, Charli XCX stopped in at Grimey’s for a Q&A with Belcourt staffer and sometime Scene contributor Quinn Hills. Later that evening, fans who braved the long line bopped along amid the strobe lights to the star’s newest songs. Released the previous Friday, the album is full of heavy guitar and drums, but doesn’t stray far from Charli XCX’s electronic dance roots. The night opened with “Playboy Bunny,” a song that’s not on streaming services as of this writing; it appears as the B-side on the physical 7-inch of the MFF song “SS26.” Next came “Yeah,” also from her new record.
The new material is a fresh and fun musical return for Charli XCX that doesn’t try to warm over Brat’s global success. But Brat superfans need not fear: She has not fully left the chart-topping album in the past, and performed “Apple” early in her set.
She strayed into her 2020 album How I’m Feeling Now with songs like “Party 4 U” and “Pink Diamond.” Then she shifted into another inward-looking song from the MFF sessions, “If You Take Away the Music Then What Has She Got?” which is also a vinyl exclusive. That’s the magic of Charli XCX. She has become a master at blending extremely personal, vulnerable lyrics with melodic, sometimes chaotic hyperpop production. She’s done it all across her discography, which is full of songs that (speaking from personal experience) might give you a knot in your stomach, along with others you’ll want to dance to at the club. The crowd experienced just that Wednesday with heavy new songs like “Card Declined” and “Camera,” juxtaposed with the lighter “2007” and “Wink Wink.”
The penultimate song of the night was “No One Lasts Forever,” minus the haunting outro from David Cronenberg. Sealing the deal on signaling her new era, the pop queen closed with Music, Fashion, Film’s opener “Rock Music,” a blast of raw energy that explores how music can help you get through the roughest times. ▼
Saturday, August 8
SONGWRITER SESSION Carter Faith NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, August 8
NASHVILLE CATS
Salute to Musician John Jorgenson
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, August 8
HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party
3:00 pm and 6:00 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Sunday, August 9
HATCH SHOW PRINT Family Block Party
10:00 am
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP
Sunday, August 9
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Matt Combs
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
WITNESS HISTORY
Saturday, August 15
SONGWRITER SESSION Luke Dick NOON · FORD THEATER
Wednesday, August 19
LOUISE SCRUGGS MEMORIAL FORUM Honoring Trey Fanjoy 6:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Sunday, August 23
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Luis Espaillat 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, August 29
SONGWRITER SESSION Ana Cristina Cash NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, August 30
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Paul Kramer 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Locals Kids Always Visit Free Plan a trip to the Museum! Local youth 18 and under who are residents of Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties always visit free, plus 25% off admission for up to two accompanying adults.
5pm
If you’ve had trouble securing a ticket to The Odyssey in IMAX, you’re not alone. Regal Opry Mills is one of roughly 25 theaters in the U.S., and 41 worldwide, with the capability to show Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster epic the way it was meant to be seen: in IMAX 70 mm.
The Regal Opry Mills was the fifth-highestgrossing IMAX 70 mm theater in the country during The Odyssey’s $124 million opening weekend, bringing in the biggest haul outside of Los Angeles or New York City. The theater has responded by booking showtimes as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 3 a.m. (Or as early as 3 a.m., if you’re a nauseatingly early riser.) But because shooting — and screening — movies on celluloid fell out of fashion for decades prior to its recent resurgence, 70 mm projectionists are hard to come by. Regal Opry Mills had to fly in two specialists to run the projector in 12-hour shifts.
“There was a period there of a decade or two when film was kind of going by the wayside,” says projectionist Dean Fick. “But now it’s coming back.”
Fick has run IMAX projectors at locales ranging from The Smithsonian to the amusement park Cedar Point. Now the Ohio native has found his skills in demand thanks to the box office success of films like The Odyssey and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series — so much so that he was “voluntarily” pulled out of retirement by Regal.
“It’s a great opportunity for me, because I get to come here and share my expertise that I’ve developed over the decades,” says Fick in the projection booth at the Regal Opry Mills prior
to another nearly sold-out screening. “Some people like boats, some people like trains. … For some reason, of all the things I saw as a kid, film projection just clicked with me.”
While the whirring sound of a physical film reel might send movie enthusiasts’ hearts into a flutter, Fick thinks of the process less romantically.
“It’s sort of like a trade,” he says. “I’m a film fan, but I’m more interested in the mechanical and technical side than I am the artistic side. … I like making the equipment work to the absolute best that it possibly can, whether that’s cleaning lenses, making the picture as sharp as it can be, as steady as it can be — that’s the part I like knowing how to do.”
The reel itself weighs roughly 500 pounds, and the film spooled on it stretches more than 10 miles from end to end. When the lights go down and the film begins to wind through the projector, being in the booth can feel as though you’re inside a submarine or a spaceship.
In the early 2010s, DCP (digital cinema packages) replaced traditional 35 mm film prints as the go-to format for theaters across the country due to its cheaper production. Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre is currently showing The Odyssey on 35 mm. Meanwhile, 70 mm has an even higher resolution and a wider aspect ratio, making the picture clearer and larger than the typical digital format. IMAX 70 mm pushes things even further, and The Odyssey is the first movie in history to be shot entirely in that format.
It takes a skilled practitioner to keep the train running, so to speak. With roughly six showtimes a day for the nearly three-hour movie, there hasn’t
been a lot of time for Fick to explore Nashville.
“Maybe I’ll stay an extra week or so and look around, because it’s a really great town,” says Fick, who also served as the projectionist at the Regal Opry Mills for March’s IMAX 70 mm screenings of the charming Ryan Gosling space adventure Project Hail Mary. “I love it here.” Fick might have another opportunity to spend some time in Music City — the highly anticipated Dune: Part Three will begin screening in IMAX 70 mm in December. He’s not sure yet whether he’ll be back in the projection booth at Opry Mills.
“We’ll see. If I am invited, I will certainly come back.” ▼
73 American settlement until 1776 … or a hint to 13 squares in this puzzle
42 Last full year of John Adams’s presiwdency
Heart chart, for short 49 Fail to engage
Jewish mysticism 52 “Nixon in China” tenor
53 Periodic survey started under Secy. of State
Disunites
“Father of the Constitution” and his
60 Like the Revolutionary War battles led by John Paul Jones 61 Apple Store offerings 63 Show of friendliness 64 First signer of the Declaration of Independence
66 “The Divine ___” (showbiz nickname)
68 Conglomeration
69 Regarding, on a memo
70 Soul singer Adams
71 Angler’s hope
72 TV programmer’s slate, in brief
Down
1 Word with bar or bunny
2 Unadulterated by plastic, say
3 Ordinary
4 You knead dough to make it
5 A word of support
6 Location of “Sloop John B” on the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album
7 Just chillaxing
8 Salad ingredient often paired with goat cheese
9 Long account
10 A ___
11 Hot dog on a roll?
12 One whose qualifications are enumerated in Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution
13 Some coll. instructors
19 Uneasy giggle
21 Printing size
23 Two-time Tony winner Neuwirth
24 “Yowza!”
25 Comedian Poundstone
26 Bug exterminator?
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS
Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).
Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/ wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.
29 ___ Island
30 Graceless ones
33 Gets going
37 Ticked off
38 Website that added podcast info in 2021
40 Granada grandma
41 Pears used for cooking
43 Musical with the song “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’?”
44 Doesn’t let go of
45 Street fleet
46 World’s secondtallest bird
47 Trattoria treat in a shell
48 Doubled, say 50 Things to chew on
51 Start to live and breathe? 54 Kissed or whacked
57 Rowena’s love, in fiction
59 1970 Neil Diamond song about an imaginary childhood friend 61 One living an orderly life?
62 4,840 square yards
64 ZipRecruiter listing
65 CBS drama starting in 2003
66 Soft slip-on, for short
67 Lots of
Rocky McElhaney Law Firm
INJURY
TRACTOR TRAILER ACCIDENTS
Voted Best Attorney in Nashville
Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation
Iron Galaxy Nashville, LLC in Nashville, TN seeks Graphics Engineer. Hybrid position Some telecommuting flex, but req to physically be in Nashville, TN office 2 days per wk. Develop cutting edge graphics features, techniques, & effects on both internal & external projects. Reqs: Bachelor’s degree or foreign equiv in Comp Sci & 2 yrs of exp in Software Development or rltd occupation. For full job desc. & to apply visit at: https://www.irongalaxystudio s.com/jobopportunities/graph ics-engineer or mail resume to Viktorija Tiapkova, Iron Galaxy Nashville 189 S Orange Ave. Ste. 1900, Orlando, FL 32801
YMT VACATIONS. OVER 50 GUIDED TOURS AVAILABLE. Affordable, social and stress-free travel designed for mature travelers. Our tours include accommodations, transportation, baggage handling, sightseeing, entrance fees, a professional Tour Director and select meals. For a limited time SAVE $250 on all tours. Call YMT today. 1-866-314-6821
(CAN AAN)
FOR POWER OUTAGES TODAY WITH A GENERAC HOME STANDBY GENERATOR
Act now to receive a FREE 5-Year warranty with qualifying purchase. It’s not just a generator. It’s a power move. Call 1-866-381-0627
today to schedule a free quote (CAN AAN)
A home warranty plan can help. Start saving and get 30% off any plan today. Workmanship Guarantee included. Terms apply. Call Cinch Home Services
1-844-415-1477
(CAN AAN)
Enjoy speeds from 5G and 4G LTE networks, no contracts, easy installation, and data plans up to 300 GB. Call 855-873-2215
(CAN AAN)
The world’s rst hearing aid with touchscreen controls. No tiny buttons, apps or prescriptions. 45-day risk free trial. Free shipping. Lifetime support. More than 1.5 million happy customers.
Call Audien
1-833-689-4423 (CAN AAN)
from pests safely and affordably. Roaches, Bed Bugs, Rodent, Termite, Spiders and other pests. Locally owned and affordable. Call for a quote, service or an inspection today!
1-877-891-3042 (CAN AAN)
END YOUR TAX WORRIES TODAY.
Let us make your tax problem our priority. Scared, stuck with high tax amounts? Our A+ tax professionals can help. Call for a FREE consultation. Call Priority Tax now 1- 855-496-0514
(CAN AAN)
A cheaper alternative to high drugstore prices!
50 Pill Special - Only $99! 100% guaranteed. Call Now!
1-877-616-4827 (CAN AAN)
WE BUY VINTAGE GUITARS!
Looking for 1920-1980
Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D’Angelico, Stromberg. And Gibson Mandolins / Banjos. These brands only!
Call for a quote: 1-877-590-0187
(CAN AAN)
GOT AN UNWANTED CAR??? DONATE IT TO PATRIOTIC HEARTS
Fast free pick up. Patriotic Hearts’ programs help veterans nd work or start their own business. Call 24/7: 1-877-318-7973 (CAN AAN)
STRUGGLING WITH
If you owe $10,000+, we can help you become debt free in 24-48 months! Make one monthly affordable payment. Get Help Now! Call
1-877-895-5782
(CAN AAN)
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
Opryland
Opry Mills Mall
NEIGHBORHOOD DINING & DRINKS
El Fuego Mexican Restaurant
Flamie’s The Hot Chicken Factory
ENJOY THE OUTDOORS
Shelby Bottoms Nature Center
Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park
BEST PLACES NEARBY TO SEE A SHOW
Opryland
FAVORITE LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD BAR
Inglewood Lounge
Henry James
BEST LOCAL FAMILY OUTING
Adventure Science Center
COMMUNITY AMENITIES
Fitness Center
Valet Services
Bike Storage
Package Room
SmartLock technology
NEED NEW WINDOWS?
Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy ef cient windows may be the answer! Call for a consultation & FREE quote today: 1-877-804-8285
(CAN AAN)
STOP OVERPAYING FOR AUTO INSURANCE!
A recent survey says that most Americans are overpaying for their car insurance.
Let us show you how much you can save.
Call Now for a no-obligation quote: 1-877-856-0046 (CAN AAN)
HOME BREAK-INS
take less than 60 SECONDS. Don’t wait! Protect your family, your home, your assets NOW for as little as 70¢ a day! Call 1-877-895-5782 (CAN AAN)
Nashville Shores Lakeside Resort
Roma Pizza & Pasta
Centennial Park
Sid Gold’s Request Room
The Underdog
Tennessee Central Railway Museum
Doggie Stations
Elevator
Cable/Internet ready
Washer/Dryer in each unit
