Nashville Rep’s production of Pulitzer-winning play
Fat Ham tops our highlights of the season’s theater, art, dance, film and book events
LOOKING BACK A YEAR AFTER THE ANTIOCH HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING
>> PAGE 6 NEWS: TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE MASSIVE IMMIGRATION PACKAGE >> PAGE 7 FOOD & DRINK: GOING GREEN: CAFE OWNERS MANAGE MATCHA DEMAND
>> PAGE 26
This brimmed hat with feathered hatband, a gift from a fellow musician, became the first of many Lainey Wilson incorporated into her onstage look— a tip of the hat to her offstage farm and rodeo upbringing.
From the exhibit Lainey Wilson: Tough as Nails
Metro Aims to Prioritize Public Safety and Violence Interruption
Violent crime in Nashville was down in 2025. A new city task force is creating a plan to keep those numbers dropping. BY HANNAH HERNER
Looking Back at the Antioch High School Shooting, One Year Later
Status of school safety, gun reform uncertain as Josselin Corea Escalante is remembered BY JULIANNE AKERS
Tennessee Republicans Announce Massive Immigration Package
Verification, reporting requirements part of proposed bills filed BY JULIANNE AKERS
COVER PACKAGE: WINTER ARTS GUIDE 2026
Theater & Dance
Nashville Rep and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival lead a strong season of performances with Fat Ham BY AMY STUMPFL
Visual Arts
Highlights include new project space RADAR615 and a group show at Random Sample BY JOE NOLAN
Books
A conversation between George Saunders and Ann Patchett tops our list of this season’s best book events BY ANNIE PARNELL
Film
A Robert Redford series, Oscar contenders and locally filmed classics at the Belcourt are among this season’s most promising film events BY LOGAN BUTTS
Ashley McBryde, The Sleeveens, Mavis Staples, The Girl of the Golden West and more
FOOD AND
Going Green
As matcha lattes grow more popular, cafe owners manage demand, Western palates and a supply shortage BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
YONIC
Mon Amie, Natalie On friendship that spans oceans and years BY MARY LIZA HARTONG
MUSIC
Turn Your Radio On
The Features and Glossary, heroes of
BY SEAN L. MALONEY
Come Together
The Pan-Detroit Ensemble has become an exciting new chapter for Don Was BY BRITTNEY MCKENNA
FILM
Big-Screen Bouillabaisse
Chinese auteur Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a sprawling, ambitious love letter to cinema BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers
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Violent crime in Nashville was down in 2025. A new city task force is creating a plan to keep those numbers dropping.
BY HANNAH HERNER
AT A PRESS CONFERENCE earlier this month, Mayor Freddie O’Connell told reporters that he has two main priorities: community safety and affordability. The former has spawned several programs and appointees in the past several months alone.
For the newly minted Community Safety Task Force, the plan is to make a plan — a comprehensive community safety plan — by this summer. The task force brings together 29 stakeholders led by Juvenile Court Clerk Lonnell Matthews and Sue Fort White, executive director of Our Kids, a nonprofit serving child victims of sexual abuse. The mayor’s office will also add a full-time position to support their work: a crime prevention and violence reduction director. This follows the mayor’s office having established an Office of Youth Safety in April.
As reported by the Nashville Banner, violent offenses were down nearly 14 percent in 2025 compared to 2024, and property crime decreased 12 percent year over year. Also last year, the city recorded its lowest total of homicides since 2014.
During a Jan. 9 press conference, O’Connell credited the efforts of the Metro Nashville Police Department and acknowledged co-response programs REACH and Partners in Care for “distinguishing better between crisis and crime.” He also said decreasing crime is connected with the work of organizations like the Nashville Financial Empowerment Center and Metro Action Commission as well as free transportation through the WeGo Journey Pass program and
Status of school safety, gun reform uncertain as Josselin Corea Escalante is remembered
BY JULIANNE AKERS
HAD THINGS GONE differently, Josselin Corea Escalante would’ve just begun the spring semester of her junior year at Antioch High School.
It’s been one year since the 16-year-old was fatally shot by another student in the cafeteria of Antioch High School just after 11 a.m. on Jan. 22, 2025. Soon after the
access to affordable housing.
Similarly, the Metro Council recently formed an interpersonal violence working group, which met for the first time in December. That group is set to focus on domestic violence and human trafficking, starting with public service announcements in all Metro buildings to advertise resources like the Family Safety Center. District 14 Councilmember Jordan Huffman is part of both the working group and the Community Safety Task Force.
“I think it’s very important to celebrate the wins, but it’s also extremely important to ensure that people feel like we’re not giving up, that we’re not saying ‘case closed,’ and the mayor’s efforts here are doing that,” Huffman tells the Scene
Human trafficking is a buzzy topic at the state level, and often the intended target of legislation backed by right-wing lawmakers. But no one political party owns the issue, Huffman says.
“My intention is to simply highlight a problem that we’ve got in this city,” he says. “While it’s not as prevalent as other crimes, it’s still a very important one for our city, just because we have so much traffic coming through Nashville. … If you’re in a bad situation, you may be looking for that one outlet to be able to say, ‘You know what, I need out.’”
A group deeply connected to Nashville’s violence interruption work is Gideon’s Army — a community-based restorative justice group established in North Nashville in 2010. An invitation to participate in the mayor’s task force
shooting, Escalante’s name and photo flooded local and national news outlets, where she was remembered as a “bright and compassionate” sophomore who played soccer and had aspirations to become a doctor. She had celebrated her quinceañera just a year prior.
Roughly eight hours after the shooting, about 80 people gathered for a vigil at Hamilton United Methodist Church. Those in attendance included AHS students, Mayor Freddie O’Connell, Metro councilmembers and gun reform activists. A GoFundMe campaign was soon launched, ultimately raising more than $108,000 in funds to support Escalante’s family and send her body back to Guatemala, where she was born. Escalante had immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was 9.
“We had a dream for a better life,” Escalante’s father, German Corea, told The New York Times last year. “But the reality is that it’s not better anywhere. In Guatemala, you’ve never heard of someone killing someone in school.”
Escalante’s death prompted hundreds of protesters
never came, but Gideon’s Army founder Rasheedat Fetuga tells the Scene she is comfortable with her organization’s place.
“I’m proud of the city’s continued focus on community safety and public health, and I welcome any effort that moves Nashville forward,” she says. “I don’t need to be centered in this work to believe in it. Gideon’s Army has always understood our role as catalysts — helping to plant seeds, shift narratives and prove what’s possible — even when we’re not the ones holding formal titles or seats at the table.”
For all the talk of lower crime rates, statistics are cold comfort to people who have experienced gun violence firsthand.
The MNPD refers people who have been affected by gun violence or were the perpetrators of violence to the Metro Public Health Department’s Group Violence Intervention program. In 2025, the MPHD team contacted 116 individuals, offering counseling and other resources through this process. The team recently met with Fisk University students following this month’s shooting death of 20-year-old basketball player Andre Bell.
to head to the Tennessee State Capitol. Among those who demonstrated were members of Escalante’s family, who pleaded for statewide gun reform. Meanwhile, the state’s Republican supermajority narrowed its focus to a special session focusing on school vouchers, immigration and Hurricane Helene relief.
No meaningful progress was made on gun reform in the legislature last year, and protests at the Capitol over the matter generally fizzled out as the Tennessee General Assembly continued with its regular business. This marked a stark contrast from just two years prior, when thousands of people flocked to the state Capitol to protest in the wake of the Covenant School shooting, which resulted in the death of three children and three school staff members.
Legislators did pass a law during last year’s session that allows for juvenile court records to be unsealed, only if the juvenile is dead after committing homicide on school grounds. This led to the release of the AHS shoot-
“The numbers can be down, but it’s going to affect that individual’s family,” says Jarrell Summers, the program manager for community safety at the MPHD. “It’s going to affect the team member. It’s going to affect the community. When something like that happens, you can say the numbers are down, but somebody don’t care if the numbers are down, because ‘I just lost my family member.’”
Anidolee Melville-Chester, director of behavioral health and wellness at MPHD, agrees with O’Connell’s sentiments about crime and a lack of resources being deeply connected. She says that throughout her career, it hasn’t always been believed that community safety is a public health concern.
“When you think of violence, think of all the things that violence impacts,” she tells the Scene. “It impacts the family security, it impacts their economics, it impacts housing, it impacts health, it impacts well-being, it impacts their education. That is why this is a public health issue … because when those things are impacted, it’s going to impact the overall well-being of the person.” ▼
er’s records in May, which showed the student had been on probation for previous violent behavior and that the teen had signed paperwork the morning of the shooting prohibiting him from possessing guns, ammunition or other weapons.
Metro Nashville Public Schools came under scrutiny because Omnilert — the AI-powered weapons detection system employed by the school under a $1 million contract — failed to detect the gun used on the day of the Antioch shooting. The Metro school board soon piloted the weapons detection system Evolv — the same AI-run technology used at Nissan Stadium — at AHS. Not long after, the board approved a $1.25 million expansion of the system to all area high schools. Now a pilot expansion in local middle schools is underway.
Escalante’s family sued MNPS and Metro in June, saying they failed to protect students from harm and that additional steps should have been taken to keep students safe. With no public discussion, MNPS approved
a $300,000 settlement with the family at a school board meeting in November.
“The cafeteria was reopened at the start of the school year with physical and design changes to the layout meant to create a more welcoming space for students and faculty,” MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted says of recent changes at AHS. “We were able to do so with a combination of district and donor allocations.”
As MNPS heightens safety measures, students
Verification, reporting requirements part of proposed bills filed BY
JULIANNE AKERS
REPUBLICAN STATE LAWMAKERS announced on Thursday a sweeping immigration package — tailored with the help of the White House and other federal agencies — that seeks to make Tennessee a model for immigration crackdowns across the country. Within the package are roughly eight pieces of legislation focused on U.S. citizenship verification and reporting requirements.
At a press conference Jan. 15, state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) thanked the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Stephen Miller, who works as President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, for their collaboration on the legislation.
Proposed bills include legislation sponsored by House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) that would make it illegal to be in Tennessee if a final deportation order has been issued. The bill would make the action a misdemeanor and subject those in violation to arrest.
“This entire group here and all of our colleagues are going to intend to stand for the rule of law and will completely remove — and work with our federal counterparts to remove — every illegal immigrant in the state,” Lamberth said.
The legislative package will also include bills that require driver’s license tests to be administered only in English, the mandatory verification of all new hires by state and local governments, proof of U.S. citizenship in order to obtain professional licenses, and court cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Legislation would also prohibit undocumented immigrants from obtaining car tags. Though sanctuary cities are illegal in Tennessee due to state law, Sexton said loopholes are being used and that proposed bills in the package will close them.
Additionally, state Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) said he will sponsor a bill cracking down on commercial driver’s licenses used to drive semi-trucks issued to undocumented people in other states. Under the legislation, law enforcement — who interact with CDL drivers who are found to be undocumented — are required to alert ICE.
Another bill would require state and local governments to verify the legal immigration status of every person who receives public benefits. If a person cannot be verified, the
continue to express anxieties about their well-being at school. Some describe the increased protocols as “reactionary,” while others feel student voices aren’t being considered when decisions are made.
Meanwhile, gun violence persists throughout the nation, and schools are still regular targets. According to Education Week, 18 school shootings resulting in personal injuries or death occurred in 2025. Antioch High School was the first. ▼
governmental entity is required to report them to ICE.
Reporting requirements on state government interactions with undocumented immigrants will also be proposed.
Sexton maintained on Thursday that undocumented immigrants who use public services and benefits are a cost burden on state taxpayers and that the legislative package will save Tennesseans money. He said GOP lawmakers are not concerned about the loss of sales tax funds generated by undocumented immigrants. According to the American Immigration Council, there are approximately 156,000 undocumented immigrants in Tennessee with $3.5 billion in spending power.
“We’re committed to protecting taxpayer dollars, reducing fraud, waste and abuse, and once and for all, putting an end to sanctuary cities in our state,” Sexton said. “And honoring those who came here legally by preserving what they did and not allowing illegals to tarnish why they’re here.”
Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) said the package is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” under the Trump administration.
“We’re sending a very strong message today with this legislative package that in Tennessee, we want to be the model for the nation,” Johnson said. “That we’re not only going to cooperate with the White House and our federal immigration enforcement officials, but we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they are successful.”
Following the GOP press conference, representatives from the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) held their own press conference denouncing the legislation and calling for community support.
TIRRC Votes executive director Lisa Sherman Luna calls Sexton “a puppet of Stephen Miller,” who is responsible for crafting the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
“Our supermajority is taking marching orders from [Miller], an outsider in D.C., instead of listening to what Tennessee families need and want,” Luna says.
Luna criticizes legislation that would make it more difficult to obtain driver’s licenses, calling it a “matter of public safety.”
“Rather than limiting those opportunities, we need to be expanding them,” she says. “The federal government is the one that gets to decide who can stay and who gets to leave. It’s at the local level where we have to make it work, and making it work looks like creating opportunities for people who are here and contributing to be able to get on the road safely and get to work safely, and that makes us all more safe.”
Luna says TIRRC will respond to the legislation with continued action and community organizing.
The Tennessee Democratic Party condemned the press conference in a release sent to media Thursday afternoon, saying the state GOP’s “misplaced priorities” are a “distraction rooted in extremism and division, not Tennessee values.”
Additional reporting by Hamilton Matthew Masters. ▼
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is c bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway. om pla hi f’ N h t ons, t a s, eeple committed to mmi
Michael Morgan
Britnee Kellogg
Mitch Rossell
Dixieland Delight 1.19 Chief’s Outsiders Round w/ Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek and Guests Craig Campbell, Mason Maddocks, Brendan Stevens, Mike Sweep
Jamie O’Neal Gypsum Album Release Show
Ashley McBryde: Just Me and My Shadow
Ashley McBryde: Just Me and My Shadow
1.24 Buddy’s Place 15th Anniversary Show w/ Kayley Bishop, Fraser Churchill, Abbey Cone, Sean Kennedy, Paul Sikes, Striking Matches, Cyndi Thomson
1.26 Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Play The Chicks “Wide Open Spaces” w/ Bryan Simpson, Caitlyn Smith, Moose Miller, Abbie Callahan, Aniston Pate
1.29 The Sadies
1.31 Aaron Nichols
Nashville Rep’s production of Pulitzer-winning play
Fat Ham tops our highlights of the season’s theater, art, dance, film and book events
THE WINTER EVENT SEASON doesn’t have to be dead — you just have to plan with a little more intention than you do in more temperate seasons. That’s where the Scene’s Winter Arts Guide comes in.
In this week’s issue, our experts map out some highlights of this season’s arts events, from a forthcoming conversation between literary heavies George Saunders and Ann Patchett to a contemporary riff on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a new artist project space in the former Zeitgeist gallery. And just in case you needed more incentive to get moving, we’ve reached out to some of the city’s influential tastemakers to see what’s on their radar.
In these pages, you’ll find plenty to keep you busy through the coming months, from visual arts and author events to film series and more. Your winter calendar’s about to be booked. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER, ARTS EDITOR
Nashville Rep and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival lead a strong season of performances with Fat Ham
BY AMY STUMPFL
JAMES IJAMES’ PLAY Fat Ham has been widely touted as a modern reinterpretation of Hamlet. But as Nashville Repertory Theatre and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival prepare to open their co-production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, director Mikael Burke says the piece goes well beyond the standard retelling, offering an artful critique of identity, generational trauma and liberation.
Transferring the Bard’s classic tragedy to the modern American South, the action
follows Juicy — a young queer Black man who is forced to “grapple with his father’s ghost, family expectations and the cycle of violence that haunts them all.” But first he’s got to get through an awkward family cookout celebrating the marriage of his widowed mother and uncleturned-stepfather — complete with barbecue and spontaneous karaoke.
“It’s just such a good script,” says Burke, an award-winning director, deviser and educator based in Chicago. “I always start by describing Fat Ham as a riff on Hamlet, just because I think we’re all pretty familiar with that story. But where Hamlet gives us this young man who vows to avenge his father’s murder and becomes totally consumed by that vengeance, Fat Ham goes a different direction. It looks at the idea of revenge, but then shows us that the best revenge comes not in perpetuating the violence, but in healing from it. It says, ‘I don’t have to take up your mantle — I’ll take up my own.’ And it celebrates that incredibly difficult task of choosing to be who you truly are, and becoming the best version of yourself — no matter what your family says.”
Despite such bold and powerful themes, Burke says Fat Ham is packed with big laughs and lyrical language.
“It’s so funny,” says Burke, who grew up in Nashville and is looking forward to having family and friends in the audience for Fat Ham “But that’s what’s so great about James Ijames — he takes on these heavy subjects, but in a totally funny and honest way. As we meet this family, it’s clear that they love each other. But they’re also overbearing and mean, and they make fun and tease each other, so it’s hilarious to watch them square up. There’s so much humor and joy, but there are some really tender moments too. And then there are these delightful bits that are supremely theatrical. I’m excited for audiences to experience it all, and to go on that journey with us each night.”
Burke has assembled a marvelous cast, including Chicago actor Julian “joolz” Stroop as Juicy, along with local favorites Tamiko Robinson Steele, Bakari J. King, CandaceOmnira, Michael A. McAllister-Spurgeon, Persephone Felder-Fentress and Gerold Oliver.
“I’m so excited about this cast,” Burke says. “James Ijames has given us a perfect playground to work from. He’s written some really gorgeous prose and poetry, and I’m eager to see how these actors bring that to life. It’s an incredible piece of work, and I’m just thrilled to be able to do it here in Nashville.”
As the artistic director of Nashville Shakes, Jason Spelbring says he’s thrilled to be working with Nashville Rep on Fat Ham, noting that it’s been more than 20 years since the two companies last joined forces.
“We’re so happy to be doing this coproduction with the Rep,” says Spelbring, who’s serving as the intimacy/fight director for Fat Ham. “I feel like it really speaks to the collaborative spirit of Nashville’s theater community. It’s not a new idea. We’ve certainly done co-productions before, including one with the Rep back in 2005 — when we teamed up for
The Winter’s Tale in Centennial Park. But it’s been amazing to reignite this type of partnership with the Rep, especially with this particular play.”
Spelbring says it’s hard to imagine a more fitting project on which to collaborate, calling Fat Ham “a perfect blend” of Shakespearean themes and modern storytelling.
“What this piece does so beautifully is that it brings together the themes and ideas, and even the loose structure of a play that’s more than 400 years old, and places it right in the backyard of a modern American family living in the South. It’s so relatable, and the writing is just wonderful — witty and so full of heart. Gary C. Hoff’s scenic design is incredible, Melissa Durmon’s costumes are impeccable, and it’s all going to feel very intimate and immersive in the Johnson Theater. I think audiences are going to feel like they’re peering over the fence, as all this family drama and comedy unfolds. And what could be more Shakespearean than that?”
MORE UPCOMING THEATER AND DANCE PERFORMANCES:
Jan. 30-31: Agrupación Señor Serrano’s Birdie at OZ Arts
Feb. 12-14: Ogemdi Ude’s Major at OZ Arts
Feb. 21-22: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at TPAC
Feb. 27-March 1: Nashville Ballet’s Swan Lake at TPAC
March 3-8: Suffs at TPAC
March 13-28: We Are the Tigers at Street Theatre Company
March 14: Complexions Contemporary Ballet at TPAC
March 26-28: Hiroaki Umeda’s assimilating and Moving State 1 at OZ Arts ▼
Clarence Edwards, Founder of Cë Gallery
I’m so excited for the upcoming Vanguard Art Show! Founded in Nashville in 2016, the show has since expanded to Texas, Georgia and Mexico City. It’s been inspiring to watch its growth, and I truly admire the mission of uplifting local Black and brown visual artists and musicians. It’s taking place Jan. 30-31 at White Hall Nashville (1034 W. Kirkland Ave.).
Celia Gregory, Morning Host and Special Programs Manager at WNXP
A bright (or should I say warm?) spot in the dead of our hazy winter is the second annual 615 Indie Live on Feb. 7 — a single-ticket venue-hopping opportunity to support dozens of local indie acts across 17 indie venues in Nashville. WNXP is co-curating the Drkmttr stage at the beloved all-ages venue on Dickerson Pike, and the four-act bill starts and ends by dinnertime — a real blessing to elder-millennial showgoers like me.
BY JOE NOLAN
THE WINTER ART SEASON is coming in hot with new spaces and familiar faces to brighten the dark days. The biggest local show of 2026 will be the In Her Place exhibition opening at the Frist Art Museum at the end of January. That expansive display of varied works by notable Nashville women artists will mostly hold the spotlight for the winter season, but gallerygoers in the know will also find a lot to love sprinkled like a Southern snow among Nashville’s commercial galleries, institutional displays, artist-led venues and even storied spaces being given a brand-new spin in 2026.
MCLEAN FAHNESTOCK AND BETH REITMEYER, RADAR615
Lain York continues to program the former Zeitgeist gallery walls in a collaborative effort
with architectural designers MZA as a new curatorial project called RADAR615. The squad is reimagining its mission, getting in touch with the design/gallery space’s origins, and continuing to connect with the community through interdisciplinary collaborations and performances. The space opened for January’s First Saturday crawl with a performance by Guts Galore, a DJ, rap/spoken word, light and video crew from Detroit who recently relocated to Murfreesboro. RADAR615’s January programming includes a breakthrough display from one of Nashville’s premier newmedia artists, McLean Fahnestock, as well as local sculptor Beth Reitmeyer. Fahnestock mixes video and sculpture in her technically dazzling conceptual installations that satirize and critique the commodification of idealized spaces. Come for the two-story-high video waterfall (“Drum Solo: Hyperbole for the Undiscovered Country”), stay for the seagulls with video monitors for heads (“Decoy Flock Egregore”). Reitmeyer has presented various installations that feature her illuminated geodelike fabric sculptures in gallery and outdoor displays all over the city. This new, immersive,
interactive installation demonstrates that two missing ingredients in Reitmeyer’s work have been more space and more freedom. This new work really opens up and goes big, and it’s a big win for Reitmeyer as well as RADAR615. Reitmeyer’s States of Flow installation includes strewn stacks of her sparkling geodes, a lounge space for viewers to relax and watch the installation’s video component, and a stack of blank paper slips for viewers writing a one-word response to a question about 2026 supplied by the artist. All the responses will be sewn by Reitmeyer into a wishing well at the base of her own massive artistic waterfall during the run of the show.
Tinney Contemporary has occupied its current space since 2006, when Susan Tinney sought a permanent location for her habitual pop-up exhibitions, which had previously taken place in her living room and in friends’ homes. Now the gallery celebrates its 20th year with an expansive group exhibition to kick off its 2026 winter season. TINNEY/20 debuted with an opening reception on Saturday, Jan. 10, and
Olive Scibelli, Co-Executive Director at Drkmttr I’m going to visit the Arcade downtown to check out the artistsin-residence, which include some of my favorite local artists — IMGRNT (Arash Shoushtari) and Lesley Patterson-Marx!
the show features works from more than 50 painters, sculptors and photographers who have exhibited with the gallery over the past two decades. Tinney is the last of the flagship commercial art galleries that established Nashville’s Fifth Avenue of the Arts district. Founder Susan Tinney’s showroom was a highlight of the original downtown art crawl, and the gallery has consistently appealed to collectors and hosted the kind of experimental installations and challenging content that keeps gallerygoers guessing. The exhibition offers a moment to reflect on the gallery’s enduring legacy as a stalwart institution whose voice has helped define the vibrant contemporary
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art community in Nashville. If you missed the opening, the gallery will also be hosting a closing reception on Feb. 14.
The Haley Gallery at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened Willie Cole: Old School on Jan. 15. The exhibition showcases new works by the acclaimed American sculptor and printmaker, including a new series of seven chalkboard paintings. These text-based paintings feature multiple acronyms generated from the artist’s poetic riffing on keywords including “Dixie,” “Hate” and “Love.” The exhibition includes Cole’s largest chalkboard painting, inspired by the word “Patriot.” Cole brings poetry to painting like Jean-Michel Basquiat or Glenn Ligon, while simultaneously deploying text as art like Joseph Beuys and Cy Twombly. Examples of Cole’s chalkboard paintings are featured in the collections of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. In addition to this new group of paintings, Haley is also showing a series of rarely seen artist studies, created over more than three decades. The studies illuminate Cole’s process for developing his acronyms for larger works. Willie Cole: Old School runs through March 13.
Browsing Room presents Print Fair, a traveling exhibition celebrating the democratic nature of printmaking and its power to create conversation and build community connection. The exhibition originated in chats between longtime advocates for artist-led initiatives — Adrienne Outlaw and Janet Decker Yanez. The show is traveling between multiple churchbased art galleries, where each host city adds its own local artists, creating an ever-growing collection that reflects the vibrancy and diversity of regional printmaking communities across cities including Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago and New York. The exhibition features artworks that are reproducible, accessible and rooted in community. Unlike one-of-a-kind
artworks, prints offer collectors and viewers an approachable entry point into contemporary art. Nashville’s contribution includes prints from Hope Kise, Bryce McCloud, Ripley Whiteside, Ashleigh York and others. The show is up through Feb. 26, but the gallery will host a reception on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 — in coordination with the Downtown Arts District Alliance (DADA) second Saturday downtown art crawl.
Apokalypsis is a group show curated by Random Sample’s Ivy Welsh featuring work from seven emerging Nashville-based artists — Liv Cullison, Olivia Daniels, William McClatchey, Fox Nelson, Nicole Tatum and Eva Wurst, as well as Welsh herself. The show includes a wide range of mediums, from welded steel to oil-on-canvas, collage, papier-mâché and film. Apokalypsis is an ancient Greek word meaning revelation, and the exhibition explores themes of transformation and illumination through diverse artistic practices. There’s an opening reception from 6 until 9 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 1, and the show will be up through March 29.
Elephant puts a cap on Nashville’s winter art season with a solo show by Benji Anderson. A self-taught visionary artist, Anderson creates surreal, imaginative multimedia worlds that often feature symbols, creatures and fantastical landscapes washed in vibrant palettes. The artist’s zines and comics — as well as his signature detailed drawings on Etch A Sketch toys — only begin to hint at Anderson’s playful creative range. I raved about the artist’s last solo show at Elephant, where Anderson created a floor-covering mandala mural. The exhibition’s working title is Toxic Waste in Paradise. Anderson’s work is nothing if not unpredictable, and many of this display’s details remain mysterious as of press time. But that’s all the more reason this farewell-to-winter show is a don’t-miss for me. The exhibition opens March 13, and is slated to run through April 20. ▼
Sai Clayton, Visual Artist and Independent Curator
I did lots of violin and ballet growing up, and my love of the classical arts never left. I need to get tickets to Nashville Ballet’s Swan Lake at the end of February and the Nashville Symphony’s performance of Holst’s The Planets toward the end of March. They are both such iconic works — it would be a shame to miss.
I grew up watching 1939’s Wuthering Heights, and I’m excited to see the new version coming out in February. Equally excited for the soundtrack by Charli XCX. As a kid I would listen to Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” on the floor, smushed between my bed and the wall. The whole thing feels like a maybe more grown-up callback to some core childhood memories.
Lastly, I just got tickets to see Hiroaki Umeda’s assimilating and Moving State 1 performances at OZ Arts at the end of March. I trust everything OZ brings to town, and I can’t wait to support a Japanese artist here in Nashville.
A conversation between George Saunders and Ann Patchett tops our list of this season’s best book events
BY ANNIE PARNELL
In 2017, renowned short story writer and essayist George Saunders released his first full-length novel, the Booker Prize-winning
experimental book Lincoln in the Bardo. Taking place in the wake of young Willie Lincoln’s death from typhoid fever, it charts a course through his presidential father’s grief and a country’s nascent history in a death-in-life Georgetown dreamscape, where ghosts and their unfinished business linger before moving beyond.
Saunders’ new novel, Vigil — out Jan. 27 via Penguin Random House — also centers on a journey to the afterlife, though with a decidedly less innocent traveler. Vigil follows the last earthly hours of oil tycoon K. J. Boone as Jill “Doll” Blaine, his otherworldly usher, tries to comfort him — only to discover that Boone, convinced he’s lived a perfect, ethically spotless life, has no regrets that he wants to settle.
More about Vigil will be illuminated for local audiences on Jan. 30, when Saunders will discuss the new book in conversation with prodigious novelist and Parnassus Books owner Ann Patchett at Montgomery Bell Academy’s Paschall Theater. Patchett’s own work skews less absurdist than Saunders’ does, but both authors are compelled by the spaces between — between life and death, good and evil, right and wrong. Their conversation is one of two upcoming book talks at Montgomery Bell Academy, presented by the school and Parnassus Books. The other features Matrix and The Vaster Wilds novelist Lauren Groff in
MORE UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS:
Jan. 24: Fiction Book Club: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, 6 p.m. at Duckbill Bookshop
Jan. 25: Madison Carnegie Writers’ Group (every fourth Sunday), 2:30 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library’s Madison Branch
Jan. 25: Rites of Passage Coming-of-Age Book Club: Isola by Allegra Goodman, 4 p.m. at Hanna Bee Coffee. Presented by The Bookshop; 10 percent discounted shopping at The Bookshop for participants to follow (purchase a copy of Isola to join).
Jan. 27: Author Q&A: book signing and discussion with A Most Tolerant Little Town author Rachel Louise Martin, 5:30 p.m. at Duckbill Bookshop
Jan. 31: Friends of Fantasy Day at Parnassus Books. During regular store hours: crafting, fortune-telling and writing workshops. 6:30 p.m.: ticketed event with The Scorpio Races author Maggie Stiefvater.
Feb. 2: Ashley Herring Blake: Get Over It, April Evans in conversation with Laura Piper Lee, 6:30 p.m at Parnassus Books
conversation with Adam Ross about her new short story collection Brawler
Those are just two of the many exciting events happening in Nashville’s literary scene this winter. Below find more, from author talks to readings, writing workshops and book clubs — including a decidedly goth discussion of mortician Caitlin Doughty’s 2017 book From Here to Eternity, led by a local death doula. For
complete calendars, check the websites of your favorite local spots.
GEORGE SAUNDERS: VIGIL IN CONVERSATION WITH ANN PATCHETT
6:30 P.M. FRIDAY, JAN. 30, AT PASCHALL THEATER, MONTGOMERY BELL ACADEMY
Maria Torres, Stylist and Founder of Torres Vintage Yanira Vissepo is a Puerto Rican artist that I’ve known for some time now. Her textile paintings tell a beautiful story, and her dedication to her art has been beautiful to witness. Her exhibition Bioluminescence at Elephant Gallery was one of my favorite exhibitions I’ve been to. She has work in an upcoming exhibition at the Frist — In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the Twenty-First Century — from Jan. 29 through April 26.
Feb. 5: Last Chapter Book Club: From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty, led by Megan of Until Death Doulas, 5 p.m. at Hanna Bee Coffee. Presented by The Bookshop; 10 percent discount at The Bookshop to follow.
Feb. 10: Author Q&A: book signing and discussion with Joe Nolan, 5:30 p.m. at Duckbill Bookshop
Feb. 10: Book Talk: Books by Black Authors, 4 p.m. at Nashville Public Library’s Goodlettsville Branch. “Nontraditional book club” where readers select their own book from an assigned theme or genre.
Feb. 11: 33 1/3 author panel featuring Emily Lordi, Mark Doyle and Erin Osmon, moderated by Ann Powers, 6:30 p.m. at The Bookshop
Feb. 12: Free Nashville Poetry Library and Nashville Poetry Party present: Really Bad Love Poems, 7 p.m. at Americano Lounge. Poetry readings and open mic.
Feb. 15: The Porch’s annual Heartbreak Happy Hour, featuring readings by Shea Stripling, Kashif Andrew Graham and more, 7
p.m. at Jackalope Brewing Company
Feb. 19: Rachel Griffin: The Sun and the Starmaker in conversation with Adrienne Young, 7 p.m. at Parnassus Books
Feb 26: Lauren Groff: Brawler: Stories in conversation with Adam Ross, presented by Parnassus Books and Montgomery Bell Academy, 6:30 p.m. at Montgomery Bell Academy’s Dead Poets Society Room
March 2: Anna Quindlen: More Than Enough in conversation with Ann Patchett, 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books
March 3: The Porch Presents: Craft and Reading Series with Susan Finch in conversation with Susannah Felts; Craft Talk: “Beyond Backdrop: Using Setting as a Catalyst for Your Characters,” reading and discussion, 6 p.m. at The Porch House
March 10: Author Q&A: Ea Fuqua and Meg DeLong, 5:30 p.m. at Duckbill Bookshop
March 26: Bunnies Book Club: What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang feat. author chat via Zoom, 7 p.m. at The Green Ray ▼
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10:30 AM
A Robert Redford series, Oscar contenders and locally filmed classics at the Belcourt are among this season’s most promising film events BY LOGAN BUTTS
6:30 PM
FOR TICKETS & UPDATES
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24
SATURDAY STORYTIME with ELIZABETH SHREEVE at PARNASSUS Ocean Journey: Animals in Motion Through the Seas
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30
GEORGE SAUNDERS with ANN PATCHETT at MONTGOMERY BELL ACADEMY Vigil
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 ALL DAY! FRIENDS OF FANTASY DAY!
10:30 AM - FANTASY THEMED STORYTIME with HANNAH &
MAP MAKING with ERICA IVY RODGERS
3:00 PM - SPECULATIVE BLACK OUT POETRY with HANNAH WHITTEN
4:00 PM - FORTUNE TELLING with MEREDITH LYONS and TAROT READING with KRISTIN O'DONNELL
LAST YEAR WAS a big one for the Belcourt Theatre, as our revered local nonprofit cinema celebrated its 100th birthday. But the centennial celebrations aren’t done, with special screenings and seminars expected to run through May. The Nashville: A City on Film series — which highlights movies shot locally or featuring Nashville natives in front of or behind the camera — continues with ’80s coming-of-age classic Dead Poets Society (Jan. 26), which was penned by Nashville-born screenwriter Tom Schulman and inspired by his time at Montgomery Bell Academy. The series will also feature a 35 mm screening of the unheralded 1986 crime gem At Close Range (Feb. 2), which was filmed in Spring Hill and Franklin. Supposedly, during the film’s production, star Sean Penn’s then-girlfriend Madonna was often spotted around town.
Highlights of the theater’s characteristically stellar repertory programming include the conclusion of Weekend Classics: Robert Redford, a tribute to one of cinema’s most influential (and beautiful) stars, who died in September. Make sure to catch mountain-man tale Jeremiah Johnson (Jan. 24 & 27), star-crossed political romance The Way We Were (Jan. 25 & 27), Redford’s emotional-knockout directorial debut Ordinary People (Jan. 31 & Feb. 3) and languid family drama A River Runs Through It (Feb. 1-2).
The Belcourt’s Midnight Movies slate has some inspired choices coming up as well, including animated game-changer Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Jan. 23) and Jim Carrey vehicle The Mask (Jan. 24), plus a pair of 35 mm screenings of Silent Hill (Feb. 6) and Super Mario Bros. (Feb. 7).
of the annual Red Carpet Evening fundraiser, which takes place each year on the night of the Academy Awards (March 15). The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards are set for release Thursday (after this issue went to press), but just know I’ll be first in line to catch the guaranteedto-be-nominated One Battle After Another and Sinners one final time in theaters.
Other upcoming new releases at the Belcourt include Bi Gan’s mind trip Resurrection (opening Jan. 23; see our review in this week’s film section), Kahlil Joseph’s inventive documentary BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (Jan. 28-Feb. 1), Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water (opening Feb. 6), the Jodie Foster-starring mystery-thriller A Private Life (opening Jan. 30), true-life docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab (Feb. 4-8) and Matt Johnson’s mockumentary Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (opening Feb. 13).
It’s not quite as fruitful a time at the megaplexes, which are in the midst of what’s known colloquially as Dumpuary — when studios dump their not-quite-A-list offerings during the doldrums of January and February. Despite the typically slow output, there are always a few diamonds in the rough of these dreck-filled winter months.
Genre legend Sam Raimi is making his longawaited return to the horror-sphere with Send Help (opening Jan. 30), a survival thriller starring
Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien. Always a plentiful time for horror outings, these months will also provide a return to Silent Hill, the Bone Temple and Woodsboro in Return to Silent Hill (opening Jan. 23), 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (currently in theaters) and Scream 7 (opening Feb. 27), respectively.
The Charli XCX-starring, A24-produced mockumentary The Moment (opening Jan. 30) should have every Letterboxd user in a chokehold, while the begging-to-be-discoursedto-death Wuthering Heights opens wide on Feb. 13. As a certified Emerald Fennell defender and a major fan of both Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, I am very excited for the adaptation of Emily Brontë’s literary classic.
Speaking of big swings, Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean) ends a nearly decade-long drought with the gonzo sci-fi action-adventure romp Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (opening Feb. 13), Pixar wizard Andrew Stanton takes another crack at live-action filmmaking with In the Blink of an Eye (opening Feb. 27), and Maggie Gyllenhaal offers a radical take on classic monster films with The Bride! (opening March 6).
These release dates are often fluid, so make sure to check your local listings. And while there are not yet any films scheduled at Full Moon Cineplex, the Hermitage horror house always offers some gory counter-programming. ▼
As for new releases, the winter months tend to be Oscar season at the Belcourt. Major contenders Hamnet Marty Supreme No Other Choice and The Testament of Ann Lee are currently still showing at the arthouse. And while the theater’s annual Oscar-Nominated Short Films programming and Best Picture Marathon aren’t yet scheduled, expect those to pop up ahead
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THROUGH FEB. 28
ART [I’LL BE WAITING]
KAREN SEAPKER: TIME AFTER
The last time Karen Seapker exhibited her paintings at East Nashville gallery Red Arrow was in 2024, in a two-person show with ceramicist Linda Lopez. Titled Turn, Turn, Turn, the exhibition nodded to the Pete Seeger song, famously covered by The Byrds, with its refrain: “To everything there is a season.” With Time After Time, Seapker returns to a seasonally inflected song reference — this time invoking Cyndi Lauper’s classic — and continues her meditation on the cycles of life. In the exhibition essay, Seapker cites Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time: “So many of our most ecologically deleterious behaviours are to do with refusing impermanence and decay, insisting on summer all the
time,” Laing writes. “The garden was always engaged in a dance with death.” The reference underscores Seapker’s commitment to situating her painting within contemporary conversations. Even as she depicts elegantly stylized figures shielding candles from an unseen wind, the work remains conceptually rigorous, using symbolism to engage with urgent ecological and cultural concerns. The exhibition coincides with the Frist Art Museum’s expansive In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the Twenty-First Century exhibition, opening Jan. 29, which features several of Seapker’s paintings. Together the two shows offer a rare opportunity to encounter the work of one of the city’s most significant painters across multiple contexts at once. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
The tales of bad behavior and excessive alcohol use singer and songwriter Ashley McBryde favors on 2022’s Lindeville and 2023’s The Devil I Know register as country tropes, but the albums find McBryde playing tragedy for the comedy it sometimes contains. The Arkansas native paid tribute to the great Nashville songwriter and singer Dennis Linde on Lindeville, which is like an updated version of a Statler Brothers comedy album mixed with The Who Sell Out. The songwriting on Lindeville is superb, and that includes the fictional commercials — “Dandelion Diner” hawks a range of pies that includes “butterscotch and chicken pot” — that remind me of the fake ads on The Who’s classic 1967 takedown of youth culture and consumerism. Meanwhile, The Devil I Know is advanced Nashville rock country, complete with big guitars and songs that demonstrate her feel for characters who are struggling to define themselves. McBryde might mention George Jones and Patsy Cline in the Devil I Know song “Blackout Betty,” but the music is modern country at its most evolved. Thursday and Friday at Chief’s, McBryde continues her ongoing series of two-night residencies at the venue with a pair of acoustic shows. She’ll continue the residencies through April with shows that feature her favorite cover versions and selections from Lindeville EDD HURT JAN. 22-23 AT CHIEF’S ON BROADWAY 200 BROADWAY
[CH’ELLA MI CREDA]
Nashville Opera is kicking off the new year with a rip-roaring classic — Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West (La Fanciulla del West). Based on the 1905 play by David Belasco, this unique work tells the story of Minnie, a strong-willed heroine who runs the saloon in a rough-andtumble mining camp during the California Gold Rush. Taking on themes of love, loyalty
BEACHMONT W/GEORGE WILLIAM THOMAS PAGE 22
DIRTY NERDY BURLESQUE PAGE 24
THE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY MEISTERSINGERS PAGE 24
and redemption, it’s something of a spaghetti Western for opera lovers. Dean Williamson will be on hand to lead the Nashville Opera Orchestra, and acclaimed soprano Kara Shay Thomson will make her company debut in the coveted role of Minnie. But I’m especially eager to check out Jessica Mueller’s beautifully detailed and culturally informed costumes, which promise to reflect Northern California’s rich Indigenous history and culture. Nashville Opera actually partnered with Mueller — an associate professor at Belmont and director of the university’s bachelor of fine arts production design program — to offer valuable hands-on experience to current students and recent alumni, while reinforcing the opera’s ongoing commitment to working with local universities. “Jessica’s attention to detail and creative eye bring so much to our productions,” says John Hoomes, Nashville Opera’s CEO and artistic director. “The Nashville Opera loves utilizing the great talent in our community, and we are proud to continue our partnership with Belmont and their extremely accomplished arts departments.” AMY STUMPFL
JAN. 22 & 24 AT BELMONT UNIVERSITY’S FISHER CENTER 2020 BELMONT BLVD.
The Tennessee State Museum is digging into its extensive collection of artworks and artifacts to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Tennessee Voices, American Stories braids individual narratives into a larger story about the American experience, from the American Revolution through today. The exhibition is organized around three phrases from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution — “We the People,” “A More Perfect Union” and “The Blessings of Liberty” — and showcases some of the museum’s most important items, from stage costumes worn by Dolly Parton to renderings of Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary. Given the breadth of the museum’s archive, many of the exhibition’s most compelling moments are likely to come from the stories of lesser-known Tennesseans. This is a place to encounter histories you may not find elsewhere. The exhibition essay asks visitors to consider the significance of individual contributions to society and frames the American Revolution as an ongoing process rather than a closed chapter. It concludes by posing a direct question to the audience: “How will your story add to the ongoing process of the American Revolution?” LAURA HUTSON HUNTER ONGOING AT THE TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM
1000
FRIDAY / 1.23
MUSIC
[PULLING UP OUR SLEEVES] THE SLEEVEENS W/PULL CHAINS & SINKERS
Occasionally, the rock stars align and an unlikely
NASHVILLE SCENE JANUARY 22 – JANUARY 28, 2026
show bill comes together. There may be a total of only eight members in Pull Chains and The Sleeveens, but they’re spread across five cities and two continents. The geographic challenges make both bands difficult to nail down for a live show, but having both on the same gig is a truly rare opportunity. Pull Chains is the newest project from Greg Cartwright, the longtime Memphis songsmith from the legendary acts like the Oblivians and Reigning Sound, flanked by a band featuring members of Nashville’s Country Westerns and Atlanta’s Gentleman Jesse. Locals The Sleeveens were founded in Nashville before frontman Stef Murphy returned to his hometown of Dublin, making their shows infrequent. Murphy is back in Tennessee so the foursome can record the first new material since their 2025 single on Goner Records, offering The Sleeveens the chance to play with another geographically challenged band. Fortunately for the folks of Middle Tennessee, wildmen Sinkers all live here and are always down to play. Their reputation as Nashville’s most unhinged punk act makes this one of the most exciting shows of the winter. P.J. KINZER
9 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT
1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.
Singer-songwriter JJ Niceley calls her music “mystical country.” “It describes the sound, the frequency and the mythopoetic place I am always in search of, within my work and on my life journey itself,” she explains in a post on her Substack of the same name. Niceley’s country is not country in a 21st-century context, but rather music that is actually born of and connected to rural life. She was born on a farm and has always had a deep connection to nature, which is reflected in her lyrics. Musically, her material straddles folk and acoustic pop with ambient country touches in her arrangements. Her voice is special. It has an ethereal quality that reinforces the “mystical” part of her art. Niceley’s “mystical country” will be on the bill Friday night in the Low Volume Lounge at Eastside Bowl. She will be accompanied by Feathered Mason (Eric Davis) on baritone guitar, Jason Goforth on pedal steel and harmonica, Ron Eoff on bass and Robert Crawford on drums. Niceley plans to play two sets of material from her extensive catalog — seven LPs and three EPs
— including “a chunk of Not Lost,” her excellent 2024 full-length. She’ll also perform some new songs from her forthcoming album to be released later this year.
DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT THE LOW VOLUME LOUNGE AT EASTSIDE BOWL 1508A GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
Friday evening, The Basement East will present the fifth annual An East Nashville Tribute to The Traveling Wilburys, which benefits East C.A.N. pet rescue. Back in 2021, the venue’s co-owner Mike “Grimey” Grimes had the idea for an annual show paying tribute to rock supergroup The Traveling Wilburys — Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne — and benefiting East C.A.N. East C.A.N. helps find, foster and secure adoptions for stray and abandoned dogs, providing essential vetting and basic supplies. They’ve helped more than 1,000 dogs since the organization was founded in 2008. “It’s a tradition born out of a longstanding Bob Dylan tribute,” Grimes tells the Scene. “We morphed it into Traveling Wilburys.”
This year’s show features a star-studded lineup that includes John Oates, Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger of Halestorm, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, Robyn Hitchcock, Langhorne Slim, Nicole Atkins, Josh Rouse, Chuck Mead and many more. Once again, Andrew Leahey and The Homestead will play host and serve as the house band. The show will feature not only material from the two albums by The Traveling Wilburys, but also solo material by the band’s individual members. DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
[NOW YOU SEE ME…] OFF BROADWAY —
If you missed out on Off Broadway at the Hutton’s monthlong Wizard of Oz-inspired experience in the fall, you’re in luck. The popular Off Broadway series is back this weekend with An Evening of Magic. Billed as “an intimate evening celebrating beloved songs from iconic animated films and timeless musical storytelling,” the program promises a fun theatrical revue with tunes from your favorite Disney princesses and magical creatures. Hosted by Nashville’s own Rachel Potter (who actually started her career as Ariel in The Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Walt Disney World, before moving on to the world of Broadway), the evening’s lineup boasts a stellar mix of Broadway talent and local star power, including Susan Egan (the original Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and the voice of Meg in Hercules) and Caroline Bowman (who originated the role of Elsa in the first national tour of Disney’s Frozen), plus Corey Mach, E.J. Cardona, Lauren Paley, Morgan Karr, Piper Jones, Jada Wasserman, Matt Bloyd and Wil Merrell. Audiences can look forward to themed cocktails and treats, along with a few surprises. AMY STUMPFL
8 P.M. AT
There’s a simple form of authenticity in newly Nashville-based artist George William Thomas’ confessional rock songs — each is saturated in storytelling that’s as witty as it is sincere. He tells it how it is, narrating moments that are distinct but relatable, like fighting with a significant other in the parking lot of an Applebee’s over half-priced appetizers or avoiding the inevitable responsibility of paying taxes by claiming that his Roomba ate them. Thomas’ lyrics are satirical, but they’re also vulnerable. He’s an open book, and he’s got a knack for writing songs that are as intimate and natural as a conversation 12 beers deep with a buddy you’ve known for years. Thomas mostly plays acoustic sets, but this will be his first full-band show in Nashville. Headlining the night is indie duo Beachmont (Josh Polack and Tyler Savoie), a band that’s taking the scene by storm right now. There’s a bite of anger in Beachmont’s lyricism, full of screamed lines dedicated to self-medication and nostalgic hometown glory that fit with the band’s intensely brisk sound. Beachmont is anthemic and upbeat, known for putting on performances that are sweaty and brilliant.
GRACE BRASWELL
8 P.M. AT ROW ONE STAGE AT CANNERY HALL
1 CANNERY ROW
FILM [YOU’VE COME FAR, PILGRIM] WEEKEND CLASSICS: JEREMIAH JOHNSON
Even if you’ve never seen Jeremiah Johnson, you’ve seen The Nod. It’s been floating around social media for years now — the slow, zoom-in GIF of a beaming, bearded Robert Redford (not Zach Galifianakis, as many have mistakenly assumed). You know Gen-Zers are gonna explode into applause when that moment appears in this wild 1972 adventure, playing this week as part of the Belcourt’s Redford retrospective. In one of several films the star did with director Sydney Pollack (Tootsie) throughout his career, Redford stars as the titular Mexican American War veteran (based on actual mountain man John “Liver-Eating” Johnson) who gets fed up with civilization and roughs it out in the snowy mountains with wolves, bears and Natives. Johnson is another visually stunning but downer-ass revisionist Western from the ’70s that surprisingly made a lot of money — and remains a not-so-subtle reminder of how Vietnam did a real number on us back then. One viewing and you’ll discover that The Nod is one of the few blissful, reassuring moments this movie’s got. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. CRAIG D. LINDSEY JAN. 24 & 27 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
[BOW DOWN]
Few among us are ambitious enough to refer to our backside as a “moneymaker.”
Though burlesque performers do not typically dance purely for profit, they have turned shaking their moneymakers into the art of tease. It’s aspirational, really. Dirty Nerdy Burlesque presents practitioners of this performance art with pop-culture twists. A bevy of baddies takes on characters from cult-classic TV shows, movies and video games, infusing their routines with humor and nostalgia. Produced by Gogo Incognito (co-owner of Corsair Distillery), Dirty Nerdy Burlesque has been selling out for eight years now, with no sign of stopping. The current lineup features the chair-flipping Avo Cado from Atlanta, along with Rose Martel and Cerise de Belle (who’s making her Dirty Nerdy debut). Seductive and silly, the production is sure to knock your socks off. But keep the rest of your clothes on — leave the disrobing to the professionals.
TOBY ROSE
8 P.M. AT CORSAIR DISTILLERY
1200 CLINTON ST., SUITE 110
[WISHER]
Local indie band Finger Foods will take the stage at The Blue Room Saturday to celebrate the release of their first full-length album Detroit, with support from hometown bands Budge, Superhero and Most Improved. Finger Foods made waves with their first two EPs Marcy, Marcy and Buckley Bites, and they deftly combine shoegaze, classic indie rock and country Western elements for a hometown sound that seems to represent what’s emerging from Nashville’s indie up-and-comers. The new album is produced by Grammy-winning audio engineer and producer Justin Francis, who has worked on projects from Orville Peck, Tyler Childers and Leon Bridges. I caught their single release show at The End in the fall, and even a few months before Detroit dropped, it already seemed like they were a fixture of the stage, with fans in the crowd jumping and singing along.
LILLY LUSE
7 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
[SLIPPIN’ AND SLIDIN’]
It’s been a hot couple of years for East Nash Grass, who took home the International Bluegrass Music Association’s New Artist award in 2024 and made their Grand Ole Opry debut in 2023. Fiddler and singer Maddie Denton won IBMA’s Fiddle Player of the Year award in 2025, and the band released an album, All God’s Children, in August 2024. Singer and songwriter James Kee moved to Nashville eight years ago from Signal Mountain, Tenn., where he cut his teeth playing on that town’s The Mountain Opry show. Kee began performing with East Nash Grass at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Madison in 2019, and their Monday shows at Dee’s helped establish their reputation. Now a
quintet, East Nash Grass is a song band that has a nice touch with the licks and turnarounds you associate with bluegrass. All God’s Children is an album of songs crafted from sturdy material, and you’ll hear hints of Newgrass and country rock throughout. “Hill Country Highway” and “Bend in the Road” address the eternal theme of being on the road when you want to stay home. As Kee sings in “Hill Country Highway”: “Headin’ down the mountain / Feel my wheels a-slidin’ / I hope this ain’t my last ride / I guess we’ll know directly.” Jason Carter opens. EDD HURT
8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
[VOCAL INSTITUTION]
Mavis Staples is a cultural treasure, one of the greatest and most important voices to emerge in both popular music and civil rights since the ’50s, when she began as an integral member of the legendary family group the Staple Singers as a high-schooler. The Staples initially were gospel standouts, then later soul stars. Simultaneously, they also became principal voices of the civil rights movement through Pops Staples’ close friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While the Staple Singers continued scoring hits into the mid-’70s, Mavis Staples began establishing herself outside the family setting. She has subsequently enjoyed an extraordinary solo career. Her extensive list of classic sessions ranges from a Curtis Mayfield soundtrack LP for the film A Piece of the Action to two albums produced by Prince, a Mahalia Jackson tribute release and a host of magical moments during collaborations with artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Dr. John, Los Lobos to Patty Griffin. She’s the recipient of multiple honors, and her latest recording Sad and Beautiful World is a gem. Any opportunity to hear Mavis Staples should not be missed, and she’ll headline at the Ryman Saturday night. Alt-country wunderkind MJ Lenderman opens.
RON WYNN
8 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
SUNDAY / 1.25
Tennessee ragers Human Shield, is a dissonant, distorted work of sheer fury. The album clocks in at six tracks in less than 11 minutes, and the three-man behemoth’s sound alternates between a swampy, lumbering dirge and a rapid-paced blur of noise-drenched guitars and machinegun drumming. Forever Indebted trims all the fat and leaves just the raw sonic malevolence. Their brand of furious hardcore punk calls back to bygone rippers like Crossed Out, Siege and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, while still injecting new energy into the sound. The show will conclude a two-week tour, starting in Memphis and running all across the South. To celebrate the new release, available to hear on their Bandcamp page, Human Shield will be inviting a few friends to share the stage with them at Drkmttr. The bill is filled out by blistering Kentucky troupe xGaargoylex, ultra-heavy Nashvillians Gorge, Huntsville hardcore’s Bootprint, and surrealist art-pop duo Total Wife. P.J. KINZER
8 P.M. AT DRKMTTR
1111 DICKERSON PIKE
MUSIC
[GREAT ACOUSTICS] THE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY MEISTERSINGERS W/KYSHONA
It’s one thing to just see the magnificent 42foot Athena statue inside The Parthenon at Centennial Park, but hearing some of the city’s strongest singers against the backdrop of the goddess herself is an experience to behold. As part of the sixth season of the ECHO Chamber music series, local singer-songwriter and Scene fave Kyshona will open the evening with her own Americana roots music. With a background in music therapy, Kyshona believes in music’s power to heal. The Tennessee State University Meistersingers are set to headline, performing in a range of styles, from Renaissance music to current pop tunes. The Meistersingers are an elite 12- to 16-person ensemble of the Tennessee State University Choir. The powerful evening of performances is sure to entrance, and give attendees a chance to see what the reverb in the chamber sounds like. If you miss this one, there will be two more chances to partake in the ECHO series in February. HANNAH HERNER
7:30 P.M. AT THE PARTHENON 2500 WEST END AVE.
By the time Dead Poets Society was released in 1989, Robin Williams had already been a household name for a decade, with one Academy Award nomination and a slew of dramatic and comedic credits under his belt. Most people know that his performance as Dead Poets Society’s idiosyncratic and inspirational English teacher John Keating was one for the ages, earning him his second Oscar nomination. (He’d go on to earn his third a couple years later with The Fisher King, and finally land a trophy in 1998 thanks to Good Will Hunting.) But Nashvillians might not know just how many local connections the film has. Written by Nashville native and Vanderbilt alum Tom Schulman, Dead Poets — though based in Vermont — was inspired by Schulman’s time at Montgomery Bell Academy, and Williams’ character was loosely based on fellow Nashville native Samuel Pickering, who instructed Schulman at MBA. The local connections don’t end there, and that’s why the Belcourt selected the film for its ongoing Nashville: A City on Film series, part of the theater’s centennial programming. Come for the Nashville lore, stay for knockout performances from Williams, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles and Kurtwood Smith. The evening screening will feature an introduction from Belcourt archivist and historian T. Minton. D. PATRICK RODGERS 2 & 8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE
FILM
[BACK IN BLACK] BLKNWS: TERMS & CONDITIONS
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions feels like a video-art installation that escaped from a museum and found its way to the big screen. It turns out this originally started as an installation done a few years back by filmmaker/visual artist Kahlil Joseph, who has also directed videos for Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and other pop provocateurs. Inspired by an African diaspora encyclopedia conceived by W.E.B. Du Bois, Joseph goes long for the film version, piling on images from all forms of media (yes, even TikTok) and creating a cinematic collage of Blackness. He invites other filmmakers of color (including Tennessee native and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt director Raven Jackson) to add more sights and sounds featuring Black folk. It plays for a few days at the Belcourt, but the final showing will be on the first day of Black History Month. So for those who’ve always wanted to use this time to learn more about, well, Black people shit, taking in a BLKNWS screening isn’t a bad place to start. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
JAN. 28-FEB. 1 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
2025 featuring Doug Johnson, Paul Wrock, Justin Wilson & Paul Sikes + CJ Solar, Jordana Bryants, Sadie Bass, Danny Wells, Alison Nichols, Tyra Madison, Michah Christopher, Scotty Hastings, Alyssa Flaherty, Dillon James, Trinity Lake, The Kentucky Gentlemen, Katie Erickson, Nicholas William, Chris Wright & Dawson Slade
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring Natalie Del Carmen, Sophie Gault & The Deltaz
Sam Tinnesz & Friends featuring Zayde Wolf, SkyDxddy, Anthony Raneri, New Medicine, Jady, Confetti, Brooke Alexx, Haven Madison, UNSECRET, GREYLEE, Que Parks, Kyel Rictor and Beacon Light
Backstage Nashville! Daytime Hit Songwriters Show featuring Chris Tompkins, Dallas Wilson, Ray Stephenson & Mae Estes
Rizz & The Believerz with John Salaway & Friends + Bella Garland Guilty Pleasures: The Final Countdown!
Nefesh Mountain
Rooney’s Irregulars featuring Pat Alger, Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien, Shawn Camp, Pat McLaughlin, Richard Bailey, Bill Kenner, Kirk “Jellyroll” Johnson, Dan Dugmore, Pete Wasner, Dave Pomeroy, Larry Atamanuik & Pat McInerney with John Lomax
As matcha lattes grow more popular, cafe owners manage demand, Western palates and a supply shortage
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
MATCHA ISN’T FOR everyone. If you’re a fan of the ground green tea, the taste ranges from earthy to floral to umami; if you hate it, maybe it’s muddy, grass-like or umami-in-a-bad-way. And nothing can turn someone off matcha more than a poorly made drink: a neon-green latte in which the powder sank right to the bottom, giving an unpleasant grainy texture to a unique flavor.
to that trend with her pop-up Ceremony. Ndambasha isn’t just tossing green powder over milk and calling it a drink. She sifts the powder into a bowl, adds heated water, hand-stirs it with a bamboo whisk until it froths, and pours it over ice mixed with a flavored syrup like strawberry. Ndambasha says whisking by hand, rather than using an electric frother, ensures the tea is frothy enough, which means the matcha is both more flavorful and less likely to sink to the bottom of the drink.
The result is a dramatic-looking drink — vivid emerald green mingles with pale-pink foam. Flavored matcha lattes are proving popular at brick-and-mortar locations throughout Nashville, and many are also using a similar handwhisked preparation.
Mary McLeod, JP’s wife and Forevermore coowner, lobbied for a slush machine in the summer of 2025, and the frozen matcha became a top-selling item.
“It’s damned delicious,” says JP. “We paid off that machine in a couple of weeks.” (Rejoice, Forevermore fans: The machine is returning in the summer.)
Forevermore sells as much matcha as its also-solid coffee offerings. JP says the matcha Forevermore offers is accessible for newbies — it’s not too bitter or savory and pairs well with sweet flavors. Some customers love the lattes, and some remain unconverted. Others, to JP’s disappointment, just snap a picture for social media and trash it — a waste of an ingredient that’s grown quite expensive.
Linga Ndambasha was not very impressed with Nashville’s matcha options when she moved to town in 2021.
Ndambasha isn’t a coffee drinker, and her go-to order is usually a chai or matcha latte.
“Let’s just say, I was only drinking chai for quite some time when I first got here,” she says.
Nashville’s matcha latte game has improved in recent years, and Ndambasha is contributing
Forevermore in East Nashville’s Cleveland Park neighborhood has the Instagram-worthy Purple Haze, inspired by the Jimi Hendrix mural on the side of their mixed-use building. Co-owner JP McLeod concocted the drink after re-creating a pink cold foam he saw on social media, and after experimenting with it over coffee, tried it with matcha instead. The drink, available in strawberry and lavender flavors, was a hit, and more matcha creations followed.
If you made it this far and still aren’t sure what matcha is, let’s explain. Matcha is made from unroasted Japanese green tea leaves that have been ground into a powder. While many suppliers grade the quality of their matcha, it’s usually divided into “ceremony” (a fine, darkgreen powder with a stronger flavor) and culinary grade (yellower, with a milder flavor and better for baking). Suppliers may impose tiers on those products, which is helpful to cafes but
confusing to everyday drinkers, and some culinary matcha may be labeled latte-quality. (All cafes speaking to the Scene use ceremony-grade matcha.)
The distinctions are Western marketing labels rather than Japanese terms, says Ndambasha. The difference concerns leaves that were grown with plentiful shade, becoming a lush green before being picked in the spring, and those grown with more exposure to the sun and harvested in the summer, becoming more pale or yellow. That doesn’t mean all matcha is created equal — quality matters, especially in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, and usually the greener the better.
Unfortunately, the increased global demand for high-quality matcha has contributed to a shortage. Japanese farms have struggled with heat waves, climate change and an aging workforce, and harvesting is slow work, with farmers picking tea leaves by hand before processing them. Prices have gone up. Ndambasha says she discusses the shortage and ethics of consumption in the matcha classes she hosts. She also notes that tariffs and import fees can make it hard for businesses to source matcha.
Chef Leina Horii says the summer months were “a little bit scary,” and her usual suppliers “basically were saying, like, ‘I can’t get my hands on it.’” Horii and her husband Brian Lea are the chefs and owners behind elevated Japanese comfort-food restaurant Kisser and their new Japanese-inspired bakery Babychan. Horii says it was important to her that they continue to use ceremony-grade matcha for drinks at both locations, and while it’s still difficult to procure matcha — she sources from Japan — the search has become a bit easier in winter months.
Horii calls matcha a “staple ingredient” of Japanese baked goods, and the offerings at
Babychan pair it with Western flavors and styles. Since opening in the Neuhoff District in August, Babychan has featured a matcha cheesecake and a French gateau pairing white chocolate with matcha. The January menu offers a matcha cream Danish with blueberries and pistachios.
“It’s just a wonderful ingredient to sort of play around with, whether you’re treating it in a very traditional way or just pairing it with nontraditional items,” Horii says.
Horii is the child of Japanese immigrants, which has informed the menus of both Babychan and Kisser, and she says many customers she meets are already big matcha fans.
“I think it’s really cool that it’s something that people are really embracing, because growing up, it wasn’t something that people even knew what that was,” she says.
Michelle and Patrick Javier of Muni Muni Tea Shop also enjoy playing with flavor pairings — the owners’ current favorite is a coconut matcha inspired by coquito, Puerto Rico’s staple Christmastime beverage. Other combinations like taro, mango and of course strawberry are offered year-round at the Church Street shop. The Javiers say via email that the matcha scene in Nashville “has definitely become more diverse” and that “it seems like places have more awareness and intent in their matcha preparation.”
And there’s still plenty more matcha to try in Nashville. In March, Forevermore is bringing back the second annual “Matcha Madness” cafe crawl. Last year’s roster of 23 shops included cafes like Matroyshka, Cafe Babu and Flora + Fauna. They’re already hyping the event on Instagram, and Mary McLeod says this year’s lineup is going to be even bigger. Whether you’re a matcha newbie or hunting for a new favorite, just look for the new green scorecard. ▼
THRU FRIDAY
BY MARY LIZA HARTONG
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.
MY BEST FRIEND Natalie spent the year after college working in a small French town where, a few nights a week, she’d bundle up and walk the cobbled streets to meet a choir of octogenarians whose frequent deaths seriously affected the balance of altos, sopranos, baritones and tenors.
“Well, nice to meet you. Let me know if you need anything!”
With this she scurried, rat-like, back down the stairs, leaving me to unpack my sweaters and stare at the mean, bleak letters of “JANUARY” atop my Horses of 2017 calendar.
Saturday, January 24
FAMILY PROGRAM
Billy the Kid Makes It Big
10:00 am · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 24
SONGWRITER SESSION
Mark Irwin
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 25
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
C. J. Lewandowski
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 31
SONGWRITER SESSION
Carson Beyer
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, February 1
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Bernie Leadon
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, February 7 BOOK TALK
With Craig Shelburne and Brenda Colladay
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
Sunday, February 8
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Linda Davis and the Scott Family
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, February 21
SONGWRITER SESSION
Erin Enderlin
NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 24
POETS AND PROPHETS
Josh Osborne
2:30 pm · FORD THEATER
WITNESS HISTORY
Locals, Pay What You Want
January 1 through 31, 2026, daily pay-what-you-want Museum admission is available for Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties, including Cheatham, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Wilson.
She’d joined the choir to stave off loneliness. If there was a younger, hipper ensemble than the one she’d found at church, she did not care to find out. Simply buttoned up her coat and went. Knowing Natalie, the coat must have been vintage. A perfectly plum peacoat, maybe, or a hearty houndstooth duster. The sort of garment that may or may not have come with tissues in the pockets. I can just hear Natalie now, clip-clopping on the cobblestones as the fog blurred her way to the church, wondering which parishioner would be toast this time.
When we’d talk on the phone, she’d tell me she was the youngest person for miles. Or was it kilometers? There were no candlelit bars or onenight stands for this expat. Nothing but shawls and rain and treble clefs and God. And funerals, I imagine. There must have been an awful lot of funerals.
Meanwhile across the pond, I spent that winter holding on to my first love for dear life. Not tight like a hug, but firm like a fist. The way a child might hold the neck of her favorite plush dog, rubbing it down to its raw cotton jugular. My girlfriend was spending the semester in Italy; I was spending the semester in agony.
“Good morning!!” I’d text her hungrily. “How was your day? What are you up to? Why were you up so late last night??” While she drank spritzes and learned Italian swear words, I moved into a vacant room in the school’s unofficial bohemian wasteland. Once a grand mansion, it had become the pot-scented, haphazardly muralled home of art majors and Kant readers. Not that they weren’t friendly. When I arrived, a girl with prominent nipples in a translucent robe answered the door smiling. She chattered merrily on as I lugged my suitcase up to the attic. “Here is the Wi-Fi password,” she said, “and here is the bathroom, and here is an explanation for the caged rats just outside your door.”
“Don’t worry about those two,” she demurred. The rats had beady eyes and empty food bowls. “Someone’s feeding them for the semester.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s all taken care of.”
The water dispensers were also empty.
“It’s just that they seem … ”
A few years later, when we were grown-ups or at least thought we were, Natalie and I shared long, drawn-out phone calls during our work days. I was stuck at an office job in steamy New Orleans, sweating through my patent leather shoes; she was doing something helpful at a New York nonprofit. We’d start the conversation in the morning and take breaks whenever one of us needed to take a phone call or appear busy.
“Just a second,” she’d say. “My boss wants something.”
“Hang on,” I’d sigh. “Someone’s calling the landline.”
Over the course of the 9-to-5, we’d cover everything from cuticles to sisters to the diamond-encrusted pelican brooch I’d found on the office floor and whether I should feel compelled to return it. If there was anyone who could appreciate the value of a brooch it was Natalie. How big? Are the diamonds real? Send a picture. A few weeks later, a woman who could have been in Natalie’s choir appeared, asking around for her bauble. Ah, well. More to divulge on the next phone call.
Over the years, our topics of conversation continued to evolve like fish moving from water to land, growing legs. She wanted to go back to France and start an artists’ colony in a chateau; I wanted to publish a book. I was engaged and then she was engaged and then she was running errands and then I was having a miscarriage and then she was getting a promotion and then I was pregnant again. Sometimes we talked about God. Or pizza rolls. A few weeks ago, I put Natalie on speaker as I washed a bottle with one hand and carried my baby with the other. She was telling me how her mother used to stalk the Krispy Kreme when she was pregnant, how she’d wait for the neon “HOT” sign to light up above the neon “NOW” sign so she could march in, order a dozen, and eat them right there in her car. I could feel the heat of that story through the phone.
We are warm now. Safe and loved. Grown-ups at last. And yet I still think about that first winter, how siloed Natalie and I were. If only we could have been siloed together, sharing the cobbled walk to choir practice or the attic room next to the rats. I can picture us playing Uno in mittens. Speaking French. Rearranging white-haired altos until the harmony clicked.
In my last letter to her, a few weeks before she came home from France, I wrote, “You spent a year abroad; I spent a year with a broad.” By this point, my girlfriend had broken up with me, and most of Natalie’s choir had met Jesus.
As you can imagine, we had a lot to talk about. ▼
The Features and Glossary, heroes of Middle Tennessee music, reunite to support public and community radio
BY SEAN L. MALONEY
IT STARTED AS just an idea — a conversation between two friends who wondered, “What can we do to help our public radio stations?”
From there it snowballed into a benefit show and a reason to reunite one of Nashville’s most beloved bands. Then another beloved band from back in the day got back together. Then the show sold out, and they added another show. And that show sold out. Then they added another room with free shows featuring close to two dozen bands, artists and DJs over the two nights, plus a silent auction and a raffle. Before anyone knew what was happening, The Features and Glossary were atop a bill for an extravaganza at Eastside Bowl to raise money for community radio station WXNA as well as Nashville Public Radio’s news station WPLN and music discovery station WNXP. The free gigs will be in Eastside’s smaller space The ’58, and the bill runs the gamut from songsmiths like Jasmin Kaset and Jessica Breanne to rock bands like Blank Range and Heinous Orca to rapper N. Justice and beyond.
“I’ve been a public radio listener since the late ’90s and I’ve never contributed,” says Matt Pelham, guitarist and singer for archetypal Nashville indie band The Features. His story is not unusual. Radio is literally in the air, there for the taking. Whether public (read: funding sources include federal money, like Nashville Public Radio) or strictly community (they rely on underwriting and personal or business donations, like WXNA), community-supported radio stations ask for your cash a few times a year. But they don’t cut you off if you don’t have the money to pay for them, and they’ve been a cultural constant for generations — by design, even if that means a lot of people who could donate do not.
But then the Trump administration returned to the White House and started slashing budgets for public media. Like many, Pelham real-
ized that the resource he had taken for granted for so many years was endangered, under attack from the sort of fascist cowards who fear a diverse, informed America. “And when all this went on, it was like, ‘OK, dude, it’s time to pay your dues,’” he says. “Local radio had always been extremely supportive of us.”
Pelham called Michael Eades, proprietor of YK Records. The local label released the self-titled debut of Pelham’s current band Matt and the Watt Gives as well as a recent reissue of The Features’ classic sophomore album Some Kind of Salvation and an official release of their legendary unreleased tapes, The Mahaffey Sessions 1999. Eades’ local-rock roots stretch way back. A Middle Tennessee native, he remembers discovering alternative rock on Thunder 94, the late, lamented sister station to long-running Nashville indie commercial station Lightning 100. He took a more active role in the rock community in the late 1990s, when he became the web guy for Spongebath Records — the label that released the earliest music by The Features and helped establish Murfreesboro as an epicenter for independent music.
“Matt Pelham should get all credit for planting the seed,” Eades says, noting that the singer-guitarist also made his case and rallied the rest of his former bandmates to take the stage for their first show in almost a decade.
The next challenge was finding an opener. A few names were floated, but Eades remembered hearing Bingham Barnes, co-owner of local print shop Grand Palace — who also served as an administrator at MTSU student station WMTS once upon a time — mention on a podcast that members of his band Glossary had been getting together for fun, banging out some tunes and generally having a good time. Glossary evolved through indie-rock and Americana before becoming a no-frills, all-thrills rock outfit that toured the U.S. and beyond.
“Glossary never broke up or anything,” says Glossary singer-guitarist Joey Kneiser, on a call with the Scene that Barnes also dialed into. “It just went on a hiatus that just never stopped because we came back from a European tour and —”
“Had kids,” interjects Barnes.
“Then we had kids, right,” Kneiser continues. “It just was a long [break]. I mean, the last time we played together was the 20th anniversary [show], so almost a decade ago.”
If it feels like you’ve seen a Features-Glossary bill before, you probably have. The bands have been sharing stages for nearly 30 years. Barnes recently uncovered the flyer for what might be the very first team-up between the two: a 1998 vintage photocopy for a show at Sebastian’s, the bar on Murfreesboro’s downtown square that also played host to early shows from heavy hitters like Cat Power, Drive-By Truckers and Disco Biscuits. It was a different epoch in Middle Tennessee media, when file-sharing was fringe and nobody had even pondered the metaphysics of rolling a joint on an MP3.
“Really at that time, the only way you got to hear a lot of that stuff was on college radio,” says Kneiser. “Even if I went down to the record store in my town, which was a Cat’s Records and Tapes, you couldn’t get the Superchunk record, you know what I mean? You could only get the bigger kind of records.”
A part of the impetus for this pair of shows, for both the performers and promoters, is that radio still beams music you won’t find in what are now the typical places, straight into your house, car and workplace. TikTok and Spotify — and whatever new fresh hell of a platform the tech industry is working on to siphon creativity and capital out of the world and into their pockets — don’t care about you, or your neighbors or your community. The tech industry has used music as a lure to trap us in their walled gar-
dens, while they raise money for technologies that try to remove humans from the equation of creativity. Community and public radio encourage connection, fellowship and further exploration.
“Not to get political about it, but [this] is an untouchable place because it’s community-supported,” explains event co-organizer Caroline Bowman-Schneider. She originally signed on to help with graphic design, but then instigated the escalation from a one-room show to a multistage event and formed a business partnership with Eades under the name Good Signal, with the aim of producing more events for good causes. “The messages that come through in the music, knowing it’s completely independent — that’s so important to a community that is actively fighting fascism. … We need to be able to connect to each other in real time.”
In an age when oligarchs and algorithms are colluding to drive family, friends and neighbors further apart, radio’s ability to bring us together is a powerful defense against corporate culture silos. As more venues present less music for higher prices and gentrification drives out smaller, more adventurous and more affordable places to gather, enjoy and perform music, a service that brings you music information free of charge is massively important. It provides opportunities for artists and listeners that a playlist or an algorithm never will.
“The internet and streaming music have really scrambled a lot of people’s brains to think that that’s what you need to focus on as an artist — or as a music listener,” says Eades. “As a music listener, you’re like, ‘Oh, my Spotify or whatever will tell me what to listen to.’ But there is no better discovery mechanism, no better community booster, than tuning into the radio. And that sounds kind of ridiculous, but it’s extremely true.” ▼
Playing 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, at The Basement East
The Pan-Detroit Ensemble has become an exciting new chapter for Don Was
BY BRITTNEY MCKENNA
THE TITLE OF The new LP from Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble is also a call to action: Groove in the Face of Adversity. The celebrated multihyphenate, who’s worked with countless legendary artists since the 1980s, tells the Scene that the new album is an attempt at harnessing music’s power to connect and unite people. That’s something the band also hopes to do when their tour stops at The Basement East on Feb. 4.
“No matter what side of the political spectrum you land on, everyone’s feeling turmoil right now,” Was says on a phone call a few days before heading out on the road. “It’s good to hear some music and go to a concert that reminds you you’re not alone. There are things that transcend politics, and there are other like-minded people who are going through the same thing as you. When you can commune with people like that, it’s like going to church.”
Was’ musical church is rooted deeply in his hometown of Detroit, something he and his fellow Pan-Detroit Ensemble players celebrate across the LP’s half-dozen tracks, which eschew genre and traditional song structure in favor of a loose, almost improvisational vibe that draws from rock, jazz, pop, soul and beyond. Was first assembled the group to perform as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Paradise Jazz Series, a gig he took at the behest of series curator and renowned trumpeter Terence Blanchard. What was meant to be a one-time gig became a deep source of musical connection for all the members. Was says the nonet — which includes himself on bass, drummer Jeff Canady, singer Steffanie Christi’an, guitarist Wayne Gerard, percussionist Mahindi Masai, keyboardist Luis Resto and a horn section consisting of Vincent Chandler, John Douglas and Dave McMurray — has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
“Some of these guys have played with us for 45 years, in fact, but we never all played together,” he says. “And when we got in the room for the first rehearsal, after about 10 minutes,
it was clear that it felt like we’d been playing together for decades. I realized then this is more than just a one-off.”
In addition to material from the new LP, the band will also perform the landmark Grateful Dead album Blues for Allah in its entirety, marking its 50th anniversary. The music is more than familiar for Was, who began playing alongside Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir as part of Weir’s Wolf Bros. project in 2018. Our interview with Was happened a few days prior to the unexpected announcement Jan. 10 that Weir had died.
“When I started touring with Bob, that’s when I became super aware of [a higher] level of communication between the band onstage and the audience,” he says. “In any kind of Dead-adjacent show, the audience becomes part of the band. … You build this collective ecstasy with the audience and among the members of the band. When you get that thing cycling, I don’t know a more exhilarating feeling.”
With a mile-long résumé that boasts collaborations with names like Bonnie Raitt, Elton John and The Rolling Stones, Was could easily collect his checks and rest on his laurels. Instead he’s found that the more he collaborates with other artists, the more he feels like himself.
“Around 1990 I got on a roll, and in short order I got to work with a lot of my heroes,” he recalls. “Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson — arguably the greatest writers. It was a thrill, but it gave me writer’s block for about five years. ... One day I was in the studio with Willie, lamenting the fact that I could never be Willie Nelson. And then the converse hit me: ‘Yes, but Willie Nelson could never be you.’”
That moment gave Was the freedom to be himself and to make music that draws upon his own lived experiences, like growing up in Motor City in the ’50s and ’60s, dropping acid before catching the MC5 and The Stooges at Detroit’s legendary Grande Ballroom. It’s also what keeps him going decades into a career that’s still unfolding.
“That’s the thing in the music business. Sometimes we think that being different is a marketing nightmare. But in fact, the thing that makes you different from everybody else is your superpower.” ▼
Chinese auteur Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a sprawling, ambitious love letter to cinema
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
IN ONE OF his 2025 New York Film Festival dispatches, Scene senior film critic Jason Shawhan summed up Bi Gan’s Resurrection this way: “If Christopher Nolan, Guy Maddin and Wong Karwai got in an absinthe fight with detectives and robots in a wax cathedral.” Trust me when I say those auteurs aren’t the only ones the Chinese filmmaker aesthetically samples for this damnnear-three-hour art ride.
I get the feeling the Long Day’s Journey Into Night director saw Leos Carax’s acclaimed meta-movie Holy Motors and went into hold-myTsingtao mode. Just like when Carax put French actor Denis Lavant in a limo and sent him on a genre-bouncing journey assuming various roles (lead that accordion march!), Bi puts his leading man — in this case, actor/pop star Jackson Yee — through a surreal but captivating wringer.
Set in a future in which humanity has literally let go of their dreams in favor of longevity, Resurrection features Yee as a “deliriant” who can still come up with some visually mind-blowing fantasies. A hunter (Taiwanese director Hou Hsiaohsien’s frequent collaborator Shu Qi) known as an “other one” tracks him down Inception-style and gives him a slow but peaceful death by installing a film projector inside him and having him jump from one highly cinematic, production-designed-to-hell dream sequence after another.
We follow our dreamer through six segments — representing the six senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and mind) recognized in Buddhist thought — and each one is a cinematic stew of influences and inspirations. The opening is a mashup of Guy Maddin, Buster Keaton and the Chinese silent films of the ’20s and ’30s. We then leap to the film’s most sci-fi sequence, a Blade Runner/Alphaville/Dark City pileup in which you can also spot Barry Lyndon’s natural, candlelit cinematography in one scene, along with the suspenseful, mirror-filled climax from The Lady From Shanghai (and Enter the Dragon).
Although he gives props to Western films and
Resurrection NR, 160 minutes; in Chinese with English subtitles Opening Friday, Jan. 23, at the Belcourt
auteurs, Bi (who also co-wrote the script) also shows love to his fellow Asian visionaries. One segment — in which Yee is an art thief stranded at a snowy Buddhist temple who summons a chain-smoking spirit — looks like a Cast Away/ Never Cry Wolf hybrid helmed by that Hong Kong wackadoo Stephen Chow. Another segment, with Yee as a con man who takes an orphan girl under his wing, is basically Paper Moon if a Taiwanese New Wave director like Hou or Edward Yang got their hands on it. If you know Bi’s work, you know he has to end this thing with a crazy, one-take sequence. This time around, it’s a lurid-but-sprawling vampire love story that plays like Breathless if it were done by Nicolas Winding Refn.
This film is Bi’s salute to his fellow cinematic dream-weavers, done as ambitiously and audaciously as possible — a big-screen bouillabaisse that’ll certainly make cinephiles giddy. (Novices who just like watching intriguing films will get a kick out of it too.) Like most of today’s auteurs, Bi is a proud devotee to the Church of Cinema. A good movie can give a viewer ideas, dreams, even hope. By presenting a dystopian future where creativity has been zapped from people, and those who can still dream are seen as inhuman outcasts, Bi gives us a beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy in which imagination — or anything that motivates it, like cinema — is a dangerous thing to have.
Resurrection is the recent winner of the Music City Film Critics’ Association’s Jim Ridley Award, created in honor of the Scene’s late, great editor-in-chief and film critic — and Ridley would’ve loved this movie. Since we’re living in a time when movies are becoming seen as streaming content for doomscrolling homebodies rather than works of visual art best experienced on a silver-screen canvas, Resurrection is another eerily prescient, dystopian vision. It’s also a wondrous reminder to go see some gotdamn movies before President Orange Fanta and his administration outlaw those too! ▼
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Coming right up 50 Eel, at a sushi bar
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