Many thanks to YouTube user tinycorkscrew, who just made my fucking day by uploading a bunch of footage of Fugazi playing at 328 Performance Hall way back in 1993, the year In on the Kill Taker came out (and also the year of The Velvet Divorce -- not a band, surprisingly).
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Winning captions go here.
Oh yes, it's caption contest time once again, and we've got two pairs of tickets to see Woods, Real Estate and And the Relatives Monday night at The End. (Read Andrew Clayman's feature on Real Estate here.) The usual rules apply: Make a funny caption. Include your email address in the proper field so we can let you know you won. Check your email. Contest ends Friday (that's tomorrow) at 5 p.m., so get on it!
Fans of listening to hard-to-find Southern power-pop on the Internet: Rejoice, for someone has uploaded three songs off Powerbill, the 1993 album by The Semantics, to YouTube! "Don't Say Goodbye" (above) is about as perfect a piece of pop melancholy you're going to hear -- the chorus is so, so good. (Side note: Read Michael Chabon's essay on Big Star in the latest McSweeney's. If I had my copy with me I would quote it at length.)
This week, both Adam Goldy-Poo and D. Patsy Rodgers are headed to Austin's annual taco-tastic, beer-laden "music" festival, SXSW. They are dudes in bands, dudes who've seen tons of shows, dudes who've played tons of shows, and dudes who've covered tons of shows. But they've never covered SXSW. And now they're about to embark on a journey of sizzling hipster throngs and unrivaled musician spottings and tons of swag and all the temptations and headaches involved in bringing together that many people who all think they have a nuanced view on Vampire Weekend. Let's help them with tips, shall we?
Image via Wired.
I WILL SHOOT YOUR SENIOR PICTURES 4 XTRA CHEAP. BARTER MAYBE? I NEED LOTS OF THINGS: CLOTHES,TOILETRIES ETC. CONTACT TIMHARRINGTON@YAHOO.COM.
UPDATE: We have our winner. Thanks for playing, everyone!
We all know everyone loves a good caption contest, and the prize in this case is bigger than usual, if you know what I mean. Well, actually, what I mean is it's bigger than usual. Mercy Lounge is throwing down not one, not two, but FIVE tickets -- seven if you count the fact that one of them is a three-day pass -- to upcoming shows at the Lounge. (That's over $60 worth.) Those shows are:
* Yacht Rock Revue & Space Capone (Mar. 19)
* Hockey w/Solid Gold & The Postelles (Mar. 23)
* Who's Bad: The Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute (Apr. 9)
* Roman Candle (Mar. 27)
* Naked Without Us three-day pass (Apr. 22-24)
But that's not all, pretties!
Logo by Mike Clausius
As you'll hear -- or I'm guessing you'll hear, since I haven't heard it yet -- this week's episode is live. It's live! That means we're all going to listen in together as it goes down. Straight from Nasty, Tenne-sizzy.
So yesterday I noticed you all slapping on your caption caps in an effort to win tickets to see Tobacco -- the side/solo project from the Black Moth Super Rainbow frontman. Basically, this got me thinking: Hasn't Nashville been a little shy on its own side projects lately? I mean, sure, solo/side projects started by members of relatively more successful bands are basically like reality TV shows: gloriously self-indulgent, rarely at all original or astounding, and always in excess of the actual demand. But this seems right up Nashville's alley, does it not? What happened to our Dixie Whiskeys and Hail to the Keiths? Has Jack White monopolized the side project scene?
So. Here's something I do from time to time: I take a flimsy premise like the one I just presented, and then I make a bunch of shit up about it. Like, right now I'm going to make up a bunch of side projects by local music players who don't (to my knowledge) have side projects and say that I'm doing so in hopes that they'll take my suggestions, but really, I just drank too much coffee and need to type it off. So here goes:
In this week's City Limits section of the dead-tree issue -- City Limits is our catch-all front-of-book section that regularly features all sorts of local news items -- you'll find that I've written a feature on Love Don't Let Me Down. Lots of people have been inquiring about the film crews and Paltrow sightings and faux concerts going on in Music City over the past three months. Well, LDLMD is what that's all about.
Photo by Neal Casal
I was fortunate enough to get to speak with costar Garrett Hedlund -- you might recognize him as the star from the Tron Legacy trailer -- as well as director Shana Feste and music supervisor Randall Poster. Poster, by the way, has done music supervision for Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Harmony Korine, Sam Mendes and tons more. Scores of locals were tapped to assist in Love Don't Let Me Down's production, a handful of whom were cast as Hedlund and Paltrow's backing bands. From Jim Lauderdale and Bucky Baxter on down to Chris Scruggs and Loney Hutchins, some dudes you might recognize from The 5 Spot, Station Inn or Mercy Lounge had to go and get themselves SAG cards. Have a look at the story online or in print to see on-set photos graciously provided by Ryan Adams sideman Neal Casal, who also "performs" in Paltrow's onscreen backing band
We recently received an email explaining that theatrical jam-cat ensemble -- and self-appointed weird-redefiners -- H-Beam will be hosting a party they're calling "Mustache Friday" on March 26 at The Rutledge. Tickets are $7, or $5 for fellas sporting a lip-wig. No information in the email on whether or not ladies can be cleared for $5 entry by wearing falsies. When reached for comment, Michael Eades -- local facial hair expert and founder of both Whiskerino and Moustache May -- refused to fan the flames of 'stache rivalry, implying only that he encourages whisker fandom in all its forms.
This is what H-Beam looks like.
Eades did, however, say he'd like to see an increase in the support of lesser-known forms of facial hair. After all, every hipster and his uncle are sporting "The Brooklyn" nowadays. Where's the love for the weird, ill-conceived, oft-hideous forms of facial hair you most typically see on dudes bathing in the sink at the local library? See a list of the stragglers and strugglers after the jump, and please, if you'd like to start an event in order to grow awareness and support the cause of ugly facial hair, contact me. I'm down. Now, on with the pictures of weird-looking dudes!
Family picture time at Mount Richmore, August 2018.
Sadly, this was the only recent photo of "Tik" and "Hub." The Amber Alert was unsuccessful.
Black Moth Super Rainbow frontman Tobacco is playing a solo show Sunday, Mar. 14, at Exit/In with Blastoids, Reid and Wright & The Broderick -- not that all you hip-hop-imbued stoner-electro-rock fans didn't already know that. Our fine young intern, Madison Conger, weighed in on Tobacco a bit right over here.
We've been granted the privilege of hosting a caption contest for Sunday's show. For the uninitiated, allow me to explain: Say some funny shit regarding the above image. We're giving away two pairs of tickets to the two most entertaining captions. (Side note: Yes, this picture has been making the rounds on the ole Tubes for a while, but a classic's a classic.) Please include your email address so we can reach our winners. Your address will not be published. We'll pick our two favorites on Friday at 3 p.m. That leaves you nearly 48 hours to crack wise. Godspeed!
Update: We have our winners. Thanks for playing!
Meet the new model musicians: Local rockers Heartbeater -- you remember them from the recent Meltface Rock the Block, among other shows -- have set up a project page on the microfinance site Kickstarter with the goal of raising enough cash to record their debut full-length album Slow Waves. They even made an INXS-style video (hello, Charlotte Pike!) to get you excited. The way Kickstarter works is that you pledge X amount of money to help the project happen. If the project reaches its goal, you pay what you pledged and everybody wins. If the project doesn't reach its goal, you don't pay anything. Most of these projects have different pledge levels -- for the Heartbeater album, for instance, $5 gets you a digital download, $20 gets you a download plus vinyl plus guest list at a show, and so on, with more stuff at each level, including the coup de grace for a lucky $500 pledger: "Jon Shoemaker, bassist for Heartbeater, will cut his mullet." Go pledge!
Pledge drive!
This pledge-to-album method worked for Madi Diaz (though she's been in the movies and stuff, so that's kind of a head start). She reached her goal -- but for $20,000 you could still name her new record whatever you want.
(HT: WOTT.)
Anyone torn into the new Tammy Wynette bio, Jimmy McDonough's Tragic Country Queen? "If you drained Dolly Parton of her swift wit and Loretta Lynn of her winning pluck, you'd get Tammy Wynette, a fairly plain, small-minded gal whose searing ambition and begrudging temperament kept her from any lasting contentment," writes New York Times reviewer Allison Glock in a review that ran yesterday. 
It's one hell of a review, not to mention one hell of an indictment of a country legend, but Wynette's contradictions and fictions are the stuff of legend themselves.
The most famous question in popular music is, "What about the voice of Geddy Lee?" But second, and only slightly less well-known is, of course, "What's up with Phil Collins' head on all his album covers?" But seriously! Gold and I had a lengthy and hilarious conversation on this very topic back when the "Rock and Roll" Hall of Fame announced they were inducting Genesis into the sorta-sacred-but-mostly-profane pantheon. 
(Floating) in the air tonight.
Lucky for us all, local popster(s?) Shaky Voices -- composed of theme-meister Patrick Baker and, uh, "Orko" -- have recorded a song tackling this important, important historical topic, and allowed us all to listen to it for free on the Internet!
Logo by Mike Clausius
Coming to you from the top of the Music City Tower in Nashville, Tennessee, it's The Chris Crofton Show, Episode 15. Hey Greg: Hit me with some science! I haven't had a chance to listen to this one all the way through yet; I was busy picking out the surface for my tennis court.
Update: After discovering that the first version of the MP3 cut off a bit prematurely, Lake Fever's Joe Baine Colvert re-uploaded the file. You can now hear the show in its entirety at the link below.
Ken Layne at True/Slant answers the question we've all wondered: "At concerts, why do bands play a bunch of bullshit instead of the four songs you want to hear them play?"
He also tackles the fate of penis-in-vagina sex!
Fans of rock 'n' roll music and putting awesome things in small places, rejoice -- Swearing at Motorists are coming to town, and they're playing a show that will only hold 40 people! On Saturday, Mar. 20, the Ohio duo* will play Brandes and Dean's studio/rehearsal space in East Nashville, along with The Carter Administration and Chris Crofton in some capacity. If you've never caught a Swearing at Motorists show**, I will tell your right now: It's intense. There's jumping that happens. And big songs. And kicking. You should go.
Via This man wants to rock you in a small place.
Tickets are $15 and you get them here. Now, $15 might sound like a lot for a house show, but not only will there be a keg for you to drink of, everyone in attendance will get a recording of the show. Nice, right?
One more collective push and the four of you are proud fathers of darkness!
Infinite Chest.OK.
UPDATE: Congrats to our winners and thanks everyone for playing!
Awwwww shit! Y'all know nothin' gets the Cream party goin' like mutha-truckin' caption contest. Shit's infectious. Doubly infectious is the pensive neo-folk of Devendra Banhart coattail riders, Vetiver -- who play Friday night at Exit/In with Caitlin Rose and Scout Niblett. Well ... maybe infectious isn't the right way to describe that stuff, but whatever. If you're tired of listening to this kind of shit while doing your homework or cleaning your room, and want to absorb its preciousness in a live setting, but already spent the last of your disposable income on tickets to the upcoming Joanna Newsom show, then say something funny about the above image in the comments.
We'll give away a pair of tickets to two lucky winners. If you wanna prove once and for all that, contrary to popular opinion, freak-folk fans do indeed have a sense of humor, then put down your mustache comb, stop moping and put forth some effort this time. Contest ends Thursday at 3 p.m. Also, we have a problem with dumbasses forgetting to include their -- not to be published -- email addresses in their submissions. Don't be a dumbass.
You know what goes great with Those Darlins' vivacious, Grand Ole Opry-informed brand of country-punk? Esoteric, big-picture musings on how the long-running stigma/general social perception of Southerners and Southern culture fits into the modern zeitgeist. That's what. I always wanted to know what "moonshiner ghosts and Gullah aunties of dreamland" had to do with the Darlins' "The Whole Damn Thing." Flagpole Magazine's intriguingly monikered Coy King maps it out for us in his feature, "Rabbit Foot Punks":
These young ladies are informed by "Gullah aunties of dreamland that come knocking on the midnight door."
In the map we've carried since birth, Southern people relate thusly: North is up, West is out, East is back, and South, South is deep. Call it whatever myriad kudzu bloodlines running through it may suggest, call all it those bad cousin nick names and vine-thick coastlines, moss-hewn 'hollers side-smoked in winter wind, go on indefinitely naming, because no matter what, it is a nomenclature drenched in depth. It would require an immortal to comprehend every archetype clenched wordlessly in the root of the Southern psyche ... History and Samuel Clemens showed little quarter for later Southerners to abide by, aside from humor: our own, against ourselves. Who would despise it in hostile hands? Which we have, a lot. If you are going to do the Southern thing, you'd better hire professionals. You'd better hire Those Darlins.
King goes on to describe (mostly accurately, I think) how the Darlins "take the piss out of sentimental paeans on rural isolation that mark radio country."
Logo by Mike Clausius
Coming at your face-plate at 159 miles per hour, it's Episode 14 of The Chris Crofton Show! As you can plainly see, they've got another logo. They have a few more in their pocket, so stay tuned for those. Crofton himself seems to think this is one of the best shows yet. I'm inclined to agree. Oh yeah, and "Swap and Shop" guy is back. Enjoy.
So you know about big John Rich and his big ugly house that says "Mt. Richmore" on it that people hate. Yesterday some people on the Twitters decided to head on down to Love Circle and show Mr. Rich a thing or two. Or maybe just a thing: They shined flashlights at his house in order to make a point about how having bright lights shining at your house is annoying. (John Rich has bright lights shining away from his house, hence the outrage.) 
Chris Wage
Before these mighty empowered freedom flashers deployed for Love Circle, they were warned by a sympathetic but concerned friend: "I have six words for you, my beloved tweeps--'Volatile new dad who's likely armed.' " Would chaos reign?
Have you been sitting on a gem of an idea for a weekly rock 'n' roll-themed party-time event? Just couldn't find the proper venue? Here's your chance to be Nashville's Steve Rubell: The 5 Spot's Todd Sherwood is looking to fill the gap between Monday night's ever-popular dance-party meat markets and Wednesday night's more sophisticated Old Time Jam. Says Mr. Sherwood:
Any ideas for a regular Tuesday night event for the 5 Spot? Seriously people. "Open Mic Gong Show" isn't going to work. "Bring your Kids to the Smokey Bar Night" is another bad idea. "Homeless Idol" was voted down a while back. I need a realistic regular Tuesday thing.
Um, why won't the Gong Show thing work?? That would be the perfect place to try out my nude cat-juggling routine. Alright, how about Snake & Shake Night? It's a dance-off in which dozens of live cobras are released in the bar. Totally Snake could be the house band. True, Homeless Idol might be a touch tasteless, but why not Hipster Idol? If you told a bunch of East Siders that the person with the highest votes in a talent competition would get his or her tab cleared, you know you'd end up seeing some hilarious shit. "I can totally put my legs behind my head while reciting every lyric from Trapped in the Closet chapters 1-13." Anyhow, if you've got a gem-jam of an idea for a recurring Tuesday night event, please share it in the comments.
Do you know why vinyl records will always rule so much harder than digital files? Of course you do. It's the smell! But did you know that the stylus on a record player travels a quarter-mile over the course of one side of an LP? Because that's pretty awesome to think about, too. The video above depicts "Quarter Mile Groove" by Daniel Eatock, an art project that puts the analog in, uh, analog.
The recording translates the length of its vinyl groove into audio allowing listeners to experience the 1/4 mile length of the spiral as the record is played. Every inch of the needle's path is audible in the form of a click, each foot as a beat and distances of 10 feet are heard as a blip. These sounds gradually slow as the stylus approaches the center, (the stylus travels less distance in the groove with each revolution of the record). Along the way, the voice of the narrator mentions the horizontal dimensions of particular objects.
This one comes via Today and Tomorrow -- be sure to check out the photo of the cut-out vinyl strand.
Check out these jokers who recently appeared on Judge Judy, possibly the best Judge Judy ever. (Everyone's a card-carrying devotee of Judge Judy Sheindlin's abrasive, tough-talking, take-no-crap, fine-tuned bullshit detector method of running a courtroom, right? Right.)
Whew! Musicians, you guys. Or rather: Whew! Hipsters, you guys. But really, when you combine musicians and hipsters: Look out. Shit can get pretty crucial. Don't you love it when they go out into the real world and have to, like, talk about their lives like it's normal to, like, not have jobs and get fucked up all the time and not remember what day it is and shit? Fun features: a painfully obvious lack of an on-the-grid existence; lack of the kind of self-awareness that says, Stop fidgeting around like a junkie; the fact that Totally Metal dude doesn't seem to realize admitting he was "pretty wasted" makes him a fairly unreliable narrator in the courtroom; the mention of the existence of a friend named Turtle; that the deceased cat at issue here was named Trips; that the accused cat killer is apparently in a band called Kitty Porn; that nobody thought they needed to even brush their hair. Punk-rock hipster witness, friend of metal dude, is the best though, BTW.
Round one of the Road to Bonnaroo series is upon us, and tonight the first of four bands will punch their ticket to Manchester, so to speak. Consider the hammer thrown down! Gauntlets, too, probably! As they tell us on the Mercy Lounge website: "To select each evening's top contender, an industry panel comprising local music journalists, bloggers, and 8 off 8th hosts will contribute one half of the verdict, while fan-voting through onsite ballots will determine the other half." (There's also other info on the ballots and such, so U.N. election monitors, please familiarize yourself.) Tonight's competitors:
Kyle Andrews
Born Empty
Mona
Moon Taxi
The Non-Commissioned Officers
Parachute Musical
Ponderosa
The Privates
The Cream will be there judging on the following criteria, as per the contest rules: "song quality, instrumentation, stage energy, and crowd response, as well as any additional production from the artists, such as costuming, additional visual production, marching bands, Mega Man masks, etc." Good luck, bands!
Hey, I wrote this Critic's Pick for the Laura Veirs show at The Basement Sunday night. It goes like this:
On her latest, July Flame, Laura Veirs -- obligatory mention as Decemberists collaborator: check -- shows her continued facility with setting a folk songwriter's sense of melody against compositions awash with odd guitar figures, offbeat arrangements and all manner of instruments, from pedal steel to horns and distorted synths. For all their unconventional structures, though, Veirs' songs still maintain a central gravity that's abetted rather than hindered by her unusual, sometimes oblique lyrics. Snakes appear in people's collars, fields of stone turn to magma, and all the time Veirs sings in a calm, evocative voice that lends her brand of magic realism its understated urgency. And how can you not love someone who writes a song about legendary session bassist Carol Kaye? You can't, that's how.
Carol Kaye! You know she played bass on Pet Sounds, right? And allegedly has 10,000 recordings to her name? In a case of coincidence, Jessica Hopper (music consultant at This American Life, author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking) just wrote an excellent piece on Kaye for L.A. Weekly, and also just interviewed Veirs, and talked about touring while pregnant. Anyway, this isn't really a post about Carol Kaye. Go to The Basement Sunday night and see Laura Veirs. She's one of the good ones.
Lucky number 13. Hard to believe Crofton & Co. have already produced a baker's dozen, but here we are. This episode features a Cumberland River boat ride, a strange call that produces the first "Swap and Shop" segment, the glorious return (and subsequent freak-out) of Newt, another chat with Mama Crofton and a current-events convo with, well, me. Apparently, if the Cream is the Entertainment Tonight of Nashville rock, I'm the Billy Bush. FML. Anyhow, no "Race Corner" this week, so feel free to pump it at full volume for your bald, red-faced, angry coworkers to enjoy.
Logo by Mike Clausius
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. In terms of design aesthetic on the World Wide Web, it was definitely the worst of times. For anyone who's ever had a "home page" with a counter, a web ring, an animated .gif for wallpaper or a tilde in the URL, My So-Called Band have a treat for you. They've put their html where their flannel is and put their official page on Angelfire. (Geocities = sadface.) Fire up the Netscape Navigator and surf on over to mysocalledband.angelfire.com!
You're visitor number 00000012 !
Behold the centered everything (with no defined width), the giant photos, the Fresh Prince! Behold the web-safe color palette! Behold The Cranberries MIDI file on auto-play! Oh shit! It's not as egregiously '90s-core as the Sub Pop Cybersex digital promo page, but it captures the design zeitgeist of the era pretty convincingly. Kinda like their band does, see? Speaking of, they're playing Feb. 26 at Mercy Lounge. Feel free to say, "Whatever." I wonder what kind of shenanigans Blossom and Six are gonna get into tonight!
"I got this, Dickheads. I drank a Red Bull."
They ain't got shit on Heypenney.
Do you know what boosts the collective morale of Cream readers more than a caption contest? Nothing. This week we have not one, but two pairs of tickets to give away to see indie-rawk faves du-jour Surfer Blood at The End on Saturday night. Also appearing on that bill are Turbo Fruits, Cy and Holiday Shores. If you wanna hit up that shindig for free then engage your right brain and come up with the funniest caption you can for the above image. This contest ends Friday at 3 p.m. Remember, don't be a dumbshit and forget to include your email address; it won't be published but we'll need it to furnish you with your winnings. In the event that you don't have what it takes to prevail in this contest, you can still catch Surfer Blood for free when they do the in-store thang over at Grimey's Saturday at 5 p.m.
UPDATE: Thanks for playing, everyone. We have our winners.
That's it! The gauntlet is being thrown down! Well, I guess it's a hammer in this instance, but the point is that competition is fierce. The first installation in the second annual Road to Bonnaroo series is nearly upon us -- as evidenced by this concise and informative Critic's Pick -- and certain bands have already begun to stir the pot, or drum up some competish, if you will.
Ever the self-promoters, Moon Taxi have created a Facebook event page to encourage their fans to show up and vote on Feb. 22. With 202 confirmed guests (though we all know some folks get a little click-happy with attendance confirmations) and the benefit of being shoeless-jam-fan-friendly, they might just have the competitive edge. Color-coded piano-popsters Parachute Musical also have an event page (91 confirmed guests), as do proggy pop-rock troupe Born Empty (87 fans ... and they sound like Coheed and Cambria). Mona, Ponderosa, Kyle Andrews and Cream favorites The Privates are also competing. But here's where the hammer truly drops: The Non-Commissioned Officers have recorded a very special and supremely sexy promotional tune to get your ass out to the show, and it features the pitch-perfect squealing and inexplicably Barry White-esque rumblings of Eric Lehning. Listen below. And note to competing RtB bands: Send us your propaganda (cream [at] nashvillescene [dot] com). Let's make this shit a real competition!
The Non-Commissioned Officers - "Throw the Hammer Down" [MP3]
My coworkers will vouch for me when I say I got REALLY UPSET the other week when I found out that pansy liberal blog "The Awl" has a theme song -- written and performed by Ryan Adams, no less! In a fury, I typed an email with many misspellings that asked, "WHY DON'T WE HAVE A AWESOME THEME SONG?!" and many other things not displayable here. Then I found out that Selleck Waterfall Sandwich has a theme song, too. It was, like, if Hitler was in his bunker and got so mad when somebody pointed at a map (showing all the blogs that have theme songs) that he told almost everyone to get the fuck out of the room and started yelling and shaking while people stood outside looking worried. Yeah, it was like that. 
Via
So you know what? It's time Cream had a theme. Write one and record it! Send us a link (not an attachment in email, please)! First prize is you wrote the Cream theme! Second prize is a set of steak knives, etc. Go!
Virago
Nashville, TN 
Beyond the Edge
Nashville, TN 
Fido
Nashville, TN 
Rotier's
Nashville, TN 
Mambu
Nashville, TN 
Provence Breads & Café
Nashville, TN 
