Nashville Music Blog

Here's an example.

​Drunken brawlers, fear not: Memphis country-punks Lucero's two-night stand at Mercy Lounge, which begins tonight, is still on. The band had to cancel a string of dates this week after drummer Roy Berry suffered a broken jaw in what has been reported elsewhere as a mugging. However, sources close to the band say, in fact, what really happened is that Berry was jumped by a gaggle of fratty meat-heads.

The incident occurred last week after in a show in Augusta, Ga. Shows in Jackson, Miss., Hunstville, Ala. and Chattanooga were all subsequently nixed, and the band make their return to the stage tonight in Nashville. No word yet on how Berry's broken jaw -- which is currently wired shut -- will affect the band's performance or music overall, but if history is any kind of indicator, then you can expect it to sound more like this.

​Sooooo, allegedly Middle Tennessee State University has one of the best music business programs in the country, and that program is one of the biggest on campus. So why can't my alma mater promote a show to save its goddamn life? Again, MTSU is supposed to be knowledgeable about how these things work, yet so far the only promotion I've seen for legendary Wu-Tang Clan member GZA's show on Mar. 31 is a fucking Facebook event page! I know that "the kids" are really into "the Facebook," but if you are going to promote a show, it's a good idea to let the press know it's happening through less ephemeral means -- like maybe an email perhaps? What the hell are they teaching these kids these days?

​Steve Haruch contributed to this story:

Beloved local character, Springwater staple and internationally known outsider crooner Dave Cloud has been arrested and charged with stalking. A hearing on the case is scheduled for April 1. When reached for comment, Cloud said that he expects to be fully exonerated and hopes people will suspend judgment until his court date.

"I'm innocent," Cloud said. "I'm not kidding."

Affidavits after the jump.

Hey, White Stripes fans, you've got one week to stream that live White Stripes album that some people are referring to, oddly enough, as the "first ever White Stripes live album," like it's some kind of amazing accomplishment for The White Stripes to release a live White Stripes album.

Of course, if you're a fan fan you might possibly have already sprung for the exhaustively big Under Great White Northern Lights box set, in which case perhaps I should have prefaced this with, "Hey, somewhat curious knowers of the existence of The White Stripes ..." When I saw the Stripes at an armpit-scented, way-over-capacity Crocodile Cafe (the old one), I certainly thought they were headed for big things, but then again I also thought Meg White would be doing Revlon commercials and showing up at red carpets atop a white tiger by now. That night in Seattle also marked the first in many discussions I've had about whether Meg White is a good drummer or a terrible drummer. I happen to think she's the former -- not that she'd blow anyone away on the Drumometer or anything, but her drumming is effective in the context of her band.

Anyway, go listen to the first ever NPR stream of the new White Stripes album at NPR. Track listing after the jump.

​On a whim, I decided to see what I blogged on March 5 of last year, thinking it would probably be hilariously clever and insightful. Or that it would at least remind me what I was doing last year around this time. Or that it would at least be good for five solid comments on a Friday (we get paid by the comment now -- just so you guys know). Turns out, it was just a post about the fact that How I Became the Bomb were about to play Mercy Lounge for the EP release of Vol. III: They Can What It Seems They Cannot, and the venue had just released 50 more tickets at only $1 a pop. Slow news day? Think again. It got 13 whole comments about how stupid everything is and how overrated the band is. Friday!

Already received: a letter from a reader stating, "Thank you for the lovely photo of the whore on your front cover."

​For our second annual People Issue, we rounded up a new slew of folks, among them many music types, who inhabit our fair city. We got their stories, and they're good'uns. Gold talked to Chris Scruggs -- and is possibly the first person to report on Scruggs' only recent first-time meeting with his grandfather Earl. He also picked the powerful brain of local rock lawyer Kent Marcus, a must-read for anyone still lookin' for a record deal.

Maloney wrote about trash-pop star Ke$ha, who just got too ridiculously famous to do a 5-minute phoner or even answer questions via email, and illuminated the talents of Billy Goats DJ Sarah Chrosniak, aka DJ Eticut. Patrick took on the bloggers/obscurists at Nashville's Dead, and I give you mega-rock producer Nick Raskulinecz, now a Nashville resident. (Any Superdrag fans will know him as the dude who did the Fabulous 8-Track Sound of Superdrag and Stereo 360 Sound as well as In the Valley of the Dying Stars*. He talks about his decision not to record/produce Last Call for Vitriol.)

If none of that's enough to intrigue you, the pictures (outtakes here) taken by our staff photog and all-around badass Eric England are killa-cool.

*Sentence corrected.

​You know what helps you get on the good foot? Shoes. How about some handmade TOMS shoes with gnarly blue lions on them, which have been autographed by The Features? Well, there's an auction going on right now for just that pair of shoes, and it's sitting at $61 as I put these fingers to keyboard.

If you're not familiar with TOMS, they're shoes that you buy, and when you buy them, a pair is also given to a child who might not be able to have shoes otherwise. So it's a two-for-one, and you're a good person for doing it. Sure, some U.K. reviewer just referred to The Features as "Kings of Leon for dads, if you like," but you know what dads do? They give shoes to kids who need them. And what impoverished child wouldn't want a pair of shoes signed by KOL's fave rock group?

[Via]

On the move.

​The City Paper reports this morning that Rocketown finalized its purchase -- for a reported $3.2 million -- of the Grooms Engine Building over at 4th Ave. S and Lea Ave. In other words, the new spot is an easy walk to and from Hot Diggity Dogs! I don't know about you, but skateboarding makes me hungry for Vienna beef, sport peppers and celery salt. (So do blogging and being awake.) Emo bands have a different effect on my digestive system that we won't talk about right now, but whatever. Word is the current Rocketown location will close in June, and the new one will open in July, meaning that Satanic bands will be without a Christian venue to play for anywhere from a few days to several weeks. In the meantime, congrats to Rocketown for landing new digs, and congrats to Korean Veterans Boulevard for getting longer!

​Sure, Fall In Cave, Ill., may seem far away. But is it far enough? As SouthComm's resident bow-tie-wearing emo apologist J.R. Lind pointed out today, the Tennessean's Gangs of Tennessee website lists Juggalos alongside Crips, Bloods, Crazy White Boys (who are surprisingly diverse!) and Gangster Disciples as Bad People of Interest. Reportedly active in Anderson, Bradley, Cumberland, Knox, Weakley and Williamson counties, the Tennessee Juggalos are described, under "known crimes," to have commited "[h]omicides, aggravated assault, weapons violations, vandalism, graffiti."

Juggalo homicides? Is our home state of Tennessee becoming a seething wasteland of Juggalo violence?

1990 was the year of "Nothing Compares 2 U," "Vogue," "U Can't Touch This" and "Ice Ice Baby." They Might Be Giants released Flood. The Reds beat the A's in the Series. REO Speedwagon released The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken. Wilson Phillips existed. In Nashville, the mayor was a Boner and it was the year "hip adult" radio came to town -- Lightning 100 (or "Radio Lightning" as it was called then) first took to the local airwaves twenty years ago this month, supplanting Lite 100, which had supplanted the short-lived Rebel 100.

From back when Mt. Richmore was just a glimmer in John Rich's loins.

​Have you ever wondered what John Rich sounded like before the fame, before the bottle chuckin', before the flashers and all that? Me neither! But I suspect you've at least wondered a little bit what he was like in high school, and if a cassette containing a song he recorded as a young lad were to turn up on eBay, you'd probably be somewhat mildly curious, like a 900 on a scale of one to a million. According to the auction details, this tape contains "the only known copy of his song, 'Back to You,' recorded around 1992."

After the jump, an email I got from the feller who put this little piece of analog history up for auction!

​According to a Facebook message I received (and verified via MySpace) from another Nashville musician, local singer-songwriter Tyler James has been tapped to join ever-growing indie-rock ensemble Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. James will assume duties as a touring keyboardist for a jaunt that will take him from festivals such as Bonnaroo and Coachella, to destinations as far reaching as Australia.

James does his regular Nashville thing on Mar. 5, when he returns to town to celebrate the release of his debut LP It Took the Fire, with a show at 12th & Porter.

Promo photo taken at 12th & Porter. Via.

Sad news to report today, as we have learned that Chip Chilton, singer and guitarist for the '80s Nashville power-pop band Chip and the Chiltons, passed away last Friday, Feb. 19. Our thoughts go out to family and friends. The Chip and the Chiltons Facebook page has been converted to an online memorial, and there you can also find a link to download the band's cassette Where's My Cat. We are told there will probably be a memorial service of some sort, though we don't have any details at the moment.

​I hear that Cream readers like to not pay for music, so in the spirit of that, I'm happy to let you know that the punky, punky boys of Natural Child have gone and put up their music for free on the Internet. (HT: Nashville's Dead.) So if you're inclined, head over to their blogspace and download the digitized song files of both their recent cassette tape Body Switchers and their latest 7-inch. Which is not to say you shouldn't seek out the band to get physical, of course. And if you haven't yet seen the karate-jam-monster-truck-melty-shark video for their song "Dark Side of the Moon," get to it.

Speaking of free downloads, you got any? Let the people know in the comments

​Fans of smoky murder ballads: Check out "The Ghost Who Walks," a new song by Nashville's own daughter of Oldham, Greater Manchester, Karen Elson. (Y'know, the one who doesn't like when she gets a twang in her sang.) A black-and-white video for an acoustic version of the song was posted to her website today.

Loyal Cream readers will recall that Elson -- who dueted with Cat Power on a redux of "Je t'Aime ... Moi Non Plus" for the Serge Gainsbourg tribute album -- joined She & Him for a rendition of "Tennessee Waltz" at Mercy Lounge back in '08.

One great thing about the video is that the whole band is sitting stock still in the background while she's singing about this woman getting stabbed to death, and so you just wait for that moment when the drums are gonna come in all smack-a-dack-jamma-lamma -- the climax of the story! -- and the tension starts to get to you after a while. According to an emailing, "The Ghost Who Walks" will be the title track of an Elson album recorded at Third Man Studios with husband Jack White in the producer's chair.

"Everyone can kiss my fucking ass!"

​Remember when Haruch found those videos of Kings of Leon playing shuffleboard (or "pushboard") down at Loser's with The Features? Well, the videos have unfortunately been evicted from the Interwebs "due to a copyright claim by Vector Management," but the true product of that boozy excursion has made it to print. NME's James McMahon sat down with London's most beloved Nashvillians to talk about their epic boners for The Features -- something we at the Cream actually have in common with the Followills -- and why they basically created a record label (Snakes and Serpents) just to put out Some Kind of Salvation.

As I've said before, whether you love Kings of Leon, hate them, or land somewhere near the southern end of the love-hate spectrum, you have to respect the fact that they're looking out for the locals. The NME story covers, in detail, why C-Fo took a chance with The Features and why it is he thinks so highly of them, and you should most certainly give it a read. It's quite flattering for The Features. That said, Followill also happens to use some wonderfully peculiar and hilarious euphemisms that look extra-bizarre out of context, so have a look at those juicy quotes (sans context) after the jump.

​Remember German Castro? They played a lot of shows, and then the one guy broke his back and moved away, then he sorta moved back and they played a farewell show, then the other guy moved to Alaska and that was that. Until now! Just look at the "press release" we got yesterday from former Team Cream metal consultant Matt Sullivan:

FORMER NASHVILLE SEXY SUPERGROUP RELEASES ENTIRE CATALOG FOR...............FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

German Castro, whose influence can be found everywhere from Sgt Pepper's to Avatar, have just made their entire catalog available at germancastro.bandcamp.com. Find exclusive tracks that were originally released on questionable media of scarce availability by a band whose notoriety landed mention on a local NPR piece THIS ONE TIME!!!!!

When reached for comment, bassist/vocalist/CEO/homemaker Matt Sullivan had this to say: "SURF'S UP!!!!!!"

The band are available to interested media for interview.

Here's that NPR story, in case you thought that was ironical. (Listen for them at about the 3:10 mark.) Point your browser over to germancastro.bandcamp.com to download everything they ever did, and a few things they didn't.

​* Paramore put up the video for the slow-burning torch jam "The Only Exception" yesterday on their Internets. It's got a narrative. It makes sense. It's really quite sweet. (They tried that automatic retweet business again but I am wise to them now!) If you are a teenager you probably love this song already. Or not. Either way, get used to it, because it will be The Official Slow Dance Song of Prom 2010.

* Transplant-tinged Nashville rocker David Vandervelde has a new MP3 for your downloading. The song is called "Learn How to Hang," and you can go grab it over at MBV. The song's from a new digital single from Secretly Canadian.

* Looks like Those Darlins will be in some pretty heady company at South by Southwest this year -- they're playing the Terrorbird/Force Field day party Wednesday the 17th at Red 7 (611 East 7th) alongside Neon Indian, Toro y Moi, Real Estate, Oh No Ono, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Matias Aguayo, The Rural Alberta Advantage and more. Yowza!

​Today on the Twitter, Thirty Tigers posted some scans of Spin featuring JEFF the Brotherhood, whom the magazine calls part of "a new wave of stylish, boundary-pushing rising stars" who are finding "inspiration in the sounds -- and looks -- of the past." Luckily, JTB even have a song called "U Got the Look"! I know it's crazy, y'all -- musical musicians in a music magazine talking about clothes, but there it is for all the world to see: the Bros. Orrall wearing Marc Jacobs.

Oh, they talk about the music, too (something about shambolic jams), and it's nice to see some national ink spilt in Nashville's direction that doesn't mention country music. Oh wait, I guess they do, sorta. But not in the annoying way. Cool. And yeah yeah, "real men" don't think about what they wear (that's a lie, of course), but I think Jake speaks for a lot of dudes when he says, "I always thought it was weird that, for women, it's acceptable to wear any type of garment, but guys don't have many options." (But when you think about it, guys have more freedom to go along with our fewer options, because we can look way scuzzier and still be considered attractive. Tevs.)

Look at those sweet, gnarly-lookin' twin griffins!

​You want podcasts? We got your podcasts. The folks over at Lake Fever have decided to start issuing podcasts entirely composed of past Lake Fever Sessions performances. In their words, they've "compiled a little something from each and every one of the sessions of 2009 and are offering them here for your downloadable enjoyment." This one features 16 tracks from bands including St. Vincent, Superdrag, The Features, Those Darlins, Travis, Cursive, The Privates and more, and you can expect Volume 2 later in the year. Here's the zip link, and you can see the full playlist here.

And, since we're on the subject of fantastic, local-flavored podcasts, we'd be remiss to leave out We Own This Town's 32nd installment. That one has Glossary, The Non-Coms, Bows and Arrows and more, and it's available as an MP3 or an M4A. Considered your bases covered, fools. It's downloadin' time.

What's your little sister doing next Friday? You should be an awesome big sibling and invite her away from the Pi Kappa Phi kegger and take her down to Mercy Lounge to check out My So-Called Band. Why? Watch the video, that's why. Your little sister will love it. We can totally throw a keg party afterwards.

Via

​I know what you've been thinking: "What's that ol' Clem Snide been up to these days?" The answer comes in the streaming-at-NPR form of their seventh album, The Meat of Life. It opens with a song depicting two of the worst things that can happen to you: getting dumped and ending up at Walmart. If that sounds just too damn depressing for a Tuesday morning, don't worry. It's a nifty song with a cool arrangement and besides, sometimes you've got to wallow in the pain. It's good for you. Or it's bad for you, but totally normal. As Thao Nguyen put it recently: "You want full immersion in the dissolution. You don't want to just take the language courses. You want to go live in the country of origin; you want to stay with a host family."

Anyway, Clem Snide has had a free pass with me ever since I first heard "Joan Jett of Arc" on a mixtape while zipping through back roads on the Olympic peninsula because -- I mean, because they wrote a song called "Joan Jett of Arc," for crying out loud, and that's worthy of praise in and of itself. Free pass or no, this new one sounds pretty good to my ears. If you've ever been to Normal, Ill., you know how hard it would be to write a song about that place, so again, I am showering points upon them. If this were the Olympics, their artistic merit scores would be, like, really high.

Stream at NPR until the album comes out Feb. 23.

​As long as I've been writing about guys in bands I want to sleep with music for the Scene, which is nearing a decade now, I've heard the lament/gripe/accusation that you have to be friends with the writers here to get covered in the music section. (If the writer in question is a woman, she'll only write about you if you've slept together or she wants to sleep with you.) While these are both endlessly amusing perspectives from people who have No Idea How Newspapers Work, they are both patently false. This recent Craigslist post asks that very question again, and this time, by George, deliriously free from the weight of covering music substantially anymore, I'm going to answer it. First off, the question:

How to get a write up in the Scene? (friends and family only?) Sometimes just know that the staff writers of the Nashville Scene are only writing about their own bands or their friends bands. I see the same amateur groups promoted and hyped all the time, with some of the most bizarre and ridiculous Spin/RollingStone/Blender type phrases to describe these bands.

Writing about a live local nobody's band show at the Mercy Lounge "as much of a generation defining moment as Woodstock" or describing a band as "the audience was lucky to get out alive after such a daring performance". . . sounds like their just writing their own myspace bio in the third person. How much does it cost to get a few paragraphs written about a band or is it really just a friends connection kind of thing? I've emailed them several times and never get a response.

The short answer: You're doing it wrong. The long answer:

The fate of music critics.

​To preface: I am 100 percent ripping off the idea for this post from The Onion's A.V. Club. That said, since we've been talking about love -- or at least being a dude-face -- a little bit around here, let's talk about falling out of love. Not with a person, but with music. Just as we have all inevitably looked at someone we once cherished (read: liked sleeping with) and suddenly wanted to pelt them with ice, we have all listened to an album or a band we once thought was awesome and wondered where all the awesome went. I was going to say Bad Brains, but I'm still holding out hope that I was just in a weird mood the last time I tried listening to I Against I. Surely the magic isn't really gone ... ?

After the jump, Team Cream weighs in on stuff it was far worse to have ever loved at all.

​If you ain't know, now you know ... local singer/songwriter semi-electro power-popper and recent Ten out of Tenn alum Kyle Andrews is releasing a new album in May titled Robot Learn Love. Fans and skeptics alike would be best off basing how they feel about this from its first four tracks, available now for free on Bandcamp.

It was more or less a year ago when a Kyle Andrew's media surge via NPR and Paste amongst others alerted me to the contagiously singable "Sushi." I found it both amazing and unfortunate that Andrews basically cursed himself by having written a jam so infectious that the rest of his then-recent Real Blasty suffered by comparison. Being an electro-pop enthusiast, I always enjoy Andrews' tunes in that vein most. However, it would seem the majority of his output falls more along singer-songwriter lines, executed in a power-pop style with its electronic elements sprinkled in more as an afterthought. That said, I can't seem to say so much of that about the new stuff.

​From the Department of Tennessee Pride: The most obvious argument against the guns in bars bill, passed in Tennessee last year, was the concern of combining the possession of firearms with the consumption of alcohol. Apparently, Tennessee lawmakers have found a way to answer such concerns as, according to this article on WKRN, Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville), has sponsored a bill in the state Legislature that would ban the sale, distribution and consumption of all alcoholic beverages between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m.

Ironically but not suprisingly, Rep. Todd was also the sponsor and primary advocate for the guns in bars bill. He told WKRN: "Nothing good happens after midnight ... That's when most, if not all, when most folks get in trouble, get to drinking, shooting, killing people." Uh ... If that quote coming from that dude doesn't make your head explode, I'm not sure what will. If this bill passes, it'll mean that you can brandish a gun in a bar after midnight, but not a beer. Let's hear it for the Volunteer State.

​Yeah, Yeasayer's on the Intertubes explaining their album Odd Blood, but here in town local beat-maker Quiet Entertainer is giving a similar (if slightly less self-important-sounding) track-by-track rundown of his new EP, Machismo. Now, he doesn't get into the Iron Maiden reference on the remixed version of "Still Single" -- which features Spoken Nerd and is awesome -- but he does cite both WWE and Paper Route as inspiration for his self-described "entrance song," "I Am ..." (featuring James Fate).

Solid stuff, and you can go download it from the Internet, easy as that.

​Missed Connection attempts may seem trivial and insignificant to the average Cream reader, but rest assured they offer a cornucopia of anthropological evidence illuminating the subtle mating rituals of club-going humans. The dichotomy that strikes me again and again while reading them is how bold yet timid, how revealing yet obscuring each message really is. It takes courage to put yourself out there and risk rejection, and yet, doing so with absolutely no identifying details -- thus ensuring there is no hope of ever reuniting with your could-be -- is actually quite cowardly. Sure, there's an argument to be made here that it's satisfying in and of itself to merely shoot such desire into a vacuum. That perhaps the act of launching one's lust willy-nilly knowing full well it will barely register in the oversaturated ether is a sad, yet beautiful human ritual of self-expression -- a message in a bottle that crashes onto a rocky shore never reaching its intended, a shooting star missed by so little as a blinked eye, a love letter lost in the mail, etc. But, there's also just total lazy bullshit like this:

12th & Porter - m4w - 18 (Nashville): I saw you at the after party at 12th & Porter. We made eye contact a few times. You bumped into me a few times while dancing. Trying to get me to dance with you? Lets meet some time. What was I wearing? Send me a pic so i know its u.

Majestico: Far too sexy for a normal shirt, even if it is February.

We're gonna guess that you, like us, didn't blow a proverbial load when you heard Kings Of Leon were going to open tonight's Features show at Exit/In. And we're also gonna venture that you didn't rush out and buy yourself tickets, 'cause, well, it's the freaking Features -- they play here all the time, and as awesome as they are, really, who the fuck buys advance tickets for a local show, amiright?

And to further extrapolate, we're gonna go out on a limb and guess you ain't got shit to do tonight, 'cause all the guest list spots that you can usually count on have been given out to foreign journalists. (Don't they know that there's a Tea Party going on this weekend? Aren't they afraid we'll throw them in the harbor? They better well should be -- this is the gawddamn Real Amurrica gawddammit, not some mopey little island in the North Atlantic.) So yeah, what are you gonna do to get your rock fix, assuming you can't rationalize paying $7 to see Ned Zepplin and Dan Halen, as clever they might be?

​NME is reporting that Jack White played a "surprise show" here last night at Third Man Records in support of a show by the Dex Romweber Duo -- a band he produced. But it turns out he just played a Dex Romweber Duo song before the band played.

The White Stripes man treated the 250-strong crowd to an impromptu solo rendition of one of the pair's songs before they played their full set.

Oh, wait. He also loaned them a guitar when they broke some strings. In actually (potentially) interesting news, Dolly Parton might record with him. Of course, The White Stripes were once known to cover Parton's "Jolene" on the reg. So ... there's that.