Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum’s Holiday Open House ♦ 12/16

If you’ve yet to visit the awesome new Hall of Fame facility just behind Gaylord Entertainment Center, there’s no better time than 1-6 p.m. this Sunday, when the museum waives admission fees and invites all of Nashville over for a big holiday party. Storytellers Doc McConnell and Guerry Jameson McConnell will be on hand to re-create an old-time medicine show through music and tall tales. Cowboy balladeer Joel Reese will lead a sing-along of classic and original tunes, while Shad Cobb, Robert Bowlin and Scott Shipley will entertain on the fiddle. Kids can make their own Hatch Show Print-style holiday cards, take a whack at a treat-filled piñata and enjoy entertainer Ginger Sands’ whimsical interactive interpretation of classic children’s holiday songs and verses. Of course, while you’re there, you’ll want to take a tour of the museum itself and marvel at the many exhibits, including the just opened “Workshirts and Stardust: Paintings by Guy and Susanna Clark,” featuring more than a dozen paintings by the noted songwriters. The exhibit includes several works that are familiar as album covers, including Guy Clark’s Old No. 1 and Nanci Griffith’s London Dust Bowl Symphony. (Guy Clark plays a show at the Hall of Fame this Thursday; see the music picks at left for more information.)

—A.W.

Thursday, 13th

Japancakes At the Slow Bar earlier this year with The Glands—a match that resulted in one of 2001’s most exciting shows—this Athens space-rock orchestra used keyboards, cello and pedal steel to create constantly surging and shifting sheets of sound, a kind of sonic variant of the perpetually shimmering animated backgrounds in the recent film Waking Life. Like Lambchop, they can sound both dense and spacious, and their lushness can have the effect of mood lighting. They’ll play tracks from their The Sleepy Strange CD when they return to the Slow Bar for a show with local group Trabant, an intriguing, evocative combo in their own right. If it’s half as crowded as the last time Japancakes played there, prepare to stand by the pool tables unless you arrive early.

—J.R.

Robert Randolph This steel guitarist’s invigorating solos and stylistic flair are a revelation. Though he came up in the “sacred steel” tradition of a small group of African American churches, he’s expanded his repertoire to include secular music as well. He’s a daring, often spectacular improviser who has shattered any and all notions about what the instrument can do. While neither his new collaborative family project nor the instrumental gospel release The Word (the latter recorded with the North Mississippi All-Stars and produced by John Medeski) is consistently excellent, his playing on both ranges from excellent to awesome. Randolph comes to 12th & Porter along with Shannon McNally for a 9 p.m. show.

—R.W.

Guy Clark Most folks know Clark, the author of indelible originals like “L.A. Freeway,” as a painterly songwriter of the first rank, but few know that he also paints with brushes. Clark’s self-portrait, seen on his 1988 album, Old Friends, is probably his best-known work, although it’s hardly as renowned as his wife Susanna’s paintings, which grace the covers of albums by Willie Nelson (Stardust) and Emmylou Harris (Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town), among others. Susanna is also an accomplished tunesmith in her own right, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is paying tribute to the Renaissance couple with Songs and Paintings: The Art of Guy and Susanna Clark, an exhibit that debuts this month. Guy will launch the five-month show, which is part of the museum’s Texas series, with a 7:30 p.m. concert in the facility’s intimate Ford Theater. (For more on the Hall of Fame’s holiday event this Sunday, see the pick of the week, at right.)

—B.F.W.

Jonatha Brooke The former co-leader of folk-pop pioneers The Story continues her solo ways with a set at the Exit/In. Under her own name, Brooke has flirted with polished bluesy rock and impassioned femme confessionals before scrambling back to acoustic-based folk, where most of her fans like to see her. But for this year’s album Steady Pull, she reintegrates contemporary elements in a much more intuitive way, working big beats, twang and stray bits of exotica into her complex, mature compositions. She’s now got a solid command of quiet and loud.

—N.M.

Friday, 14th

Rebirth of the Groove Local promoter Leon Jackson of Electric Lounge is calling this Nashville’s first all-ages dance party in three and a half years. It also looks to be one of the biggest, with some dozen dance music DJs spinning over the course of a dozen hours at Excess and Orbit, the connected nightspots on Church Street. The main attraction is Nigel Richards, a major figure in electronic music who, along with his numerous credits as DJ/producer, is also the founder and owner of Philadelphia’s 611 record label/record store. The rest of the lineup is packed with national and local DJs spinning in a variety of styles—techno, house, trance, drum 'n’ bass. The roster includes Barry G, Joey Gottee, Kid Miracle, Daryl Lovebomb, Axon, breakmaster Daddy Bob, Justin Samples and others. For all comers, there’ll be freebies from 611 Records and URB magazine, and a canned food donation to Second Harvest Food Bank gets you $3 off the entry price. For the under-ages crowd, things start early, at 7 p.m., but after the 11:30 p.m. intermission, the event turns into an 18-and-over affair. For more information, call 255-4331.