Best of Nashville
BEST RADIO STATION: WRVU-91.1 FM If Radio Free Nashville can ever shake free of WANT-FM’s jihad and fix its technical glitches, it’ll reach the big audience it deserves and win this coveted title. In the meantime, the closest thing to widely accessible community radio remains Vanderbilt’s 91 Rock. It does not have an all-Sufjan Stevens format, though sometimes it seems that way. But in addition to all the top sellers at Grimey’s, it hosts Mary Mancini and Freddie O’Connell’s current-events show “Liberadio,” rap, bluegrass, classical, dance, punk, metal and maybe the single best music show in the city, Pete Wilson’s delightful Friday-morning jump-blues program “Nashville Jumps.” Indeed it does, with 91 on the air. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST NASHVILLIAN TO RUN FOR COUNCIL AT-LARGE: DEBRA GRIMES The imposition of term limits on members of the Metro Council has been a mixed blessing. For those of a progressive bent, recruiting smart, plugged-in candidates to fill the shoes of people like Diane Neighbors who steadfastly discern what’s best for the entire city can be tough. Thank goodness, then, that Debra Grimes has declared her intention to run for an at-large seat in the upcoming local election. A mother and grandmother, Grimes is a judicious and strategic thinker, a small business owner and community leader with extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. Best of all, she loves Nashville and will serve it faithfully. For more information, including ways to get busy with her campaign, go to www.imforgrimes.com. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
BEST REASON TO BUY AN iPOD: JACK 96.3 FM Remember Russian roulette? (Perhaps not, if you lost.) Welcome to the age of iPod roulette: load up a playlist, hit shuffle and pray that fate doesn’t cue up Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love?” In theory, this fast-growing format is meant to stop the defection of radio listeners to the earbud mafia, and the first time you tune in the novelty is kinda cool: “Hey, the Gap Band and Deep Purple!” Then you realize the common thread that unites all its reportedly 1,200 songs—overexposure. And with only a disembodied “ironic” monotone as infrequent DJ, interspersed with equally generic listener comments, what can you say about a radio station where the ads are the strongest sign of personality? “Playing what we want,” indeed—isn’t that the trouble with commercial radio in general? Here’s the reason you don’t walk around listening to someone else’s iPod. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST POLITICAL SHOWBOAT: CHIEF SERPAS Frankly, the guy might be more likeable if he tooted his own horn a little less. But such is the life of a “change agent,” that nebulous term of organizational culture that someone invokes when he’s always on TV and even his own staff doesn’t like him. That said, you’ve gotta hand it to the chief, who in a split second can go from folksy N’awlins grammar and blue vocabulary to an enlightening discussion of social science trends of the past 50 years. Even his sharpest critics admit they’d like to have a beer with the guy; it’s working for him that’s the problem. Meanwhile, according to his own poll numbers—paid for by seized drug money—the chief is popular in the community. In reality, he’s unpopular among anybody with lead-foot tendencies and no one really knows how he’s doing. Some of the city’s crime stats look good and some scary violent crime numbers look really bad. A young man died after a violent encounter with the police, and to his credit, Serpas made a public course correction, if not a sufficient one. He’s a self-confident (though not always smooth) politician, and he goes armed with numbers, scientific research and a PhD after his name to convince you his way is the only way. Not your daddy’s police chief. —JOHN SPRAGENS
Colin Wade Monk's Spread the Love
BEST PODCAST: SPREAD THE LOVE Now here’s what radio needs: more Wolfman, less Jack. If 1950s Memphis madman Dewey Phillips somehow got his hands on 21st-century technology, he’d produce something like Collin Wade Monk’s 54-minute show, sent out every Monday to the faithful. A melange of cool oddities and blazing unheralded rock and funk tracks, it’s essentially a fountain of surprises, some sublime, some hilarious. (I’m not sure which to call the Norman Luboff Choir’s version of “I Just Want to Make Love to You.”) Best of all are the mash-ups, where Hank Williams jams with Funkadelic and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins shares a coffin with Vincent Price. Find ’em at http://profiles.blipmedia.org/vivamonk/. Check out the Scene’s new podcast this week and see if the host sounds familiar.—JIM RIDLEY
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BEST CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: TRENT SEIBERT I want to wring his neck, but then, I want to buy him another vodka tonic. Seibert toes the company line about his newspaper but manages to spew plenty of other irreverence laced with the kind of prolific gutter profanity than we haven’t heard in a while—and that’s saying something. Some of his journalistic pursuits have been “gotcha” hit-and-runs—quick hatchet jobs on unsuspecting targets who didn’t deserve it—but he’s valuable because, within a newspaper that’s pushing computer-assisted reporting in favor of the age-old source-building method, he’s downright retro. —LIZ GARRIGAN
BEST DJ ON RADIO FREE NASHVILLE: WALTER BELL In less than a year on the air, Radio Free Nashville 98.9 LPFM has managed to build some of the best, most unusual local radio programming on the air: Kristi Rose’s “This Is Pulp Country” (5 p.m. Wednesday), Anna Lundy’s “Pop Is Love” (9 p.m. Sunday), James Brown’s insane radio-theater “Howlin’ Mad Cap’n Jam On It Hour” (midnight Thursday). It’s also given a home to mavericks like Western Beat impresario Billy Block, liberal talk-radio diva-in-the-making Mary Mancini, and forward-thinker Dr. Future. But there is absolutely nothing on the air like Metro fire-prevention officer Walter “Big B” Bell’s Monday-morning show of deadpan safety tips and quiet-storm funk/gospel nuggets. OK, so combining what sounded like the O’Jays last week with a pep talk on fungal infection was a bit of a buzzkill. But when the unflappable Big B does monologues on fire prevention, using his own stock of goofy voices, your ass could catch fire and you wouldn’t notice. In the event of that emergency, remember what Big B always says: “Oh my goodness!” Tune in at www.radiofreenashville.org.—JIM RIDLEY
BEST WAY TO KILL THE AMERICAN WORK ETHIC: METRO ORDINANCE TO PROHIBIT SOLITICING DAY LABOR FROM A PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY Day laborers have been part of the urban social fabric for millennia, dating at least as far back as when portions of the public marketplaces in Ancient Greece were set aside for unemployed men looking for work. The Metro Council, alas, has its own philosophy. 13th District rep Carl Burch has introduced an ordinance that, if passed, would bar locals from peaceably congregating at strategic outdoor locations in search of gainful employment. Those hardest hit? Homeless people and new immigrants trying to get back on their feet. City leaders and politicians perennially tout Nashville as a worker-friendly city, but it won’t be one anymore if folks are denied access to the temporary jobs that lead to permanent, better-paying employment. Ordinance No. BL2005-728 passed on second reading in the Metro Council on Sept. 20. If it passes on final vote Nov. 15, Nashville won’t just be turning back the clock, it will be turning its back on the thousands of day laborers who built the GEC, the Coliseum and our other downtown playgrounds. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
BEST NEW HOPE FOR LOCAL TV: CHANNELS 9 & 10 The proposed makeover of these historically underused educational access channels into Music City Arts TV 9 and IQ-TV 10 could mean great things for the city—for viewers hungry for locally produced and focused arts and current affairs programming, and for Nashville arts groups eager to widen their audiences through TV. If Metropolitan Educational Access Corp. executive director Michael Catalano can make it happen with his Wayne’s World resources, he’ll have pulled off a bigger miracle than the turnaround of what’s now the Nashville Film Festival. Stay tuned. —JIM RIDLEY
BEST POLITICAL STATEMENT: PINK FLAMINGOES Regardless of whether you’re for or against conservation overlays, you’ve got to applaud the creativity and solidarity of the pink flamingoes dotting the yards across Sylvan Park, where a proposed conservation zoning overlay is pitting neighbor against neighbor in a struggle for architectural control. The tacky yard art has become a proud symbol of property rights and a revolt against the taste police, not unlike the way the Brits’ derisive jingle “Yankee Doodle” became a battle cry for the American revolutionaries. OK, maybe that’s a little melodramatic, but still, flamingoes make for good rhetoric. —CARRINGTON FOX
MOST PROPHETIC LOCAL CLERGY VOICES IN THE FIGHT TO SAVE TENNCARE: REVS. VICTOR SINGLETARY, HENRY BLAZE, ENOCH FUZZ, HERMAN LAWSON & DON BEISSWENGER The Hebrew prophets spoke a word of judgment born of witnessing suffering and oppression in their midst. Theirs was a word that was meant to stir people up, moving those with ears to hear to action while making those whose hearts were hardened squirm. Like the pharaohs of old, Gov. Bredesen turned a deaf ear to the call for justice that members of the local clergy uttered on behalf of the sick and uninsured in our state. Foremost among these prophetic voices were Revs. Victor Singletary, Henry Blaze, Enoch Fuzz, Herman Lawson and Don Beisswenger. Countless others spoke out as well, from Rev. Sonnye Dixon to Rev. Judi Hoffman to every rabbi, minister and religious leader who sought to shatter indifference by urging the governor and our other state leaders to choose life over death. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
BEST APPOINTMENTS TO THE MAYOR’S HOMELESSNESS COM-MISSION: HOWARD ALLEN, CATHIE BUCKNER AND KEVIN BARBIEUX The second time’s the charm. After initially appointing a commission to devise and implement solutions for alleviating homelessness that overlooked those who’d at some point been on the streets themselves, the mayor tapped the experts. The addition of Howard Allen, Cathie Buckner and Kevin Barbieux to the Mayor’s Homelessness Commission not only gives the city insight and wisdom into a social problem that’s as complicated as any the U.S. has faced during the last quarter-century. It also guarantees that those who live and die with the policies that the city makes have a voice in the creation of those policies. The mayor’s appointments are just a first step, but they’re a crucial one if Nashville is ever going to get its head and heart around the preventable, multidimensional epidemic that we call homelessness. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
BEST REASON TO BE EXCITED ABOUT THE PREDATORS’ RETURN TO ACTION: PETE WEBER AND TERRY CRISP Yeah, OK, so the Nashville Predators signed forward Paul Kariya to the squad. And sure, they got off to a hot start this season. And yes, there’s going to be free popcorn. Big deal. The best news about the Preds’ return to the ice is that fans again get to listen to the Predators’ broadcasting team of Pete Weber and Terry Crisp. Recently liberated from WWTN-99.7 FM, that Titanic of local sports talk radio, Weber and Crisp have joined WGFX-104.5 FM (with WNSR-560 AM providing backup) and have managed to keep their singular chemistry intact. Occasionally, the duo veer too far into silliness—they recently donned Rip Van Winkle beards to commemorate their 15-month absence from the broadcast booth—but overall their on-air presentation is professional, informative and—most of all—fun. Welcome back, fellas. —ROGER ABRAMSON
BEST-KEPT SECRET: GOV. BREDESEN’S BOOKS FROM BIRTH Actually, it’s no secret: Gov. Bredesen’s administration is giving books to kids. For free. For free! Did you hear what we said? They are free! Bredesen has partnered with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to mail an age-appropriate book every month to all children under 5. So why are you not getting these books? If your child is a resident of Davidson County, all you have to do is sign up online at www.vanderbiltchildrens.com, pick up a brochure at your local library or pediatrician’s office, call 936-3554 or email read.books@vanderbilt.edu. For information about Books From Birth in counties outside Davidson, visit www.governorsfoundation.org. —CARRINGTON FOX
BEST REPORTER WHO LEFT FOR WARMER CLIMES: MATT PULLE (HONORABLE MENTION: JOHN COMMINS) Sure, he was awkward and lanky, scratchy-voiced and ethnically ambiguous. And yes, he kept Lorne Michaels’ number in his Rolodex—and used it once or twice—to pitch him “awesome” Saturday Night Live sketches. (Lorne somehow forgot to return those calls.) Granted, he had a sense of humor most commonly found in seventh-grade classrooms and a sing-songy voicemail greeting that would get him beat up by those same seventh-graders. And true, though he denied it, he was a middleweight drinker at best. But we were sorry to see him move on to Dallas after narrowly losing out to David Ewing for that job at the Chamber of Commerce. Muttering something about how he would miss Vic Lineweaver, Matt Pulle hit the road and didn’t return for, oh, four or five weeks. But since that visit, we haven’t seen the guy and have only heard from him 30 or 40 times. A man whose love of moderate white male political opinions was only eclipsed by his urge to run marathons, Matt left our cinderblock prison some months ago to take a job as a confidential informant for the Metro police department. We mean, to work as a reporter in Dallas. He will be missed. And then there’s John Commins, Capitol Hill correspondent for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, who would win this category in a walk any other year. Unlike his beloved Red Sox, who couldn’t win anything this year. (Don’t smirk, Pulle: the Yankees sucked too.) He departed for South America drunkenly boasting that he had finally figured out how to work only 20 hours a week while in the next breath ranting about how fucked up politics and media are in the U.S. Based on the emails we get from Valencia, Venezuela, it’s a safe bet Commins sits on the porch in his little Tae Kwon Do costume huffing and puffing curses about the Bush administration while sipping a cold margarita. John, we’re packing our bags. —JOHN SPRAGENS
BEST IMPROVED COLUMNIST: GAIL KERR She’s grown up at The Tennessean and covered everybody from former Gov. Ned McWherter to the likes of former Mayor Bill Boner—and his seven-hour boner. Before editor E.J. Mitchell arrived at the helm of the paper late last year, Kerr’s columns were a far cry from must-read. They were often ruminations that would have been more at home on an obscure blog than on the front of the Local News section. That’s what happens when a writer doesn’t have any direction. Mitchell instructed her to be a city columnist unafraid to zing the powerful and influential, to take on meaty, gritty topics and to be relevant. In the last few months alone, she has created new assholes for the mayor, the local teachers union and the police chief. They all deserved it. —LIZ GARRIGAN
BEST LOCAL KARL ROVE IMPERSONATOR: DAVID MANNING Though not as colorful a moniker as Turd Blossom—Dubya’s pet name for Karl Rove—David Manning has a nickname too. At least, he used to when he worked in state government. Dr. No, they called him. As state finance commissioner, it was his job to tell everyone “no way” when Gov. Ned McWherter told them, “Sure, that’s a fine idea; just go run it by Manning first.” One of the first people in government with a desktop computer, even Manning’s screen saver, we’re told, bore the word “no” floating in space. These days, the finance chief may be the most hated man in Metro, pulling strings and tying hands in every department, where government employees of all stripes can be heard grumbling about his audits and austerity measures. He’s centralized power under his own watchful eye, a move that arguably makes government run more efficiently. It at least lets the mayor and his finance chief have a big say in everything that’s going on. In my unscientific poll, most local politics watchers speculate that if Bill Purcell were assigned to govern a remote island and could only bring one of his three henchmen—Bill Phillips (the enforcer), Patrick Willard (the message man) or David Manning (the finance guru and dark arts magician)—Hizzoner would choose Manning. A tightly run island, indeed—but the natives are getting restless. —JOHN SPRAGENS
BEST MEDIA INNOVATORS: WKRN-CHANNEL 2 Say what you want about the city’s third-rated news broadcast, but we think they’re the best in town. For reasons having to do with its imperfect signal and its commitment to real news, as opposed to some of the sensationalized crap being peddled by their blow-dried competitors, Channel 2 somehow always seems to rate below Channels 4 and 5. But here’s where WKRN kicks their asses up and down: it’s the first television news station in the country to embrace a populist news approach, giving its photographers and reporters cameras, training and instructions to go out and find interesting stories. Under this model, everyone’s a reporter. And while it’s not gone wholly smoothly, revolution tends to have that side effect. The station has also embraced blogging, creating “Nashville Is Talking” earlier this year. Holding the station’s hand are New York consultant Michael Rosenblum and local visionary Terry Heaton—both of whom are rock stars among news junkies, video journalists and bloggers. Most traditional media are afraid of this stuff. That Channel 2 isn’t puts it ahead of its time, ratings be damned. —LIZ GARRIGAN
BEST METRO COUNCIL MEMBER: TOMMY BRADLEY Amid the den of fire-breathing bigots and staggering stupidity over at City Hall, there are a few members of the Metro Council who go about their business with integrity, effectiveness and the best of intentions. The ones who tend to get the most attention in general—and in the Scene in particular—are the likes of David Briley and Mike Jameson, two of the legislative body’s brightest members. But what’s attractive about Tommy Bradley is how quietly he goes about representing his Priest Lake/Antioch district. He’s neither media shy nor media savvy, neither too political nor altogether unpolitical, neither an ideologue nor a lefty progressive. He’s just a nice professional Catholic guy who does right by his constituents and his kids. We could use more of him. —LIZ GARRIGAN
BEST MUSIC WEBSITE: NASHVILLEZINE Sure, it can be insular and provincial, but NashvilleZine.com is the best source to dish, mock or discuss the goings-on of the local rock scene, as long as you don’t mind getting ripped a new one every now and then. Run by local music writer Todd Anderson, the posts are anonymous, though we’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out the sources on most stuff. There are running music listings highlighting the handful of writers’ best rock picks for any given night. You’ll find out who’s recording with whom, who has a new record out, what band just broke up, and what band ought to. The gossip is first-rate (even when the writing is second or third), and the site posters spend considerable time making fun of bands, insulting each other (and us), and engaging in long-winded rants about selling out, who sucks and who is a brown-nosing asshole. We love it. —TRACY MOORE
BEST RADIO SHOW NAME: COMMODITY FETISHISTS EXQUISITE CORPS, WRVU-91.1 FM So many references jammed into four words—chapter 1, section 4 of Das Kapital, Andrei Codrescu’s magazine/website, the U.S. Marines, probably many more things I would get if I were as bright as hosts Brian Boling and Elizabeth Cesarini. The plethora of references carries over into the playlist, which is heavy on Brazilian pop and avant garde rock of all generations. And the show, which airs 7:30-9 p.m. Saturdays on Vanderbilt’s student-run WRVU, is the only place on the radio dial where you can reliably hear local treasures like Dave Cloud or the Cherry Blossoms. —DAVID MADDOX