Tuesday, September 4, 2012
National Skyline Associated Press' Chris Talbott Profiles Nashville's Attention-Worthy Rock Scene
Posted by D. Patrick Rodgers on Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 3:00 PM
What am I doing? I'm burying the lede by using my entire first graph to introduce the author of a different article! This would never fly with the Associated Press folks.
So here's the point: Talbott penned a story titled "Nashville Rock Scene Moves out of the Shadows." It's already been picked up by outlets like Huffington Post and CBS News, among others, and the piece features quotes and insight from Nashville indwellers including The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Turbo Fruits' Jonas Stein, The Features' Matt Pelham, JEFF the Brotherhood's Jake Orrall and more. Talbott runs down the history of rock music in Nashville — from Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan to The Features' flirtations with stardom, Kings of Leon assisting in shattering the "Nashville Curse" (no mention of Paramore, though) and Jack White setting up shop here. There's talk of Infinity Cat's growth and big guys like Auerbach and White reaching out to smaller (but growing) guys like JEFF and PUJOL, and even the suggestion that perhaps the rock scene has become "bright enough for outsiders to see past the city's rhinestone glitz."
And you know how those of us from here — or even those of us who are newly entrenched in the music scene — cringe every time we see the lede to a national publication's story being something like, "Move over Porter and Dolly, there's more to Nashville than just country music"? Well, luckily for all of us, that's exactly what Talbott avoids in this story. Rather than framing the article under the assumption that the reader hears "Nashville" and thinks "country music," Talbott frames it like this: This community and this movement exist in Nashville, and if you care about what's significant in modern rock music, then you need to pay attention to Nashville, period. And when a story like that gets picked up by outlets like Huffington Post and CBS News, it stands a significant chance of becoming a part of the national dialogue, and perhaps genuinely changing how the city is viewed. And that puts local rock snobs like yours truly in a tricky position: We complain when some goony publication uses the "not just country anymore" approach, but if that stops happening thanks to stories like Talbott's, we'll have to start complaining about how everyone's blowing up our spot. Also, the cynic in me (and you too, admit it) wants to say, "Oh, now that our rock scene is taken seriously on a national level, there's nowhere to go but down."
Also, I'd just like to point the part of Talbott's story that is definitively my favorite. When talking to Infinity Cat honcho and real-life dad of JEFF the Brotherhood, Bob Orrall, Bob says the following: "We've got Cy Barkley's first full-length coming out, and the funny thing about it is I used to drive him and Jamin around in like car seats." Big, burly, hesher-looking, OG-style punk dude Cy Barkley as a baby in a car seat. That's the most innately smile-inducing thing I've heard all day.
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