• Photo: Lance Conzett

A very interesting thing happened to The Spin early Tuesday afternoon. Long story short, we coincidentally ran into a good friend who happens to be the biggest M83 fan we know. He's the kind of guy who owns all the obscure early B-sides and every 7-inch the French (or is it Spanish?) shoegazing pop band has ever released. He's the dude who first introduced us to the band. So when we excitedly started a conversation about the evening's M83 show at Marathon Music Works, we were rather perplexed to learn that not only had he never seen the band he loved so much, but also that he had no plans to do so on this occasion. His reasoning? "I'm not going to see M83 live because I want to remain an M83 fan." It sounded silly and downright sad at the time. Turns out, as we were walking out of Marathon later that night, we kinda wished we had taken his advice.

• Photo: Michael W. Bunch

The first time The Spin saw Jack White, he was one-half of an act called The White Stripes, playing to hundreds packed like rotisserie chickens into The End. The first time The Spin saw the Alabama Shakes ... well, it was during an opening slot at White's Third Man Records during SoundLand. But the second time we saw them, they were playing to a fire marshal's nightmare of an audience at The Basement. Judging from the standing ovations and frank adoration both White and the Shakes received Tuesday, in the first night of their two dates at The Ryman, they're not going back anytime soon.

• Photo: Emily Quirk

We at The Spin spend an incredible amount of time playing the “sore thumb” in increasingly younger crowds — and we do it to keep the rest of you in the know as to what “the kids” are into these days. We weren’t the only party in our circle commenting on just how fresh the faces in the crowd were Friday night at The Zombie Shop. And as ancient as we may then feel by comparison, seeing younger faces at DIY shows means the system is still working, and the kids are still all right. In fact, they may be more all right than we ever were.

• Photo: Lance Conzett

We were going west down Charlotte Pike on a rainy, breezy Saturday night that called out for a little Clarence White guitar, and you guessed it, The Spin cued up White and The Byrds' country-rock instrumental "Nashville West" on the car stereo as we headed to see the rainy-day pairing of Lambchop and The Altered Statesman at VFW Post 1970. Over the past few years, the Nashville bands have inhabited parallel worlds — they share a relaxed but knowing attitude toward their musical sources, creating compelling pop-by-association dreamscapes that get at something rueful and romantic in the Music City psyche.

• Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

Knowing just how prone elder statesmen of indie rock are to playing early shows in their middle age, The Spin hauled ass to Exit/In’s sold-out affair Friday night, walking past a desperately hopeful line of Johnny-come-latelys begging for tickets and into the opening burst of NYC post-hardcore pioneers Unsane. Backed by Melvins’ Dale Crover on drums, die-hards of these cult noise-metal trailblazers were easily visible, as they identified themselves by throwing both fists in the air whilst screaming along. Angular, frenetic and faintly melodic, Unsane occasionally broke out a harmonica or slide guitar to remind us why they’ve never been your average hardcore act.

• Photo: Lance Conzett

From time to time, certain circumstances (limited time, money or space, or the fact that we just saw the artist in question, for instance) preclude The Spin from writing a fully fleshed-out review of a given show. But that doesn't mean we can't share our notes with you, dear readers. So below, transcribed directly from our notepad, are The Spin's thoughts on last night's Feist show at The Ryman. You'll also see a handful of shots snapped by trusty photog-for-hire Lance Conzett.

* The crowd tonight appears to be mostly populated by well-dressed 20-somethings and bookish young ladies with Rapunzel-esque locks, all of whom seem to be aging gracefully from adolescent-librarian types into adult-librarian types.

* We'd say we're fans of Creep on Creepin' On, the latest LP from openers Timber Timbre, with its spooky, tortured turns and moody take on modern folk. Live, the material is even more sparse and slow-burning, with just fiddle, a bit of lap steel and a frontman on guitar, kick drum and vocals. Miss the BGVs and full drums, but TT is still mostly transfixing, in that Black Heart Procession sort of way.

• Photo: Ivor Karabatkovic

Instead, we chose an easier show to watch, but one much more challenging to write up: Friday night's Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears appearance at Mercy Lounge, with openers The Preservation. Fresh talent and fun-loving, hard-working bands in vans aren’t as easy — or deserving — a target for our good-natured ribbing.

• Photo: Ivor Karabatkovic

It was a tale of two Sharon Van Ettens Thursday night at Mercy Lounge. As expected, there was the Sharon Van Etten we remembered, who gave a shout-out to the Red Rose (RIP) during an aw-shucksy stretch of banter that was heavy on thank-yous. And then there was a Sharon Van Etten we'd never really seen before, at least not in person. More on her in a bit.

• Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

Gwar-blood, in case you were wondering, tastes terrible. The Spin knows because we probably gargled a gallon-and-a-half of it on Monday night over at Marathon Music Works. The Spin — who are usually posted up on the back wall, scratching our chins and making snarky comments about our fellow concert goers — were right in the motherfucking pit for Gwar's set, and it fucking ruled. We're going to be scrubbing Gwar-gore from under our fingernails for weeks, and we couldn't be happier. Sure, we may have taken an elbow or two to the wigdome during the set — never, ever get between a lady and her Gwar, might be our lesson for the night — but even a little head trauma isn't enough to dull the warming glow of The Spin's annual pilgrimage to bow before the Scumdogs of the Universe.

• Photo: Lance Conzett

The unpredictable Nashville weather had turned raw and wet overnight, and the wind cut into The Spin's out-of-season clothes as we manipulated our way around side streets to park within reasonable distance of the Record Store Day action at Grimey's and The Basement. We can’t for the life of us figure out why nearly every year on this one particular weekend in April — the weekend on which the Nashville Film Festival, Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring festival and Record Store Day always fall — the weather is completely dreary and terrible. Perhaps the God of Solid Entertainment wants us to earn it. But the line snaking down the street seemed full of placid people, glad to be standing around in the drizzle in hope of scoring something cool. Big groups of music junkies were out in force, blowing on their hands in the dampness.