Any chance to see country singer Elizabeth Cook is a welcome opportunity, but what makes this show special is the Nashville debut of the Medicare Duo, featuring Cook’s parents, Tom and Joyce Cook. As a teen, Joyce was half of The Melody Duo, performing on farm radio hours and TV shows in Charleston, W.V., until life (and babies) got in the way. Tom learned to play guitar on a Georgia cotton plantation, then worked as a bootlegger and still supervisor for an organized crime ring in Jacksonville, Fla. He spent 11 years in state and federal prisons, where he learned to play upright bass and performed in the prison band. (Attn: Hollywood screenwriters!) After his release, Tom met Joyce, by now a single mother of five. They got hitched musically and legally and added baby Elizabeth to the brood. When Elizabeth’s husband, Tim Carroll, bought Tom a bass amp for his 80th (!) birthday last year, The Medicare Duo was born. Expect some old-school hillbilly singing, a few laughs (Tom’s a bit of a cut-up) and a heartwarming evening. Oh yeah, and a set by one of Nashville’s best country artists, too. Station Inn —JACK SILVERMAN MUSIC THURSDAY, 3RD TEDDY GEIGER Tween-rock heartthrob Geiger had a big part in Love Monkey, the post-Garden State TV dramedy CBS canceled after three episodes earlier this year. But don’t hold that against the broody-looking singer-actor. On Underage Thinking, his tuneful debut, Geiger gives strummy Dave Matthews frat-pop a neat emo-folk spin, singing about screwing up his courage enough to ask out his secretly admired; you’ve no doubt heard his awkwardly swinging single “For You I Will (Confidence),” if you watch any reality shows with young blonde women in them. ( www.myspace.com/teddygeiger ) Exit/In —MIKAEL WOOD FRIDAY, 4TH MARAH The Liberty Bell? Rocky Balboa? Sheeyit. These days Philadelphia’s known mostly for three things: cheese steaks, M. Night Shyamalan—a cynic would say I repeat myself—and these barn-storming big-band bruisers, who put on one of the most swaggering live shows since that kid from New Jersey came through in the early ’70s. To capitalize on their club rep, the band recorded their fifth album, If You Didn’t Laugh…You’d Cry, live in the studio, and its jubilant sprawl from acoustic balladry to a honking streetscape of horns, handclaps and front-stoop harmonies just begs to be loosed from its aluminum-disc prison. Do the Bielanko brothers’ lyrics overreach? Yeah—but to paraphrase a dude who wasn’t from Philly, a band’s reach should exceed their grasp, or what’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven for? Mercy Lounge —JIM RIDLEY OTEIL BURBRIDGE & THE PEACEMAKERS/JACK PEARSON A nimble bassist and vocalist, Oteil Burbridge rose to prominence in the early ’90s with the Aquarium Rescue Unit, one of the first groups to blend funky jazz with the jam-band ethos, then went on to join the Allman Brothers Band. Burbridge also fronts the Peacemakers, an adventurous jazz-funk project with musical similarities to ARU, though with lyrics of a decidedly more spiritual bent—gospel fusion might be an apt description. Jack Pearson, who also did a stint with ABB, is a phenomenal guitarist, ranging from gutbucket slide blues to straight-ahead bebop. He’s one of the most underappreciated six-stringers around, though it might be by design—he seems to prefer playing locally to dealing with the demands of higher-profile gigs. Whatever the reason, be glad he lives in Middle Tennessee. Pearson and Burbridge plan to join forces at the end of the evening for what should amount to a jam head’s wet dream. 3rd & Lindsley —JACK SILVERMAN FIONA APPLE Fiona Apple announced herself to the world 10 years ago at the age of 19 with Tidal, an album that has stood the test of time. The rare artist with a grasp of both dissonance and beauty, Apple is a more-than-capable songwriter with a throaty voice and a well of turbulent energy just beneath the surface. Behind the prickly exterior, the Video Music Awards outbursts and the 90-word album titles is a catalog of music that is simple, unpretentious and downright brilliant. Over the course of three albums, her production has become more unorthodox, walking the line between vintage jazz cabaret, pop and a raw indie aesthetic. On her most recent work, Extraordinary Machine, the sounds are brighter and less angsty—an inevitability of growing up—but she’s still capable of lines that explode on contact. ( www.fiona-apple.com ) Ryman Auditorium —LEE STABERT DAVID GARZA Davíd Garza’s music is difficult to categorize—not surprising from an artist who’s worked with musicians ranging from Hanson to alt-country singer-songwriter Rhett Miller. The Texan’s latest, self-titled record is a haunting lo-fi combo of pop-rock with hints of Texas twang, beat poetry and world music. Central to the mix is Garza’s otherworldly voice, both hard-edged and delicate. “Litany of Woe” is a jazzy piano ballad that finds Garza panning everything from pop singers to politicians, while “Lay of the Honeysuckle Aerie” features an ethereal guitar refrain equally influenced by Eastern music and folk-blues player John Fahey. Yet even these two extremes fail to fully illustrate the range of Garza’s music. ( www.davidgarza.com ) Ryman Auditorium —TRACY M. ROGERS
SATURDAY, 5TH THE DERAILERS Nearly derailed by the departure of former co-leader Tony Villanueva, this Austin bar band has found new life thanks to a surprising collaborator, Nashville rock veteran Buzz Cason. With co-founder Brian Hofeldt now taking all lead vocals, The Derailers recorded at Cason’s analog studio with the Nashville iconoclast as producer. As a nod to the magic Cason works, the band named their album after his song “Soldier of Love,” originally an Arthur Alexander soul hit that was covered by The Beatles. He deserves the credit the band give him: Cason helps his honky-tonk buddies emphasize the connection between ’60s Brit-rock and Bakersfield country, and The Derailers sound both reborn and re-dedicated to their original vision. Opry Plaza —MICHAEL MCCALL KAUSHIKI CHAKRABARTY AND PARTHASARATHY DESIKAN Thanks to Ravi Shankar, India is best known in the West for instrumental music, yet within the culture, vocal music holds even greater importance. This concert of Hindustani vocal music features two students of one of its leading proponents, Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty. Kaushiki Chakrabarty is his daughter, and she performs along with husband Desikan. Still in her twenties (young in the arduous terms of Indian musical training), she is gaining acclaim for her 2004 album Pure, which won a noted world music award from the BBC. The two vocalists are accompanied in this 6:30 p.m. concert by Shahbaz Hussain Khan on tabla and Brojeswar Mukherjee on harmonium. Sri Ganesha Temple, Bellevue —DAVID MADDOX TOM WAITS It used to drive me nuts every time Tom Waits would write some achingly gorgeous melody, only to bellow it through a bullhorn or yowl it like a back-alley cat: it took years to realize that his songs lodged in my head and heart not despite Waits’ gravelly croon but because of it. Beauty, in his songs, is not to be lifted like a penny off the sidewalk: you’ve got to seek it out where you might not think or even want to look—in that Christmas card from the hooker in Minneapolis; in that yard-sale box of a soldier’s rusty keepsakes; in the graveyard you and your childhood friends whistled past, innocent as you dreamt. Over the years, he’s wisely abandoned the barroom-poet pose of his early albums for a flinty, sardonic carny-barker worldliness—Mark Twain running a Weimar-era cabaret—and his records have traded sugary strings for junkyard clatter. Within that clatter and that gargled-glass voice resides a songbook of miracles, all the more precious because you sometimes have to work to find them. Waits (whose band will include bassist Larry Taylor and guitarist Duke Robillard) hasn’t played here in three decades: the only reason we’re getting him now, he announced, is that “we need to go to Tennessee to pick up some fireworks, and someone owes me money in Kentucky.” The first crate of Screaming Moon Travelers is on me. SOLD OUT. Ryman Auditorium —JIM RIDLEY
SUNDAY, 6TH THE REWINDS W/ PLEX PLEX Though The Rewinds bill themselves as Southern power-pop, the Southernness must be strictly a reference to the quartet’s Birmingham, Ala., origins. Sonically, the only roots referenced are garage rock, ’60s British pop and post-Replacements Paul Westerberg. The band—made up of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Michael Shackelford, guitarist Glenn Drennen, bassist Chris Markham and drummer Brooks Marks—recently issued a highly listenable self-titled debut on Atlanta’s independent Livewire Recordings. Though the group’s songwriting may not plumb the depths of meaningful human experience, tracks like the opener “New Shade of Red” and “Everytime” are full of jangly, chiming guitars and ear-pleasing melodies. Led by Amanda X’s potent, alluring vocal instrument, hometown new-wavers Plex Plex create danceable dissonance heavily influenced by synth-soaked ’80s soundscapes. Exit/In —JEWLY HIGHT
TUESDAY, 8TH THE CLIENTELE Their 2005 album, the gorgeously understated Strange Geometry, is a pop gem and one of last year’s best records. Talk about combining the best of the old with the best of the new: anyone who buys Geometry on LP gets a free complete album download from iTunes. It’s a fitting arrangement for a band whose musical outlook is as much of an age as it is of the moment. Their chief inspirations may be rooted in the heyday of the hi-fi, but the songs feel fresh; the chiming guitars and wistful psych-pop melodies, though indebted to ’60s bands like The Zombies and Byrds, aren’t indentured to them. Hopefully the lads will preview some new material, as they’re reportedly returning to Nashville later this year to work on new recordings. ( http://www.theclientele.co.uk/ ) The Basement —STEVE HARUCH SANDI THOM This Scottish singer-songwriter first drew notice for webcasting a series of gigs from her dingy London basement that eventually captured worldwide Internet attention. Her DIY self-promotion has paid off in the U.K., where Thom’s become a major presence with a hit album in about the time it takes Radiohead to tune a keyboard. It’s unclear if the plangent folk-soul roots-pop on her debut, Smile... It Confuses People (out in the U.S. next month), will win her the same size audience here: Thom is nowhere near attention-grabbing enough to compete with stateside stars like Gwen Stefani or Pink—though millions of us once went bananas for Jewel, so who knows? The pre-release tour this show is part of may well soften up the ground for a successful American offensive. ( www.sandithom.com ) 3rd & Lindsley —MIKAEL WOOD FORGET CASSETTES Nashville band Forget Cassettes began as a duo. The minimal lineup was elastic, which afforded frontwoman Beth Cameron the freedom to shift tempos and dynamics at the drop of a dime. Now a trio (with new drummer Aaron Ford and utility player Jay Leo Phillips), the band hasn’t lost their ability to warp time and space. The songs on their new record Salt cover the sonic waterfront. “Lonely Does It” and “The Catch,” for example, begin as skeleton-like guitar hooks but soon develop into fleshed-out epics that ebb and flow like five-minute rock symphonies. Vocally, Cameron’s venomous delivery sounds something like Juliana Hatfield if she were really pissed off; her guitar tone, it should be noted, really shows teeth. Honorable mention is due to Ford whose inventive patterns and versatility power Forget Cassettes without resorting to the same old rock clichés. ( www.forgetcassettes.com ) Grimey’s; Exit/In Saturday, 11th –PAUL V. GRIFFITH
WEDNESDAY, 9TH MAE It’s difficult to toss a head of meticulously mussed hair nowadays without hitting an emo band pining for love or grieving a broken heart, all over a bed of lush piano pop. Enter multisensory expert Jacob Marshall, who’s long examined the colors and emotions the human brain correlates with aural perfection. On 2003’s Destination: Beautiful and particularly last year’s Everglow, Mae adds dimension to glistening guitar work and sing-along choruses. Sweeping soundscapes create near-cinematic tension, building further when storylines break from the narrator’s perspective to follow the listener. Still not convinced the Virginia natives stand out from the rudimentarily musical knockoffs churning out radio hits? Cred this: the classical-leaning keyboardist for this particular piano-pop collective is both chubby and bald. ( www.whatismae.com ) Rcktwn —JULIE SEABAUGH BEN NICHOLS W/CORY BRANAN In his song “Tears Don’t Matter Much,” Ben Nichols of Lucero sings, “Cory Branan’s got an evil streak / and a way with words that will bring you to your knees / He can play the wildest shows, he can sing so sweet.” Friends and collaborators since Branan’s days in Memphis (he’s a Nashville resident now), Nichols and Branan are, in some ways, a study in contrasts. There’s the most obvious difference: the earth-shattering grit of Nichols’ gravelly delivery vs. Branan’s smooth, controlled (sometimes sweet) sound. Then there are the more subtle differences: Branan’s crushing wit vs. Nichols’ exquisite earnestness. But these two performers share an innate ability to put on a show, and that vital vulnerability that somehow makes a white boy with a guitar riveting. Plus this is the rare chance to hear Nichols without the drunken clatter of his wonderful bandmates; Lucero’s fifth album is forthcoming in late September. ( www.luceromusic.com , www.corybranan.com ) The Basement —LEE STABERT THEATER ODD MAN OUT John Holleman and Company takes the mask-theater form seriously. In the past two years, the company has diligently set out to present comedies, classic plays and its own new works in a variety of locations around Nashville. Now, it has been invited to appear as part of the New York International Fringe Festival later this month. To help defray the costs of the journey north and east, there will be a pay-what-you-can performance of some of the troupe’s finest and funniest masked briefs at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 4 at the Looby Theater on MetroCenter Boulevard. The cast includes John Devine, John Early, Trish Moalla, Wesley Paine and Andrew Swanson, performing in masks sculpted by Nashville visual artists Laura Miller, Lena Lucas, Doug Berky, Nicole Southwell and Taryn Williams. Musical accompaniment features recordings by gifted locals like The Gypsy Hombres, Fats Kaplin, David Larsen and the Nashville Symphony. For more information, phone 210-0463. —MARTIN BRADY WAITIN’ 2 END HELL Presented earlier this year at the Darkhorse Theater, William A. Parker’s comedy-drama focuses on the marital and relational hurdles that confront contemporary, middle-class African Americans. Despite occasional lows, that staging, co-produced by Barry Scott and SistaStyle Productions, had plenty of high moments. This time around, the American Negro Playwright Theatre will sponsor four weekends of the show (Aug. 3-27) at the Tennessee State University Performing Arts Center. Scott again directs in what aims to be a new and improved version. The cast is essentially unchanged and includes David Chattam, Mary McCallum, Kenneth Dozier, Gray W. Hemphill III, Tamiko Robinson and Marlon Styles. Tickets are available from ANPT (579-4223) or Ticketmaster. —MARTIN BRADY THE FROG PRINCE Continuing at the Belcourt Theatre for two more Saturdays, 10 a.m. Aug. 5 and 12, is the Olde Worlde Theatre Company’s latest comical treatment of a classic fairy tale. This version of The Frog Prince is supplemented by the onstage musical accompaniment of the Linden Corner School Chamber Players, a small group of violinists and cellists ranging in age from 8 to 14. The musicians are students of the leading lady, Jocelyn Sprouse, who mixes some fiddle-playing of her own into the onstage antics. The enterprising community troupe now has a website: www.oldeworldetheatre.com. For ticket information, call the Belcourt at 383-9140. —MARTIN BRADY COMEDY CHELSEA HANDLER “Who the $%@! is Chelsea Handler?” reads the tagline for The Chelsea Handler Show, a society-skewing sketch and stand-up comedy show that premiered in April on the E! network. In short, Handler is a skinny, perky blonde who rattles on about personal life experiences, giving comfort and hope to others in the process. She’s also an unabashed workaholic: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno correspondent and author of My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands also stars on the Oxygen network’s hidden-camera series Girls Behaving Badly. But the Katie Couric of Comedy she ain’t. On stage, Handler dishes on dating and drinking with the swagger of a reluctant high-school prom queen who’d rather be out back smoking cigarettes instead of slow-dancing to Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be.” Searing and self-effacing, she headlines Zanies Aug. 3 through 5. —JULIE SEABAUGH Christopher Titus This comedian’s self-titled television show, Titus, flew under mainstream America’s radar for three seasons, covering unusual topics for a primetime sitcom: molestation, rape, suicide, abuse, homosexuality and terrorism. The show was loosely based on the comedian’s own life; both featured an alcoholic father and a suicidal mother. Though it enjoyed favorable reviews and decent ratings, Titus was dropped from FOX’s lineup in 2002. After a two-year hiatus, Titus filmed a 2004 Showtime comedy special, Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding, proving that his “therapeutic stand-up” style hadn’t faltered. His comedy relies mainly on dysfunctional family stories—custody battles, his mother’s insanity—but instead of the upbeat, childish persona he once affected, Titus has adopted an angrier edge that, judging from his packed 2006 tour schedule, seems to be working. Christopher Titus performs two shows at Zanies, 7 and 9 p.m. Aug. 6. —CLAIRE SUDDATH BOOKS Nashville Literary Crawl If you can list every act coming to the Ryman this year but find yourself drawing a blank when it comes to Nashville literature, you might want to spend a little time at the Nashville Literary Crawl on Sunday night. Hosted by Better Tomorrows Adult Education Center, the crawl will take book lovers to Rumours Wine & Art Bar, Bongo Java and Tea Time Nashville, where readers will perform the works of past and present writers with Nashville connections. Robert Penn Warren will represent the Vanderbilt Fugitive movement; Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, who wrote about Fisk University and Nashville respectively, will highlight African American literature; Cora Harris and Sarahbeth Purcell cover women’s literature; Tony Earley and Eric Wilson give a face to contemporary Nashville writers. Guests will hear excerpts from the authors’ work, along with a brief presentation of the writer and how he or she is related to Nashville. The Nashville Literary Crawl starts at 6:30 p.m. and costs $25 per person. Tickets are required in advance and are available by phone at 228-6525. —CLAIRE SUDDATH’ ART KAREN RICH BEALL: “FRUITING BODIES” A widely exhibited sculptor (including participation in a notable multi-artist installation at the Wave Hill gardens in the Bronx), Bell employs a broad range of textures and materials in installations that may include fantastic variations on natural forms or hyper-realistic reproductions. Her Cheekwood exhibit centers on a recurring motif of the circle, a reference to the shape of the planet and the circle of life. An opening reception takes place 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 4; the artist will give a talk at 6:30 in Cheekwood’s Frist Learning Center. —DAVID MADDOX TODD GREENE: “CONQUEST OF USELESSNESS” This new gallery, the joint venture of artist Beth Gilmore and art consultant Caroline Carlisle, opens in room #73 of the Arcade with a show by painter Todd Greene. A man who thinks carefully and passionately about salvation and revelation within the context of paradox-filled human life, he makes art with a sophisticated sense of the spiritual content of visual signs and often a dark, restless undercurrent. The gallery’s grand opening on Saturday, Aug. 5, from 6 to 9 p.m. will include music by the Zen Lunatics, archival films courtesy of Tom Wills, sweets from the Peanut Shop and popsicles from Las Paletas. And what’s more, Dangenart Gallery down the hall at #83 will have a closing reception for its current show at the same time. —DAVID MADDOX Arts Fusion II The Renaissance Center’s one-day, statewide celebration of the arts brings Tennessee artists and art organizations together to create new connections and spotlight the breadth of the exciting creativity currently found in the Volunteer State. Featuring displays, demonstrations and performances by visual artists, dancers, actors and musicians, Arts Fusion II also serves as an information clearinghouse for artists interested in finding out more about the opportunities and support available to them from various groups and organizations across the state. Open to all Tennessee artists and art organizations, this free event takes place 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, and will coincide with an open house celebrating the center’s seventh anniversary and fall semester registration. The Renaissance Center is located at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville. —JOE NOLAN Ruralists Collective Including painters from Tennessee, Texas and Alabama, the Ruralists Collective combines an academic understanding of contemporary art with a folk aesthetic to create a largely narrative body of work that draws from Americana, frontier mythology, rural iconography and agricultural traditions. The collective comes to the Belcourt Theatre lobby through founding member Harry, a local painter whose work has been finding its way into the hands of new collectors via shows at The Art House and Plowhaus alike. Including work by Franne Lee and Merrilee Challis, the show’s highlight is the bizarre and brutal body of work by Texas painter Chicken George, whose mythic pieces are populated by snakes, goats and roosters and seem to be torn from a children’s book your parents wisely kept out of reach. An opening reception takes place on 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4. —JOE NOLAN TAG GRAND OPENING GROUP SHOW Over the last several years, TAG gallery has moved from 12South to Hillsboro Village to The Arts Company, but now it looks like they’ve found a permanent home in the Kress Building on Fifth Avenue North. To celebrate the new space, the gallery is holding a group show, mostly of artists new to the gallery. They include nationally recognized figures like Fred Stonehouse, a Wisconsin artist whose images evoke tattoo art and circus banners and have the finish and details of a Renaissance painting. The other out-of-town artists are Michael Krueger and Mary Addision Hackett and gallery regular Chad Poovey. This will be the first TAG appearance for Nashvillian Adrienne Outlaw; other locals include Julia Martin, Jack Hastings and John Reed. The gallery’s new location is 237 Fifth Ave. N.; the opening reception is 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5. —DAVID MADDOX FILM THE FALLEN IDOL/WEEKEND MATINEE CLASSICS New York’s Rialto Pictures is the most reliable distribution brand in movies today: the Rialto logo means you’ll be seeing either a recognized classic of European cinema in properly restored shape (Renoir’s Grand Illusion, Godard’s Band of Outsiders, Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria), or a forgotten gem deserving of the honor. This 1948 thriller—the first collaboration of director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene, whose The Third Man was a previous Rialto hit—falls into the latter category: it’s an ingeniously plotted Hitchcockian mystery about a diplomat’s little boy (Bobby Henrey) who witnesses what may be deadly intrigue involving his beloved butler (Ralph Richardson). The Rialto release opens Friday for a week’s run at the Belcourt; it’s also the first feature in the theater’s terrific new series of classic matinees every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This month’s titles include Gone with the Wind (Aug. 11-13), the Rialto release of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 resistance thriller Army of Shadows (Aug, 18-20), and Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Aug. 25-27), with September devoted to Reservoir Dogs, Casablanca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers knockout Swing Time, and the restored version of Sam Peckinpah’s Civil War epic Major Dundee. Which means the choices available to Nashville moviegoers just got about 1,000 percent better: there’s not a loser in this bunch. —JIM RIDLEY CHUNKLET OVERRATED TOUR w/ PULL-THE-STRING PLAYERS Everybody already knows your favorite band sucks, but only the peach-eatin’ assholes at Athens’ Chunklet magazine can explain it to you in such wincingly hilarious detail. On tour to flog the mag’s new compilation, The Overrated Book—which you should buy now, just to bust hipsters when they rip off its juiciest barbs—editor Henry H. Owings returns to The Basement with another night of his mind-bending “Lost & Found” video clips. Courtesy of online trash-video purveyor 5 Minutes to Live, the cache might include anything from psychedelic Asian horror and Bollywood musical numbers to the strangest in rotgut exotica: Christian scare films, dire music videos, the infamous CNN “interview” where James Brown practically speaks in tongues. If someone’s got a camcorder handy, Owings will get some new material on the spot, as Nashville’s notorious Pull-the-String Players will open with their latest NC-17 puppet show. Join Sylvan Park string-pullers Eric Williams, Garland Gallaspy and Sami El Amri as they present a gay gangsta rapper’s rise to the bottom in “One Brown Finger: The Saga of MC Homocyde,” with music by the Pink Spiders’ Dave Paulson. Show time is 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4. —JIM RIDLEY CRUMB Terry Zwigoff’s 1995 documentary portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb remains one of the most haunting movies ever made about the harsh mysteries of the creative process and the elastic lifeline that genius extends to madness. Unflinching in its assessment of Crumb’s savage work—Zwigoff doesn’t cushion or explain away the racial and sexual extremity of his comics—the film spends as much time on the artist’s bitterly troubled brothers Charles and Maxon, leaving the impression that Crumb was lucky to escape his upbringing scarred but intact. By turns funny, raunchy, disturbing and heartbreaking, with an unforgettable last shot, the film screens Sunday and Monday at the Belcourt as part of its ongoing Sundance retrospective. —JIM RIDLEY
