There’s a reason why most DIY venues fizzle out after a couple of years: The odds are stacked against them. There are skyrocketing rents to consider, the looming shadow of hungry developers transforming dumpy houses that are still perfectly suitable for habitation (and shows) into million-dollar duplexes. There’s also the fact that members of youth-culture scenes simply grow up and out of them. All of those factors make running a consistent DIY space wildly difficult.
Drkmttr, which settled into its third and (hopefully) permanent home at the beginning of the year, has battled all of those threats and survived. The venue’s new Dickerson Pike space maintains all of the high-minded ideals that have been at the core of the operation from its beginning in 2015: cheap shows, inclusive booking, always all-ages, always safe for marginalized people.
What’s different is that the existential dread that business partners Kathryn Edwards, Olivia Scibelli and Chappy Hull have faced in the past has been eliminated, thanks in part to another DIY trio from local rock history. Donnie Kendall, April Kendall and Mary Mancini co-ran Lucy’s Record Shop in the ’90s, filling the DIY hole in a scene that was — and in many ways always is — looking for its voice. The three (along with David Abbey and Mancini’s husband and Lambchop chief Kurt Wagner) bought the building that now houses Drkmttr, giving the space a home that can’t be taken from them.
Since the opening, Drkmttr has hosted events running the gamut from comedy nights to craft fairs to disco dance parties, alongside their usual fare of local and national shredders with names like Act of Impalement, Tom Violence and Guerilla Toss. Now that Drkmttr isn’t fighting for survival, its future as a community resource for young people in Nashville is brighter than ever. LANCE CONZETT
