Fond Object Marks the End of an Era With One Last Concert [Updated]

*Update, March 2: The show has been moved to Soft Junk at 919 Gallatin Ave. No. 14.

*Update, Feb. 28, 1 p.m.: According to a Facebook post by the store, the location for the farewell show will change. A new location has not been announced yet.

Original story:

On a visit to Fond Object in East Nashville one rainy Friday afternoon, the vibe was casual as usual. Staffers Steve Forrest and Kiley Wells were good-naturedly bantering behind the counter, Miller High Lifes in hand. A couple of fashionably dressed shoppers flipped through records. A Detroit garage-rock compilation blared from the speakers. One would never have guessed this was the Riverside Village vinyl and vintage-clothing emporium’s third-to-last day of operation. It officially shuttered on Sunday, Feb. 17, and there’ll be one more show in its backyard on Saturday — a free, all-ages affair with Olivia Jean, Country Westerns and many more playing.

What Fond Object represents in Nashville is worth memorializing. The store opened in 2013, with a team of business partners — Coco Hames, Jem Cohen and Poni Silver of the rock band The Ettes, plus illustrator Rachel Briggs and longtime record-store staffer and record collector Jeff Pettit — spreading their creative businesses throughout a complex at the corner of Riverside Drive and McGavock Pike. As little as two years ago it seemed to be a thriving, community-minded one-stop shop for cool music, threads, art and shows, even though several of the original partners had moved on. In March 2017, remaining co-founders Pettit and Cohen announced plans for a second location on Fourth Avenue South near downtown. Assessing the area, with its glut of construction and scarcity of foot traffic, Cohen knew opening there was a gamble. But he was hopeful. 

“There’s this moment, right now I feel like,” he told the Scene at the time, “where locals can get in there and open their stores and their bars and their restaurants, whatever they want to do. A call to arms! A call to action! Everyone, let’s go downtown!”

Fond Object’s downtown location opened that April, on Record Store Day. Like its sister shop to the east, it was the kind of place where you might not find the exact album you’re looking for, but you were likely to find something even better, rarer or weirder — almost certainly for less money. Local bands’ vinyl, tapes and CDs? They had you covered. The new spot also offered space to double up on both the vintage and live-show operations that were as much a part of F.O.’s identity as the records.

Then, four months later, Pettit died suddenly in his office at the East Nashville location. He was 46. Following Pettit’s shocking passing, the business’s troubles snowballed. The downtown outpost struggled to make rent, and the looming threat of real estate development closed in on the flagship location. The former closed in October 2018. The next month, a much-contested redevelopment plan for the latter (which didn’t include the shop remaining in the building) was withdrawn by developers, paving the way for them to do something even more extreme: raze the entire complex as well as the houses on a couple of adjoining lots. At the same time, Cohen was informed by landlord Lance Bloom that his lease would not be renewed. Fond Object would have to vacate the building by the end of February. 

With Cohen having recently relocated to L.A., clerk and booker Forrest and live sound engineer Wells became the de facto faces of the store through the upheaval. Forrest explains that the downtown store was originally opened as a contingency plan against a sudden decision by Bloom not to renew the lease in Riverside Village.

“Unfortunately, it ended up hemorrhaging money,” Forrest says. “It was a good idea, just too dodgy of an area still. Clothing and online sales — Discogs and eBay — have really saved us, kept us afloat. That, and the shows. And then with everything happening with the development [in East Nashville] … we’ve just been trying to make lemonade.”

In a January Instagram post announcing that Fond Object would close in February, Cohen told those disheartened by seeing local mainstays fade away to take urgent action. “There’s always cheap rent somewhere, and people will follow where good vibes and ideas go,” he wrote. “Start a local business, support local businesses, attend community meetings, and get involved with local politics.”

Whether the Fond Object name will live on is to be determined, but at least one of Cohen’s colleagues is up for the challenge.

“I’d love to create Fond Object II,” says Forrest. “A place for music and art to come together, no matter how big or small you are. More a venue than a record store — a small, choice selection [of records], but mostly an event space. Have the same aesthetic, keep it East, but not in a building that’s falling apart. That’s my long game.”

Pettit’s memory, he adds, remains close at hand.

“Jeff was hilarious,” Forrest says, laughing. “When I first met him, I was sure he didn’t like me. So many people thought he didn’t like them. He was kinda grumpy, moody … the classic record-store guy. But he had a sweet side once you got to know him. It was a shame he died so young and so unexpectedly, and it’s sad this building is getting bulldozed, because so much happened here. But to be honest, I believe the business started dying when Jeff died. There was a shift in the energy. I did the best I could to come in and pick that back up … but it’s the end of an era, and it’s time to move on. That said … keeping the name is something that links it to Jeff, and the work he put in.”