The East Room Celebrates 10 Years of Cross-Genre D.I.Y. Action in East Nashville

For a broad spectrum of creative types — from Nashville comics and bands on the rise, to organizers putting on community-building mini-festivals, to musicians from all over the country getting their feet wet with touring — The East Room has been a vital presence during the past decade. While CMA Fest raged along Lower Broad and at Nissan Stadium, the Gallatin Avenue venue celebrated its 10th anniversary with a three-night festival of its own. An all-star group of stand-ups performed Thursday, and long-running goth dance party Fascination Street kept the beat going until long after the normies went to bed on Saturday.

But Friday was all about local musicians who’ve made themselves at home at The East Room — an assortment of indie rockers, punks, rappers and hard rock acts thoughtfully staggered by Taylor Cole, the venue’s general manager and talent buyer. I got inside right as Peachy got going. Since 2018, singer-guitarist Rachel Warrick, bassist-vocalist Leah Miller and drummer Benji Coale have been one of Music City's foremost sources of tight, tuneful, scrappy punk rock. 

In the four years since their debut EP Squirt on Budding Romance Records, Miller and Warrick have gotten their dual-frontperson approach down to a science. Miller's bellows are brash and theatrical, while Warrick pushes the melody. When the two sing in unison — like on Squirt's “Rich Boy” — there's sort of a Corin-and-Carrie effect that fans of old-school Sleater-Kinney will appreciate. Peachy's live sets never disappoint, but the trio is overdue for a new release. On Friday, Warrick pledged that their second record will be out by August or September.

The energy from Peachy's set carried over to a stirring set from local rap hopeful Lord Goldie and her live band, who got a small but fierce contingent going apeshit in the front. Around this time, I caught up with Cole, the man of the hour, who bounced around the room like a pinball all night. Wherever you looked, there he was with his blond mane and big grin. 

Forever in search of ways to make the audience feel like part of the show, Cole asked if I thought Okey Dokey, up next, or Fable Cry, on deck right after, would make the most sense for him to drop a bunch of confetti and balloons on the crowd midset. He ended up doing it for both bands, naturally.

Okey Dokey put pop songcraft first, while the seven-piece Fable Cry matched playfully macabre vibes to serious instrumental prowess. The septet’s performance was a 45-minute whirlwind of keyboard pounding, time signature shifting and synchronized headbanging. They summoned memories of Seattle greats Murder City Devils — or as a friend remarked, “the Brothers Grimm, making rock music.”

Hip-hop trio Heru Heru shifted the mood dramatically yet naturally with a concise set of forceful beats and rhymes. The three-man juggernaut threw it back to the days of Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star with their easy rapport and unwillingness to waste a minute. Thoughtful headbangers Oginalii — playing behind their 2020 mini-album Pendulum — even got a minor mosh pit going as they teed up H.A.R.D., the final band of the night.

The three shows in general — and Friday’s live-music extravaganza in particular — celebrated the communal spirit that brings people together to make an arts scene. If you’ve been thinking about how independent venues play a key part in creating the culture of a city, you don’t have to look further than this for a concrete example.