Diarrhea Planet, JEFF the Brotherhood, Lilly Hiatt and More Salute Exit/In

Through the summer and early fall, all you could do was speculate about what might happen next at Nashville music institution Exit/In. As the historic club celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021, the property was sold to developer AJ Capital Partners, while longtime venue operators Chris and Telisha Cobb launched a campaign to raise money on top of existing financial backing to make AJ an offer on the site. In March, the Cobbs noted that they weren’t booking shows after Thanksgiving, citing uncertainty about their lease. In August, a phenomenal run of shows began popping up on the November calendar, with some artists billing their appearances as their “farewell to Exit/In.”

Finally, in mid-November, Chris Cobb confirmed that he and Telisha had “exhausted all efforts” to buy the building and the aforementioned shows would be the last ones under their management. AJ Capital representatives confirmed the club would reopen in 2023 on a date TBA following renovations. AJ sought a historic zoning overlay that would apply to the Exit/In building, and some music fans have expressed relief that the firm didn’t decide to tear down the club and leave the historic marker out front. There’s no reason as of yet to say that the incoming staff won’t act in good faith to keep the venue playing the same important role in local music that it has for half a century. But the way the change has come about has left a bad taste in many folks’ mouths. The Cobbs — like Todd Ohlhauser & Co. at the Mercy Lounge complex, which shuttered in May and which is slated to reopen next year as Cannery Hall — didn’t appear to act with anything less at heart than the best interests of musicians and audiences, leaving the feeling that the power to make the decisions ends up going to whoever has the most money.

With all of these emotions and others bubbling around, Scene music writers and/or photographers squeezed into the sold-out crowd for each of the last five shows at Exit/In as we’ve known it for nearly two decades. Each show featured musicians who’ve played Exit/In over the past couple decades as they played their parts in making independent music from Nashville known far and wide.

On Saturday night, Nov. 19, the air outside the venue was cold, heavy and damp, lending a thick and slouchy vibe to the pre-show proceedings inside. The overall mood seemed to reflect a keen awareness that we’re on the verge of a significant change that no one is looking forward to. Coley and the Young Go-Hards, a band of ringers fronted by ace musician Coley Hinson, lit a festive spark with some eclectic covers. There was a Monkees tune, as when they opened for Lilly Hiatt at the Mercy Lounge finale in May, as well as songs by artists who’ve graced the Exit/In stage in decades past, like John Prine and Billy Joel. The crowd was appreciative, but the dark feeling in the air remained. 

Adia Victoria and her band came prepared to kick the somberness up a notch, all dressed in black and armed with a set list that drew heavily from 2021’s masterful A Southern Gothic. Victoria dedicated the simmering “Whole World Knows” to “every single survivor of Christianity,” and she described “Magnolia Blues” — anchored by a slinky Jason Harris bass line — as “another song about a dumbass girl who thought she could make it in New York.”

It was Lilly Hiatt’s turn next, and somber gave way to rowdy. Thanks to tunes like “P-Town” and Josh Halper’s furious guitar solo on “Trinity Lane,” the audience loosened up. As she did in May, Hiatt concluded her set with a vibrant stomp through Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My” and exhorted everyone to take care of each other as the crowd sprinkled off into the night.

Sunday’s show brought out younger fans who’d had their concept of a rock scene largely shaped by JEFF the Brotherhood’s singer-guitarist Jake Orrall and drummer Jamin Orrall and Infinity Cat Recordings. The brothers started the influential label as teenagers with their dad, musician and visual artist Robert Ellis “Bob the Fatherhood” Orrall. Also in the audience were plenty of folks a few years older, who were doing our best to channel our inner 20-somethings and stay up past 10 p.m. on a school night. 

The Bogus Bros were also drawing some energy from their younger selves, as their two shows would feature full performances of albums they’ve evolved far beyond as they’ve absorbed new influences, added new members, taken a hiatus and settled in new locales. Their 2009 LP Heavy Days, which got the spotlight Sunday, marked the beginning of the duo’s transition from locally revered band to internationally loved touring outfit. 

The buzz of anticipation that New Orleans psych group Silver Synthetic encouraged in the audience carried over into the P.A., as the recording of insects that opens the snarly, gnarly, pop-inclined Heavy Days played Jake and Jamin to the stage. One verse into “Heavy Days,” the crowd surfing commenced. Jake plays with many more tonal colors on newer records like 2018’s wonderfully experimental Magick Songs and this year’s Ye Olde …, but he had no trouble conjuring the molten-ice-cream sound of the Heavy Days period. Jamin’s more recent parts tend toward jazz, but on Sunday he very literally leaned into the distinctive metal-meets-motorik rhythms that became his calling card. Silver Synthetic guitarist Kunal Prakash, a longtime associate who officially joined JEFF in 2018, added some extra textures to the sweet-and-sour “The Tropics,” and to a few songs in the encore including English progsters Wicked Lady’s “I’m a Freak.” But for the most part, it was just the Orralls, inspiring about 500 fans to slam dance like we weren’t going to need Icy Hot later.

Night 2 of JEFF’s doubleheader at Exit/In was all about 2011’s We Are the Champions, frenzied stage dives, bittersweet vibes and old familiar faces.

After an opening set from Impediment, the brothers Orrall — once again playing as the classic two-man lineup — took the stage to Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red.” Champions is a record built on sludgy riffs and catchy hooks in equal measure, and despite a couple of false starts in “Cool Out,” the boys were off to the races by the time the undeniable Oh oh oh oh ohs of “Diamond Way” hit. Longtime JEFF collaborator and familiar local sideman Loney John Hutchins joined on keys for “Endless Fire,” and frontman Jake noted that we’d be getting the official “Heavy Version” of “Health and Strength” rather than the sitar-kissed rendition that landed on Champions — more conducive to the flurry of crowd-surfing that was happening by set’s end anyhow.

After meandering around the stage and only barely ducking out of sight for a moment, Jake and Jamin kicked off a long encore with “U Got the Look” before dipping back into 2006’s Castle Storm for the eternally crowd-pleasing “Extra Good.” The encore kept threatening to end, but the players seemed as hesitant as anyone to call it a night — with the possible exception of Nashville’s Best Stage Dad, Bob Orrall, who rocked along in the crowd at stage left, as ever. But the Bogus Bros finally shut it down with Heavy Days’ “Mind Ride,” with Jake sending his trademark custom three-string Lucite guitar out into the crowd for one last Exit/In surf of its own before bidding us all farewell.

When Diarrhea Planet decided to take a final bow in 2018, the Belmont-bred shredders chose Exit/In for their farewell run. It was a fitting decision: Some of their earliest gigs were across Elliston Place at The End, and Exit/In became like a second home as the band worked its way toward becoming nationally known. Following a little victory lap in which they opened for Jason Isbell in October 2018, DP retired, having gone out in a blaze of glory and splinters from a guitar smashed on the Ryman stage. Tuesday, they seemed just as stoked to be back onstage as the rabid crowd was to be on the receiving end of their four-guitar assault. They opened with “Ghost With a Boner,” the supremely silly song that was their first fan favorite; it sounds like a great way to recover if the screen goes out when you’re doing “Dancing in the Dark” at karaoke. 

“I haven’t sweat this much since 2018,” quipped frontman Jordan Smith early in the set, before sharing a bit about the night’s bittersweet proceedings. “I think things like this just go to prove that, while it can be a sad thing, you can take away the building but you can’t take away a community.” As crowd surfers whizzed by, the band joyfully blazed through a 20-song set that included songs from each of their three studio albums — with highlights including a larger-than-life performance of “Kids” — as well as a loud, faithfully raucous cover of The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” with finger-tap-happy guitarist Emmett Miller on lead vocal. 

Waxed, whose summer 2022 debut Give Up took home Best Metal Album honors in this year’s Best of Nashville, got Wednesday’s show off and running at a breakneck pace. The quintet’s ferocity and technicality earned plaudits from DP’s Smith later in the night: “We can’t riff that hard — what is even going on?!” 

Snooper, who came roaring out of pandemic lockdown in 2021 and have barely stopped since, went next. Equal parts band and art project, the five-person group led by post-punk lovers and creative partners Connor Cummins and Blair Tramel reeled off hyperactive, helium-voiced one- and two-minute missives — some Devo influence here, a little Deerhoof there — so uniformly concise that would-be stage-divers sometimes found themselves stranded awkwardly onstage at the moment a song stopped. Impressively, those who visited Snooper’s merch table at the end of the night could buy a cassette of the very show they’d just witnessed. In a move harkening back to the origin of Infinity Cat circa 2002, the band recorded it, and, while D.P. played, the guitarist could be seen fiendishly dubbing and hand-labeling copies for showgoers to take home.

Diarrhea Planet’s set was no mere reprise of their 2018 finale. While the 2018 sets paid tribute to The Who, Tears for Fears, Rage Against the Machine and other classic acts that shaped the Planeteers, these had a different tenor, spanning nearly every original from the sextet’s catalog. Wednesday’s sole cover was an appropriate one: “White Lies,” from Old Nashville rock iconoclasts Jason & the Scorchers. Capped, once more, by the powerful loss-of-innocence paean “Kids” and, naturally, “Ghost” (this time, played last), the band’s emotive, riff-tastic trademark sound delivered the feels and shook the walls as always. If this was to be the last proper rock show to take place in the venerable building as it had been known, one would have been hard-pressed to find a more appropriate local band to see it off.

In 2022, four independent venues that have a long history of making major contributions to the local music ecosystem closed their doors and have changeovers in the works — that’s plenty to make Nashville music fans uneasy. It’s also true that, for now, the creative independent spirit remains strong with lots of people working hard to keep it alive. But as all kinds of pressures mount — especially economic ones — the risk that we’ll eventually lose what people have been working to build for decades isn’t going anywhere, either.

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