The first thing we noticed when perusing the lineup for the second Next Big Nashville festival was the sheer number of acts—some 130—slated to take stages all over the city over the next four days.
It got us thinking about the various pockets and cliques kicking around, and the staggering largeness of a music scene that still manages on certain nights to feel more like a ghost town than a hotbed of musical activity.
No matter. The bands showcasing their goods the next few days not only represent nearly every imaginable stage of a music career—bright young things to career revivalists—but also every imaginable level of ambition.
Nashville’s rock scene is at odds with itself, unsure of its definition of success and quick to rabble-rouse—but maybe those are just growing pains. We see it as a necessary tension, the sort of competition among rivals that spurs a few good men and women on to greatness. And like the rock genre itself, our scene is an umbrella large enough to house typical pop-rock fare, metal, the experimentally bent, the singer-songwriter and the joke band.
And the good news is that our scene just keeps getting bigger and more diverse, as evidenced by the astonishing number of transplants—from upstarts such as Katie Herzig and Jeremy Lister to veterans such as Freedy Johnston—moving to Nashville to carve out a living in something other than twang.
And, of course, we’ve got an ever-expanding crop of locals: veteran acts such as The Features who keep the scene honest, and hustlers such as The Pink Spiders (whose singer/guitarist Matt Friction hosts a showcase for his Geffen imprint, Mean Buzz, at Exit/In), who still manage to piss off everyone each time they inch toward that brass ring. There are newcomers dancing the line between art and comedy, such as electronic poppers Plastic Clap! (we still can’t tell if the joke’s on us), delightfully amped-up young side projects such as Turbo Fruits, sprung from the head of Be Your Own Pet guitarist Jonas Stein, indie-pop singer-songwriters such as Brooke Waggoner and Cortney Tidwell, offbeat, irreverent performers such as The Mattoid, new wave loyalists Plex Plex, and too many more to cover here.
But you’ve heard about most of those performers before. What follows are 10 bands we haven’t covered enough or at all, acts who have been quietly building buzz and piling up praise and recommendations until we can’t ignore them anymore. You can’t see all 130 bands playing over the next few days—who would want to?—but you can see these 10. Think of them and the festival as a developing snapshot of where Nashville’s rock scene is now and where it’s headed: yeah, it’s a little uneven, and plenty blurry around the edges, but it’s coming into focus a little more each year.
THURSDAY, 6TH
Those Darlins
Like many rockers before them, Murfreesboro’s Those Darlins play country music for laughs, but their renditions of Carter Family and Merle Travis songs avoid parody. Kentucky native Jessi Z. Wariner met Kelley Anderson at Murfreesboro’s Southern Girls Rock ’n’ Roll Camp—which Anderson founded—and soon enough hooked up with Nikki Kvarnes, a singer and ukulele player from Virginia. Coming from musical families, the trio had absorbed the punk and classic rock of their parents, and Wariner, the group’s guitarist, learned country standards from her grandfather. Once they heard the Carter Family, the trio set out to reinterpret the likes of A.P. Carter’s “Little Darling Pal of Mine” and Jerry Irby’s “Drivin’ Nails in My Coffin.” It’s a typical tale of imaginative musicians looking for fresh kicks within the context of a tradition that was never as staid as historians would lead you to believe. They’re too young to indulge in revivalism—at 24, Anderson is the oldest Darlin—and their live show finds the trio hamming it up and getting rowdy in the time-honored spirit of rock ’n’ roll.
For all that, they’re skilled musicians. Anderson did a stint as bassist for Ghostfinger, so while their music is minimalist, it’s not slapdash. They played their first show in January, and recently they’ve been touring. Wariner says they love being on the road, where they seem to be making quite an impression on audiences who might be unprepared for their combination of old-time reverence and freewheeling enthusiasm. While they’ve composed the occasional song, such as “The Whole Damn Thing,” a casual tale of unrepentant chicken-eating, they’ve concentrated so far on choosing appropriate material, much of which concerns such topics as death and booze. But Wariner says they’ve been writing, and they plan to begin recording their debut sometime this fall. 9:30 p.m. at The End —EDD HURT
THURSDAY, 6TH
Turncoats
Turncoats are one of the best-kept secrets around town, and for good reason. With a lineup that includes members of The Young Livers and How I Became The Bomb, they keep typically lean side-project hours. In the relatively short span they’ve been together, they’ve played a handful of reputably excellent gigs, established a barely discernible web presence, and released a killer 7” single, “Shoot That Girl,” on Grand Palace Records. They play classic rock with an exuberant punk spirit, like they’ve only just now absorbed 30 years of raucous rock ’n’ roll, scrambled it up in their garage, and suddenly began piecing it all back together from scratch themselves. The results have a genuine and timeless appeal, like that of The Ponys, that prevents their conjurings from becoming some kind of pastiche or trad-rock novelty.
The life of a side project is always tenuous, but the mettle of Turncoats’ early output should be enough to ensure that they’ll have a future of some kind. In the short term, however, it looks as if Turncoats will have to continue to work around How I Became The Bomb’s schedule, and beyond that is anyone’s guess. It is indicative of just how far the local scene has come in the past few years, though, that now even half-assed Murfreesboroan side projects are indispensible. That there are near-invisible bands as good as Turncoats lurking about also serves further notice to the outside world that the dark indie rock underbelly of Nashville is becoming something to be reckoned with. 10:15 pm at The End —ANDREW J. SMITHSON
THURSDAY, 6TH
Kindergarten Circus
“We play because we love music and have fun making it, not because we need to pay rent,” asserts The Kindergarten Circus bio. And the fun they’re having is apparent as soon as you hear the opening seconds of any four of the bluesy, trashed-out tracks available online. The fact that they don’t need to pay rent is equally obvious when browsing the photos of the three-piece—these kids are young’uns. Recent graduates of the recording class offered at the Youth Culture and Arts Center in Murfreesboro (taught by Southern Girls Rock ’n’ Roll Camp founder Kelley Anderson), the band originally formed just over a year ago as participants in their middle school’s talent show. Since then the band has recorded an EP scheduled for release on Grand Palace Records in early 2008. As for the songs currently available? Well, they’re sloppy—the kind of sloppy that results when a band’s drive and conviction outpaces their execution. It’s the sort of aesthetic typically associated with bands who sounded as if they made music because they had to, even if their ambitions outweighed their ability—Joy Division, Wire or the Birthday Party. But whereas those bands brooded, there’s no trace of teen angst in TKC’s carefree raucousness. As self-professed White Stripes fanatics, the band proudly wear their influences on their sleeves, reveling in blues-based, dirty rock ’n’ roll with plenty of punk’s aggression. The band play as part of the Grand Palace showcase at The End, but will also appear in a free in-store performance at Grimey’s earlier in the day for all of the underage fans who would have otherwise been left listening outside. 8:45 p.m. at The End —MATT SULLIVAN
THURSDAY, 6TH
Black Diamond Heavies
Whether the subject in question is oil or whiskey, distillation is supposed to remove any unnecessary elements and yield something altogether more potent. In the case of the Black Diamond Heavies, the distillation may have been unintentional, but the result was the same—a purified ruckus. Last February, Mississippi hill country-style bluesman Mark Holder left the group to escape the incessant touring. Rather than replace him, vocalist/keyboardist John Wesley Myers and drummer Van Campbell soldiered on as a guitarless two-piece. “The only guitar player that we ever thought could replace Mark was a guy called Scott H. Biram—we never even asked him,” Campbell says.
The result—on display on the Heavies’ debut full-length, Every Damn Time (there’s an unreleased album recorded earlier with Holder still in the can)—was a shift from a two-headed monster trafficking in all manner of sludgy, punked-out blues to a one-headed one favoring scuzzy garage R&B. It’s more fluid—since the molten, distorted-sounding Rhodes piano is front and center—and more raw—since the instrumentation is down to sinew and bone and Myers’ Tom Waits-esque throat-scraping growl is now the primary vocal. “It’s actually really nice being able to have that amount of space in the music,” says Campbell, whose mercurial, near-possessed style spans crash-bang punk to nimble jazz improvisation. “The guitar and the drums tend to take up a similar sort of range sonically. It’s given me a lot of freedom to fill things up, but not seem like I’m playing too busy or anything.”
The Heavies haven’t been quite as much of a fixture since Campbell moved back to Louisville and Myers returned to Chattanooga. Plus they’re on the road all the damn time. As Campbell puts it: “Even though we might not be around Nashville or playing around a whole lot, it’s just because we’re working our asses off trying to cover as much territory as we can all over the world.” 8:45 p.m. at Exit/In —JEWLY HIGHT
FRIDAY, 7TH
Jennifer Nicely
Leisurely, jazz-inflected and nearly hookless, Jennifer Niceley’s new Luminous flirts with entropy but communicates as pop. Hailing from Strawberry Plains, Tenn., Niceley writes songs that come to life slowly. Enhanced by producer Joe McMahan’s light touch, a song such as “Shadows and Mountains” connects the quotidian with the mystical. “Streetlights turned into starlight,” Niceley sings, and her reticent phrasing contrasts with the song’s swinging 4/4 rhythm. A poetic record that never sounds pretentious, Luminous incorporates dissonant guitars, swaying strings and pregnant pauses, and recalls the fat, live sound of an early-’60s blues record. It takes a special talent to retool Don Robey and Joe Scott’s “Blind Man”— rendered by Bobby Bland on his 1964 Ain’t Nothing You Can Do LP, and later covered by Little Milton and Traffic—as “Blind Woman,” but Niceley’s version is a bluesy slow drag that might be the record’s triumph. When she sings, “I’m living in a world of darkness / But that don’t bother me,” it’s heroic, crazy and thrilling.
If Niceley sings in a conversational coo that doesn’t assert itself, she makes up for her seeming lack of audacity with lyrics about reconnection. The title track declares, “We could live out under the stars / Just remember how luminous we are.” Other songs, such as the gorgeous “Dark Eyes,” threaten to go out of tempo entirely, but remain still, quiet and composed. Luminous is addictive and subtly twisted, and Niceley’s songs are starting points for deeper meditation. In fact, her great theme might be the limits of nostalgia, which puts her in a venerable pop-music tradition. Rounding out the bill are Tristen, Carey Ott, Spiritual Family Reunion, Altered Statesman and Lone Official, all of whom make their own idiosyncratic pop-music connections. 10:15 p.m. at the Basement—EDD HURT
FRIDAY, 7TH
Cake Bake Betty
Recently relocated to Brooklyn from Nashville, Cake Bake Betty is primarily the vehicle of Lindsay Powell. Consisting largely of a piano and Powell’s gorgeous voice, Cake Bake Betty, along with JEFF and Be Your Own Pet, make up the core of local label Infinity Cat’s roster. Alternating between cute and creepy, Powell’s lyrics to last year’s Songs About Teeth tackle everything from monsters to babies to cannibalism, often juxtaposed against whimsical keyboard flourishes that occasionally drift into more experimental territory. The approach lends itself to the obvious Tori Amos comparisons, but rather than focus exclusively on melodrama, Powell’s songwriting maintains a strong undercurrent of playfulness. Performing with Cake Bake Betty at the End will be the Mattoid, the Valentines, Nathan Vasquez’s Be Your Own Pet side project Deluxin’ and JEFF, whose members Jake and Jamin Orrall have contributed to Cake Bake Betty in the past. Alongside Whirlwind Heat member Brad Holland, Powell and the Orrall brothers also comprise the riff-oriented, ’70s prog rock-influenced and fantastically named Skyblazer, who will be performing one of the bigger NBN draws of the weekend at the Cannery Ballroom. Opening for The Features, De Novo Dahl and How I Became the Bomb, Skyblazer’s heavy Hawkwind and Sabbath-inspired psychedelia will serve as an interesting counter to the sugary pop that constitutes the rest of the night’s lineup. Unsuspecting heads will be scratched. Cake Bake Betty’s second album, To the Dark Tower, is set for release later this month. 10:45 p.m. at The End —MATT SULLIVAN
FRIDAY, 7TH
Tyler James
Having some melancholy feelings? Looking for a soundtrack? Well, look no further. Young singer-songwriter Tyler James’ pristine, melodic pop is a paradigm of pretty music’s ability to be intensely sad. His piano-driven ballads, which draw on the rich sounds of the ’60s and ’70s, are deceptively simple—containing lines that latch onto the brain.
One of James’ greatest assets is his voice—it is warm, expressive and most definitely prime-time TV soundtrack-ready. Many of his songs seem destined for a supporting role in a tearful denouement because they offer what those moments cry out for: wistfulness, relatability and an infectious sense of melody.
James’ delightfully spare debut EP opened with “Stay Humble,” a low-key rocker featuring a satisfying combination of rangy piano chords and a shimmying drumbeat. The song was tapped for the Ten Out of Tenn compilation, a collection of songs by up-and-coming artists from Nashville.
James' new EP Sweet Relief pushes his beloved vintage elements even further, ornamenting the tunes with a lush palette of horns, guitar and even pedal steel. It is a more complex sound, indicating grander ambitions (and resources). James, who signed on with Nettwerk Management, has a full-length due this fall, which will no doubt continue to showcase his expanded arsenal of clever pop tricks. 8:45 p.m. at Mercy Lounge —LEE STABERT
SATURDAY, 8TH
Dixie Dirt
We’ve been hearing raves about co-ed “Appalachian art punk” band Dixie Dirt for months, mainly from Grimey’s namesake and ringleader Mike Grimes, who describes this Knoxville quartet as something like “if Sonic Youth went to a pissed-off Fleetwood Mac household and they all started a band.” An apt comparison, though it’d be worth throwing in The Pixies for their tortured, achy guitar riffs, that wistful Wilco country-rock twang and singer Kat Brock’s vocals, which sound like Chan Marshall channeling Ani DiFranco after a bottle of whiskey and a newly scarred heart.
The songs off Pieces of the World are tricky and mellifluous—broken songs for broken people that sway and swagger along through ambling country roads and musical mutation after mutation. One minute the band frolics through alt-country, only to abandon it for a spell of proggy rock noodling, then it’s back to late ’80s college-radio indie-rock touchstones before they shuffle downstairs to a late-night lounge act. All along the way are shimmering, bendy guitar parts that play like blurred landscapes whizzing by from a car’s passenger window. Sounds like a schizophrenic recipe for disaster, but the band’s skill and musicianship, Angela Santos’ brilliant guitar work and the common thread of plangent, thoughtful lyrics about love and the human condition make this one hell of a stunning mix. Half the band has relocated to Nashville, so you can welcome this new, stiff competition to the scene alongside newcomers Britten, The Last Goodbye, Pico vs. Island Trees, Gabe Dixon Band and Cage the Elephant. 10:15 p.m. Saturday at Exit/In —TRACY MOORE
SATURDAY, 8TH
Eureka Gold
As the story goes, Archimedes leaped from the bath and ran naked down the street shouting “Eureka!” because he’d figured out how to figure out whether a crown made for the king was really solid gold. As it turns out, this story is probably not true. But if the old fable is at all instructive when listening to local rockers Eureka Gold, we can rule out mathematics, at least where the “math rock” designation is concerned: their driving, melodic style is more ’60s California than calculus. And if “eureka” means “I found it,” then the name certainly fits—with melodies soaked in sunshine, Eureka Gold are definitely on to something. On their recent eponymous album, there’s a palpable, freewheeling energy that runs through from the opening track, “Belly Full of Wine,” which sounds almost like a less-blue Blue Cheer, to the languid rim-shot shuffle of “Duncan and Apelonia,” which closes the proceedings. In between, the band sends pop-rock postcards from all sorts of stylistic landmarks. The rollicking “Do It With My Right” recalls Flake Music (the band that later became The Shins) in its condensation of Pavement-esque quirkiness into a concentrated pop concoction that brings you back to those gold sounds, replete with Beach Boys-style vocal accoutrements. There is much to enjoy in these songs, and though their live show has been somewhat uneven, this is a band with an engaging rhythmic and melodic sense, as next and as big as anything going on in the Nashville indie scene right now—the kind of band that may yet make a splash, so to speak. 8 p.m. at Cannery Ballroom —STEVE HARUCH
SATURDAY, 8TH
Save Macaulay
Caitlin Rose, a.k.a. Save Macaulay, sings like a teenager alone in her room, which is what she was. The 19-year-old’s idiosyncratic delivery is bursting with a reedy emotionalism that is perfect for both ironic quips and big, quivering notes. Her quirky, country-tinged pop contains equal parts Bright Eyes and Loretta Lynn—both of them also know how to sound naked when they sing.
Rose’s casual wordiness also owes a debt to the confessional singer-songwriter genre, but she tempers it with a clever vintage sensibility—there are moments on her upcoming LP (due out this fall on Theory 8) that could be mistaken for a lost country B-side—secret, spare and extra twangy.
There are plenty of excellent break-up songs—can the world ever have too many?—including the slow burner “Song for Rabbits” in which Rose reenacts the he said/she said of a comfortably fucked-up relationship: “Fall back into my desperate arms / Fall back into this old disaster / Because it’s better than spending all your nights alone.” Like most of the best, the young songwriter relies on the well-chosen detail: a T-shirt from an old love, the way you still check their favorite TV channels: “It’s wrong how much I changed for you / I sit back and watch my channels change just how you want them to.”
Another standout, “Heart of this Town,” also spins its yarn within the confines of a passionate disaster. It’s a country-style back-and-forth duet with Jeremy McAnulty (brother of De Novo Dahl’s Joel) about cheatin’, drinkin’, fightin’ and coming back home—each person daring the other actually to end it. The instrumentation is simultaneously old school—pedal steel, banjo—and just quirky enough to be modern: the occasional organ, chiming keyboard or horn section. And, all that aside, Rose is simply captivating. Her relationship to a singer like Lynn goes well beyond the way she swoops up into the big notes—it has more to do with her fragile yet brassy persona: the heartbroken woman who finds a way to sing about it and therefore earns a different kind of victory. 8 p.m. at The End —LEE STABERT
