Nashville for Free

Monday

Rock’n'Roll Trivia and 8 Off 8th at the Mercy Lounge – 7 & 9pm
It’s the second week of Rock’n'Roll Trivia being back, so get ready for a drop in your self-esteem. Who knows, you might even see a N4F team! Also, the Groove is now a sponsor so winners will get some sweet Groove prizes too. Anyway, after trivia finished up around 9 o’clock 8 Off 8th will begin. This week’s performers are Julia The Menace, Defense Wins Championships, Oblio, Jordan Hull, Telecommunicators, Rae Hering, What Bird.., and Theif.

Commercial Music Showcase at Belmont University’s MPAC – 5pm
Do you want to see the best in commercial music Belmont has to offer? Then come and check out this event, which will feature Noel Barefoot, John Flanagan, Joshua Eric Wright, and Aashely Morgan. It’s only an hour long, so don’t be late!

Eclectic Chamber Players Explores the String Quartet at First Presbyterian Church – 7:30pm
Eclectic Chamber Players explores the String Quartet featuring works by Arensky, Barber, Mackey, and Mozart. Eclectic Chamber Players is an ever-evolving group of artists whose main connection is their passion for interesting, innovative, and irreplaceable chamber music.

Various Storytime Events
So today is apparently storytime day. Here are places and times for three of those events

• The Frist, book TBA – 10:30am
• Barnes & Nobel in Cool Springs, Thomas the Tank Engine – 11am
• Barnes & Nobel in Hendersonville, book TBA, but there will be snacks and stuff – 11am

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Richie Lister at The Mercy Lounge

Birthday parties. They rock. Especially Mercy Lounge’s birthday party. Hello! 7 nights of free shows!! I wish I could go to ALL of them but alas, My schedule only allowed me to attend 2. Luckily, it was the 2 nights I was looking forward to the most. My two favorite Nashville artists, Jeremy Lister and De Novo Dahl were playing at this rocking birthday party.

FOR FREE.

Oh my dear sweet goodness. Was it my birthday, too? Did Mercy Lounge peek into my diary? Am I that easy to read?

Either way, these shows were awesome.

Thursday night was my Jeremy Lister night. Before Mister Lister took the stage, we were introduced to Kyle Andrews, who I enjoyed, and a new band called Dozen Dimes. They were an updated 50′s/60′s rock ‘n roll band and i looooooved them. I can’t wait to check them out again!

Then, Jeremy Lister took the stage. He is one very talented musician. I’ve been a fan for a few years now. I like him so much that my husband and I even danced to one of his songs for our First Dance at our wedding. (It was “Fit” for you inquiring minds out there.) As my husband, Tyler, says “That guy just sings his guts out. Every time.” And he does. He feels it, he gets into it, and his energy resonates through his audience. Love him.

Jeremy Lister and his "choir"

After J.List rocked our musical socks off, we heard from Pico vs. Island Trees, who was fun to listen to and then Autovaughn, who I liked, but they definitely had a different sound than what I remember.

I would’ve stayed for The Protomen, but I am an old lady a responsible young adult and had to get in the bed so I could rest up for work the next morning. (i know, i know…) But I’m sure they were awesome. I heard great things about them.

The very next night I headed down to the Mercy Lounge again to hear De Novo Dahl. And you know what I got while I was there? A flippin’ FREE DND T-SHIRT! You better believe I’ve already worn the heck out of that t-shirt.

De Novo Dahl was great, as always, but they, too had a little bit of a different sound. As well as like 1923874765 new members. (ish.)

We also got to hear great bands like The Features and Apollo Up.

Last week was a great week to live in Nashville. There were free events left and right. Also, there were people wearing skinny jeans left and right. I mean…what’s with that? I know it’s “in” but still….

<3 Rachel

Earlier this week I decided to hold a contest where the person who wrote the best Scene Report would win a Vampire Weekend 7″ for the song “Cousins”. I had a few entries and the winner is Katie Chow, a student at Belmont University. Congratulations Katie! If you want to submit a Scene Report just for the hell of it then email it to me at nashvilleforfree@gmail.com

The Nashville flea market is a huge indoor sprawl at the fairgrounds, held at the fourth weekend of every month.  With over 1300 vendors, you could easily spend an entire day here and still not clear the entire selection.  In the hour I had to educate myself about this particular Nashville establishment, there were three recurring observations.

#1:  Anything goes

Some booths specialize in just one type of merchandise, such as vintage furniture, murderous-looking dolls, or handmade scrunchies that only a grandma could love.  Other vendors scrounge up whatever they can find, whether that be books, old photographs, or spare parts for machinery that hasn’t been in production for decades.  No matter what’s being sold, the vendor is likely to either be a grey-haired, turtleneck-wearing man or a grey-haired woman in a pastel sweatshirt.

#2:  Jewelry is a form of self-expression

While browsing some of the jewelry-focused booths, I couldn’t help but notice the personal nature of some of the items for sale.  At one, I found a bracelet engraved with the name Lyle, presumably purchased to commemorate a boyfriend, only to be discarded later.  What happened?  “Sorry, Lyle, you have the name of a tobacco-chewing truck driver, we’re over.”  It’s too bad, Lyle apparently deserved to have his name surrounded by blue rhinestones.

More mysterious was a gold pendant engraved with a portrait of a young boy.  Did a mother want a picture of her child that wouldn’t get wrinkled in her wallet, only to disown him later in life?  Is this the less permanent equivalent of getting a tattoo of a dead loved one’s face?  Does the kid actually have Mick Jagger lip syndrome, or did his face just not translate well in metal?

#3:  The conversations are the best part

For no apparent reason, one vendor (red turtleneck) decided to tell me a story about a former frequent customer who went on to become a professional fashion designer in New York.  Apparently her signature style involved sewing fringe onto jeans.  I can only hope that this was a sign from the powers that be, telling me that I will someday get a real job.

While contemplating the creepiness of the aforementioned necklace, I overheard one grandmotherly type saying to another, “There are t-shirts that say, ‘I’ve found Prince Charming, and his name is Daddy.’  Isn’t that precious?”  Isn’t that a Freudian field day?

The point of going to the flea market is to buy things, but what you get for free is much more entertaining.

Sure, there’s bad disco, but there’s a bad version of every music, right? I, for one, peeled that bumper sticker off
a while ago, but if you’re still hesitant, investigate the roots of the genre in The Legendary Zing Album (1972) from Philadelphia’s Trammps, a reissue of which I recently poached from The Groove‘s dollar bin.

There’s no consensus on the first disco hit. Those who don’t cite the title track to this collection may point to “The Love I Lost” (1973) by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, whose pioneering disco backbeat is provided by Trammps drummer/bass singer Earl Young. With guiarist Norman Baker and bassist Ron Harris, Young painted the rhythmic backdrop to countless Philly soul records in the late 60′s and early 70′s. (Supposedly, club D.J.’s were drawn to Young’s patented 16th-note proto-disco hi-hat, as it made for easy slip cues.)

Aside from the beat, there are other remarkable goings-on within the first Trammps record: the passionate, hot, high scream of lead singer Jimmy Ellis; the Motown-inspired lushness of the arrangements, typical of Philly soul; inspired songwriting from the trio of Baker-Harris-Young; interesting cover choices– race music classic “Sixty Minute Man” and Judy Garland hit “Zing Went The Strings of My Heart” each get Trammpled; and, most significantly, disco-wise, mix-engineer Tom Moulton‘s dance-oriented treatments. Sections are spliced and repeated, instrumental versions of songs reappear (with goofy titles like “Penguin at the Big Apple” and “Scruboard”) foreshadowing an era of 12″ dance remixes, and full LPs that played like a D.J.

Graham Parker and The Rumour, 1977

I may have listened to “Hold Back The Night” a dozen times tonight. English pub-rocker Graham Parker listened to it enough times to cover it with The Rumour, releasing it as a UK hit single in 1977. (What’s pub rock, you ask? It’s what punk rockers were doing in 1975, n00b.) Anyway, if ever a disco-shuffle existed, this is it. Beautiful, hypnotizing.

The Trammps will be best–or, at least, most–remembered for their 1978 smash, “Disco Inferno,” featured prominently in Saturday Night Fever. In years following, the disco backlash (arguably aimed less at the music itself and more at its initial core fanbase of gays, latinos, and blacks) would render the genre nominally dead. Nevertheless, dance music with a four-on-the-floor beat, blaring in clubs to shaking rumpuses, never really went out of style.

The Legendary Zing Album (or The Original Trammps, as it is titled for the 1975 Buddha reissue) takes us back to a simpler era when the story was just one hell of an R&B vocal band with top material, production magic, and a rhythm section to die for. Seek this before you burn a mother down.
–Brett Rosenberg

Hey, do you want to win a Vampire Weekend 7″? Of course you do! How do you win this awesome little prize? Easy. Write a Scene Report for Nashville for Free!

What’s a Scene Report? It’s when we have one of our writers go to a free event and then write a blog post about it. It’s Michelle and Brett going to Big Lots and buying some nasty old food, it’s Lance going to a show and taking tons of awesome pictures, it’s Rachel going and listening to people play the bells, and it’s me taking a friend of mine to United Record Pressing for one of their free tours.

So, what cool free events have you gone to lately? Concerts, art galleries, free food, some awesome dude at some bar buying you a bunch of free events, write about it, send it to nashvilleforfree at gmail dot com and if you write the one I choose to post to the blog I will send you the Vampire Weekend 7″ for Cousins. Hey, they’re the number one band right now, literally. Why wouldn’t you want a piece of that?

Rock on, and getting writing. I’ll pick the winner Friday morning when I wake up, which will probably be 8am.

-Emily

Hey, do you want to win a Vampire Weekend 7″? Of course you do! How do you win this awesome little prize? Easy. Write a Scene Report for Nashville for Free!

What’s a Scene Report? It’s when we have one of our writers go to a free event and then write a blog post about it. It’s Michelle and Brett going to Big Lots and buying some nasty old food, it’s Lance going to a show and taking tons of awesome pictures, it’s Rachel going and listening to people play the bells, and it’s me taking a friend of mine to United Record Pressing for one of their free tours.

So, what cool free events have you gone to lately? Concerts, art galleries, free food, some awesome dude at some bar buying you a bunch of free events, write about it, send it to nashvilleforfree at gmail dot com and if you write the one I choose to post to the blog I will send you the Vampire Weekend 7″ for Cousins. Hey, they’re the number one band right now, literally. Why wouldn’t you want a piece of that?

Rock on, and getting writing. I’ll pick the winner Friday morning when I wake up, which will probably be 8am.

-Emily

Monday

8 off 8th at The Mercy Lounge – 9pm, 21+
Well, the Mercy Lounge’s 7th Anniversary Celebration may be over, but fret not! 8 off 8th is still on, and this week features Details Details, Veldarose, Boroughs, The Compromise, Static Revival, Moon Taxi, Kink Ador, Incredible Heat Machine

Kentucky Knife Fight in-store at Grimey’s – 6pm
When was the last time Grimey’s had an in-store? Well, however long it’s been, it’s been too long. They’re from St. Louis and the Riverfront Times describes them like this: “Imagine the Replacements suffering through sweltering Midwestern summer nights instead of cold Minnesota winters, and infused with a little less punk and a little more dirty twang, and you have Kentucky Knife Fight.” Chance of free beer – 58%. I made that number up, don’t get mad at Grimey’s if there is no free beer.

Familiar Faces Night with Chad Randall and Shawn Carnes at 12th & Porter – 8pm
This event is hosted by Chad Randall and Shawn Carnes.  This week’s artists include Jeffrey James, Marcha Hancock, Steven Wrabel, Jamie Floyd, Kip Moore, Anne-Marie, Mindy McCready, Christina Taddonio, and Air for Astronauts.

Local Authors Adam Shaw and Chad Kinkle discuss and sign Harpe: America’s First Serial Killers at Davis-Kidd Books – 7pm
Support your local authors and chat them up for free. Sure, this is one of those events that are only really free if you already own the book, but it should be fun to talk to the authors. Also, the book is about MUURRRRDERRRR, so that’s interesting, right?

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*This post was written by Matt Dowd, a friend of N4F and the editor of Towermix*

All week long at the Mercy Lounge shows are FREE to celebrate it’s 7^th Anniversary!  Last night brought a great crowd for all performers including Fly Golden Eagle, Gabrham Vitek, The Hollywood 10, Mike Younger, Majestico, & Rayland Baxter.

I was most excited to see Gabe Vitek, Towermix’s most recent Featured Artist. For Gabe it was an opportunity to introduce some new tunes to the audience.  His set was all new material from his upcoming album, “Devil, Don’t You”.  The audience also got to see his new arrangements in action since the addition of BGV’s & horns creating what Gabe describes as a Motown/Rock feel.  He was obviously excited to be performing the new songs in front of an audience.  Gabe was not limited to sitting at his keyboard during the set.  He was on constant attack and his new band didn’t hold back either!

Overall, it was a great event put on by Happy Salmon Productions & The Mercy Lounge! Happy Birthday Mercy Lounge!

Be sure to stop by the Mercy Lounge all this week for free shows, which continue through this Saturday!

-Matt Dowd

*Note: if you, like Matt, have recently experienced something awesome that was free send us an email at nashvilleforfree /at/ gmail /dot/ com with a write-up of your experience! We’d love to put it in the blog!*

In light of Monday’s free Fleetwood Mac-themed 8 off 8th at the Mercy Lounge, I thought it appropriate to delve into a few dollar bin regulars from onetime Mac-anchor and present-day Nashvillian Bob Welch. From 1971-74, Bob brought his brand of progressive pop to the wayward British blues unit, bridging the gap between Peter Green‘s blues virtuosity and Lindsey Buckingham‘s pop perfection. Welch’s work veers closer to the latter on French Kiss, one of those classic dollar bin mainstays we’d recognize from the album cover, but which few of us have actually listened to in the past thirty years.

The big hit off French Kiss is a re-recording of “Sentimental Lady,” initially released and ignored five years earlier on Fleetwood Mac’s Bare Trees. Backing vocals from Christine McVie and varispeed-soaked production from Buckingham deliver it from obscurity as an intelligent soft rock masterpiece, in league with Jefferson Starship‘s “Believe” and Paul Davis‘s “Cool Night.”

Buckingham’s tasteful grandeur is absent from the remainder of the record, producer John Carter opting instead for the sort of decadent, glitzy disco-rock the cover would suggest. Welch is such a weirdo, though, that it doesn’t really come off that way. He’s a 70′s pop guy, sort of like Dwight Twilley without all that annoying pop-messiah pretense. His singing is uniformly flat, his lyrics as bizarrely vulnerable as that of Rivers Cuomo. In fact, I find elements of Weezer in the chug-chug-chug department, and the mechanical delivery of “Easy to Fall” and (the other hit) “Ebony Eyes.”

There’s plenty to love here: “Carolene” and “Outskirts” are exhilarating, unpredictable pop songs. Variations on “Lose My Heart” appear and reappear throughout the album, creating a sense of disc unity. Best of all, the layers of gritty, jagged, farty guitars prevent this stab at Studio-54-rock from sounding like, well, Studio-54-rock. French Kiss is the disco party for weirdos.

The follow-up, Three Hearts, was less commercially successful, but more adventurous and more lyrically credible, if lacking a grand moment like “Sentimental Lady.” I can’t think of another song with a rhythm like “Don’t Wait Too Long.” The overseas hit, “Church,” forges a unique romantic metaphor with a smooth R&B treatment. Again, the guitars fart, Bob sings flat, Carter pours on those disco strings, and Mac employees make cameo appearances. A searing vocal from Stevie Nicks turns the anti-LA pop of “Devil Wind” into a revelation. Mick Fleetwood goes all Mick Fleetwood on “The Ghost of Flight 401,” a song which underscores Welch’s preoccupation with the supernatural. Christine McVie returns to add a layered back-up to a pure-pop “Come Softly to Me,” one of two bizarre, kitchy covers on Three Hearts, the first being a (perhaps accidentally) Devoesque “I Saw Her Standing Here.”

Wanna go deeper? I spotted a few Bob Welch solo efforts at the Charlotte Great Escape Outlet a month ago, and I doubt anybody’s snatched ‘em up. Fleetwood Mac’s Penguin is, for the most part, the band at its most clueless and floundering, but Bob’s three sprawling cuts foreshadow the prog-pop direction the Mac would take under Buckingham’s direction on Tusk. Future Games and Bare Trees are the ones to get, I’m told, but (ashamed as I am to admit it) I haven’t quite made it there yet. Welch’s post-FM seventies band, Paris, is reportedly also worth investigating.

BobWelch dot com is a site to see. I know I’m observing a deeply touched man when the first item on his home page is a petition urging President Obama to be more forthcoming about the government’s knowledge of extraterrestrials. There’s also a lot of free, interesting music at least worthy of your curiosity.

So, considering Bob’s a local, 8 off 8th organizers might consider dropping Bob a line and inviting him out? He’s a rock legend, a local, and a Mac alumnus. Just a suggestion.
–Brett Rosenberg

Hey, my computer is well, so the Weekly Highlights are BACK!

Monday

7th Anniversary 8 off 8th at the Mercy Lounge – 9pm, 21+
This is the second free show that the Mercy Lounge is bringing us this week. It’s a special Fleetwood Mac edition of 8 off 8th with The Bridges, Pico vs. Island Trees, Caitlin Rose & Jordan Caress, Tyler James & Kate York, Keegan Dewitt, Judd & Maggie, Weekend Jimmy & The Easy Party. It’s brought to you by the fine folks at Dean Shortland and is sponsored by New Belgium and State Farm Insurance.

12th & Porter Free Show – 8pm
12th & Porter is a great little venue that has a lot of free shows. This one has Kelsey Noffsinger with Brinley Addington, Russ Dickerson and John Flanagan. This one is for those who don’t like Fleetwood Mac.

MLK Morning Storytime at Barnes & Nobel in Murfreesboro – 11am
The Story of the Day is Martin’s Big Words. Get your kids into positive historical figures at a young age, it’ll do them well. Also, as part of MLK Day of Service, children will be able to decorate cards that will then be given to residents at a local nursing home

MLK Day Celebration at Discovery Center at Murfree Spring – 10am-4pm
Activities at the Discovery Center will include a chance to hear the famous “I Have Dream” speech, Martin Luther King, Jr scavenger hunt, hot cornbread in Cissie’s Kitchen (mmmmm), quilting craft in Creation Station.

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